The Importance of Agapé

During the 10 years that I’ve been keeping this blog, I’ve posted before about the NT book’s chapter First Corinthians 13. The original Greek is central to understanding why agapé was so important to the first Christians. St. Paul used those verses to explain to his Greek readers why he started using the word ‘agapé’ and why he thought it pointed to something so powerful for everyone. (So of course, we must remember he was writing about agapé.)

Now, in summarizing my study of 1 Cor. 13, I’m keeping in mind the important point he eventually made in his letter to the Romans. There he talked about the spiritual power of divine agapé having been poured into human hearts by the Holy Spirit. So I was able to interpret St. Paul’s description of agapé in terms of its spiritual power.

When St. Paul started showing the power of agapé, his first readers would have been surprised. Over the years, my work with agapé power has led me to even deeper insights into the radical message that he gave there. I’ve come to understand more profoundly why he warned his readers that what he was going to show them was unusual by saying, “Now I shall show you a still more excellent way.” So what was this innovation that he brought to the early development of Christianity?

What we call the 13th chapter began by continuing his list of spiritual gifts that he started talking about in chapter 12. He did that to show that he considered agapé to be the greatest of all spiritual gifts. In Galatians, Paul called it the fruit of the Spirit. He was pointing out how that deep spiritual sense allows us to accept other people in a life-affirming way that we become neither agitated with them nor attach any degree of importance to anything they may to do us.

For example, agapé was so important to deep spiritual awareness that any attempt to gain divine inspiration without using the power of agapé would amount to nothing. When he got into what we today mean by charity, he said that if we give away all our possessions and even are willing to sacrifice our own bodies for the cause -- but don’t do it through the power of agapé -- we gain nothing. At that point he had his readers’ attention in a shocking way with that list of comparisons between agapé and all the other spiritual gifts that most people would find wonderful to have. So he was ready to lay out the details showing what agapé power could do. 

His readers would have understood that whatever that strange spiritual power is, patience and kindness are of the very essence of what it is. He seems to be saying this: the way that spiritual power works in a person and between persons in a faith community, agapé is patient and kind. What does that mean?

He summarized that meaning by saying that agapé “bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.” What an amazing spiritual power! He was pointing out that agapé power helps us not be envious or boastful or arrogant or rude or insist on our own way, and not be irritable or resentful. Then he hit the self-righteous religious people right between the eyes when he said that agapé will help them not rejoice in the wrongdoing of those they like to judge as less religiously worthy. Because everyone knows how difficult it is to live that way, we are able to see how extremely important it is for agapé power to bring about an inner transformation.

So we need agapé to become fully mature in our spiritual development; otherwise, we remain childish in our understanding of the spiritual dimension of Life. And finally, even though we know that faith, hope, and agapé abide to sustain us spiritually -- “the greatest of these is agapé.”

When we know it is agapé that is used in that chapter, then we know we are dealing with the basis for a new spiritual discipline that motivates us to look for a spiritual training that will help us live fully through the power of God.

  

Engulfed in Agapé

As I was looking out of the window of our new home, I enjoyed seeing our new neighborhood covered in 6 inches of snow from a late Spring storm. Even though the view was beautiful, I have to admit that I started wondering what it would look like when warm Spring weather finally melted the snow and the branches sprouted with leaves.

Then I remembered a late April blog posting I’d made 9 years before. It had developed from a meditation time outdoors in a park near where we’d been living for over 11 years. I remembered that while I meditated, I experienced the radiating Life force of Spring. Then as I went deeper, I had the spiritual sensation of being engulfed in agapé. The memory was so strong, that I looked up that blog posting to read how I expressed it. 

The experience had been so powerful that there was no distinction between agapé filling me from within and agapé surrounding me from outside. In that sense, there was no “within” and no “outside.” The engulfing was complete, and I was joyfully enlivened by the spiritual sensation of being opened to divine Presence.

At the time I’d been reading Ram Dass’ Be Love Now. So after I returned home and was attempting to write about it in a blog posting, I reflected on the one time when Ram Dass admitted that the spiritual experiences he’d been writing about were what the ancient Greeks called “agapé.” He explained the process of sharing in the flow of agapé with these words: 

"If you put out agape, then you immerse yourself in the sea of agape.”

