James L. Price, Jr. - "The Reciprocal Relations of Love" (April 19, 1959)

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Man	A number one problem in human relations today	0:08
	is the disintegration of family life.	0:11
	Fortunately, there are a great many families in America	0:16
	where the bonds of affection	0:21
	have been kept strong and growing	0:22
	in the midst of revolutionary social changes.	0:25
	At Duke, this weekend,	0:31
	we have beheld the brighter side of the picture.	0:33
	Worshiping in this sanctuary, are parents and children	0:37
	who have discovered in this age of anxiety,	0:43
	that there is no place like home.	0:47
	Many who can say it with feeling	0:51
	that even the closely knit family circles of our land	0:56
	are not free from those social trends and pressures,	1:01
	which have resulted in the withering	1:07
	of the family in our culture.	1:10
	The American home is not what it was	1:14
	nor indeed as many would say, not what it ought to be.	1:17
	Some words of Robert Frost express the disillusionment	1:24
	of many concerning the popular sentiment,	1:30
	"Home sweet home.	1:33
	Home is the place where,	1:38
	if you have to go there, they have to take you in."	1:41
	Few social problems in our day equal in importance	1:49
	this crisis in the family.	1:52
	As Elton Trueblood has written,	1:56
	"It is high time we give serious thought to this question."	1:58
	Can we recover or produce a conception of family life	2:04
	so intrinsically appealing that it makes people dissatisfied	2:10
	with this withering of the family	2:16
	in either the Russian or the Western style?	2:19
	We are not here this morning to wring our hands and cry.	2:25
	See what's happening to the family,	2:29
	nor to prescribe any old or new pattern for family living.	2:32
	Rather let us consider together	2:39
	the urgent need for a better understanding	2:43
	of the art of loving, beginning in our homes.	2:47
	The apostle Paul in the scriptures read	2:54
	affirms that love is the ultimate need of every human being.	2:58
	In the famous 13th chapter of first Corinthians,	3:04
	he declares that a person may possess great prophetic powers	3:07
	or understand all of the mysteries and knowledge.	3:14
	He may have great faith	3:19
	and may offer himself as a sacrifice to some great cause	3:22
	yet in the absence of love,	3:27
	these things are of questionable value.	3:31
	They do not qualify for moral excellence	3:37
	and they're not of enduring worth.	3:41
	Again in his letter to the Galatians,	3:45
	Paul expresses the conviction	3:48
	that only in loving can we hope for perfect harmony	3:50
	in personal relations.	3:56
	Of course, Paul had in mind, a special kind of love.	4:00
	He was convinced that God had disclosed it.	4:06
	The source of such love	4:10
	and the essential nature of such love,	4:12
	by his actions in history.	4:15
	To speak of love, then, for Paul,	4:18
	was to proclaim the good news, first, of the love of God.	4:22
	Revealed with greatest clarity in the sacrificial life	4:28
	and death of Jesus, the Christ.	4:32
	The central revelation of God given in Christ	4:36
	was poured into this single word: love.	4:40
	But since it was an incomparable thing,	4:46
	the early questions avoided the commonplace words for love.	4:51
	In their stead, they employed an archaic Greek synonym	4:59
	with Old Testament associations, agape was their term.	5:04
	It was the Christian word for God's love of men	5:11
	revealed in the story of the Bible	5:15
	retranslated and brought to completion in Christ.	5:18
	But agape was also an ideal for human conduct,	5:24
	applicable to the most intimate	5:30
	and meaningful personal relations in life.	5:33
	It is then in the light of this new Testament standard,	5:38
	this special kind of love, termed agape,	5:42
	that we can confidently believe	5:47
	that love does afford	5:50
	an enduring basis for our family relationships.	5:53
	Faith in the possibility of practicing this love	5:57
	is a corollary of our faith in God	6:01
	and a faith in human nature	6:05
	as susceptible to the transforming influences	6:08
	of this divine law.	6:13
	Let us then consider a few of the ways in which agape,	6:16
	this special kind of love	6:21
	may find expression in our family relationships	6:24
	and as a basis for thought,	6:28
	turn our attention to Paul's great description of love	6:31
