Prelude Melodia Africana I by Ludovico Einaudi
Opening Words from a letter to Dorothy Day from Thomas Merton
Our job is to love others without stopping to inquire whether or not they are worthy. That is not our business, and, in fact, it is nobody’s business. What we are asked to do is to love, and this love itself will render both ourselves and our neighbours worthy if anything can.
Chalice Lighting (you may wish to light a candle in your own home at this point. I will be lighting my chalice for worship at 11.00 am on Sunday morning) words by Laura Dobson.
We light our chalice candle as a symbol of the light of love.
The light reminds us that love is the greatest power in the world,
the love we share and bless each other with,
here in our beloved community;
the love we take out into the world,
bearing and sharing the light,
wherever we are and whoever we are with,
every day of our lives.
Opening Prayer
Spirit of Life and Love,
Be with us as we gather for worship,
Each in our own place.
Help us to feel a sense of community,
Even though we are physically apart.
Help us to care for each other,
In this world in which Covid has not yet gone away,
And the clouds of war and climate change overshadow us.
May we keep in touch however we can,
And help each other,
However we may.
May we remember that
caution is still needed,
that close contact is still unwise.
Help us to be grateful for the freedoms we have
and to respect the wishes of others.
May we hold in our hearts all those
Who are grieving, lost, alone,
Suffering in any way,
Amen
Hymn no. 176 Come together in Love
Reading from Paul’s First Epistle to the Corinthians, Chapter 13.
If I speak in the tongues of mortals and of angels, but do not have love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. And if I have prophetic powers, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing. If I give away all my possessions, and if I hand over my body so that I may boast, but do not have love, I gain nothing.
Love is patient; love is kind; love is not envious or boastful or arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice in wrongdoing, but rejoices in the truth. It bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.
Love never ends. But as for prophecies, they will come to an end; as for tongues, they will cease; as for knowledge, it will come to an end. For we know only in part, and we prophesy only in part; but when the complete comes, the partial will come to an end. When I was a child, I spoke like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child; when I became an adult, I put an end to childish ways. For now we see in a mirror, dimly, but then we will see face to face. Now I know only in part; then I will know fully, even as I have been fully known. And now faith, hope, and love abide, these three; and the greatest of these is love.
Alternative Lord’s Prayer
Spirit of Life and Love, here and everywhere,
May we be aware of your presence in our lives.
May our world be blessed.
May our daily needs be met,
And may our shortcomings be forgiven,
As we forgive those of others.
Give us the strength to resist wrong-doing,
The inspiration and guidance to do right,
And the wisdom to know the difference.
We are your hands in the world; help us to grow.
May we have compassion for all living beings,
And receive whatever life brings,
With courage and trust.
Amen
Hymn no. 188 Let Love Continue Long
Reading from The Prophet by Kahlil Gibran
Then said Almitra, speak to us of Love.
And he raised his head and looked upon the people, and there fell a stillness upon them. And with a great voice he said:
When love beckons to you, follow him, though his ways are hard and steep.
And when his wings enfold you, yield to him, though the sword hidden among his pinions may wound you.
And when he speaks to you, believe in him, though his voice may shatter your dreams as the north wind lays waste the garden.
For even as love crowns you so shall he crucify you. Even as he is for your growth, so is he for your pruning.
Even as he ascends to your height and caresses your tenderest branches that quiver in the sun, so shall he descend to your roots and shake them in their clinging to the earth.
Like sheaves of corn he gathers you unto himself.
He threshes you to make you naked. He sifts you to free you from your husks. He grinds you to whiteness. He kneads you until you are pliant.
And then he assigns you to his sacred fire, that you may become sacred bread for God’s sacred feast.
All these things shall love do unto you that you may know the secrets of your heart, and in that knowledge become a fragment of Life’s heart.
Prayer by Tony McNeile (adapted)
Spirit of Life and Love,
Let us open our hearts to prayer.
Love is the doctrine of this church.
Love that transcends.
Love that forgives.
Love that nourishes.
Love that heals.
Love that reaches out to help.
Love that makes friendships strong.
Let us be thankful for love in our lives.
We may find love in people or places, or pets
or find love alone in the beauty of solitude.
Let our hearts also reach out to those places and those people where there is little love or no love.
Places where love has been denied.
Places where love is a weapon and not a gift.
Let our prayer of love reach into those sad places with hope and strength.
Let our prayer of love reach out to one another today, a welcoming, supporting love, that tells us we are a community who care for one another, support one another in sickness and in health, in joy, and in sorrow.
Let us think of God’s love as a warm light that lives within us, that can shine from us. May that love lift us when we feel down and be praised when we are happy.
