SE020710
IT’S ALL GREEK TO ME
1. Storge (Family Affection)
Think about all the things you love:
- You love your wife
- You love your kids
- You love your truck
- You love the Seahawks (sometimes)
- You love those little Christmas oranges
- You love a hot bath
- You love the smell of flowers in spring
- You love Tom Clancy novels.
- You love your cat
o And how we wish we could say the feeling was mutual!
What’s clear is that “LOVE” can mean a lot of different things. It makes you wonder if we shouldn’t have invented a few more words to flesh out the concept! If the same word can apply to my feelings for an orange AND for my wife, something is horribly deficient in our language!!
English may be the most widely spoken language in the history of the world, but that’s not because it’s superior as languages go. Any English teacher trying to teach kids the rules and the exceptions to the rules of English grammar will agree:
“I before “E” except after “C”, or when sounding like ay as in neighbor or weigh, and on weekends, and holidays, and all throughout May, and you'll always be wrong, no matter what you say!" As comedian Brian Regan says, "That's a hard rule."
HOWEVER, there is a language where such rules were not necessary because amazingly when they used a letter in a word you did something strange with it: you pronounced it – the same every time. That language is Greek. Beyond those strengths, Greek also is less impoverished than our own when it comes to language of love.
Specifically instead of one word for LOVE they had 4. And this whole month we will look at those words and how they can help enrich our love lives. And as we’ll see, that will mean so more than just our sex lives, (although we’ll have something to say about that too. We are going to have church on Valentines Day after all!)
GOD IS LOVE, LOVE IS NOT GOD
It’s critical that we get God’s balanced view on love. For the Bible says that God is love. But when it says that, it is not saying as some thing, that LOVE is God. So we agree with Paul who says the “Greatest of virtues is love” but we disagree with the Beatles who told us:
ALL YOU NEED IS LOVE.
You say, “how can that be Rick? Why isn’t love all we need – if God is love? Well, think of the Mother who says of her child, “that little boy is my life”. You might think that’s a great example of love. But then remember what Jesus said,
“anyone who would seek his life will lose it.”
When we seek our life in a certain kind of love and not in God, we wind up losing out on both God and the love. The minute that that boy becomes our life, the minute he becomes necessary to my hope, my worth, my sense of BEING, have made my love for him into a God. I’ve said Love is God. But if that little boy is my LIFE, then how will you stop from controlling him, over protecting him, over providing for him, and thus abusing him - all for our own sake, to maintain OUR life – not his.
So men and women, each of the FOUR loves can be an angel of God, or, if we worship it, a demon.
THE FOUR LOVES
So let’s define them. Some of you recognize CS Lewis’ classic book, the FOUR LOVES in this series and that is where we got the idea. We’ll be asking what the Bible says about each of these four GREEK words for love. They are:
- STORGE
- EROS
- PHILIA and
- AGAPE
You probably easily recognize the middle two GREEK WORDS from English words we use:
- EROS turns into EROTIC and PHILIA shows up in many words like PHILOSOPHY, PHILANTHROPY and PHILADELPHIA.
o AGAPE refers to charitable love – special Christian meaning for our relationship with God.
o EROS as you might image refers to passionate love, with sensual desire and longing. Eros does not have to be sexual in nature, but it always contains the strong element of DESIRE.
o PHILIA means friendship love. It’s more dispassionate than Eros. It includes loyalty to friends, and it requires virtue and equality and here’s key idea: VOLUNTARY association. Those I love by choice because of some virtue or something I prefer in them.
DEFINING STORGE
- STORGE, refers to family love. We don’t really have any word like it in English. It means natural affection, like that felt by parents for children. Unlike Philia, the key idea here is: love that develops in situations that are non-voluntary.
We start with STORGE because it’s the most basic and universal form of love. It’s the love you experienced when you came out of the womb, helpless and needy, and you found arms to hold you and breasts to nurture you. So STORGE is sort of the TAKE IT FOR GRANTED kind of love; a love we all need – usually in our families.
Now, you already might be thinking, “wait, all these different loves sort of run into each other.” And you’d be right. But especially STORGE bleeds into all the other loves because AFFECTION is what happens when we get FAMILIAR with someone. Familiar is same word we get FAMILY from. You’re most familiar with your family.
- So when a PHILIA friendship becomes a very, very close friend, we often say, “she’s like a sister” or “he’s like a brother” – that’s when STORGE creeps into PHILIA
- And STORGE even creeps into a relationship built on EROTIC desire when the lovers grow more comfortable with each other and it’s not all PASSION or WORSHIP.
So STORGE is mostly a part of FAMILY, but
- it shows up in a COLLEGE dorm too,
- it’s what the crew of SHIP has and
- it’s the kind of love you’d even find in our church.
o It is the natural affection you have for people you don’t pick. It’s the people you’re thrown in with by chance.