Since that time, the influence of agapé has developed more strongly throughout my life. Agapé consciousness has formed for me in such a way that I have found that it changed the way I developed identity. My identity in life reformed with the vast, formless, eternal Essence. That has helped me release being controlled by any ego-identity. So that has helped me see other people from the viewpoint of the vast, formless, eternal Essence.

Agapé consciousness can develop for all people as we are able to move away from ego-identity and experience our identity with eternal Essence. We can be helped also in our relationships with Life around us, with the expressions of Life in the people and creatures with whom we come into contact. As agapé consciousness develops, we are able to learn an increasingly deeper appreciation for people, other creatures, and all of Creation.

And that learning involves a profound acceptance of eternal, spiritual Presence permeating all the entities within relational fields. Agapé also spreads spiritually throughout all the relationships of life, deepening that relating. Also all relationships are sensed as connected through spiritual Presence.

Agapé power is a mystery for most people

In looking back over the 9 years of this blog’s development, I ask: why did I name it “The Mystery of Agapé Power”; and then, what have I uncovered about agapé being a mystery to too many in the modern world?

Even before I started this blog I spent many years trying to come to terms with the mystery of why agapé had been so important to the first Christians, and yet almost unknown today. What caused modern Christians to think that agapé had diminished in importance? Finally, to get beyond mere intellectualizing, I took my exploration of agapé into my morning meditation. 

For a couple of years, I started morning prayer time by focusing on my developing awareness of the spiritual meaning of Romans 5:5 (using my own translation -- “God’s agapé has been poured into the center of our being through the Holy Spirit.”) I opened myself up to receive a sense of the spiritual flowing of the agapé of God. In that way I grew to realize agapé as spiritual power, and I became convinced that it was in every person’s heart-center (and not confined to people of any particular religion).

Then one winter morning while meditating out in a park, during such a practice with the power of agapé, I had an intense Spirit-filled experience. Although it’s a little difficult putting into words, the best I can do is say that I “sensed” agapé as “access.” For 2 days after that original experience, I explored in deep meditation what it meant to have “agapé as access.” On that 2nd day I “sensed” that agapé had brought me access to spiritual “manifestation” of God’s Presence. The word “manifest” actually appeared in my awareness.

Then the next day, I sensed that I was being led to my book shelf, to a book that I hadn’t read in 4 years. That book was Love, Power, and Justice by the existentialist theologian Paul Tillich; I opened the book and on pg. 33 found this: 

“… agapé enters from another dimension into the whole of life and into all qualities of love. One could call agapé the depth of love or love in relation to the ground of life. One could say that in agapé ultimate reality manifests itself and transforms life and love.”

Reading the word “manifests” had a powerful impact on me! When I saw the way he connected agape and divine manifestation -- used in the same way that it had come to me in prayer -- I was convinced that a breakthrough had come to me. In the weeks that followed, I became increasingly aware of the importance of this — not only to my morning prayers but to the relationships of my life. Finally as Jan. began, I decided to start this blog dedicated to exploring agapé as a spiritual power that God has given to all people as our access to the manifested divine Presence.

That last sentence has become for me a verbal ‘touchstone.’ Because I believe that the Divine Reality is so far beyond the awareness of humans (no matter how much of a spiritual genius a particular human could be), we need a way of access that can only come divinely. That is, unless divine manifestation develops in some way to us, we have no spiritual awareness. But even at that, we still have to become open to that awareness in order to receive that experience. So then we need some way to access that spiritual manifestation. That’s how I came to understand how Paul’s message to the Romans had meaning for my life. I came to the awareness that agapé is God’s action. 

But then this thought came to me: what if …

... Agapé is God’s primary action for each person’s life?

What could that mean? What would the implications then be for all those other theories about God’s action?

That question sent my memory to 1 John 4:6-8 -- “This is how we recognize the Spirit of truth and the spirit of error. Dear friends, let’s agapao each other, because agapé is from God, and everyone who shares in agapé is born from God and knows God. The person who doesn’t agapao does not know God, because God is agapé.”

And people have been struggling ever since that amazing revelation — to come to terms with what that means for our very survival. I think it means everything! The very survival of the human race depends on coming to terms with agapé as God’s primary action in persons’ lives. 

