I may have faith that can move mountains. I may give away all that I have. I may even give my own life, but if I have no love, nothing. Love is that which gives value to every other mark of the Christian life. That s what I said three years ago and as I thought about that, I began to wonder if love is the essential ingredient of Christian life, if it is the very character and nature of Christian community.
Love means different things to different people.
If you ask a fifteen year old on her way to see U2, you ll get one answer. If you ask a couple who have been married thirty, forty, or fifty years who have seen their kids through broken bones and broken hearts, who have endured days when the bank account hovered perilously close to zero, who have seen jobs come and go, hopes rise and fall and rise again, you will get an entirely different answer. If we read a valentine card all covered with hearts and flowers, we ll hear one thing. If we were to read the private journal of a member of a religious order dedicated to serving the poor, we would hear something very different. Many of you will remember Tevye, the poor Russian Jew in the musical Fiddler on the Roof.