The Power of Love

Like many other people, my days are filled with things to do and places to go.  Right from the get-go, I’ve got a “to do” list and the internal dialogue between my two ears is the ordering of it.

If there’s a problem, I’ll quickly jump to possible solutions before carefully assessing the nature of it in all its complexity.  This is especially true, if the matter brought to my attention involves another person.

How many times have we all been that busy, hostage to the chores of the day?

In our lesson from Mark, Jesus is confronted with a personal problem on his busy journey.  He also has places to go and things to do.  In the midst of the busyness, he seeks some respite in a private home.  He just needs a few moments of peace and quiet for himself. So, an interruption comes as a big annoyance.  A thing to be dispatched with quickly.  It is the story of the Syrophoenician woman who seeks healing for her demon-possessed daughter.

When the woman makes her request, Jesus abruptly dismisses her with, “’Let the children [of Israel] be fed first, for it is not fair to take the children’s food and throw it to the dogs.’  But she answered him, ‘Sir, even the dogs under the table eat the children’s crumbs.’”

Her clever response cuts him short.  To listen, really hear what the other is saying and be affected by it.  That’s the “Power of Love.”

A favorite from the film, “Back to the Future” by Huey Lewis and the News, “The Power of Love,” soared right to the top of the charts.

The Power of Love is deep, down really listening to what’s said and what’s not said.

The chorus nailed it:

You don’t need money, don’t take fame
Don’t need no credit card to ride this train
It’s strong and it’s sudden, and it’s cruel sometimes
But it might just save your life
That’s the power of love
That’s the power of love

The power of Jesus Love was intense, active listening.  He let that women get to him.  And she WAS RIGHT! 

The God spark in him was changed by her plea.

In the midst of his annoyance, Jesus listened.  Actively listened.

That was the first lesson of my married life.  I had to learn to really listen to Jai, to let her inside and take account of her concerns.  To be emotionally available.  It’s taken fifty-seven years and I’m still working on it.

Jai gets the first crack at each and every sermon.  My first question to her after she’s read it, “Was it interesting?”  Second, “Did it give you a better understanding of the scripture lesson?”  My writing has profited immensely from simply listening to my wife.  Her gift back to me is the Power of Love.

The Church also listened, realizing that its mission is far more comprehensive than to a small, select group of the “chosen”.  The Gospel mandate transcended culture, race and gender.  We’re still working on that lesson.  Indeed, “In Christ there is no east or west, no north or south.”

The broader mission all began with truly hearing the anguished plea of this outsider, this foreigner.  In hearing those on the margins, we also may learn to listen to our own lives.

Frederick Buechner points the way, “Listen to your life. See it for the fathomless mystery it is. In the boredom and pain of it, no less than in the excitement and gladness: touch, taste, smell your way to the holy and hidden heart of it, because in the last analysis all moments are key moments, and life itself is grace.”  Listen to the lives of those around you and see their lives as sheer grace.

And in listening to those whom we would too quickly dismiss, we stumble upon the amazing grace of who we are – renewal for ourselves and for the world.  That’s the Power of Love.

When I was teaching, and had to referee a dispute between two young fellows on the playground, one of the first things I learned was to listen deeply to both sides.  The matter was never so simple as it seemed to either of the disputants.   My duty was to give both boys voice, let each be heard.

Recently, Nicholas Kristof had some very important advice on listening in his latest op-ed column, “Why We Shouldn’t Demean Trump Voters.”  And, yes, I have to plead guilty.

Quoting Bill Clinton, he writes “’I urge you to meet people where they are,’ said Clinton, who knows something about winning votes outside of solid blue states. ‘I urge you not to demean them, but not to pretend you don’t disagree with them if you do. Treat them with respect — just the way you’d like them to treat you.’”[1]

Kristof continues, “It’s more than politically stupid – it’s difficult to win votes from people you’re disparaging.”  But it’s more than that.

Kristof adds, “It has also seemed to me morally offensive, particularly when well-educated and successful elites are scorning disadvantaged, working-class Americans who have been left behind economically and socially and in many cases are dying young. They deserve empathy, not insults.”

Good politics begins with deep listening and really hearing the other. 

When Kristof shared with some of his colleagues the nature of his forthcoming piece, many were aghast.  “Plenty of readers replied hotly: ‘But they deserve to be demeaned!’”

Kristof counsels that we step back and all take a deep breath.  He recalls FDR’s radio address, a “Fireside Chat” of April 7, 1932.  His talk, “The Forgotten Man,” addressing a nation at the height of the Great Depression, roused a nation to believe in one another.

FDR did not scold, did not cast blame.  He heard and empathized.  I like to think that this demeanor came deep from what he had learned over the years in his Episcopal congregation.  And listening to his Eleanor.

