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Works of Love IX: Love Does Not Keep Score

[From Part I Chapter V, "Our Duty to Remain in Love's Debt to Each Other"]

Owe no one anything, except to love each other, for the one who loves another has fulfilled the law. (Romans 13:8 ESV)

 “Let us begin with a little thought-experiment. If a lover had done something for the beloved, something humanly speaking so extraordinary, lofty, and sacrificial that we men were obliged to say, ‘This is the utmost one human being can do for another’—this certainly would be beautiful and good. But suppose he added, ‘See, now I have paid any debt.’ Would this not be speaking unkindly, coldly, and harshly? Would it not be, if I may say it this way, an indecency which ought never to be heard, never in the good fellowship of true love?  If, however, the lover did this noble and sacrificial thing and then added, ‘But I have one request—let me remain in debt’: would not this be speaking in love?”[1]
To keep score is generally not considered very loving. In fact, it wouldn’t be that strange to say that love is the opposite of score-keeping: that to love someone is to be willing to help them without considering whether what they owe to you. On this count, the world is right in understanding the nature of love. But of course, in the real world love is rarely so pure. It is easy enough to be generous in the early stages of love, when everything is new and real life hasn’t broken in. But how many marriages have fallen apart because spouses started to keep track of who did more work, or who was more generous or withholding? How many friendships began to cool the instant one friend started to compare how much he gave the other to how much he received? How often have I failed to show love to another because, after all, what have they ever done for me? Such thinking is the death of love. As Kierkegaard writes,
 “Comparison is the most unholy association into which love can enter; comparison is the most dangerous acquaintance love can make; comparison is the worst of all seductions. And no seducer is so readily at hand; no seducer is everywhere present the way comparison is as soon as your side glance beckons…. Comparison is the parasitic growth which takes vitality from the tree: the cursed tree becomes a withered shadow, but the parasitic growth flourishes with unhealthy luxuriance. Comparison is like the neighbor’s swampy ground; even if your house is not built upon it, it sinks just the same. Comparison is like the hidden worm which consumes in secret and does not die, at least not before it has taken the life out of love. Comparison is a loathsome rash which has turned in and is eating at the marrow. Watch out, therefore, for comparison in your love!”[2]
In order to love as Christ loves, we must abandon all scorekeeping, all sense that we are owed something by other people. After all, as Paul writes, love “keeps no record of wrongs.” Instead, we must love others as if we are in their debt regardless of whether they have loved us in return. We do not love other’s because they loved us first; we do not love others in proportion to the love we receive. We do not get to give up because we seem to be the only one making the effort. Christ did not love us because he owed it to us; instead, he acted as if he owed us his life even though, in reality, we owed him ours. And so to love like Christ is to love others without regard for reciprocity, to give of ourselves no matter what we get in return.

Dear Father,
I confess that I do not love like this. I love those who love me, and I show them as much love as they show me—if that. But you call me to love like you did. That love is beyond me. Grant me your love. Make me into a mirror for your universal love, that by showing your love I may learn to love myself. Convict my heart that there is no scorekeeping in love, there is only the command that I shall love. Give me the strength to follow your command.
In the name of your Son, who demonstrated the true nature of love to the world,
Amen




[1] Søren Kierkegaard, Works of Love. Harper Perennial, 2009, p. 173-4.
[2] Ibid. 181.
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