God is Love

Sermon based on Psalm 145

God is love.  

It’s a phrase that rolls off our tongues pretty easily.  

God is love.  

It’s a statement of fact, and a statement of reality.  

But this week I’ve had myself tied up in knots about these three little words–God is love.  

It’s the kind of thing that when you say it enough, you start to wonder, “what does this even mean any more?”  Like a kid that learns a new word, and repeats it over and over, dissecting it and trying to understand it until it makes less sense than when they first learned it. “Butterfly. Butterfly. Butter. Fly.  Butter? Fly?”

God is love seems like one of those things.  We say it so much, and I’ve thought about it so much that I’m beginning to wonder what it even means anymore.  

What does God is Love mean in this world full of hate and violence, this world where basic human rights are not met, even when there are resources to do so?  What does God is Love mean every day this week, when our governing authorities have said or done something more painful and destructive to the people that live here?  What does God is love mean when we are numb from all the sadness and brokenness?

God is love.  What does it even mean any more?  How do we understand it as more than just something we say here?

A friend told me a story of her teen aged daughter, who struggles to understand Christianity and God and everything that the Church believes.  She admitted to her Grandmother recently that she does not believe in God.

Grandmom didn’t get upset, like  the child thought she would.  Instead she replied, “Do you believe in love?”

“Yes, of course!” the child said.  

“Then,” said grandmom, “you believe in God.”  

This snapshot of a moment between Grandmother and granddaughter has me trying to think about God is love a little differently this week. In my mind, God is love has always translated to God is loving. And while that statement is true, it feels harder when we put it up against the state of affairs in this world.  

Instead, I’m thinking about God and love being the same thing.  God equals love.  God is the same as love.  

Which means that God is intimacy.  God is relationship.  God is holding some newborn twins this week and smelling their heads and holding their teeny tiny fingers while they sleep.  God is hugs.  God is that moment–that split second where all is right in the world.  God is reconciled relationships.  God is the same thing as love.  

I told you that I have been tied up in knots about this God is love thing this week, so I went to my spritual director and asked her about love.  Because we’ve been talking a lot lately about what fear and anger feel like, so she asked me what love feels like.  I thought about it for a moment, and said, “Love feels like I can breathe, and when I breathe in, I am full of love.”  

God is love.  God is breath, God is fullness.  God is the same thing as this love, this breath, this fullness.  

This week, we’re focusing on the congregational core conviction, which says that: God the creator of the universe, is a God of love, and longs for mercy and justice, for humanity and creation.  

So, translating this a bit, we could also say that Love created the universe, and longs for mercy and justice for humanity and creation.  God longs for mercy and justice.  Love longs for mercy and justice.  

And while we are doing some translating here, let’s go back to Psalm 145, which we read earlier.  Let’s exchange the word “God” for “love.”

Love is gracious and compassionate, slow to anger.

Love is good to all and compassionate to all creation.

All creation praises love, and all people bless love.

They tell of love’s glory and power and speak of love’s strength.  Love makes known all mighty and glorious acts of love.  

Love reigns for all ages, and love’s dominion endures from generation to generation.  

There’s something else about God in this that is important.  There’s something about love that is important.  Love is more than longing.  Love is more than a warm feeling when holding babies.  Love acts for mercy and justice.  Love is an action.  Love is God and love is the action of God.  

This week, my friend from Hebron in the West Bank, Hamed Q., visited Philadelphia, and many of us who have taken the Christian Peacemaker Teams trip put on a fundraiser for his organization.  Hamed’s the energizer bunny of Hebron.  When he’s not working as for an organization that reports on the conflict, he’s supporting the communities that are most deeply impacted by the conflict.  For folks that struggle to stay on their lands because another checkpoint has been added, Hamed sneaks supplies in to build an addition on their home.  

For families who have to send their kids to school through several checkpoints, soldiers and settlers, Hamed builds schools so kids can go to school in their own neighborhoods, without crossing checkpoints and facing soldiers.  

Acting on a macro level is difficult these days in the west bank, but what Hamed is doing–keeping families in their homes, and opening schools in places where they can’t get supplies in to build–these are acts of love.  And this love looks like defiance and insubordination to some, but they are deep love.  

I asked Hamed this week how he kept himself sane in Hebron.  It’s so easy to be depressed and overwhelmed by living in this most occupied city.  He told me he works with these most difficult communities because it’s how he stays sane.  He said, “I have to do this, or I couldn’t live here.”  Love has to act to stay sane, to stay alive.  

Just like we have to say God of Grace Hear our prayer when we share our prayers and praises here.  Just like we have to reach out to people here when they are hurting.  Just like when someone is sick, we have to send flowers or check in, or text, or make a casserole.  

To stay sane, God has to act.  To stay sane, love has to act.  To stay sane, we have to act.  

We are not God, but we are made in God’s image.  We aren’t love, but we know how to give it, now to share it, and we know we need to receive it. To combat the hate in this world that makes our chests tighten, and makes us want to stay in bed, we need to channel love, channel God.  We need to do things that give us breath and life, that take away power from those forces that deal in death and fear and hate  

Our core conviction says, “God the creator of the universe, is a God of love, and longs for mercy and justice, in humanity and creation.”  We believe in God because we believe in love.  And we know how much we need love right nowadays.  

God is a God of love.  God is love.  And we believe in love here.  I can see that.  So we believe in God.  AMEN.