Amen
Hymn no. 189 True Religion
Reading from The Prophet by Kahlil Gibran
Love gives naught but itself and takes naught but from itself. Love possesses not, nor would it be possessed; for love is sufficient unto love.
When you love, you should not say, “God is in my heart,” but rather, “I am in the heart of God.”
And think not that you can direct the course of love, for love, if it finds you worthy, directs your course.
Love has no other desire but to fulfil itself. But if you love and must needs have desires, let these be your desires:
To melt and be like a running brook that sings its melody to the night.
To know the pain of too much tenderness.
To be wounded by your own understanding of love; and to bleed willingly and joyfully.
To wake at dawn with a winged heart and give thanks for another day of loving;
To rest at the noon hour and meditate love’s ecstasy;
To return home at eventide with gratitude;
And then to sleep with a prayer for the beloved in your heart
and a song of praise upon your lips.
Time of Stillness and Reflection
Let us now join in a time of stillness and reflection. The Buddhist Mettabhavna, or Prayer of Loving Kindness, is often used in Unitarian services, or for personal meditation. This is my version of it. After each line, I invite you to close your eyes, and pray for the people concerned, using the words given, if you wish…
First of all, we pray for ourselves: May I be well, may I be happy, may I be free from harm, may I find peace.
Next, we pray for our loved ones, those people who are dear to us: May they be well, may they be happy, may they be free from harm, may they find peace.
Next, we pray for someone less well-known to us, about whom we have no strong feelings, but whom we might know better, if we made the effort: May they be well, may they be happy, may they be free from harm, may they find peace.
Next, we pray for people we don’t know, for all the people who are doing their best to make a positive difference in the world, and for those who are lost in places of scarcity and fear: may they be well, may they be happy, may they be free from harm, may they find peace.
Next, we pray for someone we dislike, or find it difficult to get on with: may they be well, may they be happy, may they be free from harm, may they find peace.
Finally, we pray for the world: may all be well, may all be happy, may all be free from harm, may all find peace.
May all find peace, today and always, Amen
Musical Interlude Melodia Africana III by Ludovico Einaudi
Address Love: the Greatest Power
Love is an amazing phenomenon. I very much like Raymond Feist’s definition: “Love is a recognition, an opportunity to say, ‘There is something about you I cherish.’ It doesn’t entail marriage, or even physical love. There’s love of parents,” (to which I would add love of family) “love of city or nation, love of life, and love of people. All different, all love.”
And love is fundamental to human well-being. I am sure the older folk among us can remember the sad, sad photos of those little children in Romanian orphanages, left in their cots 24/7, with no attention paid to them, who had withdrawn into themselves, totally unable to relate to anyone else, because they had been starved of love and attention.
I would go so far as to say that we can only become fully rounded people if we love and are loved in return.
I have been enchanted by Kahlil Gibran’s book, The Prophet, ever since I found it in Hudson’s in Birmingham when I was a student. As you saw in the second and third readings, he (the Prophet) has some wise things to say about love. I must admit that when I was typing out the first of the two readings, I thought, “Wow! That’s quite strong stuff.” Gibran says that the ways of love are hard and steep, that we may be wounded by it, that its voice may shatter our dreams.
But my goodness, he’s absolutely right! Deep love, true love, to which we commit ourselves with our whole hearts, will “caress [our] tenderest branches that quiver in the sun, [and] descend to [our] roots and shake them in their clinging to the earth.” Love is the most powerful emotion in the world. When we truly love someone, we will put their welfare before our own, we will grieve when they are sad or unwell, and share in their joy when things are going well. Loving affects every particle of our being.
The Apostle Paul sums up the all-embracing nature of love beautifully, in the well-known words, “Love is patient; love is kind; love is not envious or boastful or arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice in wrongdoing, but rejoices in the truth. It bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.” And, I would add, forgives all things.
Gibran’s Prophet also speaks of love as a force for change and spiritual growth. “Even as he is for your growth, so he is for your pruning.” If we see God as Love at the centre of everything (which I do), it is not surprising that the process of growing in love can be a challenging one. When we choose to try to live in a spirit of love, we are choosing to make ourselves vulnerable, and vulnerability can hurt. Love can only be offered. We can never guarantee that the other person will love us back, or love us next week, next year… or that they will remain healthy and with us. Choosing to love another person is undoubtedly a vulnerable thing to do. Love comes with no guarantees – it is without strings. It involves trusting that the universe is a benevolent place and that the best thing we can do is to love one another as God loves us.