“These unhappy times call for the building of plans that rest upon the forgotten, the unorganized but the indispensable units of economic power, for plans like those of 1917 that build from the bottom up and not from the top down, that put their faith once more in the forgotten man at the bottom of the economic pyramid.”[2] 

As his funeral train made its way across the nation, a man was found weeping along the route, and was asked if President Roosevelt had been a close friend. “I didn’t know him,” the man replied. “But he knew me.” This was a feeling shared by millions of Americans.

Roosevelt listened.  He listened to his former colleagues in congress.  He listened to the reports Eleanor brought back from her trips throughout the land.  In the grace of his listening our nation was healed.  That’s the Power of Love.  Gospel Love.

The Power of Love is the willingness to listen, especially when the news is not good of favorable to oneself.  And let that message into your soul.  To be affected by it at the depths of one’s being.  To risk being changed by it.

This past week, on the front cover of The Economist was the headline on Sudan.[3]  This is a tragedy that has received far less coverage than the war in Ukraine and Gaza, yet it is deadlier than both combined.

“Africa’s third-largest country is ablaze. Its capital city has been razed, perhaps 150,000 people have been slaughtered and bodies are piling up in makeshift cemeteries visible from space.  More than 10 million people, a fifth of the population have been forced to flee from their homes…6 to 10 million people could die from starvation.”  Folks, this is not “Morning in America.”  And the world stands by as a collection of bad actors – Russia, Iran, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Turkey have played both sides to their own benefit. 

We, in the West, need to impose biting sanctions on those fueling the conflict with money, weapons and soldiers.  We need to hear the cries of the ignored.  We must heed their call.   I wonder how long we would turn our heads if these victims were white.  And don’t think that this disaster will not find it’s way to our door.

Lord have mercy, Christ have mercy, Lord have mercy upon us.

We have abandoned this part of the world just as we have abandoned the women of Afghanistan.  As far as they are concerned Biden has been no different than Trump.  They both conspired to sell these women and girls into a future of misery and abject servitude.

No education beyond the sixth grade is permitted for girls.  For women, no employment in virtually any job.  Women are not to be allowed in public spaces – parks, gyms, shopping areas.  They are virtually restricted to the home, being housewives and having children. 

We sold them out.  They were not consulted in the negotiations and abandonment that extinguished their hopes.  All decided by a bunch of men who cared not a whit about their future or aspirations.  Colin Powell once said, “It’s Pottery Barn rules.  You break it, you own it.”  Apparently, not us.

Lord have mercy.  Christ have mercy.  Lord have mercy on us all.

A widow, Ms. Rahmani, who had worked for nonprofit groups for nearly 20 years before the Taliban seized power, cannot now provide for her four children since women were barred from employment.

“’I miss the days when I used to be somebody, when I could work and earn a living and serve my country,’ Ms. Rahmani explained.  ‘They have erased our presence from society.’”[4]

This is our doing.  We invaded their nation then walked away leaving a complete disaster.  The men in charge took no thought for what they left behind for one half of the population, the women and girls.

Can you hear them now?  Let us deeply listen to their pain.  Listen as Jesus deeply listened to that Syrophoenician woman.  As he listened to so many along the fraught road to Jerusalem.  This is the first act of love.

Lord have mercy.  Christ have mercy.  Lord have mercy upon us.

Listen we must.  And become aware.  Support aid through whatever channel.  “Your thoughts and prayers” are insufficient here if not acted upon.

The Power of Love may seem insignificant, but when infinitely multiplied by the Spirit that stimulates creative solutions, empowers our gumption and fortifies courage, who knows what the Almighty can do through those of us willing to listen and to act?  For the present, perhaps the best we can do is to immerse ourselves in the spirituality of the Serenity Prayer.  Ask and accept forgiveness.

God grant me the serenity
to accept the things I cannot change;
courage to change the things I can;
and wisdom to know the difference.

Then we’ll see the amazing Power of Love. 

May it be so.  Amen.

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[1] Nicholas Kristof, “Why We Shouldn’t Demean Trump Voters,” New York Times, August 1, 2024.

[2] Franklin D. Roosevelt, “The Forgotten Man,” Fireside Chat, April 7, 1932.

[3] “Why Sudan’s War is the World’s Problem,” The Economist, 9.

[4] Christina Goldbaum and Najim Rahim, “With New Taliban Manifesto, Afghan Women Fear the Worst,” New York Times, September 4, 2024.

September 8, 2024
16 Pentecost, Proper 18

Isaiah 35:4-7a; Psalm 146;James 2:1-10, 14-17; Mark 7:24-37

“The Power of Love”