Well the truth is Christian love is a problem for a lot of people, including Christians. It is a problem in part because of language. Love is the same word an adoring husband might whisper to his beloved wife on a twenty fifth wedding anniversary and is the same word a child might whisper to her puppy. Love is used on the streets for hello, goodbye and in common endearments like "Lov ya man." You can't help but wonder if the word has lost its meaning by abuse and overuse?

While the commandments to love your God and to love your neighbor are often considered the foundation of modern Christianity, most people today have a hard time understanding how one can "command" another person to love someone, no matter how good or disciplined one might want to be. We do call this the "great commandment" but as the saying goes, you may be able to get a horse to water but you can't force him to drink. It becomes progressively more difficult when you realize that Christians are instructed not only love our neighbors, but our enemies as well. For a lot of people including Christians, this just does not make sense.

How many of us chose to practice that kind of unconditional love?

"Eat, friends, drink, and be drunk with love."

Did Norah Jones whisper it? No. Did Frank Sinatra croon it? No. Did Maria Muldaur write it? No. Did Yanni sing it? No. This line comes straight out of the Bible - from the Song of Solomon, chapter 5, verse 1. Here's some more:

"I gather my myrrh with my spice, I eat my honeycomb with my honey, I drink my wine with my milk. I slept, but my heart was awake. Listen! My beloved is knocking. Open to me, my sister, my love; my dove, my perfect one; for my head is wet with dew, my locks with the drops of the night."

The Song of Solomon is a steamy romance between a man and a woman. For thousands of years, Jewish and Christian theologians attempted to define the Song of Solomon as a long allegory about God's love for humanity. God was the lover and human beings were the beloved. This was a creative interpretation of the text, but certainly not the first meaning that leaps off the pages.

Yet this spiritual, symbolic hearing of the Song was more than just an attempt to denature its very earthy sexuality. Across religious boundaries, there is a long tradition of blurring the distinction between human and divine love.

To read this entire article, click here: Love

God loves creation and infuses the divine life-breath into creation again and again and again.  Love is permeated throughout the earth, in the waters and skies, in babies and cornfields, in ghettos and factories even, in urban streets and the deserts of Iraq.  God is loving us and calling us to make good on our promises.

This Lent, we're asking you to fall in love again.  Like a marriage between two people who love each other, who make a promise for better or for worse, we're asking you to fulfill a promise rooted in love, a covenant made between our God and our world that we might love so deeply that we act not out of our own self-interest, but out of the love we have for each other.  Fall in love again with God's creation. For we have a covenant based on love.  So, FALL IN LOVE!

To read this sermon, click here: COVENANT