Summer Term 2026: Lessons in Love from Ipswich

The Church of St Mary at Stoke is situated on the edge of a vast housing estate, a short walk from Ipswich Railway Station. In the Middle Ages, Ipswich served as a major port for East Anglia’s thriving wool industry. Fleeces and manufactured cloth were exported to the Low Countries, France and even the Mediterranean. When the wool industry declined, the town pivoted towards shipbuilding and then became noted for the manufacture of agricultural machinery. By the late 1980s, the local economy was in the doldrums, and those living on the nearby Chantry Estate often struggled to find permanent employment. Still, it was at this time and in this place that I first reflected upon the true nature of love and marriage.

The Church of St Mary at Stoke could not afford to run its own choir but with a relatively young population on the estate, there were a good number of weddings to get through; especially during the summer months.  Consequently, a small group of choristers from Ipswich Minster, the civic church in the town centre, were given the opportunity to earn additional money by singing at weddings in St Mary at Stoke.

I was one of those choristers and it was a good deal for we earned £3 per service and that was a lot of money for a ten-year-old in 1987.  The weddings came thick and fast and one particularly busy afternoon we sang at no fewer than five weddings.  I like to think of this as ‘Super Saturday’ – a joyful conveyer belt of love, hope, dreams and money!

Between the ceremonies, we would spend time sipping our cartons of orange juice and sharing our observations about the newlywed couples and their families. Given our youth, I would imagine that our comments were not especially perceptive, but I know that we tended to speculate upon the likelihood of each couple living happily ever after. Of course, we did so from a position of ignorance but that did not stop us.

The subject of this evening’s reading is, of course, love. The passage we heard read so beautifully is often read at weddings because it presents an image of love that is patient, kind, humble, and enduring. Indeed, I remember hearing this passage many times at weddings in Ipswich.

Of course, romantic love steals all the headlines. This is the sort of love that is beloved by film directors, poets, and authors. From Romeo and Juliet to Barbie, from Adele to Wagnerian operas, love is omnipresent in literature and the arts. However, it is not the only form of love and despite St Paul’s letter to the Corinthians being a number one hit at weddings, he was not actually writing about romantic love at all.   Instead, St Paul was seeking to emphasise the foundational primacy of a different form of love – without which all other virtues or accomplishments are simply meaningless for St Paul was writing to a Church which was squabbling about the relative importance of spiritual gifts.  Early Christians believed that spiritual gifts were supernatural abilities given by God with the express purpose of growing the Church.  Possessing supernatural or spiritual gifts such as the ability to speak in tongues, evangelise, perform miracles, prophesise, or heal the sick, could lead to boastfulness, vanity, pride and competitiveness. Clearly, spiritual gifts were of little value if the Church was divided by theological disputes and led by individuals who sought personal glory.  Basically, St Paul was saying that without love everything else is pointless.

Shortly before his death, the author, academic and theologian, C.S. Lewis wrote a wonderful book called The Four Loves. The book itself is based on several interviews that C.S. Lewis gave on US radio during the 1950s. To deeply conservative American audiences, his reflections on romantic love were considered rather controversial. He contrasted romantic love (eros) with the bond of friendship (philia).  Interestingly, he described bonds of empathy born out of familiarity and habituation (storge) as being responsible for ninety percent of all durable and lasting forms of human happiness.

The final love of which C.S. Lewis wrote is agape.  What is this you may ask?  Well, this is the love of which St Paul wrote almost two thousand years ago. Agape is the ultimate form of love for it is unconditional, sacrificial and selfless – it represents God’s unconditional love for humanity. It is distinguished from other forms of love because it constitutes an active choice to act for another’s good regardless of the cost and without the expectation of receiving anything in return. It is the form of love that inspires us to love our neighbours and act with forgiveness. For Christians it is the very essence of what it means to live a devotional life in God’s image.  Of course, one does not need to be religious to embrace this understanding of love.

Growing up, I was inspired by many examples of this form of love, and the older I get, the more I perceive agape in the actions of those around me. It is humbling to be loved unconditionally or to love unconditionally and sometimes, it is difficult to believe that we are truly worthy of this form of love or to understand the role that agape might play in a community such as ours. What does this form of love look like in action?

Here at Bradfield College, it is hopefully a motivating force that inspires us to be a family that is drawn together by shared values. It is the form of love that ensures that we treat one another with compassion, kindness and empathy and that we commit to serving one another and those less fortunate than ourselves.  In the Gospel of John (XIII:34-35), Jesus exhorts his followers: