What matters most

Better a dish of vegetables with love than a fattened calf with hatred. Proverbs 15:17

Jesus said: “... I tell you, love your enemies...” Matthew 5:44

Jesus said: “A new command I give you: love one another.” John 13:34

God is love. 1 John 4:16

I suspect that in the ancient world no-one opted to be a vegetarian as a life-style choice, as many do today (and all respect to them). No: people who ate only vegetables did so because they couldn’t afford meat - it was a sign of poverty.

So what the writer of Proverbs is saying, of course, is: “It’s better to have only the basic necessities of life, as long as you are both loved and loving, than to be rich and live a life poisoned by hatred.”

It’s hard to say anything about love without descending into clichés and platitudes. So we can be grateful to people like the poet Robert Browning, who put it with some originality: “Take away love and our earth is a tomb”. He wasn’t wrong, was he? (I must admit I rather like also the Jewish proverb: “Love your neighbour - even when he plays the trombone.”)

“God is love,” says the apostle John, implying that love is, quite simply, the greatest, most wonderful and most precious thing there ever can be. Greater than power, greater than wisdom, greater than wealth, greater than fame or human happiness. It is the topmost thing, the supreme value.

This is why Jesus told his disciples that love was to be the hallmark that the world would know them by: “By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another” (John 13:35). And why he gave them the almost outrageous command to “love your enemies” (Matthew 5:44). 

And this is why Paul composed his wonderful poem in praise of love (1 Corinthians 13): “... these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love” (verse 13).

I happened to switch on the radio this morning while I was brushing my teeth. The BBC reporter Frank Gardner was speaking from Egypt, where Christians, in particular those belonging to the ancient Coptic church, are being particularly badly treated by their opponents: the burning of church buildings, and the threatening and even the murder of Christian people are tragically common.

And one after another these Egyptian Christians were expressing their refusal to hate their persecutors; on the contrary, they were determined to forgive. Talk about “loving your enemies”!

What made it specially striking was the reaction of Frank Gardner himself. For he knows very well what it is like to be the victim of random violence. In 2004, in Saudi Arabia, he was shot and permanently disabled by Islamist terrorists while doing his job as a journalist; today he spends much of his life in a wheelchair. 

And (all credit to him for his honesty) he simply couldn’t get over the gracious love of these Egyptian Christians. He very frankly admitted that, personally, he was incapable of such an attitude.

As I listened, I was hoping in my heart that the words of those followers of Jesus would be heard and absorbed throughout this country and beyond.

Love can be hard. It isn’t (not only, at any rate) a mushy, slushy thing that makes us go bendy at the knees - though no doubt there’s a place for that! It isn’t even the natural affection and tenderness we feel for those precious to us, beautiful though that certainly is. 

No: it may very well be entirely down-to-earth and matter-of-fact, involving a decision that we make. It can be an act of will. We decide to not only wish people well (that’s good, but it doesn’t amount to love), but also to do them good. And in doing so, we may find ourselves acting against all our strongest natural instincts.

John, once again - the great apostle of love - puts it pretty clearly: “This is how we know what love is: Jesus Christ laid down his life for us” (1 John 3:16). If ever we imagine that true heavenly love is easy, I suggest another visit to the garden of Gethsemane (Matthew 26:36-46) might be a good idea.

We’ve come a long way from Proverbs 15. But all these examples are linked in simply demonstrating the glorious supremacy of love. 

Love changes lives. Love can change the world. Love makes life not only liveable but also beautiful. Love, as somebody said, is the only thing that you get more of by giving it away.

Let’s make it our business today, then, whatever else we may do, to increase this troubled world’s stock of love. Yes!

Lord God, please, by your Holy Spirit, drain out of my heart every hint of hatred, jealousy, malice, anger and vengefulness, and fill me with Christlike love. Amen.