Agape as the foundation of the creative process

 I found a copy of the old Unity Church book Life is for Loving by Eric Butterworth. In it Butterworth reflected on the problem of various English uses of ‘love.’ For example, he wrote: “There is no word in the language that is used with more meanings than love, and most of them are unconsciously insincere in that they hide the true underlying motives and feelings. Perhaps no other word in the Western world has been so abused as ‘love.’” And “we have so many erroneous thoughts about love.” 

So once again I considered that spiritual understandings would be helped by replacing ‘love’ with ‘agape.’ For example, “Love is the action of a totally transcendent power and process within you” is changed to “Agape is the action of a totally transcendent power and process within you.” Then I did that with the following quotes from his book.

The word ‘charity’ comes from the Latin word ‘caritas,’ [which was a translation of the Greek word ‘agape’]. But as the word is used in our times, it has come to be almost completely divorced from the [spiritual] idea of agape. The emphasis is upon materiality.

Agape begins in a Cosmic Source, flows out through you, and goes on without end.

Agape is an attribute of Divine Mind, the idea and force of universal unity. It is the power that unites and binds in divine harmony the universe and everything in it — including you and me. Thus by principle we are bound in oneness with the Allness of Agape. 

Agape is the foundation of the creative process, the root of the reality of the universe, and the very nature of the Infinite Power and Presence we call God. All things begin with agape.

Intuitively we know that agape is an inner power and not an object, and that our need is to share agape and not just to find someone to love us. Within every person is a hunger and thirst to be agape, to express agape, to let the Infinite Power of Agape flow through us.

God is agape in us. Each of us is the very activity of agape. We have all the agape we need to share agape with everyone and everything, for everyone and everything are also created in and of agape.

Agape is not a commodity to give, but a process through which you touch and express your own deeper nature. Agape, then, is not the plaything of the emotions or senses, but the action of divine law.

Agape is the reality of our total self which we can frustrate or express.

We experience the ISness of God’s agape only to the degree that we let this agape process move through us in our attitudes, our manners, and our actions.

The principle of agape is dynamic. Certainly agape can change the world and it can change you. But it can only do so if you take the principle into the laboratory and roll up your sleeves.

Let us meditate long on the realization that we are created in and of agape, that agape is the one reality of our life, and that there is always enough agape to go around — if we are willing to turn it on by being loving.

I affirm as my own celebration of life: I am a channel for the expression of the Infinite Agape of God.

We have grown up thinking that agape is something that comes to us and from us, rather than that which flows through us from an inward source that is inexhaustible.

The good news of all the great mystic teachers of the ages is that there is a unity of life in which all persons are created in and of agape, all are immersed in the same dynamic flow of infinite agape.

When you stop dealing with things at the level of the human and begin letting the divine of you express through the transcendence of agape which has always been the reality of you, suddenly you will have the whole universe on your side.

Turn your thoughts within and feel the warmth and support of this eternal fountain of agape in which you live and have being. You are in agape; no matter what the conditions of your environment.

If you prepare yourself through deep and intensive meditation upon the reality of your own oneness in the Allness of agape, this will be a guiding and protecting presence to you in all your ways.

When we realize our unity with God, we feel a flow of agape, and a sense of oneness with all persons. It is like going down into a well within ourselves and coming to a deep underground stream, immersing ourselves in that stream and then discovering that the same stream is within every person and at the heart of him he too is immersed in ti with us. This is what is meant by being in agape with all persons. This oneness is agape in action.

Take time to practice the presence of God, the activity of agape. Know that you are in agape wherever you are, and the agape is in you as an attracting, healing, harmonizing, and totally fulfilling power.

Agape is an energy force with fantastic possibilities for your life; but it is only in the depth of your inmost self. When you find and experience it at the depth of you, your whole consciousness will be centered in agape. You will easily become a channel for unrestricted agape to flow through, and an instrument for the creative processor the infinite to do its wonderful work under the warming, healing, and prospering influence of that agape.

There is a radiance of this agape that is a very real harmonizing factor in the atmosphere.

Agape is or can be a creative force at the root of all things. We need to determine that, no matter what the day brings, we will identify with agape.

Agape is the action of divine law, an energy force that flows through us, but which begins in the Infinite Creative Source and has no end. 

