The second chapter of the Revelation to John begins thus: “To the angel of the church in Ephesus write: These are the words of him who holds the seven stars in his right hand, who walks among the seven golden lampstands: I know your works, your toil and your patient endurance. I know that you cannot tolerate evildoers; you have tested those who claim to be apostles but are not, and have found them to be false. I also know that you are enduring patiently and bearing up for the sake of my name, and that you have not grown weary. But I have this against you, that you have abandoned the love you had at first” (Rev. 2:1-4). You have abandoned the love you had at first. These are chilling words. The accusation is that, despite perseverance and spiritual zealousness, love has been lost. The Ephesians have lost their way. And how easily we, too, can lose our way and abandon the love we once had.
We might frequently ask what we can offer the Church, but what if we asked, conversely, what the Church can offer us? When the Church is at her best, I’m convinced that she helps us reacquaint ourselves with that first love. What is that first love? Theologically speaking, it could be found in the innocence and joy before the Fall when God and humanity walked together blissfully in the Garden and delighted in one another. It can be found in the time before Cain murdered Abel, when we weren’t so envious of one another and so afraid. But that first love is somewhere, too, in the background of our lives. Was it the love in the first part of a relationship? Was it a love in the freedom of play as a child? Was it the ardor of first finding Christ in your life before that became tired for you? Was it the joy of learning a new instrument for the first time? I imagine that we can all think of first loves.
The shadow side of devotion and faithfulness in the spiritual life is that they can easily grow cold. The initial fervor of returning to church after some time away can dissipate after the honeymoon. And for those who’ve never spent any time away, perhaps that first love of the mystery of faith has settled into a numb dullness. It seems that with the Ephesians, perseverance and zeal to a cause had become bland works without any spirit of delight in God. This is often where religion goes wrong. It goes wrong when our intolerance for “evildoers” becomes the foundation of our spiritual practice and masquerades as faithfulness but perpetuates anger. It goes wrong when we simply go through the motions “just because we’re supposed to” even though we have stopped longing to experience joy. It goes wrong when our reactivity against a culture that we perceive to be persecuting us is the dynamism of our “faithfulness” but there is no compassion for those who’ve lost their way.
Every day as the sun rises we have an opportunity to reclaim the love we had at first. It may be as simple as a prayer to God to help us to embrace that first love. And though the Church gives us many things (even as we can give much to the Church), what the Church can give us amid so much pain, loneliness, and listlessness, is a place to find our first love. This, I think, is at the heart of worship. It’s not difficult to find reasons to stay away from church. If we’re looking for them, we can certainly find them. But of all the promises made by other things to give us delight and joy, the truest joy of all—our first love—is found in the bosom of the Church.
And why? Because when we lose ourselves in worship in the context of a community of the faithful, we find our truest selves. We find that first love, embodied in the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus. Worship at its best is an expression of that first love. When we worship, we should have no agenda except to be with God and to delight in God’s abiding presence. There is no ulterior motive to worship; it’s pure, unadulterated delight in God and in the fellowship of one another. No other place in the world can offer this in the same way.
If you’re lonely or aching or in a place of spiritual aridity, the Church is a place where you can recover your first love. If you’re confused or uncertain, the Church may not give you tidy answers, but she will embrace you in the arms of love. If you’re weary of the changes and chances of the world in which we live, the Church will not eliminate your problems but will give you the constancy of Christ’s love and the comfort of the Holy Spirit.
At Good Shepherd, I see glimpses of this first love in so many ways: in your faces as you sing the great hymns of faith, when we all face East and profess our faith in the words of the Nicene Creed, in the happy children playing in the children’s corner and running up to Communion, in the utter delight of coffee hour and parish potlucks, and in the care and concern you have for one another. Hang on to these glimpses of the first love. And keep coming back time and again to the Source of that love, the God who always draws us into his open arms.
Yours in Christ,
Father Kyle