Because without love, our lives would be dry and barren indeed. Jesus recognised this when he described “Love your neighbour as yourself” as one of the two greatest commandments. It’s a cunning phrase, that. Many people only take notice of the first half “love your neighbour”. And so, we do our best, calling on our elderly neighbour to see whether she needs any shopping doing; buying an extra couple of packets of pasta at the supermarket and leaving them in the food bank container; perhaps buying a cup of coffee for a homeless person. Giving regularly to charity. But it’s never enough. We could always do more.
But I’m also fascinated by the two, almost throwaway words “as yourself”. Because if we don’t love ourselves, we won’t believe that we are worthy of the love of others. And operating from a place of low self-esteem, low self-worth makes it less likely that we will be sufficiently generous with our hearts to love other people. As though love was like a pie – only so much to go round. Which leads to a mindset of scarcity and fear. At least, that’s what I think… Whereas love, especially Love with a capital L, is infinite – there is always enough to go round. I know that from the births of my two children, decades ago. When my son was born, I was consumed with love for him and didn’t think it would be possible to love anyone else as much. But when my daughter was born, four years later, I found that I loved her just as much. Love is infinitely elastic, as are our hearts.
So I would rather try to follow the Prophet’s advice and “wake at dawn with a winged heart and give thanks for another day of loving… return home at eventide with gratitude; and then to sleep with a prayer for the beloved in your heart and a song of praise upon your lips.” It sounds like a wonderful way to spend our days…
There are so many ways to show our love for other people. We can phone them up for a chat, drop them an e-mail to ask how they are, post uplifting stuff instead of doom-and-gloom on social media – the possibilities are endless. And we can look out for each other. We can show our love by offering to help those less fortunate than we are.
We can try to adopt a positive mindset towards our circumstances, whatever they are, and spend time with our loved ones, talking, curled up on the sofa with a tub of popcorn and a good film, playing board games, sharing “food and faith and fellowship” on a smaller scale. Rather than endlessly scrolling through the feeds on our phones, which is such an isolating way to live.
Of course, it can be difficult to feel loving, or at least to behave in a loving way, towards everyone, particularly in a time of stress. Our instinct is to curl in ourselves and look after Number One. Yet in the long run, this rarely works. Like I said, we human beings are designed to be in connection with each other – to love and to be loved. Once again, the teachings of Jesus sum up what we should do:
“Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for those who abuse you. … Do to others as you would have them do to you. If you love those who love you, what credit is that to you? For even sinners do the same. If you lend to those from whom you hope to receive, what credit is that to you? Even sinners lend to sinners, to receive as much again. But love your enemies, do good, and lend, expecting nothing in return. … Be merciful just as your Father is merciful.”
This can be hard advice to hear, and harder yet to live up to. But if we want to live in a spirit of love, I believe the attempt must be made.
There are people whose lives have been shining examples of putting this Golden Rule, which is shared by all the major religions, into practice. Rev. Martin Luther King was one; Nelson Mandela was another; so was Mother Theresa. I could also mention the Dalai Lama and Archbishop Desmond Tutu. What all these people have in common is that whatever life threw at them, they somehow managed to rise above the natural human instincts for revenge and hate, above the feelings of fear and scarcity, and continued to live their lives in a spirit of love.
It’s a big wide world, and we are only little people. But we can resolve to make our little corners of the world more loving places. Let us be like Abou Ben Adhem, in the poem by 19th century poet, Leigh Hunt, with which I will close:
Abou Ben Adhem (may his tribe increase)
Awoke one night from a deep dream of peace,
And saw, within the moonlight of his room,
Making it rich, and like a lily in bloom,
An Angel, writing in a book of gold;
Exceeding peace had made Ben Adhem bold,
And to the presence in the room he said,
“What writest thou?” – The vision raised its head,
And with a look made all of sweet accord,
Answer’d “The names of those who love the Lord.”
“And is mine one?” said Abou. “Nay, not so,”
Replied the angel. Abou spoke more low,
But cheerily still; and said, “I pray thee, then,
Write me as one that loves his fellow men.”
The angel wrote and vanished. The next night
It came again, with a great wakening light,
And showed the names whom love of God had bless’d,
And lo! Ben Adhem’s name led all the rest.
Hymn no. 191 To Worship Rightly
Closing Words by James A. Hobart
As we depart from one another,
let our hearts be secure through every human season.
Let our hearts be secure in seasons of anguish,
as in seasons of joy,
in seasons of failure,
as in seasons of success,
in seasons of uncertainty
as in seasons of insecurity.
Let our hearts be secure in this dual reality:
we are worthy recipients of love and support we can never earn,
and we are worthy providers of love and support others cannot earn.
Let our hearts be secure,
For hearts know and understand,
And will respond if invited in.
Amen
Postlude Stella del Mattino by Ludovico Einaudi