B, Pentecost 18 Proper 20 - James 4:1-4 "Love when it comes from God"

“Love is Love”, so they say.  This is the mantra we’ve been fed in recent times. But anyone who questions this is made to feel guilty by the political forces of correctness.  However, it is far from correct and those who defend the “Love is love” ideology display anything but love for those who differ in opinion.

But there are many different types of love.  The bible speaks of four variations of love, and in ancient Greece there are eight variants.

Briefly they are:

Eros or erotic love; in short is sexual passion and desire. 

Philia or philos is affectionate love, mateship or friendship.  In Philos there is no sexual passion.  From this root word we get words like Philadelphia (brotherly love) and philosophy (love of wisdom).

Storge is family love or kinship, it is the love that flows within families, between parents and children. 

Ludus is a playful love and is somewhat related to eros.  Ludus is the fluttering heart, the flirting, teasing love and it gives one the feeling of euphoria.

Mania is obsessive love that is jealous and possessive.  And it is from where we get the word maniac.

Pragma or enduring love and is found in couples who have been together for a long time in a relationship that is mature and willing to make compromises.  It is sensible and realistic love and it is the root of the word pragmatic.

Philautia or love of self is love turned in on one’s self.  Narcissists, those who seek their own glory, fame, fortune and are self-obsessed are caught up in philautia.

And the eighth is Agape. It is a selfless love, it is unconditional love and as such it is used of God towards humanity.  It is steadfast, enduring, accepting, generous and forgiving love.

So love is not love.  There is more to love than some would have us believe.  In fact the “love is love” mantra is built more on deception and self-justification than on human, historical, and literary reality.

As we heard these eight different variants of love, we might have distinguished some which are common to scripture.  Three are common and they are eros, philos and agape. The fourth is storge but it is only used once in conjunction with Philia in Romans 12:10.

The Word of God brings to the fore these three as the battle ground on which our Lord fights for us.  We might think of eros as erotic love but at its core is desire the struggle to force one’s will on someone else.  It begins in the child way before anything sexual begins when they take their stand against mum and dad in a defiant “NO” said to get their own way.

James speaks of this desire as passions or pleasures.  He doesn’t use eros here but rather a synonym from where we get the word hedonistic, which means self-indulgent, riotous, wild, or self-gratifying.

He says, ...if you have bitter jealousy and selfish ambition in your hearts, do not boast and be false to the truth.  This is not the wisdom that comes down from above, but is earthly, unspiritual, demonic. (James 3:14–15 ESV)

James continues, What causes quarrels and what causes fights among you? Is it not this, that your passions are at war within you?  You desire and do not have, so you murder. You covet and cannot obtain, so you fight and quarrel. You do not have, because you do not ask.  You ask and do not receive, because you ask wrongly, to spend it on your passions. (James 4:1–3 ESV)

And in the very next verse we hear the use of philia, brotherly love or friendship.  Do you not know that friendship with the world is enmity with God? Therefore whoever wishes to be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God.  (James 4:4 ESV)

Here he uses it negatively when we make friendship with the world and not with God.

Agape love appears time and time again throughout the bible.  It’s the love Jesus was pointing to when he taught the disciples over and over again he was going to be the messiah or the anointed one by being crucified on the cross.  To which last week we heard Peter attempt to rebuke Jesus for saying such, and Jesus in turn said to Peter, “Get behind me, Satan! For you are not setting your mind on the things of God, but on the things of man.” (Mark 8:33 ESV)

Today we heard again, for he was teaching his disciples, saying to them, “The Son of Man is going to be delivered into the hands of men, and they will kill him. And when he is killed, after three days he will rise.”  But they did not understand the saying, and were afraid to ask him. (Mark 9:31–32 ESV)

We struggle to understand this after the fact.  How much harder would it have been for the disciples before Jesus went to his death and resurrection? Jesus then confounds their understanding even further by saying, “If anyone would be first, he must be last of all and servant of all.”(Mark 9:35 ESV)  A point Jesus has to stress even stronger later on by replacing servant with slave stating, “...whoever would be great among you must be your servant, and whoever would be first among you must be slave of all.  For even the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.” (Mark 10:43–45 ESV)

This is the very heart of the gospel, this is the love of God, the agape love we struggle to understand let alone fulfil.  In fact God is the only one who can fulfil this love. Why is this so?

One has to rewind back to the Garden of Eden where humanity, created in the image of God though that not good enough, and, was tempted and chose to seek to be like God by eating from the tree of knowledge of Good and Evil.  And so they became like God and we too being God-like in ourselves seek this love of good and evil, or what we desire as good and evil rather than the love of servanthood and submission to God, the agape love, in which we were created to love God, in which Jesus came to put right by loving God whole-heartedly, what Adam and Eve got wrong and we continue to get wrong.

It becomes pretty clear that the “love is love” mantra of our day and age is far from the centrality of God’s love won for us on the cross.  In fact we are told quite clearly that anyone who wishes to be friends with the world makes himself an enemy with God. 

A spiritual reality came into being when humanity sought to be like God.  We became enemies with God. But God still did not reject us.  First, he removed himself from humanity and lets us be the gods of good and evil.  Once there we quickly realised that being the one god of ourselves is lonely and void of the love that truly sustains us. 

Being alone, being like God is the result of the fall.  And being alone is the great disease running rampant in our society today.  Whether you’re a teenager obsessing over your friend status on your iphone or smartphone (or as I call them ego phones)!  Or you’re in the latter years of life lonely and losing the independence you had once upon a time.  Plus, everyone in between who puts their hope in their farms, their families, their fortunes, or their fame.

James points out our jealousy and self-ambition is a result of our loneliness and godlikeness saying, “This is not the wisdom that comes down from above, but is earthly, unspiritual, demonic.” (James 3:15 ESV)

In Paul’s struggle with the “infants” in the Corinthian church he says similar, “Now we have received not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit who is from God, that we might understand the things freely given us by God.  And we impart this in words not taught by human wisdom but taught by the Spirit, interpreting spiritual truths to those who are spiritual.  The natural person does not accept the things of the Spirit of God, for they are folly to him, and he is not able to understand them because they are spiritually discerned.  The spiritual person judges all things, but is himself to be judged by no one.  “For who has understood the mind of the Lord so as to instruct him?” But we have the mind of Christ.”  (1 Corinthians 2:12–16 ESV)

We have the mind of Christ.  He gave his life as a ransomed for you, for me, and for all people who believe he took our sin on himself on the cross.  He takes the natural person, the old Adam within, Peter and the disciples, you and me, the godlike man and woman naturally alone in the loneliness of our judgment of good and evil, and makes each of us spiritual people, with the mind of Christ.

He loves you and forgives you and gives you access into his presence forever, where there is not loneliness or need to be a god, rather you can be the creature he created you to be.   Love can only be love when God is love.

Like the Psalmist we can praise God saying, “Behold, God is my helper; the Lord is the upholder of my life.  He will return the evil to my enemies; in your faithfulness put an end to them.” (Psalm 54:4–5 ESV)

God is Love and anything we put before God is our enemy.  Our greatest enemy is our lonely godlike self, or anyone who tells us that there is a greater god than our Triune God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit.  

So rest in God!  Put off the godlike loneliness that causes so much strife and take hold of the love that is of God and eternal, and gives us the peace that surpasses all understanding which keeps our hearts and minds in the love of Christ Jesus, Amen.