What’s love got to do with it?

“What’s love got to do with it?” The iconic Tina Turner belted this question in her raw style. She followed that with, “What’s love but a second-hand emotion?” The singer-songwriter sounded angry and cynical. Pain infused the lyrics. The next line explained where that came from: “Who needs a heart when a heart can be broken?” Yes, she rose to stardom, but she paid a high personal price and suffered abuse.

That wasn’t love, Tina. That was domination. “What’s love got to do with it?” If we are talking about real love, then the answer is EVERYTHING. Love has everything to do with it.

When love is not present, all kinds of substitutions fill the void. They ultimately fall short. The absence of love leaves a dangerous vacuum, as is noted by the priest, writer and theologian, Henri Nouwen: 

The well-known chapter about love in Paul’s letter to the Corinthians opens with another warning about the absence of love.

 “If I could speak all human languages and even the language of angels but didn’t love others, I would be nothing more than a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal.”

(contemporary English version)

Love is much more than an emotion. It is a commitment, a guiding frame of reference, a lens through which all things are viewed. When Jesus was asked about the greatest commandment, he readily replied that it is to love God, but that the second follows closely, which is to love one’s neighbors as one loves oneself. The ethical imperative to love one’s neighbor is foundational to the world’s religions. The follow-up question of “Who is my neighbor?” prompted the telling of the parable of the Good Samaritan or the traveler in distress on the road.

It bothered me when couples about to be married wanted me to read I Corinthians 13 at their weddings, but then ignored its principles as soon as the honeymoon was over. A mantra I repeated throughout my years of active ministry was “… love of one’s neighbor begins at home.” We can practice love in our families and close circles of friends, but it is not meant to stay there.

Love is the plumbline, the guiding principle, the gold standard to which we aspire and through which all interactions are viewed.

It is beyond distressing that there are those who claim the name of Christianity, but who do not speak or live by its most basic principle of love. It is sad and frustrating that people are turned off to Christianity because of a warped interpretation of it that has self-serving ends. The gospel of Matthew cites Jesus using the analogy that you will know someone by “their fruit.” (Matthew 7:15) This is similar in meaning to the saying that actions speak louder than words. Don’t talk about love; show it.

We see love in action in Minneapolis, Minnesota, and other places where neighbors are caring for neighbors in the most basic ways, bringing food, walking children to school and providing for basic needs. For some, love in action has exacted a high cost.

When love is present, people are bound together in ways big and small.

You may be familiar with a James Taylor song from the early 1990s with the catchy chorus:

“Shed a little light, oh Lord, so that we can see. Just a little, light, oh Lord.”

You may be less familiar with the verses that precede it, which are especially meaningful during this Black History Month:

Oh, let us turn our thoughts today to Martin Luther King

And recognize that there are ties between us

All men and women, living on the earth

Ties of hope and love, sister and brotherhood

That we are bound together

In our desire to see the world become

A place in which our children can grow free and strong

We are bound together by the task that stands before us

And the road that lies ahead

We are bound, and we are bound.

May we be bound by ties of hope and love that make us a stronger community. May we be a place where each and every neighbor belongs and a place where we act on the knowledge that love has everything to do with it.