On Sunday, Pastor Phil was preaching and he said, “Love is not vague.”  It was a really good line.  I don’t know if he meant it to be the most memorable thing about his sermon, but it has stayed with me all week.

The last month has been full and difficult with my dad’s death, his visiting hours, funeral, interment, and helping Mom with all the paperwork involved in death.  But I have seen that sentence by Pastor Phil demonstrated in my life every day.

Love is not vague.  I have never been big on going to visiting hours or funerals.  As a pastor I went to hundreds.  Since Tom and I retired I haven’t been to very many.  We are often out of town.  It is a long drive.  I would have to cancel this or that.  There are other things I would rather do.  I have so many excuses, but I realized that they are mostly just that – excuses.

 

On the Thursday night of visiting hours, hundreds of people showed my family that their love is not vague.  I had a dozen friends that drove over an hour to come and support me during that time.  They came from Pittsburgh, Cleveland, and Akron.  They gave me hugs and spent time talking when I could snatch a minute between greeting others.  They shed more tears than I did, because they understood what it means to lose a parent.

On Saturday, when we had the funeral, hundreds more came to the funeral.  The church was full of community people, patients of Dad’s, friends, and family.  They had to drive through a thunderstorm to attend.  Some of them could only stay for a few minutes of the greeting time before the service.  But many stayed for visiting, the service, and then for lunch.  The church members set up a wonderful luncheon that fed our bodies and spirits.  Love was not vague.  It was expressed through words and actions, laughter and tears.

Since my dad died, I have received so many cards.  More than I get for birthdays or other special events.  Grief is something we all understand and experience.  I especially appreciate all the people who tell me stories about my dad and his impact on their lives.  I could listen to them over and over.  It is funny how it makes me miss him less and miss him more at the same time.

Love is not vague.  I have been so thankful for all the people who have demonstrated this over the last month.  I have a new appreciation for the rituals of death and for the people who show up.  The Bible never describes love as a feeling, but as actions that we take each day.  Actions that are concrete.

James 2 talks about how faith and actions are combined.  I think those verses could just as easily have been written about the kind of love shown to me and my family this month.  “I will show you my love by my deeds.”

¹⁴ What good is it, my brothers and sisters, if someone claims to have faith but has no deeds? Can such faith save them? ¹⁷ In the same way, faith by itself, if it is not accompanied by action, is dead.  Show me your faith without deeds, and I will show you my faith by my deeds. ²⁴ You see that a person is considered righteous by what they do and not by faith alone.  ²⁶ As the body without the spirit is dead, so faith without deeds is dead.

Love is not vague.  It is shown by our actions every day.  And how we love others reflects how we love God.