Quinquagesima
Bishop Ray R. Sutton

During a visit to the mental asylum, a visitor asked the Director how they determined whether or not a patient should be institutionalized. “Well,” said the Director, “we fill up a bathtub, then we offer a teaspoon, a teacup and a bucket to the patient and ask him or her to empty the bathtub.” “Oh, I understand,” said the visitor. “A normal person would use the bucket because it's bigger than the spoon or the teacup.” “No.” said the Director, “A normal person would pull the plug. Do you want a bed near the window?”

Sometimes a person can live around accepted normalcy for so long, he loses sight of reality. Take love as an example. One of the great gifts of Christianity is love. We’ve lived with and around it in our culture. Yet, we take for granted the origin of the love we’ve received. We’re now in jeopardy in our culture of going insane when normalcy, real love is screaming at us from the obvious. It’s not that people didn’t or don’t love without Christianity. It’s that they never understood exactly the love that surpasses all love until the dawn of Christ in the world. At least God’s love was never articulated anywhere else quite like the love song that is our Epistle for the day, 1 Corinthians 13. “Love is patient and kind; love does not envy or boast; it is not arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth. Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Love never ends” (13:4-8, ESV).

The word for love in these verses, like most of the references to it in the New Testament, is unique. Secular, ancient Greek had words for love. The most common one referred to sexual attraction and romantic infatuation, much like people’s concept of love in our society. Another word for love in secular Greek had to do with love among friends and family. But when it comes to Christianity, a completely different word for God’s love was used, the famous term, agape. It means sacrificial, unconditional redemptive love. This kind of love according to a saint in the 12th century, Bernard of Clarivaux, has four degrees to it. It’s been remarked of Bernard that he had more insight on loving God than anyone since St. Paul. He spoke of four degrees of love in his On the Love of God. 

The first degree of love according to Bernard is love of self for self’s sake. Love of self is natural. And it is not necessarily bad. Indeed, Jesus commanded, “Love thy neighbor as thyself.” Because we love ourselves, there is a natural motivation to take care of ourselves. This natural human affection according to Bernard “comes from God.” It is in this type of love that we find a standard for loving others. Another way of looking at it, “love of self is held in check by the command to love our neighbor. If we cannot love our neighbor because of our love of self, then we must restrain our lusts and give to our neighbor’s needs. Your love will then be [come] temperate when you take from yourself and give to your neighbor.” For this reason, Lent is a time of denying something to ourselves and doing an extra work of service or giving for others. We take up special offerings or do something extraordinary for those in need. This is the first step in loving God according to St. Bernard.

The second degree of love according to Bernard of Clairvaux is love of God for self’s sake.  According to Bernard, “When we suffer some calamity, some storm in our lives, we turn to God and ask his help, calling upon him in times of trouble. This is how we who only love ourselves first begin to love God. We will start to love God even if it is for our own sake. We love because we have learned that we can do all things through him, and without him we can do nothing.” To love God for our own sake is not necessarily bad. We should love Him for the great things He has done and does for us. Lent is a moment to grow in our love for God by recognizing His goodness to us, especially in giving His own Son to die for us.

The next, third degree of love is a bit more advanced.  “In the first degree of love we love ourselves for own sake. In the second degree of love we love God for our own sake, chiefly because he has provided for us and rescued us. But [eventually we must learn to] love God not merely for our own sakes, but for Himself.” Here is where we truly begin to reach what could be called the unconditional dimensions of love. “. . . . This [third-stage] love is pure because it is disinterested (i.e. not offered in order to obtain something).  It is pure because it is not merely in our words that we begin to serve, but in our actions.  We love because we are loved. We care for others because Jesus cares for us [and for them]. We have obtained this degree when we can say: “Give praise to the Lord for He is good, not because He is good to me, but because He is good.” Thus we truly love God for God’s sake and not for our own. The third degree of love is the love by which God is now loved for His very self.”

The fourth degree of love is love of self for God’s sake.  According to Bernard, this degree is only experienced in snatches and momentarily.  It is love that so catches one up into God and doing God’s will that he has to pull himself away to tend to the self’s needs. “During those moments we will be one mind with God, and our wills in one accord with God. The prayer, ‘Thy will be done,’ will be our prayer and our delight. . . This perfect love of God with our heart, soul, mind, and strength will not happen until we are no longer compelled to think about ourselves and attend to the body’s immediate needs. Only then can the soul attend to God completely. This is why in the present body we inhabit . . . . it is not attained by our own efforts.”

The propers for this Sunday are perhaps best expressed in one of the most memorable lines of any of the collects, “All our doings without charity are nothing worth.”  Perhaps now after this brief summary of Bernard’s incredibly profound insights on loving God we better comprehend how our human efforts are worthless without love, God’s love grown in the soil of our soul. How is God’s, Biblical, agape love, all four degrees of it, cultivated in us? Lent is a time of gaining more of love for God and others. Hopefully we will be plunged deeper into love’s degrees, all four of them. We do so by engaging the way of the Cross, starting on Ash Wednesday in three days. At the end of this season we will meet the Cross on Good Friday. In the words of the following poem:

I will not work my soul to save,
For that my Lord has done,
But I will work like any slave,
For love of God’s dear Son.

When we love like this, we’ll find true sanity and normalcy . . . even if all around us are insane. Amen.