Love Actually

There was a movie that came out in 2003. Millennials

know it well. I watched it for the first time with a boy I

was hopelessly and helplessly in love with at the time.

Ten years later, I watched it again with the guy that would

become my husband as we determined whether or not we

were to become an item. In a bid to woo me, he asked one

mid-December afternoon, “So, what do you want to watch

tonight… how about Love Actually?” And in that moment,

I knew.

Love Actually is a now a movie that critics love to hate. It’s

an ensemble cast overflowing with household names:

Emma Thompson, Bill Nighy, Laura Linney, Hugh Grant,

Keira Knightly. I could go on. It’s a Christmas movie. It

follows the lives of these endless cast members in the

month of December as their experiences and life events

intertwine serendipitously. It is set in London. And it all

comes to a glorious, sob-worthy end on Christmas Eve

as romantic intentions are pursued and declared and

celebrated in dramatic fashion. I get why this is not actually

a good movie, but that doesn’t stop me from loving it from

beginning until end.

It begins with a montage of loved ones reuniting after travel,

with Hugh Grant’s voice narrating. He says, “Whenever I get

gloomy with the state of world, I think about the arrivals gate

at Heathrow airport. General opinion’s starting to make out

that we live in a world of hatred and greed, but I don’t see

that. It seems to me that love is everywhere. Often it’s not

particularly dignified or newsworthy, but it’s always there.

Fathers and sons, mothers and daughters, husbands and

wives, boyfriends, girlfriends, old friends. When the planes

hit the Twin Towers, as far as I know, none of the phone

calls from the people on board were messages of hate or

revenge; they were all messages of love. If you look for it, I’ve

got a sneaking suspicion love actually is all around.”

If quotations like the one I just shared or even passages

of scripture like the one just read sound a little woo-

woo, a little saccharine, a little “too much,” like they are

grasping, straining to articulate what can’t be explained,

going overboard explaining what can, maybe it’s because

describing love—like describing God—brings out this

ineptitude and the limits of language.

In 1 John, the writer uses the word love in almost all of

its forms. It is a noun, a verb, an adjective, a superlative.

It is something to possess, something to do, something

to behold. It is the measure, the way, and the goal. The

writing reflects another letter in the New Testament, when

in a similar moment of spirited overflow, the Apostle Paul

describes love in a way that it is as unrealistic as it is true:

Love is patient, love is kind. Love is not envious, or

boastful, or arrogant, or rude. It does not insist on its own

way. It is not irritable. It keeps no record of wrongs. It

does not rejoice in wrongdoing but rejoices in the truth.

It bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things,

endures all things.

Love never ends.

In 1 John, the author goes even farther. Love is not only

something we possess, something we do, something to

behold, but God IS love. Love itself is the beginning, the

source, the fountain and essence of life itself, the energy

that sustains all that is and all that will ever be. God is love.

I used to receive text messages from a friend who died

last November. My phone would ding at 2 PM on a

random Tuesday and it would be this lovely, daring friend

of mine with a brief message: “I love you, Sara.” When

this friend of mine was a teenager, she had a conversion

experience at an evangelical Christian camp that may

have failed the doctrinal tests of the elders in charge, but

it did not fail to change her life. She was overwhelmed

with the revelation of God’s love and with an exuberant

and awkward lunge into all that lay beyond that moment,

she accepted it as Truth and vowed to live and die by

that truth. Confirming its efficacy, this friend loved others

deeply and widely, and a terminal diagnosis unearthed

an even more unhinged response. The mere thought of

someone, a remembrance of their virtue or pain, a longing

to connect—this friend of mind wouldn’t miss a beat—

and so those of us fortunate enough to be known by her

have a treasure trove of “I love you’s” in our phones. I’ve

often wondered—since we’re all living with a terminal

diagnosis—why we don’t have the same practice.

As serious as the imperative to love one another is, the

scripture we explore today is a statement about God

first. To love as God loves, we must first receive that love.

This faith statement reminds me of an experience I had

during my seminary years. I was completing an internship

at a faith-based advocacy organization in Chicago, and

as part of that formation, I met with a cohort of other

seminarians who were completing similar internships

at different organizations in the city. We met weekly to

discuss our shared reading, to wonder about the church

and society, to debate the finer points of missiology, to

vent about our workplace inefficiencies and supervisors.

We grew close. As the summer and our internships

came to an end, we promised to keep in touch. And

then at our last gathering, we were thrown for a loop. The

curriculum—and our fearless leader—called for us to fill

a bowl with water and to sit in a circle. Then in silence

and with great deliberation, we were to kneel before each

other and wash each other’s feet. After the neighbor to

your left washed and dried your feet, you would wash the

feet on the neighbor to your right. And on and on until

everyone’s feet had been washed.

My cohort complied even as we stifled our giggling

and mostly avoided eye contact. We would later

learn—at the national gathering with cohorts like ours

from cities across the country—that some had flat out

refused to participate in this ritual. It was, for some, that

uncomfortable. That triggering.

When we reflected on this experience as a large

assembly, an interesting pattern emerged: most

experienced discomfort in this ritual that was intended to

nurture and strengthen. But the bulk of that discomfort

was experienced as a receiver rather than a giver.

Washing a friend’s feet was one thing, but sitting there

and allowing someone to wash yours was quite another.

