Agapé and Martin Luther King

 

I was asked to preach at Washington Park United Church of Christ, so I showed how Martin Luther King used agapé as the force to overcome segregation. The scripture I based the sermon on was 1 Corinthians 13.

       I started by pointing out that St. Paul inserted into his letter the verses of 1 Corinthians 13 in order to teach people about agapé. That chapter is all about agapé. So why did he need to teach about agapé  Because, when he first started using the word, almost no one had even heard the word. 

       Agapé became a special word that was identified with Christians. It was a main part of Christian identity. Which is what we read in the Gospel of John, if we leave ‘agapé’ in the original Greek, when Jesus tells the Disciples at the Last Supper that people will know them because of agapé.

For those first Greek-speaking Christians who used the word, it was a main spiritual word. It just was not the commonly used word for love, which was ‘eros.’ 

To bring the way of looking at agape into the modern world, we can look at what agapé meant to Martin Luther King. He talked about agapé because he was trying to explain why it was important to the Civil Rights Movement when dealing with the people who were acting like the enemies of his people. He pointed out that when he used the word ‘love’ when talking about enemies, he didn’t mean what we normally think ‘love’ means, but instead, it was agapé he was talking about.

This was especially obvious when he said things like: “Do to us what you will, and we shall continue to love you. Bomb our homes and threaten our children, and we shall still love you. Send your hooded perpetrators of violence into our community at the midnight hour and beat us and leave us half dead, and we shall still love you. But be ye assured that we will wear you down by our capacity to suffer. One day we shall win freedom, but not only for ourselves. We shall so appeal to your heart and conscience that we shall win you in the process, and our victory will be a double victory.” That’s agapé! He was talking about the power of agapé.

History will always remember that those things actually happened. And it mattered a lot to Dr. King how his people responded when treated that way. He was explaining that they could actually gain power to change things by responding spiritually. That’s the point of agapé: it is a kind of spiritual power, what he called “soul force.” 

That was part of Dr. King’s unique understanding. Another unique aspect of his was the way he could take a very long view of what they had to do. His long view of what had to be done was they had to convince white people to do away with the whole legal and social system of segregation. He knew it was so complex that it would take special effort to get it done. 

When we look back to those difficult times, we remember that segregation was a vast system deeply imbedded in both the legal and social structure of all the southern states. The police and sheriff forces were designed to enforce segregation, to keep black people in their place, suppressed. The court system was designed to back up segregation because the white power structure had made segregation the law of the land. And even para-military organizations, like the Klu Klux Klan and White Citizens Councils, had been formed to force black people to conform to the societal aspect of segregation. So Dr. King saw that special, spiritual force was going to have to be activated in order to win. And that — not violence — was the way to win. Dr. King once said that Agape is humankind’s most potent weapon for personal and social transformation.

So that’s one way how old agape was used in the modern world. And that’s why it’s important to try understanding what agape is.

What all this boils down to is — Martin Luther King was teaching people that we have to treat each other spiritually, and we can do that. Not because of who they are. Or even because of who we are. But because agapé helps us in relating to one another. Our greatest hope for the future well being of the human race depends on everyone having deep within the way to respond to each other spiritually, with the power to change lives, to change human relations, and to change the world. So agape helps everyone with tolerance, and openness to one another, and acceptance of one another, and respect for the dignity of all people.

When all of this is working, and as more and more people learn to treat each other with compassion and respect, we will see more and more amazing developments come into this old world. And it will begin to seem like a new world is coming into being.

Agapé is The Way

 One of the activities I did to try enjoying the shut down before I was vaccinated against the coronavirus pandemic was to discover books about love to add to my collection. One of the best is Love is The Way by Episcopal Archbishop Michael Curry.       

He gave the sermon at the wedding of British Prince Harry and Meghan Markle, but like every author who discusses agapé, after explaining that he meant agapé when he talked about love, the rest of his book replaces ‘agapé’ with ‘love.’ (Because Curry has so much to say, this blog page is longer than most of my pages.)

       An example of the difference in the sense of meaning is 2 versions of his quote in which he speaks directly to the reader of his book: “God’s love is everywhere, in all things, and that includes you.” Now when we make the replacement we get: “God’s agapé is everywhere, in all things, and that includes you.” See how that reminds us of Romans 5:5 (when the replacement is made there also): “hope does not disappoint us, because God’s agapé has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit that has been given to us.”

