"LOVE IS NOT RESENTFUL"
a message by Rev. Dr. Bruce Havens
Coral Isles Church, U.C.C.
October 27, 2024
4 Love is patient; love is kind; love is not envious or boastful or arrogant 5 or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable; it keeps no record of wrongs; 6 it does not rejoice in wrongdoing but rejoices in the truth. 7 It bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.
Luke 11:25-30 NRSV
25 “Now his elder son was in the field, and as he came and approached the house, he heard music and dancing. 26 He called one of the slaves and asked what was going on. 27 He replied, ‘Your brother has come, and your father has killed the fatted calf because he has got him back safe and sound.’ 28 Then he became angry and refused to go in. His father came out and began to plead with him. 29 But he answered his father, ‘Listen! For all these years I have been working like a slave for you, and I have never disobeyed your command, yet you have never given me even a young goat so that I might celebrate with my friends. 30 But when this son of yours came back, who has devoured your assets with prostitutes, you killed the fatted calf for him!’
I’ve changed my mind a bit. I’m sort of liking all these “Love is NOT” parts of Paul’s words about love. I’m learning some new things. I’m also discovering how tempting some of the “Love is NOT” things can be. I kind of enjoyed talking about all my irritations Sunday before last. Today we come to its first cousin “resentment.” I’m pretty sure it doesn’t take much for irritation to bleed over into resentment.
Let’s be honest. Resentment can be a delicious little sin that, properly fed can blow up like a bowl of gumbo in your stomach. Resentments can take over your life and the rage from it can become a driving force. Just listen to one of the current candidates for the highest office. His speeches are a list of everyone and everything he resents. But resentment always comes home to roost. So we have to be careful. You can’t feed resentments too much or they will destroy you and potentially every relationship. Worse they can cause us to do things to destroy others.
Resentment is a complex emotion. It can be described as a combination of anger, bitterness, disappointment, and disgust. It’s a negative reaction to being mistreated or wronged by someone or something. But worse, it can be caused just by perceived mistreatment or disappointment. The story of the older brother in the Scripture lesson this morning is a perfect example.
The story of the Prodigal Son is a parable, a story that illuminates truth. The older brother in that story is the walking, talking example of resentment. He resents his younger brother, he resents his father, heck he probably resents the servants and the fatted calf. His words drip with resentment. I don’t think I need to read them again for you to know what I am talking about. The real truth in the story is that even our expectations of what we deserve from God can cause us to resent others, and God, when those expectations aren’t met. The brilliance of the story is it reveals the truth about God’s love and how so many miss out because we don’t want God wasting it on others we don’t think qualify or deserve it. The story never tells us whether the older brother “repents” of his jealousy and resentment and joins the party. It leaves open the question to all of us. Will we get over ourselves and what we think we deserve and join the party?
So what do we do when we begin to have resentments? Well, some use it as a reason for self-destruction. They drink or get high, let’s be as honest as the Scriptures about human emotion. Some use resentment to try to destroy the person they resent. Obviously Paul says “love is not resentful.” So we have to work at finding what I will call “holy ways” to react. I will call them that because they require us to grow spiritually, emotionally, and relationally. They challenge us to become “whole,” spelled with a “W” at the beginning, which is what “holy” really means, I think.
Now, before I go giving “holy advice” like some ordained Know-It-All let me be clear. I have struggled with resentments. Still do. I have the petty ones that can come up in any relationship, personal or work or wherever. Usually, if I sit back and ask what my expectations are over it, I realize I am the one at fault. I need to rethink my expectation, or how I communicate it, or whether it really is the issue at all.
Here’s the thing: we can have resentments that are a result of fair expectations of others and we can have resentments that are because we have expectations that are unrealistic or selfish or a result of our own immaturities. I have experienced a fair number of both, and I bet you have too. Let me get back to that “holy advice” I mentioned before my little, personal rant. Here is one path to moving beyond resentment to a place of higher ground.
Some writers suggest we must begin by recognizing and honestly admitting to ourselves our resentment in a “nonjudgmental way.” We ought to ask ourselves if our resentment comes from a realistic expectations or not. Couples often struggle with resentments because they don’t clearly communicate expectations with one another. When we do that well, we not only communicate them, we own them as our own expectations. Then we seek to be mature enough to negotiate whether our partner sees our expectations as reasonable or not. And we ought to be willing to hear, acknowledge and negotiate the other person’s expectations.
Negotiating fair expectations and being able to show real love to others means being willing to understand another person’s point of view, being able and willing to forgive and be forgiven, and also learning how to develop healthy boundaries. All this is needs more than a few minutes in a Sunday morning sermon to unpack. But having offered a few suggestions, I hope something sparks a willingness to change from destructive resentment to seeking constructive and loving alternatives.
Ultimately our faith ought to be the key to dealing with resentment. Our faith teaches us to focus on gratitude instead of resentments. The reason love is not resentful is that love requires gratitude. Loving God begins with gratitude for all that God gives us, which is - EVERYTHING! If we begin there, when we are facing resentments in our relationships, we can turn from thinking of all the things we expect the other person to do for us, to focusing on all the reasons we are grateful for that person in our lives. When we feel gratitude for someone, and express gratitude to someone, love grows. That is a holy thing.
It seems to me that there is a great deal of resentment driving our current political landscape. Matthew Fox, the theologian who reframed the concept of Original Sin into Original Blessing has written “that throughout history,” where there is great “fear, lawlessness, entitlement, hatred, prejudice, and panic” an energy emerges that is the opposite of Christ. In these times we have seen leaders emerge who say “I am the one who can save you,” or “I am your retribution.” Fox says this is “a warning—a call for us to return to loving compassion and mutual care for one another….” That’s where I want to plant my flag and why I keep trying to preach that we must embody that “loving compassion and mutual care for one another.”
When we focus on compassion and mutual care for one another we can “see more clearly how the narratives of division and fear can pull us apart. Yet, it also reminds me of the need to choose a different path—one rooted in compassion, reconciliation, and love.” In other words, you and I have a choice – the power to choose the better path![1]
I believe that churches like ours embody that. We are willing to work towards bridging the false hatreds, and the resentments others have towards anyone not like us. We know we have the power to choose a faith, a religion, a church that believes in the value of ALL people, even those we are tempted to resent, or even hate in return for their resentments and hatred.
You all know how people call us “that church.” Well, heck yeah, we are “that church.” We are a church that knows how to be compassionate, to welcome diversity and differences. And we know a deep gratitude to God for the love, compassion God gives us. We know God loves all of us prodigal younger daughters and sons, and us good but resentful older siblings. We are That Church because we believe in THAT God. And that gives us reasons for gratitude, reasons for praise, reasons to love others with the love of THAT God. Oh, yes, we have a lot of reasons, don’t we? I can’t even count all the reasons. Maybe more than ten thousand reasons, hmm? Love is not resentful. Love is grateful. AMEN.
[1] Cameron Trimble, “Convergence Weekly, October 24, 2024, cameron@progressiverenewal.org
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