We noted the apologies that abounded. Apparently, we all

had feet that were just absolutely horrendous: strangely

shaped, rough, ticklish, smelly. Un-loveable. Our shame

was loud.

In the Gospel According to John, we learn that Jesus

invited his disciples to partake in a foot-washing ritual in

his final evening with them. For them, a common custom

upon entering a new home. What made it different that

night was the person doing the washing. Customarily,

it was a servant, someone whose job it was to wash a

guest’s feet after a long journey. But as the story goes—

you all know it—Jesus took the towel and dipping it in a

bowl of water and wringing in out—he knelt before his

friends and washed them.

And there was one, Simon Peter, who could not stand for

this. “Jesus, you are not going to wash my feet.” You can

almost see his ears flushing.

But Jesus is adamant. Not so gentle, even as he invites

Simon Peter to receive his gentleness. “Friend, you have

no part of me unless you let me do this for you.”

In this exchange, mere hours before Jesus would be

arrested and taken away, we see the risk of love, the way

the highest love demands a kind of vulnerability most of

us would rather do without.

We catch glimpses of love’s power to undo us in our own

lives, just through the simple phrase “I love you.” The

first time you find yourself saying it to a partner, with no

guarantee it will be returned. When after being burned

by love you hear it from another, and you must decide

whether to stay or whether to run. As your young child

says it to you and rather than unfettered joy you are hit

with a tsunami of overwhelm and the horror of imagining

anything bad ever happening to them. When you’re

hanging up the phone with a long-distance friend and say

it because “okay talk to you later” just doesn’t suffice but

you’re unsure they can handle it.

For as liberally as the phrase “I love you” can pass

through our lips, our gratitude should be running deep,

because there is nothing small, or inconsequential, or

inevitable about it. It begins with reception of Divine

Love—real, risky, total surrender to a love that sees all of

us and doesn’t let us go. (Yikes!) It is perfected—as the

writer of our epistle puts it—in us, when we dare to reflect

it in our relationships on this side of eternity.

Let us love one another like that, the Word proclaims. If

we want to know God—this God we’ve never seen but

only known through the love that walks around down

here, then let us love. And if we long to see this God we’ve

never seen, then look around. Love is the revelation of

God. And where we see love, my friends, we see God.

I chose this scripture months ago when sermon titles

were due, not knowing this would be my last Sunday with

you all. And so, as I’ve danced with this text of all texts this

week, I’ve been granted the gift of memory, remembering

and giving thanks for all the times and places I’ve seen

God’s love revealed in this place. This is my short list:

The time an older child guided two four-year-olds down

the chancel steps and out the sanctuary doors, all the

way down the hall to the children’s chapel. It was the

first time those littles had left this space without the firm

and loving guidance of a parent, and they were visibly

nervous. Without prompting or expectation, a 7-year-old

leapt into action.

The time someone got overheated in this sanctuary and

went unconscious for a few heavy minutes, and one of

our deacons held his head in her lap as she tenderly

traced his face with an ice cube.

The time I found one of our newest staff members sitting

on the bench outside the atrium with someone who had

come seeking help. He was suffering from an episode of

acute psychosis, and she entered his world just enough to

gain his trust, keeping him calm until more help arrived.

The time seventy-plus VBS volunteers gathered to wave

to a camera on the balcony, sending a message to a child

among us who was receiving treatment for cancer, her

absence keenly felt as we waved and wiped away tears.

The time a toddler was being baptized at that font, and

she reached in for the water, bringing it to her own head,

and this place smiled all at once.

I could go on.

Instead, I’ll leave you with an image. One of my greatest

honors as a pastor is coming alongside families as

they do the hard work of letting go and honoring their

loved ones who have passed. I’ve led funerals for

lifelong Presbyterians and for people whose aching

loved ones never considered the need for the church

until the unthinkable happened. I’ve led them for the

deeply faithful, for the doubting, for the seeking, for the

unbelieving. I’ve led them for the very old and the very

young and everyone in-between. I’ll tell you what runs

through them all: love. The awareness of it, the reverence

for it, very often a new commitment to it.

I find especially that when the deceased is considered

“too young to die,” or the circumstances surrounding their

death are tragic, things like hope and faith can be hard.

Even offensive. I see it in the eyes of those gathered when

I speak those words. But when a whole room is heaving,

spilling over with people who are spilling over with grief,

love isn’t polarizing. Faith, probably. Hope, most definitely.

But love, never. That this person grieved was loved, did

love, and was held by love, capital L—this language

touches and confirms what the gathered know to be true,

even if they’re only recognizing it by virtue of their grief for

the very first time. Perhaps this is why the Apostle Paul

tells us that faith, hope, and love remain, but the greatest

of these is love. We humans get love. It must be because

we are made in the image of God who is love.

I have a mentor and friend who liked to begin

conversations that were hard to begin, and end

conversations that were hard to end, with the invitation to

answer two questions:

What do you know? And what do you hope?

And so, as my time with you draws to a close, and we

end this conversation, I leave you with what I know: the

abiding love of God has been revealed in the life, death,

and resurrection of Jesus Christ. And despite our long lists

of evidence to the contrary, that love is actually all around.

And what I hope: that living through the One whom God

sent, you might continue to know and to reflect that love

in a way that generates more love in this congregation,

this community, this city, and everywhere that God calls

you to live and serve.

Friends, may it be so. Thanks be to God. Amen.