He whispers to her, “I love you.”  She replies, “I love you more.”  What are we supposed to make of that? 

“I love you more.”

Is this a competition in which someone claims to be a better, more ardent lover?

Is this an accusation of inadequate, sub-par loving?

Is this an expression of deep insecurity – spoken by someone who believes that no one could love him or her deeply, and so she or he always ends up being the one who loves the other person more?

Frankly, I do not love any of those possibilities.

In the Bush clan, (the ones who are rife with presidents and other elected officials) they used the expression as shorthand for a line from an old children’s poem in which a child professes to his mother, “I love you more than tongue can tell.” 

Perhaps those who say, “I love you more,” mean that they love more than they can express with words, or more than any circumstance could alter.  But I would rather hear a less ambiguous response to my declaration of love.

When we express our love for God, God could always answer, “I love you more.” As we know all too well, our capacity for love is limited and never without the presence of self-love that threatens to weaken all our loving relationships.  Unlike us, God loves perfectly.

God loves us more and God loved us first.  God’s love precedes our love in every instance.

Because God is not merely loving, but Love Itself, the whole created order is an act of love.  That there is a universe, and you and me, is the result of an act of love.  God loved us first.  God’s love calls us into being and invests us with inestimable worth.  Nothing you do or fail to do can alter that love; no matter how high or low you are held in esteem by others, nothing can alter your identity as God’s beloved.

And yet, we often fail to trust God’s love.  We try to find affirmation from other people; we try to prove our worth through our strength, our smarts, our moral goodness.

But before all that, God’s love came first.

It came in creation, and it came in a manger and hung on a cross.

Prayer:  Love you back.  Amen.