Meditation is not a mental practice, but an awareness that takes place in the heart. It is essentially an experience in and of agape. It is an awakening and unfolding of our true nature — by agape.

Keep in mind that this agape is not something that comes from you, something that is generated in you and by you. It is an energy force flowing through you from the Cosmic Center within you, and touching and igniting that same energy force within the object or person.

Agape is the nature of the Presence of God and of you in whom it is present.

The origin of the word “Agape”

My reflection after reading Yuval Noah Harari’s Sapiens follows this post. His chapter on the long millennia of religious development caused me to give a summary of my research into the spiritual meaning of agape.

I gave a quick summary of my decades long query about why St. Paul chose to use such a weird, archaic term as ‘agape.’ Of course, we can only guess because there is no indication. So my research was developed to help me make an educated guess. After all that I concluded he was only using the word to point to a spiritual experience.

What had finally come thru to me happened when I considered it to be not a word that described anything. To his listeners and readers the choice of a word they’d never heard of would have made no sense — and that might have been all he wanted. So at the time, when someone first read 1 Cor. 13, a reader’s question might have been, “What??” after reading that without agape, nothing people do means anything. So Paul could only give a list of adjectives and descriptive phrases. And he concluded that the spiritual experience of agape was more important than experiencing faith and hope. 

So of course, it would destroy his whole effort when modern translators try using a word that was descriptive of something — like, oh I don’t know, maybe like ‘love’ or ‘friendliness.’ The point seems to be for all time, there is no word that should be used to translate ‘agape.’ Paul’s point is made by continuing to do what he did, so we should just use a weird, archaic word.

But where did he get the word? Well, after years of searching, I turned to the Septuagint, the Greek translation of the Hebrew scriptures (made by seventy scholars who gathered in Egypt about a century before Paul). And again I have to guess, this time I guess he would have read the Septuagint. In the most famous passage in Deuteronomy, that Jewish tradition calls the “Great Shema” (because that is the beginning word, which is — as usual — weakly translated in English as ‘hear’ or ‘listen,’ even though that is far too calm a word for its full meaning). 

You see ‘Shema’ is a Call word: commanding a spiritual experience. It is used like blowing the shofar horn: calling the whole people into a worshipping community. When those 70 scholars got to the Great Shema they would have known that it was very important what word they chose to express the way of answering the call to bring each worshiper’s whole being (“all your heart, all your mind, and all your strength”) into a profound experience of divine Presence. 

But they probably realized that no commonly used Greek word carried that full meaning of spiritual power. And that spiritual-experience word they chose was ‘agape.’ That then becomes the key to the meaning of agape. Then the 70 scholars must have realized that the authors of Leviticus made the huge, radical, profound leap to have that spiritual experience be the basis for what forms the community of the faithful people: the call is extended to “your neighbor as yourself;” thus making spiritual experience the basis for forming a community. So in the Septuagint the translation continued to use ‘agape’ in  Leviticus. Then in the Gospels we have Jesus make the final huge, radical, profound leap to call for that spiritual experience extended to enemies. The practical action that flows from that spiritual experience of relationship is then called for in the form of the Golden Rule. And so the Greek version of the Gospels used ‘agape.’All of that is why I think St. Paul was using the word ‘agape’ to point to the power of that spiritual experience when he claimed [Romans 5:5] the hope for humanity was found in the way the Holy Spirit had poured into human hearts the power to have that spiritual experience. So that’s my guess as to why he chose ‘agape’ to point to that spiritual experience.

Agape quotes from Henri Nouwen

Among the many inspirational writings of Henri Nouwen is a book he called Lifesigns. And so from the instructions for living given there, I will share some quotes.

(Because I know of his extensive study of the Bible, it is clear that he was familiar enough with the Greek translation, that he knew where ‘agape’ was translated into English as ‘love.’  For example when he quotes about ‘perfect love’ from the Gospel of John, he would have known that in Greek, the word was ‘agape.’ So when he said, “When St. John says that fear is driven out by perfect love, he points to a love that comes from God, a divine love,” I can change those uses of ‘love’ to ‘agape.’ From here on, I change ‘love’ to ‘agape’ and ‘the house of God’s love’ is changed to ‘the house of agape.’)

The perfect love that drives out fear is divine agape. 

