Editorial: Our Policy of Love

Lest anyone, especially myself, forget: the only thing so far I've been willing to actually preach about.

Our Policy of Love

Come, Holy Spirit, fill the hearts of your people, and kindle in us the fire of your love.

“You ask, what is our policy? I can say: It is to wage war, by sea, land and air, with all our might and with all the strength that God can give us; to wage war against a monstrous tyranny, never surpassed in the dark, lamentable catalogue of human crime. That is our policy.”

Sir Winston Churchill, of course, spoke those immortal words, and brought Britain to war just when Europe expected him to announce the beginning of negotiations with Nazi Germany. But he had a different policy in mind. He knew where he stood. And he knew which way he faced.

So when I read that sermons shouldn’t have an introduction too much better than the rest of it, I knew I had to start with one of the finest speeches in all of human history.

But we need a policy. Christians need a policy, and this church needs a policy. We think we don’t. We think policies are for governments, for institutions. And we believe we are neither one of those. We are the body of Christ. We have different rules.

We have right belief, orthodoxy, and we have right practice, orthopraxy. And we just hope that somewhere the ‘twain shall meet.

So I don’t think we should be surprised when we find ourselves lamenting with Saint Paul that we do not do what we should, and do what we shouldn’t. We are human, after all. And being like God, we can all agree, is difficult.

But so is war, right or wrong. Fighting the German Empire was difficult, but Britain did not say, “Oh, sure, it’s all fine and well fighting the Fuhrer in theory, but in the end it’s so inconvenient.”
No, Churchill gave them a policy. And policy is not teaching. Policy is not practice. Policy is something in between.

Policy is attitude, orientation. It does not depend on perfect execution, and it does not rely on logic. But it does ask of us all of our resources at every available opportunity. Because policy is the choice by which we meet the world. Policy is the stand life forces us to take. And policy moves all of the people that adopt it.

So you ask, what is our policy?

“Love the Lord your God with all your heart and soul and mind,” and “Love your neighbor as yourself.” Those are the Greatest Commandments, the sum of all the law and the prophets in the mouth of Jesus Christ himself. And we should not be surprised. But what more can we do about love? After all, we sing about it every Sunday.

But we also miss it every Sunday.

When I was a Methodist, I heard a lot of sermons about integrity. I heard about righteousness and responsibility and the importance of character and holy living and perfection in the Spirit. And those are wonderful, profound, right things without which I would not be who I am today, and I’m very glad for all of it.

But I did not hear about love. I could probably count on two hands the number of sermons I heard then that talked directly about love. And now that I’ve put away all those Methodist things, I hear a lot in our Garden about inclusion and hospitality and mission and dialogue and social justice. And those are all great, profound, right things, and they directly address who I want to be.

But I do not hear about love. How many sermons have I heard in two years exactly about love? One hand? That enough?

Though I understand we’re getting better about all of that.

One would think, giving the weight of the above, the sum of all the law and the prophets, the first and second greatest commandments that you’d hear a great deal about love. You’d think we’d never shut up about it, or better, we’d love each other without even thinking about it because we’d just run the script to many times, which is the way we learn so many things.

But we don’t, and the mistake is not Episcopalian. I mean, we have the Social Justice tradition, and the Charismatic tradition, and the Holiness and the Evangelical traditions, but we don’t have a love tradition. We all assume we have love without doing anything exactly about it. Love is the elephant that’s not in the room.

And it didn’t make it into the Creeds. Really, not the Apostles Creed, not the Nicene. You’d think, Jesus said, “Love the Lord your God...” but no. Apparently, love isn’t good enough for us. Instead, we had to make sure we nailed the trinity.

What should be our policy?

I’ve been going to this church for two and a half years. And I still don’t know people. By that, I don’t mean secrets, I mean basic facts, like jobs, and how you met your spouse, and what your hobbies are. And I want to blame myself for this, because I could ask.

But few of you know me, either: how do I make money? How do I spend my time? Why don’t I have a girlfriend? Not secrets. Basic facts. Should a person as shy as I am be able to attend the same church for almost three years and never be uncomfortable?

Wouldn’t love intrude? The writer Frederick Buechner quipped that a brief summary of Christianity would be that there is no such thing as your own business. Love makes everyone responsible. How can we love one another if we don’t know one another?

What should be our policy?

I saw it once, though I didn’t know it at the time. The National Cathedral in Washington is a truly terrible place. If you walk around the main portion of it, and look at the stained glass windows, half of them are about national events, which is not surprising. But the rest of the windows, all the rest of them, are about the trustees and the artisans and all the people who gave money to the building.

