John 15:9-17
As the Father has loved me, so I have loved you; abide in my love. If you keep my commandments, you will abide in my love, just as I have kept my Father’s commandments and abide in his love. I have said these things to you so that my joy may be in you, and that your joy may be complete. This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you. No one has greater love than this, to lay down one’s life for one’s friends. You are my friends if you do what I command you. I do not call you servants any longer, because the servant does not know what the master is doing; but I have called you friends, because I have made known to you everything that I have heard from my Father. You did not choose me, but I chose you. And I appointed you to go and bear fruit, fruit that will last, so that the Father will give you whatever you ask him in my name. I am giving you these commands so that you may love one another.
For most of my life I’ve thought of Love as a feeling. A powerful one, of course. Perhaps the most powerful one. But still just a feeling. I’ve often equated it with that “butterflies in your stomach” kind of emotion we often associate with “falling in love.” I’ve equated it with a steady embrace of a friend that wraps comfort around you. But I’m learning that Love is way more than just a feeling. It’s more than butterflies and embraces. It’s more than excitement and even more than comfort.
I believe it is an abiding.
One of my favorite love poems is Shakespeare’s Sonnet #116. It reads:
Let me not to the marriage of true mind
Admit impediments. Love is not love
Which alters when it alteration finds,
Or bends with the remover to remove:
Oh, no! It is an ever-fixèd mark,
That looks on tempests and is never shaken;
It is the star to every wandering bark,
Whose worth’s unknown, although his height be taken.
Love’s not Time’s fool, though rosy lips and cheeks
Within his bending sickle’s compass come;
Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks,
But bears it out even to the edge of doom.
If this be error and upon me proved,
I never writ, nor no man ever loved.
Shakespeare, in my opinion, hits close to what Jesus is talking about in the above Gospel passage: Love as an abiding fixture in our lives.
I adore the Disney movie The Fox and the Hound. And when I think of “abiding in love,” a quote from that movie stands out to me. Tod, the little fox in the movie, is talking with his friend the owl, named Big Mama. Tod’s best friend, a little puppy named Copper, is being taken away on his first hunting trip. Big Mama cautions Tod, saying that Copper is going to come back a changed dog. Big Mama says, “I'm sorry, Tod. Honey, Copper's gonna come back a trained huntin' dog. A real killer.” “Oh, no,” says Tod, “Not my friend Copper. He won't never change. And we'll keep on being friends forever. Won't we, Big Mama?” And Big Mama says: "Darlin', forever is a long, long time. And time has a way of changin' things.”
Time has a way of changing things. Big Mama’s comment, I think, rings true when it comes to emotion. That excitement of “falling in love” fades. Emotions about any individual change from one moment to the next. You can move from contentment to frustration with someone in a matter of moments! Time has a way of changing things for us. And yet Shakespeare claims that Love is not Time’s fool. And Jesus tells us to go on abiding in love as if time won’t change things for us.
I think that is because Love is not merely an emotion. It’s not just about sentimentality. It is about commitment.
The command of Christ in the above Gospel passage, to love one another just as Christ has loved us, is not about feeling warm fuzzy emotions toward everyone at all times. I don’t believe that’s sustainable. Time has a way of changing that kind of emotion.
But I’ve seen people abide in love even when feelings wane, namely among my sisters at OSH. I have seen quiet embraces for hurting sisters. I’ve seen solid support in the midst of pain. I’ve seen tender care for elders and quiet patience for novices. I’ve seen tear-soaked shoulders held close. I’ve seen laughter shared. I’ve seen arguments dissipate. I have seen Love. Not the kind of warm, fuzzy feeling that time can change. But the deep abiding kind of love for the Other.
When I think of what abiding in Love looks like, I think of each of my sisters. We don’t do it perfectly. We are still working out how to love God and love each other better. But I see the effort. I see the abiding commitment, as Shakespeare would say, to “bear it out even to the edge of doom.”
Abiding in love doesn’t have to mean that we sustain the impossible. Instead, it can mean choosing to stay even when storms come. Love can look on tempests and never be shaken, not because there’s never sadness or frustration or any number of negative emotions. Love can abide because we keep showing up. We keep seeking the good of the Other.
Jesus so loved us that he committed to the way of the cross. He bore the weight of Love, abiding in it, even to death. And we follow in the way of the cross. We also take up that weight, knowing that when we gaze into each other’s eyes, we gaze into the eyes of the Loving and Abiding Christ. My sisters, indeed, each and every person, are icons of the Living Christ. Image bearers that we are, we behold the face of God in each other.
When we abide with each other, we abide in God. And God is love. There are splendidly blurred lines between all these elements. God is love, and God abides with us and in us. Abiding in God necessitates abiding with each other. Love, the abiding commitment that bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things, that kind of love is strong. It’s stronger than the forces of this world that teach us abandonment. Stronger than isolation and loneliness. Stronger than the injustices that often seem to weigh so heavily. Love abides. When we abide in love, we abide in God and one another.
It’s true, time has a way of changing things. But Love’s not Time’s fool.
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