       Michael Curry started discussing agapé as “sacrificial love that seeks the good and well-being of others, of society, of the world.” When he finally got around to seeing the spiritual aspect of agapé, he began by pointing out, “The Greek word used by the New Testament writer for the word ‘love’ is ‘agape.’” Then he commented about John 3:16, “God gave. That’s agape. And love such as that is the way to the heart of God, the heart of each other. It is the way to a new world that looks something more like God’s dream for us and all creation, what Dante spoke of as ‘the love that moves the sun and stars.’”

       Then he quoted all of the scripture chapter, 1 Corinthians 13, but didn’t mention that in the original Greek, that scripture passage is all about agapé. For Paul and the disciples, agapé was something different. So when we think spiritually, the following Curry quotes have ‘love’ changed back to ‘agapé’ so we can see that it is different.

       “Sharing godly agapé liberates the true self, so that we can more fully live. When you know, nurture, and ultimately share your true self, you breathe God’s agapé into every space you inhabit.

       “We were made by a power of agapé, and our lives were meant — and are meant — to be lived in that agapé. That’s why we are here. Ultimately, the source of agapé is God, the source of all our lives.

       “The more we listen to agapé — let it guide us through life — the faster we find that sweet spot, that intersection where our deep gladness and the world’s hunger meet and walk the path of agapé together.

       “Agapé is meant to saturate all levels of human living and existence, because the God who gave us life is agapé. 

       “The agapé you need to discover inside yourself is something fierce. This agapé is a verb: it’s an action, with force and follow-through. When we really put agapé to work, it starts to reveal its extraordinary power.

       “There is a simple way to connect to the divine, anytime you feel like it. If God is agapé, and agapé is an action, you’ve only got to get out there and do it. You’ve got to get out there and receive it. From a small gesture to a large sacrifice, every day provides an opportunity to do agape, so long as you’re not living a life in isolation.

       “The way of agapé can change each of us, and all of us, for the better.

       “Agapé, as I read in the Bible, is ubiquitous. It affects all aspects of life. Agapé is all around us. It is in nature — in the ocean, the trees, the sky, the mountains, all of it. But connecting to God’s presence in nature isn’t passive, either. It requires active presence.

       “The great theologian and philosopher Howard Thurman reflected on the profound experience he had watching Halley’s comet in 1910, and he gave a name to the awareness and awe that came over him, ‘the givens of God,’ which the human heart by its very nature hungers to connect with. When we succeed, we feel it. God’s agapé is everywhere, in all things, and that includes you.

       “Martin Luther King showed how to discover the power of agapé, which he called the redemptive power of agapé that we can use to make of this old world a new world, for agapé is the only way.

       “For agapé to survive when dreams are deferred, it must be practiced day in, day out. And in the end, living the way of agapé requires what Dr. King called ‘cosmic companionship.’ When it’s dark on earth, God is the one who whispers, ‘Say, let me tell you about this dream…’ Dr. King realized that to walk the way of agapé, we need to nurture a relationship with the source of agapé. 

       “Agapé — unselfish, sacrificial, unconditional, and liberating agapé — is the way, frankly the only way, to realize God’s dream of the beloved community, on earth as it is in heaven. It’s the only thing that can, and that ever will, make the world a better place.

       “There is a universal hunger at the heart of every human being: to give agapé and to receive agapé. It connects all people of faith, hope, and good will. That agapé knows no borders, no limitations, no divisions or differences of race, class, caste, nationality, ethnic origin, political affiliation, or religious conviction. That agapé can break down every barrier that blocks the way to the realization of God’s dream of the beloved community.

       “God’s agapé is a gift of God, flowing from the very heart of creation. 

       “Human beings — fragile as we are — are the beautiful, heartbreaking conduit, but ultimately not the source. God may be the source of agapé, but people are the vessels.

       “The way of agapé — the power of God — is the key to our hope and to our future. The liberating agape of God is the key to the Way of Jesus.

       “The way of agapé is how we stay decent during indecent times.

       “So here I am … encouraging a revival of agapé as a way to a liberating and life-giving relationship with God, with others, with all God’s creation on the planet. The revival of agapé as the guide for living; for relationships; for leaders; for our individual and collective spiritual, material, and physical well-being. Our job is to share agapé, and in the case of Christians, to witness to the way of agapé that came to us from Jesus’s teachings.

