God as Love | I John 4:7-8
St. Andrew’s Episcopal Church
August 11, 2024
the Rev. Jonathan Hanneman
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“Beloved, let us love one another…for God is love.” – I John 4:7-8 [1]
There’s a tendency among American Christians to interpret certain portions of the Bible with extreme literalism. We then often choose either to ignore other sections or to write them off as some sort of spiritualized metaphor. “God is love”—along with the verses surrounding it—generally falls within that last group. We read it as “God is loving” or “God loves everybody”—both of which statements are true. But that sort of interpretation can lead to some serious questions. After all, if God is all-loving, why do bad things continue to happen? Why do sickness and tragedy flood our world? Why doesn’t God do something about it? Why must we all know pain? Why death?
But I wonder what might happen if we were to take this statement from the Apostle John, that “God is love,” and apply it just as literally as we find ourselves doing with rules or commands we read elsewhere in the Bible.
Before we get there, though, we’ll need to remind ourselves what “love” actually is. In English, the term can cover a broad range of meanings—everything from romantic desire to familial affection to feelings about friends to our preferences for certain foods or movies. Within that range, the most common church definition of this love that God is is “unconditional love.” Unconditional love—the love of a parent for a child; a sort of intense, no-holds-barred, committed kind of love—one that continues no matter what, that overlooks rejection or misbehavior; a self-sacrificial—sometimes very nearly self-destructive—love: one that burns with a passion for the absolute best regarding its object, no matter the cost to itself.
That’s a good kind of love. And that’s part of what the Bible is talking about when it uses the word; however, that definition isn’t nearly comprehensive enough for what this term actually means.
“Love,” as the Bible uses the word, is better understood as “love made [or turned into] action.” The word behind it is rooted in the idea of something being noble, good quality, or simply useful. It’s a love that moves beyond our individual perceptions, beyond whatever we might be feeling at any given moment. This love is physical—a love made tangible and observable; love that has an effect not simply in our minds but in real life. It is indeed committed to the best good of the other, but this kind of love doesn’t just stay inside a person’s head. Love, as the Bible presents it, isn’t simply an emotion or longing; it’s a behavior.
So then, what if God isn’t just loving? What if God is love—a love revealed by action; love made known—one seen and embodied; love manifesting itself in our physical realm?
If God isn’t simply loving but God is love, then our questions from earlier might need to change. Instead of focusing on “why does God do or allow [insert tragedy here],” it might be more helpful to ask, “Where do we find God?”[2] And the answer to that can be surprisingly simple: look to the people around you.
God is love: love that reveals itself in joy and in tragedy. Love offered and received in hugs and words of support. Love flowing into the world through tears and laughter. Love found in the simplest acts of kindness. Love that expresses itself in mourning and celebration and anger and comfort. Love that asks life’s hard questions but steps beyond those questions simply to be present with those in pain.
If God is this kind of love, then God can be right here, right now—fully present among us all today. God is with us as we pray aloud together, as we greet one another in peace, and as we join in the unity of the body of Christ during the Lord’s Supper. God is with us after our service today as we thank Sarah for her years of work here at the church and prepare to send Bruce out on his mission in the United Arab Emirates. God is with us as we grieve, evidenced in our care and our support for one another. If God is love, then God still dwells among us, as present and powerful and fully incarnate as 2,000 years ago, in any and every manifestation of concern, affection, and kindness we share with those around us.
Knowing this to be reality, then,
“Beloved, let us love one another…for God is love.”
[1] All Bible quotations are from the NRSV unless otherwise noted.
[2] Especially when bad things happen