Everybody knows that one of the first things a child has to know to succeed in school is their ABCs.  Most pre-schoolers can sing the ABC song before they can read the letters.  I remember my own children learning the sounds of the letters in Kindergarten with the “Letter People.”  There was Mr. Mouth for “M.” and “Tall Tooth” for “T.” Very creative curriculum, the purpose of which was to establish for children the foundation they would need to learn to read and interpret written language.

The ABC’s are foundational to language.  Love is the foundation that God intends for human relationship.  Although Michael Jackson and his brothers once sang to us that love is as easy as ABC, 123, do-re-mi – we all know it isn’t.  Sadly, Michael’s own life apparently ended because people who were supposed to care for him did not understand how to love him.

The apostle Paul, writing to the church community at Corinth makes a clear point by saying, essentially – not matter what else you do, if you do it without love it is nothing.  Prophetic powers + knowledge + faith - love = Nothing.  Zero.  This is an easily transferable equation.  Add together any remarkable gifts, any good intentions, any acquired skills – subtract love – and you have nothing.

Love does not come particularly naturally to we humans.  We are too interested in our own self promotion to be naturally good at love.  But the witness of the New Testament is that God has reached out and demonstrated to us a fully loving life.  In Jesus Christ we have the example of love.  In Paul’s letters we have the nitty gritty stuff that can help we mere humans learn.  Jesus is the example.  Paul is the teacher.  Though it’s never as easy as ABC-123 – the capacity to love can be learned and practiced until we are proficient in it.

This is the first thing to know about love.  It has to be learned and it can be learned.  We know no more how to love without learning than we know how to read if we can’t recognize letters.

Second things to know about love.  It is not a feeling or an emotion.  Love as defined in the Bible is charitable behavior toward others.  Nobody we feel love for will feel loved by us unless we demonstrate that love with appropriate behaviors.

Third thing to know about love.  It has to be practiced.  Because we humans are short circuited when it comes to this, and we easily forget the basics, and we easily neglect the behaviors.

I tell you that this has been at the heart of my personal prayer now for years – the simple prayer that I would first want to be more loving, and second – become more loving.  It is a simple way to pray, but I guarantee you, the simple goal to love better will give you meaningful fodder for personal prayer for decades, and lots of opportunity to confess falling short of the goal.

All of us can probably remember a favorite teacher of love, like my great-grandma, who all throughout my early childhood loved me by spending time with me and by giving the best, big, all folded up warm and safe bear hugs a child could want.  The memory of those hugs still sustains me when I feel lonely.  She taught by example.

Paul offers theory.  What he mentions in beautiful poetic language, the author Gary Chapman lists as habits in his book Love As a Way of Life.

Here are the behaviors we have to learn and practice until they become habits.

• patience
• kindness
• humility
• forgiveness
• courtesy
• generosity
• honesty

So here are Chapman’s definitions of loving behaviors – and then we’re going to do the ABC’s that you can take home to your family – ways to practice love where you live.

Kindness:  Meeting someone else’s needs before your own simply for the sake of the relationship.

Patience:  Allowing people and situations to be imperfect Forgiveness:  Using honesty, compassion, and self-awareness to reconcile with someone who has hurt you.

Courtesy:  the act of treating everyone as a personal friend Humility:  a peacefulness of heart that allows you to stand aside in order to affirm the value of someone else.

Generosity:  giving your attention, time, abilities, money and compassion freely to others.

Honesty:  a loving consistency in speech, thought and action.

Learning to exhibit these seven behaviors with consistency and you will ace the test in love!

We can know the virtues of a loving person, maybe even recite them.  But practicing them requires…well – practice!

It is God’s intention that the goal of our lives be to grow more loving.  That’s it.  While it is remarkable and appropriate to complete some kind of bucket list of everything we’d like to experience, accomplish or accumulate during our lifetimes, God’s desire is simply this:  that we grow more loving.  If you can’t experience, accomplish and accumulate without also growing more loving, well – then, it’s nothing.

Families are the natural place to learn to love.  For one thing, as, Robert Frost wrote, “Home is the place where, when you go there, they have to take you in.”  In families, we get to practice, and practice and practice.  And fail, and keep on practicing.  Patience, kindness, humility, forgiveness, courtesy, generosity and honesty – when practiced in families, can transform everyone’s life.

Here are some ABCs that incorporate those practices and values – and that you can use to guide your life – whatever configuration of family you are living in – or even in your work place, or your circle or closest friends.

A = Accept each other.

affirm one another because everybody is a child of God

adapt to new information – understanding who people are and why they are the way they are is a stepping stone to acceptance

acknowledge your own limitations – nobody’s perfect – even you.

B = Believe in your family/community

bear one another’s burdens – to help one another through the challenges of life is a tangible expression of belief in the integrity and value of the family or community.

behave appropriately for your role – If you are a child or a teen, respect your parents’ role as provider and caretaker of the family.  If you are an adult, respect your child’s life, their unique individuality and understand that your job is to love and teach them, not to be their buddy or to use them to fulfill your own needs and desires.  Discipline appropriately and consistently, but never without kindness and mercy.

balance your own life – to truly contribute appropriately to our families, we must each manage the balance of our personal lives.  We are responsible for what we contribute to the family and to the larger community.  Seeking some kind of balance between work and family; caring for our own health and getting our own emotional needs appropriately met is the responsibility of every adult in the family.

C = Cooperate on common goals – and there are three “c’s” to this “C.”

clock – does the family or community spend time together, doing things that nurture relationship, build awareness and knowledge of one another’s unique gifts, and serve the common good of the family and community.

calendar – coordinating calendars is a good family activity, and in today’s world, a necessary one.  Every family needs a family calendar, and every family members needs to contribute to what goes on the calendar, and make a commitment to put family obligations on their personal calendar.

checkbook – family goals, if there are any, are always revealed by the check book.  If the family understands where the money goes and why, it reduces the number of conflicts about money.  Work on common financial goals, and help the whole family to invest in those goals.

And whatever you do – do it with love.

Finally – this.  Nobody learns love in isolation.  We learn only in community.  Fundamentally, a church congregation is to be a context for learning and practicing love and forgiveness.  We who sit here today – whether hearing Paul’s words for the first time or the hundredth time – we are called to be a community today that extends love to one another.  This is where you come when you forgot to be kind, patient or courteous.  This is where you come when you need another chance.

This is where we are reminded every single time we gather that God so loves the world; that God’s life is expressed in the world, and when the world’s unkindness rejected that love, God just gave it back again.

You are loved.

Now go and be a better lover – accept others believe in family and community as the locus of love whether your family is by birth of by choice – cooperate on common goals.

Love until it really does become as easy as ABC-123.  For that is God’s purpose for your life.