In the late 1980’s, my wife and I went on a marriage retreat. We planned to spend quality time with each other in a retreat setting, but we also wanted to spend time with our friends. We had plans for the weekend. We had plans to stay up late up together, plans to eat junk food together, and plans to play Spades together. However, as it turned out, we didn’t get to spend any time with our friends because the retreat had one simple rule. You could only talk to your spouse. To their credit the retreat leaders knew what they were doing. There was a point behind their method; there was a reason for their one rule. Every encounter, every conversation with your spouse that weekend had to be intentional. We practiced what would it look like to really see each other. We came home with a greater understanding that love has to be deliberate. We also came home with a small banner. The banner read: Love is a decision.
This kind of love, however, is not an emotional love. This kind of love is a demanding love and the Apostle Paul reminds us what this love looks like. If we do not have love, we are a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal…If we understand all mysteries and have all knowledge and if we have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but do not have love, we are nothing…Love is patient; love is kind…Love does not rejoice in wrongdoing, but rejoices in the truth. It bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, [and] endures all things. Love never ends. [1 Corinthians 13]
In Martin Luther King, Jr.’s Atlanta address to the Southern Christian Leadership Conference in 1967, he speaks of the necessity of love. I have decided to stick with love, for I know that love is ultimately the only answer to our problems. And I’m going to talk about it everywhere I go. I know it isn’t popular to talk about it in some circles today. I’m not talking about an emotional love. I’m talking about a demanding love. I have seen too much hate, and I say to myself that hate is too great a burden to bear. I have decided to love.
The title of King’s address was – Where Do We Go from Here? This is a good question for us 55 years later. Haven’t we all wondered: Where do we go from here? That is, where do we go from here when we can’t seem to break free from a pandemic where people are divided over vaccines, and masks; a pandemic which has exposed racial inequities? Where do we go from here when over 400 bills have been passed in 49 states that will make voting more difficult? Where do we go from here when we are polarized over a number of issues such as politics, human sexuality and the future of the United Methodist Church? Where do we go from here in a time when we are not seeing others or even one another?
Martin Luther King, Jr., believed that love was crucialwhen it came to truth, justice, and a better world. When our love is intentional and when we decide to love, it changes everything. When we decide to love meaningful conversations follow, walls of hostility come down and bridges of hope are built. The point when we decide to love is when we truly see each other. In other words, love matters. Love matters because God’s love in Jesus Christ has the power to change things, and more importantly, it has the power to change us.
W. Donald Warren
Wake Forest UMC