All you need is love.
Last Epiphany, Yr A
The Beatles sang a song titled All You Need Is Love.
Love, love, love; Love, love, love; Love, love, love. Nothing you can make that can't be made; No one you can save that can't be saved; Nothing you can do, but you can learn; How to be you in time; It’s easy. All you need is love; All you need is love; All you need is love, love; Love is all you need.
If all we need is love, my question for us is - what is the sort of love do we need? Paul, told the Christians in Corinth that love was the greatest of God’s gifts. He said 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. 1 Corinthians 13:?-?
The love Paul describes is a ‘tall order.’ Where does the love Paul proscribed to the Christians in Corinth come from? It was modeled after God’s love. Paul learned about God’s love from childhood. He was taught about God’s love during the instructions for his Bar Mitzvah. Christian boys and girls make their mature confession of faith during a Confirmation service. Jewish boys and girls make their’s during Bar or Bat Mitzvah ceremonies. Paul also heard about God’s love when the Scriptures were recited in worship. A Scripture passage Paul heard over and over is about Mose receiving God’s Commandments. The God who called Paul’s ancestors, liberated them from slavery, and used a sea to thwart their enemies, gave them commandments. The commandments provide relational guidelines. Guidelines used to maintain relationships with God, one another, and people not like them. Sadly, like Peter, James and John people treat the commandments like shrines or charms: placing them on walls in churches, schools, or court houses. As if their presence wards off bad behavior and enshrines good behavior. This was not God’s intend. The commandments were given to facilitate relationships. Before God gave them, God introduced God’s self.
…God descended in the cloud and stood with Moses on the mountain and proclaimed God’s name, “I Am;” “The Lord.”
After telling Moses God’s name, God provided a self description. God’s attributes allowed the Moses, Joshua, Aaron, Miriam, and the people to recognize God and know God. God said, I Am
…merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness, keeping steadfast love for the thousandth generation, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin… Exodus 34:5-7
The love Paul proscribes to the Corinthians was both rooted in ancient Jewish tradition and in what Paul came to know about Jesus. When Jesus was asked which commandment provided the best means for relating to God and other people, he said
…love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’ And …love your neighbor as yourself.’ Matthew 22:37-40
What sort of love do we need? A love that is like God’s love: merciful and gracious; slow to anger; abounding in faith; and demonstrated to the thousands of generations of people, creatures, and cultures that proceed and follow us. A love like God’s protects the environment for both spieces and people. A love like God’s truth telling love would compile and preserve American history in books, podcasts and movies that includes the experiences and perspectives of all people: white, Native, Black, Asian, females, males, young and old. Love that is like God’s slow to anger love resists being triggered be by malicious words and misdeeds. Instead of giving as good as it gets, love modeled on Divine love engages in acts of righteous indignation.
When your enemies are hungry, give them bread to eat, and if they are thirsty, give them water to drink, for in actions like these you will heap coals of fire on their heads, and God will reward you. Proverbs 25:21-22
When Jesus taught the disciples how to love with righteous indignation, he was drawing from what he learned worshipping in synagogue and studying with rabbis. If all we need is love, than we need demonstrate the love Jesus showed. Jesus said, “Let anyone among you who is without sin be the first to throw a stone.” John 8:7 Jesus welcomed children. Matthew 19:15 Jesus dined with outcastes. Mark 2:13-17 Jesus told the person being executed on a cross adjacent to his, “today you and I will be with God in paradise.” Luke 23:42-44 The apostle John wrote about the love Jesus demonstrated in his First letter
We know love by this, that Jesus laid down his life for us—so we ought to lay down our lives for the brothers and sisters. All who hate a brother or sister are murderers, and …murderers do not have the kingdom of God abiding in them. …God’s love cannot abide in us if we have the world’s goods and see a brother or sister in need and yet refuses help them. 1 John 3:16, 15 & 17
The love we show to pets, children, partners, friends, spouses, strangers, and enemies must be modeled after the love of God and of Jesus, the Son of God. Turning relationships into shrines, charms, or idols does not help to build or sustain them. King David wrote,
Unless the LORD builds the house, their labor is in vain who build it. Psalm 128:1
I say, unless the love we seek and share is like God’s love for us our efforts to build and sustain relationships will be in vain.
Friday (February 13), I heard a heart warming interview on National Public Radio. Angela Gittens talks with her parents who have been married for 83 years. Lyle Gittens, who is 108 years old, and Eleanor Gittens, who is 107, are among the oldest living married couples in the United States. This 3 minute Story Crop interview is archived in the Library of Congress and available on the National Public Radio website. Angela asked her 1 parents, “what is the secret to your marriage?” Her mother responded first,
“I say you have to like the person as well as love. I think liking is even more important.”
Next he father responded,
There's really no secret. You just live. You live every day, and overtime you become almost one person.”
I pray that God, our own God, blesses each of you this day (Psalm 67:6b). May God bless you with the capacity to like and love friend and foe, divorced and current spouse, pet and pest, toddler and teenager just as God likes and loves you.
https://www.npr.org/2026/02/13/nx-s1-5707481/oldest-living-married-couple-shares-their- 1 love-story