       “The way of agapé will show us the right thing to do, every single time. It is moral and spiritual grounding — and a place of rest — amid the chaos that is often part of life.

       “Dreamers understand that we need to change the world with agapé, not hate. For John Lewis the civil rights movement, above all, was a work of agapé. He learned that by facing an army of weapons drawn against him with agapé as his only defense.

        “Agapé is God’s way, the moral way, but it’s also the only thing that works.

        “What we call nonviolent resistance, or turning the other cheek, is in fact the strategic deployment of agapé.

       “Striving to look outward at the common good whenever possible is about as countercultural as you can get in this country. But that’s what agapé means.

       “Agapé is powerful, transformative, free, and freeing to all. 

       “When the way of agapé becomes one’s way of life, it’s a game changer. It shapes every decision we make — and that changes everything.

       “Part of living the truth of agapé is working for a good, just, humane, and loving society. It means praying through participation in the life of our government and society. Through caring for others. Through working for policies and laws that reflect Jesus’s call for agapé, to do unto others as you would have them do unto you. Through fashioning a civic order that reflects goodness, justice, and compassion, and the very heart and dream of God for all of God’s children and God’s creation. 

       “There’s power in agapé. There’s power to help and heal when nothing else can. There’s power in agapé to lift up and liberate when nothing else will. There’s power in agapé to show us the way to live.

       “When God, who is agapé, becomes our spiritual center of gravity, and agapé our moral compass, we live differently, regardless of what the world around us does. The world changes for the better, one life at a time. So don’t give up on agapé.

       “We need help from the very source of our faith and values — from God’s agapé. And we also need soul companions to help us along the way. We need spiritual energy, the source of agapé that is bottomless and endless. And then, we need each other.

       “Agapé as an action is the only thing that has ever changed the world for the better.

       “Faith dares us to believe that in the end, agape wins. We can’t see it, but we believe it anyway.

       “The world has changed before, and it can change again, for the better. And we can find peace and joy in our hearts in the interim, even as we carry on the struggle for a humane, just, and peaceful world ruled by agapé."

Agapé and the Parable of the Good Samaritan

To try getting an understanding about translating the Gospels, I’m reading 2 books about translations. The first is one of those that try to reconstruct the Aramaic Gospels, the other one is about translating directly from Greek without taking into account any church doctrine that developed after the first century. That’s how I was able to see a deeper meaning to the Parable of the Good Samaritan.

Here is the English translation of that passage in Luke 10:25-37, but with the Greek ‘agapé’ left untranslated. I did that because I think the Greek followers of St. Paul would have understood the deeper, spiritual understanding of Jesus’ encounter with the lawyer. 

“A lawyer stood up to test Jesus. ‘Teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?’ He said to him, ‘What is written in the law? What do you read there?’ He answered, ‘You shall have agapé for the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your strength, and with all your mind, and your neighbor as yourself.’ And he said to him, ‘You have given the right answer; do this and you will live.’ But wanting to justify himself, he asked Jesus, ‘And who is my neighbor?’ Jesus replied, ‘A man was going down from Jerusalem to Jericho, and fell into the hands of robbers, who stripped him, beat him, and went away, leaving him half dead. Now by chance a priest was going down that road, and when he saw him, he passed on the other side. So likewise a Levite, when he came to the place and saw him, passed by on the other side. But a Samaritan while traveling came near him, and when he saw him, he was moved with pity. He went to him and bandaged his wounds, having poured oil and wine on them. Then he put him on his own animal, brought him to an inn, and took care of him. The next day he took out two denarii, gave them to the innkeeper, and said, “Take care of him, and when I come back, I will repay you whatever more you spend.” Which of these three, do you think, was a neighbor to the man who fell into the hands of the robbers?’ He said, ‘The one who showed him mercy.’ Jesus said to him, ‘Go and do likewise.’” (Luke 10:25-37 New Revised Standard Version)

I think that Jesus told that shocking parable honoring the hated Samaritan as the way to shake up the lawyer and prove to him that he had asked the wrong question. But for thousands of years people have been making the same mistake — thinking that was the question that should be asked. So that very same mistake (sin?) has continued to be asked because of the lack of awareness of why Jesus told the Parable of the Good Samaritan and then turned the question around. So why did he?

