Love

The singer Haddaway semi-famously asked the question, “What is love?” According to the apostle Paul, “love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.” - 1 Corinthians 13:4-7

These days, our “love” is tainted. We use affection like a commodity, to get what we want. This is so selfish. Relationships tend to feel less like love and more like speculating on the stock market: so many times we feel insecure and uncertain about showing affection, and what we’re really thinking is “what will be the return on my investment?” Much like an investor on Wall Street, we lend our love to borrowers, but only if we expect to be repaid in full plus interest. And if someone misses a payment, we lash out. Like any good investor, when we feel that what we have to gain in the relationship is threatened, we wholeheartedly retract our own affection. We only show love as long as we are receiving love. But when someone runs out of love to give, doesn't that mean that they need it the most? This whole attitude is nothing but “self-seeking” and “proud,” this is keeping a record of wrongs, and this is truly not love.

And oh, how we also borrow! We’re all beggars, desperate for the next meal of affection, and we gobble up scraps of pseudo-love from lenders who have selfish ambitions. We become indebted slaves to their affection to the point where we feel like we can’t live without it. So we conform to their wishes, to whatever we feel like we have to do to scrape together another meal to feed the hungry beast in our soul. And when he gets hungry, he is more than willing to let us know by unleashing his friends: doubt, worry, and insecurity, and it seems like the more we feed him, the hungrier he gets. And once he takes control, it feels like there’s no way out.

But God is a feast. His table is full and the door is always open. Jesus’ body, broken as the Bread, and his blood, poured out as the Wine, is meant to more than satisfy and even tame the beast. In John 4, Jesus meets a Samaritan woman who is getting water at a well. Before confronting her about her adulterous past (this search for love through multiple husbands is, if you think about it, not so far from our own), he says “Everyone who drinks this water will be thirsty again, but whoever drinks the water I give him will never thirst. Indeed, the water I give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life" (John 4:13-14). His point is that the only safe investment is God, and that Jesus is the middleman. And, what’s more, while you’re eating from God’s table, he might just give you a few good recipes.