Adverbs in the Great Commandment?

In my last couple of postings, I commented on new understandings that came when I studied the agape versions of NT passages. I reflected in that posting on the first of 2 ideas that came from the word “whole” in the Great Commandment. In today’s posting I want to share the 2nd idea.

I began to wonder about the shift in perspective we could get if we thought of the nouns in the Great Commandment as though they were adverbs. That may sound a little strange, but here is how it could read: “You must agapao the Lord your God wholeheartedly, soulfully, and mindfully.”

Sometimes nouns and pronouns are what get us into trouble with identity issues. In elementary school we are taught that a noun has to refer to a person, place, or thing. So it gets drilled into us in the very early stages of development, when we also are taught that we have to form a separate ego identity (not in so many words, of course). So we start thinking that a noun has to stand for ‘something.’ Eventually then, in our youthful thought processes, we think that a 'mind' is something, and an 'ego' identity is something, and even that a 'soul' must therefore be something that is solid somewhere inside us.

But when we use adverbs in the Great Commandment, we no longer think in ego-identity terms, so we don’t have think of a ‘mind’ as something that ‘exists separately,’ or a ‘soul’ as something that ‘exists separately,’ or even a ‘heart’ as something that produces emotions.

With such a shift in perspective, we can see new meaning in being commanded to “agapao the Lord your God wholeheartedly, soulfully, and mindfully.” So we no longer have to think that we somehow need to take some ‘thing’ inside us and use it to generate something toward God.

Also in my last posting, I wrote about what it means to be commanded into an agape relationship with God, and how that very relationship brings whole-ness to life. I realized that such wholeness has a profound impact on our sense of identity.

So agape works in us (as a gift from God) to get us unstuck from that strange ego identity (that people in the modern world think they have to form). Instead of identifying with some ego that we formed by thinking of all the ways that each of us is different and separated, we can think of our identity in life as formed from the relationship with God. It is through the loving power of agape that we open up to wholeheartedly, soulfully, and mindfully accept the divine Presence permeating us and simultaneously helping us identify with the vastness of divine Presence.

It is often said that such opening up is the profound awareness of being “a child of God.”

Of course, that’s not possible to experience if we try to approach God while we are locked in ego identity, because that ‘sense of selfness’ (that gets referred to as ‘ego’) is so dependent on being separate. But such an all-important sense of wholeness, which is necessary for faith development, cannot happen for a person who tries to identify mainly with that false impression of being separated from God.

But, if over the years of our personality development, we thought we had to ‘build an ego’ by defending against everything that is ‘out there,’ then we have to start over. In a sense we have to reverse the process of identifying. A person has to get beyond any type of ego identity in order to realize the wholeness in relationship with God.

The beautiful good news is that God starts the process by making agape available to each of us, and all we have to do is allow God’s agape to open us up.

Wholeness and Agape in the Great Commandment

In my last posting I talked about noticing many different understandings I started getting when I read the agape versions of NT passages. After that reflection on the “new” commandment, another example came to me when I took very seriously the word “whole” in the Great Commandment (especially in the Common English Bible translation).

I saw the word ‘whole’ as a clue that something is required that goes beyond what a separated ego identity can do.

When we are commanded to give our whole being into our agape relationship with God, that has a profound impact on our sense of identity. But all ego identities (that people in the modern world think they have to form) cannot act as whole beings. Even though people think an ego is the best defense and protection against the sheer craziness of modern society, there is something wrong with putting that much faith in production that is based on separating from the wholeness of Life. So it just cannot work for a person to “love God with an ego identity” -- because there is no wholeness there. Any ego identity is merely too fragmented. Something else is needed.

An ego identity is so dependent on being separate, that no ego identity can do anything as a whole being. Of course, that’s the main problem with all ego identities in the modern world -- the very act of trying to develop an identity in life by forming a separate entity causes a terrible fracturing in the identity, because it is a false effort. In reality we are actually all connected, not separated.

That all-important sense of wholeness, which is necessary for faith development, cannot happen for a person who tries to identify mainly with that false impression of being separated from God. A person has to get beyond any type of ego identity in order to realize the wholeness of a relationship with God.

When I read through all those verses with ‘agape’ left in its originally intended form, I was able to realize how agape brings wholeness to a person’s life. So it is from the wholeness of an agape relationship with God that a person is able to be fully and completely alive with God. A person’s true identity in life brings that spiritual sense of wholeness when it is developed from the agape relationship.

Agape as the “new” commandment?

 In my last posting I wrote out agape versions of many NT passages. After letting 15 days go by, I read through all those quotes, and that was truly inspiring. Also, all of those verses -- taken together, in the sheer magnitude that the full spread of wisdom shows -- mean clearly that something entirely new was given there. So there is no way that the old, familiar word ‘love’ can be used there anymore. Some different meaning is conveyed there.

As I thought about them, I began to notice many different understandings developing. For example, I wondered about what happens when you put side by side the verses: Mt. 22:37-40; Lev. 19:18; Jn. 13:34-35 (of course, using ‘agape’ instead of ‘love’).

Jesus replied: "You must agapao the Lord your God with your whole heart, with your whole being, and with your whole mind." This is the first and the greatest commandment. And the second is like it: "you must agapao your neighbor as you agapao yourself." All the law and the Prophets depend on these two commands. ...  Do not seek revenge or bear a grudge against one of your people, but agapao your neighbor as yourself.  ... "I give you a new commandment: Agapao each other. Just as I have agapan you, so you also must agapao each other. This is how everyone will know that you are my disciples, when you agapao each other."

I began to imagine the 2 scenes: first of Jesus answering with 2 commandments when only one was called for; and then Jesus gathered with his disciples at the Last Supper, telling them to pay very close attention because he was giving them something new that they HAD to obey. I was then struck by a strange question.

If everyone would have recognized as coming from the Leviticus laws what Jesus called the “second that is like” the Great Commandment, then what did he mean when he told the Disciples that he was giving them a “new” commandment? In other words, if it was already in the ancient law, how could it be NEW? Wouldn’t ‘Doubting Thomas’ have raised his hand and asked, “What’s new about that?”

Well, of course that didn’t happen, and no one even thought it, because they all instantly recognized that it was new. So the problem rests with us. If we don’t see that it’s new, then we don’t understand what was ‘gospel’ about what Jesus was demonstrating and teaching. Now, of course, it’s much easier to begin to see the new when we leave the original word ‘agape’ there, instead of changing the whole meaning by sticking in our common English word ‘love.’

Jesus was doing something dramatically, and profoundly, new. Although, I’m not sure anyone else in the 1st Century could figure out exactly what it was all about. I think all they came to realize is that it had something to do with the spiritual phenomenon they came to call ‘agape.’

That’s about it.

And we sadly trivialize it in the 21st Century when we continue the grave mistake of using the common English word ‘love’ to try explaining it. And worse -- we suck out of it all the amazing, new power.

When we fully open ourselves to allow God’s agape to work in both our faith development and our relationships of our daily life, then we begin to understand how truly new and powerful was what Jesus brought to people’s lives and to history.