So that’s STORGE. Now let’s talk about what’s great about this kind of love, and then some of it’s dangers.
THE GOOD
We share STORGE with the animals. It shouldn’t be shameful for Christians to admit this. Anyone who was ever born and raised on a farm knows that STORGE is built into us and the animal kingdom as surely as the Canada Goose instinct to fly south in the winter.
Look at a dog with her pups. Look at birds with chicks. The babies come into the world with nothing but need. BUT somewhere in us as PARENTS is a need to be needed. Isn’t that amazing? It’s the creation of God and it’s beautiful to watch. It allows for care to take shape because we’ve been thrown in together – and not because of likeness or worthiness.
- So ALL the pups get cleaned and fed, even though one is pushy and the other is runty.
- In fact, this fondness may develop, even if the pups, are pups!
o This is Syria and Roscoe – they have become BFF! They were thrown in together as babies, and Syria has adopted Roscoe
o And it’s been known to happen with a pig and a tiger
A Giraffe and an Ostrich
o And this is a picture of Tara. She was transferred to a retired Elephant farm in Tennessee. Every Elephant that comes there finds a friend. Of course, it's always another elephant, with the notable exception of Bella who adopted
a stray dog named Bella, who just wandered on the property. They drink together, they play together, and stay together - no matter what.
When Bella got sick last year and had to live in the sanctuary office, guess who stood vigil? For three weeks, Tara waited there. To get her to eat they had to bring Bella out to see her.
This is STORGE. The need to be needed, and how that attaches to those you’re involuntarily thrown together with in life, in an animal preserve, or in your family.
The thing here is that this STORGE LOVE, most clearly seen in MOTHER love, is not really all that discriminating. It’s not concerned with the worthiness of the object. All mother’s love unconditionally. Well, not all, but most do… and that’s why when a mother withholds her STORGE from a child, that child is messed up far more it seems than from a father. Some rejection is expected, but we are so needy, some LOVE must be taken for granted.
And this is the greatest part of STORGE – family affection. You come into a family and one thing you should expect is love. In the Church God says, (SLIDE) Romans 15:7:
“Accept one another then, just as in Christ, God accepted you.”
And in context that refers specifically to the fact that sometimes our brothers and sisters in the church do things
- that ruffle our feathers,
- that harsh our mellow,
- that upset our scruples.
o What should we do? Accept each other!
o It’s the nature of a family. You’re thrown in together, you had no choice in the matter. God saw fit to put you with this brother, this sister, this parent, this child. We better make the most of it.
No wonder in church we’re called the FAMILY of God. Family love must rule here. So when STORGE is strong in a church, or in a family, acceptance and tolerance are strong:
Col 3:12-13 Therefore, as God's chosen people, holy and dearly loved, clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience. 13 Bear with each other.
“Bear with each other.” That’s STORGE. Familial affection. Just because… The amazing thing about this, is that when this love is working in your family it in can unite people who most emphatically – EVEN COMICALLY – do not belong together (except for their last name or the shape of their nose!).
- An extrovert son, an introvert father.
- An athletic daughter a bookworm mother
- STORGE brings them together with humility and compassion and patience.
o They BEAR with each other.
How much “bearing” with each other is going on in your family?
o Friend, our families are uniquely the places of acceptance. Of that “JUST BECAUSE” sort of affection that everyone needs, but no one deserves.
There’s someone in your house that honestly, you wouldn’t in a million years pick as your friend, but whom you must love, bearing with them. That means carrying the burden that they represent. Living with the rub they present to you every day…
It’s the glory of STORGE love, family affection, that it begins to see strengths where we would never see them before, because we would never choose them for ourselves. But those very strengths we start to appreciate for one reason and one reason only: We’re family. We’re together and suddenly my fondness for you grows – even if I think you’re kinda strange.
The best picture of this from recent culture is Walt Kowalski played beautifully by Clint Eastwood in the movie Gran Torino. I would have brought a clip, but I couldn’t find one that didn’t have language that would make a sailor blush. So watch it at your own risk, but actually the rough language makes the point I’m making.
Walk Kowalski is a surly, gruff, foul mouthed widower set in his ways. He is a cranky, bitter old man, who passes his time taking care of his mint 1973 Gran Torino – the love of his life. He loves the car more than his own grown children or his Vietnamese neighbors whom he spits out racist nicknames on constantly.
But when teenager Tao, one of his Vietnamese neighbors, tries to steal his prized possession as part of a gang initiation, Kowalski sets out to reform the youth by teaching him the value of hard work. Eventually, Kowalski is begrudgingly drawn into the life of Tao's family. And what happens?
The Vietnamese family begins to see something in that old racist coot. And it’s comical and humorous how much they DON’T belong… but the STORGE is strong in that Asian clan and old Walt gets enveloped into their affection, just because… Their fondness for him grows DESPITE Walt’s prickly nature.