	in first Corinthians.	6:35
	Foremost, are the qualities of patience and kindness,	6:39
	just as the persistence of divine love	6:45
	in the face of ingratitude,	6:48
	God had shown himself to be long suffering and timed.	6:53
	"Even so," Paul declares,	6:59
	"those who possess this love are patient with people	7:02
	and ever kindly disposed to them."	7:07
	And then as though Paul found it much easier	7:12
	to describe the actions love will avoid	7:15
	then to describe in advance what love will do.	7:19
	He adds, "love knows no envy,	7:22
	love does not require for its favors gratitude.	7:28
	Love does not consider self first in importance.	7:35
	Love does not insist upon its own way.	7:40
	Love is not easily provoked with people.	7:45
	Love does not store up in memory	7:49
	the wrongs that it has received.	7:52
	Love is never glad when other persons go wrong.	7:56
	Love is glad to see the truth prevail."	8:01
	Now what can such ideals mean for parents?	8:07
	Love is patient with persons,	8:12
	yet how impatient we become	8:18
	at the first signs of a daughter's disapproval of us,	8:20
	or of her defiance of our wishes.	8:25
	Could it be that these are merely manifestations	8:30
	that she needs to become a person in her own right?	8:33
	How impatient we are that our children grow	8:41
	in such a way that they improve	8:46
	as we desire them to improve, at the time we desire it.	8:50
	Why doesn't Mary settle down?	8:56
	Why doesn't John choose a career now?	8:59
	Love knows no envy.	9:06
	Of course we want our sons and daughters	9:10
	to have many of the things that life has denied us.	9:12
	Yet do we ever begrudge them this?	9:17
	Complaining that things were not so easy in our day	9:20
	and using such complaint	9:25
	to prod our older youth into appreciating	9:29
	what we have done for them.	9:33
	For its favors, love does not require gratitude.	9:37
	Love does not consider self first in importance.	9:44
	Love does not insist on its own way.	9:48
	Few of us, I think,	9:53
	would agree with Philip Wylie's devastating expose	9:54
	of momism in America in his "Generation of Vipers".	9:58
	He concludes that modern society is too much an institution	10:05
	built to appease the rapacity of quote,	10:11
	loving mothers, end quote.	10:15
	Nevertheless,	10:19
	Christian mothers are sensitive to the fact	10:20
	that they have a dilemma as a parent.	10:24
	They must give serious thought to it,	10:28
	how they can find the balance between releasing and holding,	10:32
	helping daughter to free herself from emotional dependence	10:39
	upon father or mother,	10:43
	gradually insisting that she make her own decisions	10:45
	and be responsible for them,	10:49
	yet all the while never withdrawing mother love,	10:52
	never becoming insensitive to the real needs of daughter.	10:55
	How easy it is for mother love to insist on its own way.	11:02
	And what of fathers?	11:11
	It is no secret that we tend to deal with	11:14
	our young people in terms of our own adolescent experiences,	11:17
	either to repeat the authoritarian handling we received,	11:22
	or to avoid all firmness for the same reason.	11:27
	Yet, what our children need	11:33
	may have no relation at all	11:36
	to the kind of treatment we received when we were their age.	11:37
	Carl Jung, the famous Swiss psychoanalyst,	11:44
	from his wide experience of counseling folk	11:47
	in their middle years, reminds us of a fact.	11:50
	"The nearer we approach the middle of our life,	11:55
	and the better we have succeeded	12:00
	in entrenching ourselves in our personal standpoints	12:02
	and social positions,	12:05
	the more it appears to us	12:08
	that we have discovered the right course in ideals	12:10
	and principles of social conduct.	12:15
	We suppose these to be eternally valid	12:18
	and make a virtue of unchangeably insisting upon them."	12:22
	He concludes that "somewhere around the age of 50,	12:28
	men reach a period of intolerance and even fanaticism.	12:33
	Is it any wonder that hostilities arise at home,	12:40
	if we are becoming more authoritarian,	12:45
	less amenable to change and growth,	12:49
	at the very time our sons and daughters	12:52
	must become independent of us	12:55
	and achieve an autonomy of self?"	12:58
	Well, might we ponder the words	13:03
	of professor Weston La Barre	13:04
