Defining
A sermon
delivered by Rev. Peter T. Atkinson
September 7,
2014
at Gordonsville
Presbyterian Church, Gordonsville, Virginia
1 John 4: 7-12
Let
us pray, for a welcome mind and a loving heart
Help us to see despite our eyes
Help us to think outside of our minds
Help us to be more than our lives
For
your eyes show the way
Your
mind knows the truth
Your
being is the life.
Amen.
7
Beloved, let us love one another,
because love is from God; everyone who loves is born of God and knows God. 8
Whoever does not love does not know God, for God is love. 9 God’s
love was revealed among us in this way: God sent his only Son into the world so
that we might live through him. 10 In this is love, not that we
loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the atoning sacrifice for
our sins. 11 Beloved, since God loved us so much, we also ought to
love one another. 12 No one has ever seen God; if we love one
another, God lives in us, and his love is perfected in us. [1]
Every year I begin my classes with
the same lesson. I use it as an introduction to what I think literature is all
about. I have them do their best to define "love", not that all
literature is about love, but if you stick with me you'll get what I'm talking
about. It's cool because it is a word
that means so much, and means something personal and different to each person,
and it means something even to teenage boys. It is a word that is packed with
experience, and each of us have experienced love in one of its forms throughout
our lives. Love is something that is universal, it lives in all times and all
places. It is an idea that is infinite, and so I am setting the boys up for
failure, when I send them back to their dorms on the first night of school with
a blank piece of paper, and the assignment that says, define love. . . and
don't just define it from the dictionary, I want you to define it completely
and leave nothing out. Ok, go, gentlemen. . . good luck.
Now they always come back with
basically the same ideas. There is the dictionary definition that comes first,
and it is always easy to spot it, those cheaters think they're so smart. . . .
something like . . . "the intense emotional feeling of attraction and
attachment to a person or object." That is always first. . . then you get a
few words trickling in, like, passion, romance, affection, preference;
sometimes unconditional creeps in. But in those first try definitions so much
is left out. . . it always is. . . which at this point is very good for the
lesson because the bait is set. . .their minds are beginning to work, and they
are already realizing that there is more to it instead of less, more to words
than what the dictionary has to offer, and that is key, so next I get them to
come up with two word phrases that have love in them. . . like tough love,
puppy love, love shack, love hate relationship. . . on and on. . . usually like
twenty or so, and with all of them on the board it is easy to see some of the
major holes in their first definition. It just doesn't go far enough. . . and I
ask them, what they think about their original definition. . . they always say
it's pretty bad. . . it sells itself short. . . it is a cheap version, it is
too limited.
It's at this point that I get into
the root of the problem with them. . . and I get to do so by showing them a
Greek root that is found in the assigning word, the cause of the problem, and
the result of the problem, all at the same time, and that is the Greek root,
"Fin." It is the root in words like "final" and
"finish." And for the bell choir
your "fine" in your music, like DC al Fine. . . where you go
back to the beginning and then play through to the fine, to the end. . . yes
the root fin means end. You see I'm always working on their vocabulary. . . you
have to have many levels going on at once. . . kinda like a sermon. . . but yes
this root "fin" is also in the word "define" because that
is what you are doing. . . you are putting ends on where the word begins and
ends, the boundaries of meaning that make the word itself. That is what you do
when you define. . . but the problem with a word like "love" as I am
trying to get them to see is that you can't put ends on it because . . . here
is the next one. . . love is "infinite". . . do you hear it again,
there is the "fin" again, this time describing something that has no
ends. You can't define something that is infine. . . it doesn't work. . .
because no matter what you do, when you set the ends you will end up, and here
is the last one, "Confine," you always confine. . . when you try to define the infinite.
So then with their minds swimming. .
. I tell them, O. K. so now do it. I
want you to define Love. . . "but Mr. Atkinson you just said it was
impossible." Sure it's impossible. . . and I'm the teacher and I'm telling
you to do it, so go ahead. Now with them flabbergasted, frustrated, and utterly
confused. . . I ask them. . . how do you do it. . . how do you define something
that is infinite without confining it? How? . . . Blank stares. . . Come on guys don't quit on
me now. . . it's day 2. . .
Hand goes up. . . yes. . . "You
could just be vague. . . "
"Sure" you can just be vague. . . but isn't that
just what we had on the board at first. . . a vague definition that really
doesn't help us and sells us way too short?" Yes, no good, too easy, I
won't let you punt. . . I told them this anecdote. . . and it connects here. .
. so you have a community. . . I tell them. . . let's call it a school. . . and
the school has a religious tradition, but that religious tradition, though
still there, does not reflect the make up of the school. . . maybe it does a
certain majority, but the school has grown much more diverse. . . so you decide
to water down the message so as not to offend. . . you try to make everything
safe. . . and vague if you will. . . what happens. . . nothing right. . . it
all becomes a waste. . . no one gets anything out of it, because it is a
lifeless, vague version of something that should be giving life. . . Think about it with love. . .what if all you
had was this vague definition limiting people's concept of how love works, what
love does, how it affects people, what it is. . . what if you go with the
definition of love that we started with. .. that whole intense feeling of
attraction thing. . .and then that intense feeling of attraction isn't
returned, and you get that amazing all encompassing pain that goes with love
sometimes. . . but your definition doesn't include it because you were being
safe and vague and. . . men do you see the problem? That person may think that
their love wasn't real, they may down play their experience. . . they would be
missing something extremely important.
