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UNCONDITIONAL LOVE
John T. Crestwell, Jr
February 15th 2004

Dr. King reading: “As the chief moral guardian of the community, the church must implore people to be good and well-intentioned and must extol the virtues of kindheartedness and conscientiousness. But somewhere along the way the church must remind people that, devoid of intelligence, goodness and conscientiousness will become brutal forces leading to shameful crucifixions. Never must the church tire of reminding people that they have a moral responsibility to be intelligent.”

Good Morning. Dr. King’s words of truth speak to us with power and conviction as they did many years ago. He was well aware, as we are, of the history of persecution within the church as a result of intolerance. The church is supposed to be the place people go for support, love and nurturing, yet far too often the doors that should be open to all people are found theologically and philosophically closed. Broken-hearts are not mended, love is not given nor received. And the church becomes a joke in the minds of those that it has rejected.

The sermon topic this morning is Unconditional Love. Unconditional love appears to say that we love others without conditions. We find away to love and respect others even when they don’t think like us; even when they’re views are outrageously asinine; even when they appear to be idiots. But what does this unconditional love thing really mean? Is it possible to love someone without conditions? Is it possible to give love without expecting love in return?

Like Dawn’s story this morning, I always think about parents, particularly mothers who love their children with all their heart, soul, mind and strength. They sacrifice for the betterment of the children; they go without sleep; and parents sometimes don’t take care of themselves because they are so focused on their children, they forget about themselves. And one might say the parent/child relationship is the essence of unconditional love. But is this biological? Is this self-preservation? From a very basic perspective, does not the parent love based on a sort of survival instinct to protect her young who will take her place/his place in life one day? Perhaps we parents do what we do because biology and sociology are directing us to do for our children. So perhaps this love is conditional.

Then there’s the viewpoint that unconditional love is the love of God who loves human beings despite their frailties. But you don’t have to go to far to see that historically this love is Pavlovian oriented, that is, you get your reward if you do certain things the proper way. So this too seems to be conditional love.

What about the loving deeds we do for others? I would answer that with a question: Did you do the good deed just for them or also for yourself, for your heart? As virtuous as the task may be, this love too seems conditional…

“Okay, what about Valentine’s Day weekend John? That’s that sweet unconditional love of husbands, wives and partners… What about Valentine love?” This one’s easy, if you forgot about your Valentine, you found out real fast how conditional this kind of love is! Amen.

So where does that leave us this morning? In a world that does not fully respect the inherent worth and dignity of every human being; in a society that continues to be intolerant; in a country that still wrestles with the issue of creating a world community with peace, liberty, and justice for all. Where does that leave us this morning?

First, for me, it’s okay if love is conditional. Let me clean up what I’m saying… What I mean is that it’s okay if my love on something or based in something. There is a reason why I love you. There is a reason you love me. This is not abstract, but real and tangible love!

Beyond the erotic, beyond the esoteric and abstract love, you find that love is simply respecting one another. In this regard, Webster defines love as, “A feeling of brotherhood or sisterhood and goodwill toward other people.” This is the love that King was referring to, in the reading, when he said, “The church must implore people to be good and well-intentioned and must extol the virtues of kindheartedness and conscientiousness.” We are talking about respect for the sacredness of all humanity.

This moves me to a thought… I don’t want you to love despite our differences, but to love because of our differences! This is a paradigm shifter, asking us to think much more broadly in our understanding of HOW we love. It is asking us to look at life as a beautiful picture, adorned with speckled colors. It is asking us to fall in love with sundry quirks and imperfections that make us unique and miraculous.

I was looking through a book on the universe with my son and daughter and it is amazing what the Hubble Telescope is finding. This instrument, the size of a school bus in space, is revealing just how diverse and eclectic our universe is. We see now that our galaxy is one little speck among trillions of specks, each one different and amazing. Like the lines on the Zebra’s back or the human fingerprint, no two galaxies appear to be exactly alike, so far as we know. Then there are the varying solar systems and planets, the many suns in these galaxies, each with differing dimensions. And this tells you from a macrocosmic perspective, we live in an expansive and diverse universe. But you don’t have to go to space to learn the lesson. When you look within the earth with the millions of species, seen and unseen, you find a great multiplicity of things. You see the varying types of animals, insects, trees, plants, and sea creatures; there’s fresh water and salt water, blue water, green water; there are tropical and arctic climates. Then you can look at the people of our planet. There are all types with varying languages and customs. There is much to celebrate. Life is a beautiful assortment.

Unfortunately, as humans we don’t tend to love those who are different. Whether we are referring to another religion, another race, or sexuality, we don’t tend to do well in dealing with those who walk and talk differently.

I was watching a Disney movie, Pocahontas, with the kids (been doing a lot of learning with them). Anyhow, you have the natives singing “savages, savages” pointing the finger at the colonialists and all the while the colonialists are singing “savages, savages”, the same thing, referring to the Native Americans. I thought to myself, “This is the story of the whole world.”

But I believe that we are called to a higher purpose. If we could just see life from amongst the stars we could see a panoramic view of the universe that is essentially pluralistic and eclectic. If love, conditional or not, is a feeling of brotherhood or sisterhood and goodwill toward other people, it is imperative that we grasp what the universe teaches so that we can appreciate and respect even more, our individuality, which truly makes the world go round.

Then, somehow, we can begin to build a world where peace and justice are the order of the day. We can build a world where people use their intelligence, not their tribal instincts to solve problems. We can build a world where we treat people as we wish to be treated. We can build a world where people will not live distant and in fear of the other, rather in community where every human is treated as a sister or a brother. We can build a world without the “us against them” mentality but a world that embraces the “we are together” reality. We can build a world of mutual respect and love when humans listen more, read more and think more, as Maya Angelou suggests. And this will be a time when goodness and conscientiousness will not be brutal forces leading to more and more shameful crucifixions, but a time of healing and understanding as we celebrate life, that great web of interdependence of which we are all a part.

We must love one another, not despite our differences but because of our differences. As David Eaton said, “May we have faith to accept this mystery and build upon its everlasting truth.”

Thank you for your time this morning.

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