	in the April issue of the Duke Alumni Register?	13:08
	"What better models are there	13:12
	for adolescents in a changing world	13:15
	than non-arrogant parents,	13:19
	who show themselves capable of change?	13:22
	For change is fundamentally	13:27
	what we have to prepare our children to cope with."	13:29
	In Christian families,	13:35
	parents are ever on the guard against arrogance.	13:37
	To paraphrase Paul, love is not a know-it-all.	13:43
	Love does not insist on its own way.	13:49
	Now let us turn the mirror,	13:56
	afforded by First Corinthians 13,	13:58
	to the sons and daughters among us.	14:01
	In our younger years,	14:06
	we who are the beneficiaries of parental love	14:07
	find it easier to think of the matter of love in the family	14:12
	as a right that is ours,	14:19
	rather than an obligation.	14:22
	But love in the family is a reciprocal relation,	14:25
	and for young adults who aspire to be Christian,	14:29
	maturity must bring a change of perspective.	14:33
	Instead of insisting that he be loved,	14:38
	the Christian wills, above all else, to be loving.	14:43
	Not because some other person has been loving to him	14:49
	or is lovable.	14:53
	He desires to fulfill the needs of others,	14:57
	for their own sakes.	15:00
	Not because some good may be expected of it, for the lover.	15:04
	Now I doubt that as children	15:10
	we are capable of this kind of love,	15:11
	but it's time, as Paul reminds us,	15:16
	to put away childish things	15:18
	and to seek to understand mother and father	15:21
	less as our parents	15:25
	than as the persons they are.	15:28
	I wonder if you have given thought, lately,	15:34
	to the specific needs of your father and mother	15:37
	and how you may possibly fulfill them,	15:41
	perhaps only you.	15:44
	Love is patient and kind.	15:49
	Being a parent is not easy	15:55
	at any age in a child's development,	15:56
	but in many ways, being a parent of older youth today	16:01
	is the hardest of all.	16:05
	Just when your needs are most clement,	16:08
	your parents are approaching	16:12
	or have already reached the crisis of their middle years.	16:14
	It may be that mother's emotional stability,	16:22
	which is rested upon her children's dependence on her,	16:26
	is shaken by their emancipation	16:31
	at the very time that father	16:34
	is most engrossed in his business or career.	16:35
	Mother's time and energies	16:41
	cannot any longer be absolved in daughter's affairs,	16:43
	else she is the typical mom.	16:48
	For her own good, and for that of her family,	16:51
	she cannot put a premium on helplessness,	16:55
	yet if she assumes now an interest	17:00
	in her husband's career or business,	17:03
	she may be accused of being a meddler.	17:06
	If she enter the busy round of matinees and bridge parties,	17:10
	she may be accused of becoming a parasite.	17:16
	If she devoted time to community projects	17:21
	or serious reading,	17:24
	her family's apt to make snide remarks about	17:27
	mother's crusades or fads.	17:30
	If she attempts to go back to work,	17:36
	her saleable skills are at least two decades old	17:39
	and there are those complicating factors	17:43
	of social security and the rest.	17:45
	Little wonder that mother has her moods.	17:49
	Love is patient with people,	17:55
	love is not easily provoked.	17:58
	Are we patient with mom	18:02
	when she's silly about her age or her clothes?	18:03
	And spends a great deal of time and money on glamor?	18:06
	Can we blame her when our society	18:11
	places such an inordinate value on the youthful appearance?	18:14
	And what of father's needs as a person?	18:21
	Are the middle years upsetting for him?	18:24
	Through his lusty 20's and 30's and early 40's,	18:28
	dad has driven to get ahead,	18:31
	but there is not much room at the very top	18:34
	and many father's face the reality of limited success.	18:38
	And must learn to accept their lot for what it really is.	18:44
	It is a fact that there is a sharp rise	18:49
	in the frequency of cases of mental depression	18:52
	in men after forty.	18:56
	Many attempt the impossible,	19:00
	to live the afternoon of their lives	19:03
	after the program of the morning.	19:05
	Love is patient and kind.	19:08
	How patient are we with dad's new diet?	19:13
	His exercises and his hunting safaris?	19:17
	His efforts to recapture his lost youth	19:22