The home, the intimate place, the place of true belonging, is therefore not a place made by human hands. It is fashioned for us by God’s love {in other words, agape}.

God so much desired to fulfill our deepest yearning for a home that God decided to build a home in us. Thus we can remain fully human and still have our home in God. 

The house of agape is the place where we can think, speak, and act in the way of God — not in the way of a fear-filled world.

When we are no longer dominated by fear and have experienced the agape of God, we no longer need to know from moment to moment what is going to happen. We can trust that good things will happen if we remain rooted in that agape.

The tragedy is that we are so possessed by fear that we do not trust our innermost self as an intimate place, but anxiously wander around hoping to find it where we are not. Thus we become strangers to ourselves, people who have an address but are never home and hence can never be addressed by the true voice of agape.

When we grasp the truth that we already have a home, we may at last have the strength to unmask the illusions created by our fears and continue to return again and again and again.

Wherever we see people overcoming their fears and approaching each other in mutual vulnerability, we catch a glimpse of agape in the house of God and taste the fruit of that agape.

The more we touch the intimate agape of God which creates, sustains, and guides us, the more we recognize the multitude of fruits that come forth from that agape. They are fruits of the Spirit, such as: joy, peace, kindness, goodness, and gentleness. When we encounter any of these fruits, we always experience them as gifts.

Gratitude flows from the recognition that all that is, is a divine gift born out of agape and freely given to us so that we may offer thanks and share it with others.

We need new eyes to see and new ears to hear the truth of our unity. A heart filled with agape can perceive the unity of humanity. This requires divine perception. God wants to open our eyes so that we can see that we belong together in the embrace of God’s agape.

The intimacy of the house of agape always leads to solidarity with the weak. The closer we come to the heart of the One who has agape for us, the closer we come to each other in the solidarity of a redeemed humanity.

The same God who cares for everyone without exception, has agape for each individual with an exceptional love. 

The deeper our prayer becomes, the closer we come to this mystery of God’s agape.

Short “Agape” insights from M.L. King, P. Tillich, and T. Merton

When I reflected on, and was moved by, the amazing inspiration from Martin L. King, Paul Tillich, and Thomas Merton, some of the insights stood out as more helpful than others, so what follows is a collection of those special insights.
      “When Jesus bids us to love our enemies, he is speaking neither of eros nor philia, he is speaking of agape, understanding and creative, redemptive goodwill for all men. An overflowing love which seeks nothing in return, agape is the love of God operating in the human heart. At this level, we love men not because we like them, nor because their ways appeal to us, nor even because they possess some type of divine spark; we love every man because God loves him. At this level, we love the person who does an evil deed, although we hate the deed that he does. Now we can see what Jesus meant when he said, ‘Love your enemies.’ Have we not come to such an impasse in the modern world that we must have agape for our enemies — or else? The chain reaction of evil — hate begetting hate, wars producing more wars — must be broken, or we shall be plunged into the dark abyss of annihilation. Only by following this way and responding with this type of love are we able to be children of our Father who is in heaven.
      “When I speak of agape I am not speaking of some sentimental and weak response. I am speaking of that force which all of the great religions have seen as the supreme unifying principle of life. Agape is somehow the key that unlocks the door which leads to ultimate reality.” 
                                                         …Martin Luther King

      “Agape enters from another dimension into the whole of life and into all qualities of love. One could call agape the depth of love or love in relation to the ground of life. One could say that in agape ultimate reality manifests itself and transforms life and love. Agape seeks the other one in his center. Agape sees him as God sees him.”  …Paul Tillich

      “To serve the God of agape one must be free, one must face the terrible responsibility of the decision to share agape in spite of all unworthiness whether in oneself or in one’s neighbor.
      “Only agape can attain and preserve the good of all.
      “My true identity lies hidden in God’s call to my freedom and my response to God. This means I must use my freedom in order to share agape, with full responsibility and authenticity, not merely receiving a form imposed on me by external forces, or forming my own life according to an approved social pattern but directing my agape to the personal reality of my brother, and embracing God’s will in its naked, often impenetrable mystery.” …Thomas Merton

And now here are a few of the scripture quotes that inspired the above quotes:
      “I give you a new commandment: have agape for 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 have agape for each other.” (Jn. 13:35)