"Yes coach, we get it." So next try. . .
How do you define something that is
infinite? I start to give them hints. . . remember that you are in English
class. . . its day 2 and this is an introduction exercise. . . more blank
stares. . . I ask them. . .What if I were to say, "love is like a hole in
the head" . . . it's painful. . . it takes life. . . but then also,
sometimes when you are in it your brain seems like it going to fall out, and
you lose your mind completely. . . or that your head has this hole. . . and it
is the shape of love. . . and if it is not full. . . you will never be whole. .
. we could go on and on couldn't we. . . what if I said "love is a
water" it gives life, it's refreshing, it's powerful, it cleans and
refreshes, starting you out anew. . . it also could be dangerous . . .
especially when out of control. . . when it rises too quickly. . . when those
floodwaters are raging. . . what about when it's not around,. . . life just
can't flourish. . . everything dries up
and dies. Do you see figurative language. .. poetry. .. this is what allows you
to define something indefinable. . .why does it work? Because it leaves it open
for interpretation. . . the writer means it a certain way or ways, but it also
allows for the reader to take it another way, and every reader will bring his
own ideas and take it a different way. . . why because experience. . . love
like other infinite ideas, is something that is infinite because everyone's
experience is different and should be taken into consideration. . . to leave
out someone's experience would be to sell love short. . . again confining the
infinite.
But that is not the only way. . .
how else guys. . . how else can we define the infinite. . . blank stares. . .
but interested ones. . . how else. . . come on guys remember it is English
class. . . still nothing. . . remember it's English class and now we've gotten
Poetry covered already. . . someone says "stories" . . . yes
narratives. . . why . . . because again we are bringing experience, showing
experience, showing life. . . I point up to star crossed love. . . on the board
as one of those two word phrases from earlier. . . I could define that sure. .
. or I could write and perform Romeo and
Juliet and I would take you much further. . . I could define what it is to
be an orphan, or I could Oliver Twist.
. . obviously the story is not enough. . . interpretation, connection, all of
that is part of the deal. . . it needs to be there in the intimate relationship
between writer and reader. . . and so I tell them that is what we will do this
year. . . we will read some of the great works of world literature. . . looking
at how people throughout history have tried to define things that were
indefinable. . . I ask them what are some of those things. . . those infinite
things. . . we already have love. . . what about hope. . . what about dreams. .
. what about friendship. . . what about evil. . . what about good. . . what
about human nature. . . what about God. . . these are the ideas we seek to
understand, to study. . . because they are the ideas of humanity. . . and they
always have been. End of lesson. . .
Now what does this have to do with
us, here on Sunday morning. . . it is there in this morning's reading from 1
John with that famous of metaphors. . . pairing two of these infinite ideas
together. . . God is love. And just like love. . . God is infinite. . . God is hard to define. .
. and yet we seek to do so, oh so often. And the danger is just like love. . .
when we define God. . . we confine God. . . We make God small . . . we sell God
short. . . we try to put God in a manageable, definable box. . . one that makes
us comfortable. . . one that gives us a sense of security. . . one that allows
us to be in control. . . one that fits our lives. . .and then with God in that
manageable box we use God for our purposes. . . whether they be controlling
other people. . . or judging other people. . . or making us feel better about
ourselves and our situation. . . but just like the Israelites in building their
golden calf. . . this God is a mere shadow of God's true reality. . . God's
infinite reality.
So how do we then get to know God. .
. how do we get to tell others about God. . . to communicate about God if we
can't define. . . the answer is similar to how I told my students to define
love. . . through metaphor. .. through relationships between things. . . common
threads and comparisons. . . that is poetry. . . and also through narratives. .
. between these ideas we get to share our experience, for that is what we do,
that is what we have to give and to get from eachother. . . experience. . .
relationship. . . all of these teach us about each other. . . and give us more
and more of an understanding about God. So then it makes sense that the way
that we get to know God is to love one another. . . to get closer to God by
getting closer to eachother. . . loving our neighbors. . . listening to them. .
. telling our stories. . . It's all there.
And that is what Jesus is for us. .
. metaphor. . .in that Jesus is both God and man. . . a comparison of two
unlike things. . . brought together. . . and it shows so much about both. . .
amazing metaphor. . . and narrative. . . God coming to us. . . walking with us.
. . tried by us. . . dying for us. . . and then raised. . . again busting
through any perceived limitations we may seek to place on the infinite. . .
that's quite a story. . . and it is a story that could teach us beyond what any
other thing could do, because it meets us where we are, allows us to experience
it for ourselves. . . and creates that wonderful relationship between the
teller/actor/creator of the story. s. . and all of us blessed, open hearted
witnesses. It is love forever defined by metaphor and narrative, it doesn’t confine
the infinite, but sets it free in that relationship. . . and so we come to understand
what love is, and also what God is, and so we come to the communion table
together and once again become a part of that narrative ourselves. . . each of
us. . . together . . . and with Christ. . . Amen.
[1]The
Holy Bible : New Revised Standard Version. 1989 (1 Jn 4:7-12). Nashville:
Thomas Nelson Publishers.
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