	by proving himself and to others	19:26
	that he is still capable of attracting women?	19:29
	By acquainting you and your friends to your embarrassment	19:33
	with his youthful exploits	19:38
	and warming up the old dishes of his college days.	19:40
	Are we kind when in father's presence,	19:46
	we talk about the latest advances of science and engineering	19:51
	which we understand,	19:55
	implying that his technical knowledge	19:58
	and his plant equipment are has-beens?	20:00
	Instead of telling him what he ought to do	20:06
	to keep abreast of the times?	20:08
	Have we thought of asking him for some advice	20:12
	which isn't dated,	20:15
	which calls upon his experience,	20:17
	which we lack?	20:20
	And what of the problems of mother and father	20:23
	as they face life together	20:26
	in the so-called empty nest stage of their life?	20:29
	Many couples enter this period	20:37
	with the sobering recognition	20:41
	that they hardly know one another,	20:42
	their real feelings toward each other.	20:46
	Modern dramatists have dwelt upon this theme	20:50
	of the crisis in marriage	20:54
	or the death of love in marriage	20:56
	in the middle years.	21:00
	For example, Jane Herzog's play, "The Four Poster",	21:02
	or T.S. Eliot's, "The Cocktail Party".	21:07
	Remember the lines in Eliot's play,	21:11
	describing those couples	21:14
	who maintain themselves by the common routines,	21:17
	learn to avoid excessive expectation,	21:22
	become tolerant of themselves and of other people,	21:27
	giving and taking in the usual actions	21:32
	what there is to give and take.	21:35
	Those of us approaching middle years	21:39
	or are already in it,	21:41
	know the paper in the lines which follow,	21:44
	"Learning contentment with the morning that separates	21:49
	and with the evenings that bring together	21:54
	for casual talk before the fire	21:57
	two people who know that they do not understand each other,	22:00
	breeding children whom they do not understand,	22:06
	and who will never understand them."	22:10
	A chill prospect on the face of it,	22:15
	yet as Eliot sees it,	22:18
	this is the challenge which many couples must face,	22:20
	to go on loving each other	22:24
	when they seem to get nothing out of it,	22:28
	that is to say,	22:30
	in comparison with those things	22:32
	they had dreamed for their marriage,	22:34
	determining to make the best of what might appear	22:38
	to be a bad job	22:42
	and learning to find success of another kind.	22:44
	Love does not consider self first in importance.	22:50
	Love does not insist on its own way.	22:55
	What are your summer vacation plans?	22:59
	Have you been thinking all together about your plans?	23:03
	Are there siblings in your home	23:09
	whom you could tend for a few days,	23:12
	enabling your parents to take that long postponed,	23:16
	much needed vacation?	23:20
	Giving them some leisure time	23:23
	to work out their changing roles in relation to each other	23:26
	and their family and their community.	23:31
	Have you become provoked?	23:36
	The father and mother are spending so much money	23:38
	doing over the home place when you could use a new car?	23:41
	Could it be that this refurbishing	23:47
	is not at all evidence	23:51
	that our parents are becoming quite selfish	23:52
	in their middle years,	23:55
	but a genuine fulfillment of their emotional needs?	23:57
	Are you resentful when dad is tight with money,	24:03
	which you are sure could be afforded	24:06
	and which could be used	24:09
	to such good advantage by you?	24:10
	Have you considered that after years of close financing	24:14
	within the pressures of a growing family	24:18
	and expanding needs,	24:20
	dad might become a little bit uncertain	24:23
	about how much should be saved for the future	24:27
	and how much can be spent for the present needs	24:30
	and pleasures?	24:33
	The gist of all this is, more than anything else today,	24:35
	older youth need wise and loving parents.	24:41
	Sometimes we parents may suppose by their actions	24:46
	that this is not the case, but it simply isn't true.	24:49
	Older youth need that security rooted in the knowledge	24:55
	that they are loved for their own sakes.	24:58
	That to some person they are of supreme importance.	25:03
	But the opposite is true.	25:08
	Parents need the love of young adults	25:11