But this is the glory of STORGE. When STORGE offers it’s uncritical affection, it allows you to begin to see in someone what you could never see before. What you would have never seen if we got to pick all your family members and all your neighbors. But sometimes, you don’t’ get to pick. Your family is just a given. And these “gooks” that Walt wishes often and loudly had stayed in their own country, begin to “grow on him”, as we say.
That’s STORGE.
And as a result, they begin to see something in Walt. A nobility, a hard work ethic, a fierce defender of justice. And they need that. This he employs to good use as Walt devotes himself to protecting Tao and his sister Sue from a dangerous gang in the neighborhood. The mix of the tall grumpy Eastwood, and the short affable Vietnamese neighbors growing in affection is comical – and beautiful; A picture of the church, and hopefully a picture of your family too.
“First we notice, then we smile at, then we enjoy and finally we appreciate the people who “just happen to be there”. Made to suit us? No sir. They are as CS Lewis says, simply themselves. Odder than you could have believed and worth far more than you guessed.”
So the Bible warns fathers saying,
“do not exasperate your children.”
Meaning, do not frustrate them. Why would fathers tend to bring their children to anger? By an overbearing desire to mold them into something more suitable to us, our tastes. We must bring them up instead in the discipline and instruction of the Lord. So discipline yes! Teach them boundaries! But according to the same rules as the Family of God:
Accept one another… bear with one another… honor one another…
- How? Touch – Words – Gifts – Service – Time!
THE BAD
But now we’re getting toward the danger. The danger of this TAKE IT FOR granted acceptance is simply this:
that we take it for granted!
STORGE can love the unattractive… and that is it’s very downside as we come to EXPECT, even to PRESUME upon this love in our families. Because FAMILY AFFECTION is so natural, like a mother’s love, we think of it as built in. And of course, much of it has been built in. Mother’s don’t much worry what their babies look like, they’ll love them just the same. But as this love meets in us parents a deep need to be needed, we make the gift into a god.
And when we do, then that nurturing mother can become, I afraid to say it so bluntly, a maternal vampire, who sucks the life out of the very children she loves so much.
Which of you hasn’t been the guest at a family meal when the father starts to treat his children – sometimes grown children – with a kind of blunt rudeness you wouldn’t put on an enemy who stole money from you? Holy awkward moment batman.
Now, how does this happen? Because of Affection! That’s right, it’s STORGE gone bad. That’s right – love causes this kind of hate! Because we are relaxed in our homes. Why relaxed? Because we’re accepted there! We can be ourselves there! We can speak the truth there. We can settle there.
But we settle too much. Friends, I worry that sometimes our rules for how we handle ourselves are far too lax in our homes. Affection takes liberties you say. Yes, it does, but when
- We cut with our tongues because of our resentment
- We disrespect and dishonor because of our pride
- We treat an adult like a child or a child like an adult
- When we claim the liberty of AFFECTION to say anything we want… wow:
o We’ve distorted STORGE. Twisted it.
When we speak, the Bible says we “speak the truth, IN LOVE.”
What happens sometimes if you call a person to account when they take advantage of STORE love? When they presume upon it’s TAKEN FOR GRANTED-NESS…? I’ve seen this: a family member gets on his or her high horse turns it around and plays the victim. They were so loose with their tongue just a moment ago, now, they become overly stiff and polite:
“Oh, so, we’re not going to be family here I guess. I guess we can’t be honest. I guess we’re just going to be acquaintances is all. Have it your way.”
And now I hope you can see how love is NOT God – for love, unguarded, undirected, unmanaged, by TRUTH, by something Higher can actually, through a process just like this, become a form of hate. A stick with which I can manipulate you, or beat you.
So for all of us, I have this question:
Has your STORGE love turned into something else in your heart? What are you calling love that if God were to judge it, might be more likely labeled hate?
Rick, you say, there is no such place in my house! Really? None?
- No service that you perform to try to remind yourself of what a great parent you are – not because anyone really asked you to do it?
- No parental intervention that you do just so that you can feel needed,
o OR to try and escape the harsh reality that your parenting will be judged by how much they WON’T need you someday.
- No part of you that actually liked feeling a little taken advantage of by your family, because there is pleasure in self pity?
Grandma Thiessen. She lived for her family. People couldn’t stop her! Nor could you watch her – you had to help. That is, they did thing for her to help her to do things for us which we didn’t want done. Worked her fingers to the bone. Meddled in grown children’s affairs. The pastor said she was at rest, and we trust that it is so. It’s certain that her children are.
That’s not love, friend. Not as God would define it. That’s the dark side of STORGE. This is love as God would have it directed by who HE is:
1 Cor 13:4-7 Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres
