Looking Ahead to February 15, 2026

 The Scripture Readings this week are:

• 1 Corinthians 13:4-7
• 1 John 3:11-19

The Sermon title is How Do You Speak Love?

Early Thoughts: The central commandment in Christian ethics and morality is to Love: Love God, Love Neighbour as you Love yourself, Love each other as you have been loved. But as Walter Farquharson reminds us in his hymn Would You Bless Our Homes and Families, "love's expressed in many ways".

Source

So how do you speak love? How do you express love? Which Love Language is your native tongue?

Humans have flaws, we all know that to be true. One of our flaws is that sometimes we assume everybody communicates things the same way we do. This allows us to claim that any breakdown in communication is the other person's/nation's/culture's fault. Of course this is not true. With time and observation we have learned (although logically it should have been obvious) that there are many different ways that people communicate. Some are culturally based, some are personality based, some are a result of being neurospicy vs neurotypical, and some are simple linguistics.

When we take the time to name how we communicate best and intentionally seek to understand how others communicate we build stronger relationships and communities.

So back in December when someone suggested to me that I could do a sermon on Love Languages I thought it was a great idea.

I have to wonder, how many relationships fall apart because people miss the ways love is being communicated? How many arguments blow up because people mis-understand an act or gesture?

We are ALL called to love each other, and I believe firmly that this is not about how we feel. The command to love neighbour, family, friend, and enemy is about how we act, love is a verb not an emotion. So how do you speak/share/communicate this love?

One of the blessings of community is that we don't all have to speak the same dialect of love. In any congregation there are a variety of ways that love is expressed (as Farquharson named). The theory of love languages lists 5 options. I think there are more, though that may well be due to some subdivisions within those 5.

Source

I think that as a community of faith, particularly a community that takes seriously the moral and ethical primacy of the commandment to Love, we need to make space for the varied ways that love can be expressed. I think that as a community of Love (as we hope we are) we need to recognize and celebrate the variety of ways that God's love is shared in our midst.

One thing that does not change is the Love, the Love that flows from God. One thing that does not change is that we are to aspire to a Love that is full-throated, that is inclusive, that mirrors and spreads the Love God has for us. There is not one 'right' way to do that. We each have our own ways. And that is a good thing.
--Gord