	in their family who are no longer their kids.	25:15
	In an age and in a culture	25:20
	which has adopted for a slogan youth must be served.	25:22
	We don't hear much about this other side of the picture,	25:28
	but it's a part of any individual's growth towards maturity	25:32
	that he must come to terms with the family situation,	25:38
	even as he grows out of it,	25:42
	whatever the strength and weaknesses of mother and father,	25:46
	these are the givens of life	25:50
	and we must face them.	25:52
	For the young adult who is a Christian,	25:55
	and who strives to realize Christian ideals	25:59
	in his family life,	26:02
	and in the family he hopes he may establish,	26:05
	there are probably few needs as pressing or as genuine	26:10
	as understanding and practicing the art of loving parents.	26:16
	As we ponder this ideal of love	26:25
	for the reciprocal relations of love in the family circle,	26:27
	it is perhaps quite natural for most of us to conclude	26:31
	that it's much too lofty an ideal for such as we are.	26:35
	It is in fact God-like,	26:41
	and recognizing this,	26:45
	we may despair as an unattainable ideal.	26:48
	If by this one means that not a single one of us	26:53
	will ever fully attain unto it in our family relations,	26:57
	few will wish to argue otherwise,	27:02
	but that with God's help we should aim for it	27:06
	is the clear teaching of the gospel.	27:11
	Insofar as we are Christian,	27:15
	the new commandment of our Lord is this,	27:18
	that we love one another even as he has loved us.	27:23
	This plainly implies that the quality of love	27:31
	within the family ever stands	27:34
	under the judgment of the quality of divine love.	27:38
	It means moreover that the direction	27:43
	which our actions should take toward each other,	27:46
	should be bent towards this ideal,	27:50
	no matter how far we may fall short of it at any time.	27:54
	Whenever we feel that this ideal	28:00
	makes too great demands upon us,	28:02
	let us recall that such love	28:07
	is the fruit of the Holy Spirit,	28:10
	not something we can work up in ourselves,	28:13
	but something God wills to give us, if we will receive it,	28:18
	and when we know that we do not love one another like this,	28:24
	let the spirit of God lead us back	28:31
	to the scenes of Getsemeni and Calvary,	28:34
	where God's love for us is revealed.	28:38
	Then we shall be moved to think a great deal less	28:42
	of the love we deserve from other people	28:48
	but rather of wiser ways to serve their needs	28:53
	as we are given to see them.	28:59
	Put on then as God's chosen ones compassion,	29:03
	kindness, patience,	29:10
	forbearing one another if one has complaint against another,	29:13
	forgiving each other as the Lord has forgiven you,	29:18
	so you also must learn to forgive.	29:25
	But above all these things, put on love,	29:30
	which binds everything together in perfect harmony	29:36
	and let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts,	29:42
	to which indeed you were called in the one body	29:48
	and be thankful.	29:54
	Understand.	29:57
	(machine whirring)	30:03
	The grace of our lord Jesus Christ,	30:09
	the love of God, our Father,	30:12
	and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with us all.	30:15

Item Info

Title:

James L. Price, Jr. - "The Reciprocal Relations of Love" (April 19, 1959)

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https://idn.duke.edu/ark:/87924/r4pz55n88

Date:

April 19, 1959

Speaker:

Price, James L., Jr.

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Duke University. Chapel

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UA.17.01.0003 RR-0069
ref5337_ak2
uachapelsermaud
duke:628588
dcrau002102
ark:/87924/r4pz55n88
33574a1a-5dc3-4f69-9282-1c82ffcdb59b

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Duke University Chapel recordings, 1954-2005

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James L. Price, Jr. - "The Reciprocal Relations of Love" (April 19, 1959)

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1. James L. Price, Jr. - "The Reciprocal Relations of Love in the Family" (April 19, 1959)

Duke University Archives

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James L. Price, Jr. - "The Reciprocal Relations of Love" (April 19, 1959)

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