      “Neither death nor life, no angel, no prince, nothing that exists, nothing still to come, not any power, or height or depth, nor any created thing, can ever come between us and the agape of God made visible in Christ Jesus our Lord.” (Rom. 8:39)

      “Agape puts up with all things, trusts in all things, hopes for all things, endures all things. Agape never fails. … Now faith, hope, and agape remain -- these three things -- and the greatest of these is agape.” (1 Cor. 13:13)

Agape in MADELEINE L’ENGLE’s “Walking on Water”

Although Madeleine L’Engle describes the problem with translating ‘agape’ as ‘charity’ in the King James translation or ‘love’ in the modern translations, she never uses the original word ‘agape,’ but in those places in her memoir, “Walking on Water,” where she uses ‘love’ in a spiritual way that shows the meaning is ‘agape,’ the word was changed to ‘agape’ to keep in the original biblical tradition.

      "In 1 Corinthians 13 there is shattering power. It is not a vague, genial sense of well-being that it offers us but particular, painful, birth-giving agape. 

      "How to translate that one word which is the key word? ‘Charity’ {the translation in the King James Bible} long ago lost it original meaning and has come to mean a cold, dutiful giving. And ‘love’ is now almost entirely limited to the narrower forms of sex. Canon Tallis suggests that perhaps for our day the best translation is the name of Jesus and that will tell us everything about agape we need to know. 

      "God gives agape to us because we are his children, because we are. The more we feel that we ought to be loved because it is our due or because we deserve it, the less we will truly feel the need for God’s agape; the less implicit will be our trust; the less will we cry out, Abba!

      "For each one of us there is a special gift, the way in which we may best serve and please the Lord, whose agape is so overflowing.

      "It is a listening, agape, and many artists who are incapable of this in their daily living are able to find it as they listen to their work, that work which binds our wounds and heals us and helps us toward wholeness.

      "The disciples, like the rest of us, did not deserve God’s agape, nor their Master’s. How must Jesus have felt when he was forced to realize that his disciples, whom he had called to be with him all the way, would not stand with him at the end? And yet, despite the fear and unfaithfulness of his followers, Jesus’ agape never faltered, for it was not dependent on the merit and virtue and the qualifications of those to whom he gave agape.

      "Following Christ has nothing to do with success as the world sees success. It has to do with agape. So does the Bible. God’s agape for people. All of us.

      "In moments of mystical illumination we may experience, in a few chronological seconds, years of transfigured agape."

Agapé in Max Lucado’s “A Love Worth Giving”

In order to find deeper insight in selected quotes from Max Lucado’s A Love Worth Giving, I used Lucado’s understanding of spiritual love to change ‘love’ to ‘agape’ in the following quotes:

      “Would we share agape as God shares agape? Then we start by receiving God’s agape. “May your roots go down deep into the soil of God’s marvelous agape.” {Ephesians 3:17}

      “John urges us to “rely on the agape God has for us.” {1 Jn. 4:16}

      “Agape cares for others because God has cared for us. Because God had agape for us first, agape responds. Because God was gracious, agape forgives the mistake when the offense is high. Agape offers patience when stress is abundant and extends kindness when kindness is rare.

      “We have no thermostatic impact on agape; [whereas] our love depends on the receiver of the love; and our love will be regulated by their appearance, by their personalities. Not so with the agape of God. God’s agape is born from within God, not what God finds in us. Agape is uncaused and spontaneous.

      “The abundance of our love does not increase agape. The lack of our love does not diminish agape. Our goodness does not enhance agape, nor does our weakness dilute agape.

      “To be more loving begin by accepting your place as a dearly loved child. “Be imitators of God, therefore, as dearly loved children, and live a life of agape, just as Christ shared agape with us.” {Ephesians 5:1-2}

      “Many people tell us to love. Only God gives us the power to do so.

      “You have a deep aquifer of agape from which to draw. When you find it hard to love, then  you need a drink! Drink deeply! Drink daily!

      “Drink deeply of God’s agape for you — [that] fills your heart with agape worth giving. Agape enables you to put others before yourself, and be quick to applaud the success of others.

       “We will receive first so we can give later. We will drink deeply from heaven’s endless agape. And when we do, we will discover agape worth giving.”