It’s the only church I’ve ever been in that didn’t mention God. For an institution that believes it cannot serve two masters, God and money, I would say that that church has made an interesting architectural choice.

In short, I didn’t see much of a cathedral there.

But beneath the national cathedral, in the crypt level, is the Chapel of St. Joseph of Arimathea. Away from all the tour guides and the gift shops and all the city noise, it’s like a tomb. It’s silent, solemn stone. It’s shockingly different from everyplace else. I’d never seen a stone altar before.
And my friend and I found it on the way to the bathroom.

That chapel’s silent. And it’s hidden. It could easily be overlooked. But its small stillness in the middle of that American whirlwind meant a time of peace for me and my friend, and a moment of connection we still talk about today.

That’s the church. Church isn’t in the cathedral anymore. Church is in the church basement. Church is wherever people talk to each other, where AA meets. Church is the gymnasium, where I went for centering prayer. Church is wherever people engage themselves and one another in love.

We should not be surprised that all of this takes place beneath our notice. A prominent Jewish thinker wrote that the best possible gift is secret, one that neither the giver nor the receiver knows about, because that way, no one walks away in debt.

What better description could there be for love?

Love is hidden. It has no stained glass, no pipe organs. But like other quiet, hidden things, like a mustard seed, like the kernel of wheat that dies, like the living water in the well, love bursts forth.

What should be our policy?

Isn’t love too difficult after all? All our lives are full. No one has the time. There are so many obstacles, personal and otherwise.

I know. I understand. We all start somewhere. Me, I’m an introvert. I need a lot of time alone. Think that doesn’t hinder my ability to love?

But policy doesn’t care where you sit. Policy only cares what you stand up for.

I’d like each of you to try something. Imagine however many years you believe you have remaining. Now imagine, in that time, loving someone more. Someone new, or someone you’ve known forever. Either a transformed relationship, or just one real gesture.

Now, did that seem impossible? Or did that seem something more like likely? If it’s the latter, then the question becomes not, is love too difficult, but: Why not this person? And why not today?

I don’t know if we ever need to ask anything else.

A Christian is anyone who accepts and follows the teaching and example of Jesus Christ. Both of these are clear. They are love, and there is no better time to try. For the first time in two thousand years, we don’t have to wait for what the Pope says or what the Bishop or the Diocese says. We don’t even have to wait for what the Vicar says. We can just go love.

We are free, radically and historically free, from all the constraints of Christendom to give the world the heart of Christ and eyes of love, to see God behind the eyes of others.

And the world needs love. The dissolution of the American family, the breaking asunder of the greater urban, suburban, and rural communities mean horrible and tragic things for our society.

We might well live in the loneliest time in American history. There are more televisions than people in the average American household, and there are more rooms per person than at any time in history. Two ideas opposed to traditional Christianity, individualism and consumerism, pervade the very fabric of our lives.

But if these things are as devastating as they seem, then we must also live in a time breaking open and ready for love. Go ahead, try and convince the child of a divorce that simple, incarnate love is not important. The world is ready for love. We are primed for love.

The medieval thinkers were right. All the things that matter really are made of just four elements. Because what are we but fire, and earth, and water, and wind? And what is love but flame, and dust, and spirit, and living, ever-flowing water?

We already are everything we must become. We know the way, and we already have everything we need.

What should be our policy?

Christianity is no longer the only game in town. But we don’t have to be, because love is not just the good policy. It is the best possible policy.

Take a moment. Imagine that you can carry one moment, one memory, just one, with you to eternity. And that moment will be all that you remember, but you’ll have it forever. What did you choose?

If you’re like most people, you chose something from your childhood. And if you’re like very nearly everyone, you chose a time when you felt loved. In the words of Mister Rogers,” we are all of us loved into being.” Feeling beloved is the central religious experience, the refrain of all those who love God back.

The universe is relational, and love is the best kind of human relationship, and the best example of love is Christ. That’s the Christian wager. If we believe that, if we actually live our lives as though thesethings were true, if we make them our policy, love is not empty or trite or weak or impossible or hopelessly romantic.

Love is present and real and something like inevitable.

In this secular age, people have been getting married and raising children and being friends all completely without us, and in appalling ignorance of what’s really going on. So we either take a stand and choose to acknowledge and participate in and emphasize love with them, or we don’t.

If we do, then the kingdom of heaven isn’t a matter of wishful thinking. It is simply a matter of time.

So I ask you, what is our policy? What shall we pursue with all our strength and with all the might that God can give us, against the monstrous tyrannies of our time? Say it with me, everyone: love.

Amen