The point is the 2 Great Commandments have nothing to do with who the neighbor is or what ‘neighbor’ even refers to. The point has to be with agapé. “Go and do likewise” refers to the spiritual power of agapé — and the importance of using the power of agapé.

As I found out when I researched in the Greek Septuagint for the blog post back in March about the Great Shema, the key word that the 2 commandments have in common is agapé. That happens because the second commandment made the radical jump of proposing that people relate to one another the same spiritually as relating to God.

For centuries people have argued that it was humanly impossible to do that. My answer to that argument is “so don’t try doing it humanly.” The conclusion I came up with is to realize that agapé is spiritual power. As we have recorded for us in Romans 5:5, our hope is that “God’s agapé has been poured into our hearts.” I think that’s our hope because we are able to use the spiritual power of agapé to relate to one another as we relate to God.  So as Jesus told the lawyer, “Go and do likewise.”

Confusing Agapé with a ‘Different Kind of Love’

Recently I ran across a book that illustrates the struggle that happens in mental and emotional constructs when trying to come up with the spiritual meaning of love. The author of that book, Love 2.0, is the relationship scientist, Barbara Fredrickson. In her book she tries to come up with a new science of love.

Of course, the solution to that unnecessary struggle is to recognize agapé. Although Fredrickson tries to come to terms with spirituality, she insists on a scientific approach to all aspects of love. So she doesn’t consider the Greek version of Christian scriptures. Even though the Greek word for the spiritual power emanating from the heart-center is agapé, and it worked its way into modern usage beginning in the early 1900’s, she tries to stick with the inadequate English language. 

That’s partly what’s behind the major mistake in biblical translation after the 1800s when ‘agapé’ was translated into English as ‘love.’ For example in this blog’s posting that is below this posting I talk about the false impression that chapter 13 of 1 Corinthians was merely advice about relationships. So we get a completely different understanding by interpreting the verses from the viewpoint of spiritual development.

To illustrate the improvement that her book could have taken, I went through her book and in the places where deeper inspiration can be found by recognizing agapé, I changed the following quotes to use agapé.

“Agapé can give you a palpable sense of oneness and connection, a transcendence that makes you feel part of something far larger than yourself.

Agapé is life-giving, an indispensable source of energy, sustenance, and health.

Agapé lifts you toward the higher spiritual altitudes of oceanic oneness. And from these new and higher vantage points, you can better see and appreciate your connections to the larger fabric of life as well as your place and influence within it. Agape is also deeply personal. It unfurls within and throughout your mind and body like a wave.

When you experience agapé, you not only become better able to see the larger tapestry of life and better able to breathe life into the connections that matter to you, but you also set yourself on a pathway that leads to more health, happiness, and wisdom.

Agapé ripples out through space and time. In a moment of agapé flow, your awareness automatically expands, allowing you to appreciate more than you typically do. Over time, these powerful moments change who you are. They help expand your network of relationships and grow your resilience, wisdom, and physical health. This repeated back-and-forth sharing helps establish and strengthen healthy communities and cultures. 

Agapé can affect you so deeply that it reshapes you from the inside out and by doing so alters your destiny for loving moments.

When you make agapé your prevailing desire, you remake whole domains of your life. You become appreciably and enduringly different, and better. You uplift others, helping them become different and better as well.

Learn to seek agapé out more frequently and it can elevate you, your community, and our world far beyond what you and I can today envision. Opportunities for agapé sharing abound. The more you experience agapé, the more you open up and grow, becoming wiser and more attuned, more resilient and effective, happier and healthier.”

Interpreting Scripture from Agapé Awareness

One of the problems with the way blogs are constructed comes from trying to develop a progression of thinking from page to page. The problem is blogs are organized in reverse order. So when someone would stumble onto this blog, this top page is the last of 10 years worth of pages, with the comments here resulting from 10 years of research and reasoning.

That means this page may not make much sense unless you’ve read the 142 pages that have come below it. But anyway, now I’ll use the 10 years when I have experienced the development of Agapé Awareness to reinterpret the 13th chapter of 1 Corinthians. Finally I reached the conclusion that this chapter is about the spiritual power of agapé.

Slowly I came to realize that a major mistake was made in biblical translation in the 1800s when ‘agapé’ first started being translated into English as ‘love.’ That gave the impression that chapter 13 was merely advice about relationships. But that misses the meaning of the chapter. Instead, we should interpret the verses from the viewpoint of spiritual development. That’s why the author started by talking about spiritual gifts. So the point of those introductory verses was to show that agapé is not only the most important spiritual gift but all other spiritual gifts amount to nothing without agapé.

From that viewpoint, we need to see the rest of the verses as explaining how the spiritual power of agapé works. That leads me to think that this chapter is a summary of a training manual for working with agapé in the process of spiritual development. So now I’ll imagine how it could be a training manual. 

First, each Greek word would be read from spiritual awareness. The first word describing how agapé works is ‘makrothymeo,’ which viewed spiritually is the ability to remain tranquil while accepting all things that happen as merely things that happen, without getting upset by what happens, without having expectations about the time that is involved.

The second Greek word, “chresteuomai,” appears only in this place in all scripture. So it is not the common word for kindness. Viewed spiritually it expresses the power of openness to others to share the flow from the heart-center. We can think of agapé as like a seed planted in our heart-center, and as it grows up into our surface, it gives life to our actions. So trainees would need to work with agapé in a way that at the same time it opens them up spiritually it draws them into divine Presence.

Second, the middle verses show what agapé helps to overcome. Taken together those negative images show what can be overcome by this different kind of spiritual power that flows through human relationships. So trainees must learn to disassociate themselves from ego-centric pressures. Trainees must learn to have agapé help overcome ego-identity. That’s how they learn to live by trust instead of living from fear and defensiveness.

Then they learn to work with the power of agapé — giving of themselves in helping others and in working for justice — that way it gives the energy to keep from getting burned out. Agapé flow is continuous and does not depend on us or on others but gives the power to deal with all beings equally. It is the power of openness to and acceptance of others.

The following six verses demonstrate the power of agapé to strengthen the spiritual development of people. And the verse about hoping all things reminds us of Romans 5:5 that says we are sustained by hope “because God’s agapé has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit.” So trainees learn to let God’s agapé flow through their heart-centers into power for their living.

Agapé and Spiritual Development

In the blog page that follows this I returned to study First Corinthians 13. So now I want to reflect on what that means for the full spiritual development of the human race. 

That means I don’t think of St. Paul as confined to merely the little groups (that we today call ‘churches’) who responded to his message and gathered together. I think he meant for his message to be universal, extending far beyond those gathering groups. For as St. Paul started the very next chapter by advising: “Put agapé first.” (New English Bible translation, with ‘agapé’ left in its original Greek) Both chapters are mainly about agapé.

As he explained in the middle section of Chapter 13, agapé can help all people move beyond any ego-centric behavior. He seems to be saying that agapé is our very witness that true spiritual power is on the side of patience, kindness, justice and truth -- and that it is against envy, conceit, self-righteousness, and judgmental attitude and action — in other words against all other results of ego-centric behavior. 

Then he concluded that we need agapé to become fully mature in our spiritual development; otherwise, we remain childishly stunted in our growth in faith. And finally, even though we know that faith, hope, and agapé abide to sustain us spiritually -- “the greatest of these is agapé.” (vs. 13) Greater than faith and hope?!

St. Paul was telling his generation, and all generations since then, to expect that when we open ourselves to the power of agapé flowing from deep within us, we will find it to be patient, kind, non-judgmental, and not ego-boosting. I take that to mean that God will not force us to open to the flow of agapé, so each of has to be completely willing to open up then use what comes from our spiritual-heart-center -- but also that agapé will eternally be there for us. Even though agapé is the most important power that God has for us, we have to freely accept the gift or else it will mean nothing to us -- and the deep purpose of our lives will not fully develop for us until we are willing to work with that all-important spiritual power.

Later on, near the end of that epistle, St. Paul said, “Stay awake, stand firm in your faith, be brave, be strong. Everything should be done in agapé.” (16:13-14 Common English Bible) That’s how he thought of the total influence of agapé -- that we should use it to do everything that brings ultimate meaning to Life.

It is that spiritual power that brings from the center of our being the peace that is the spiritual basis of patience itself; the spiritual strength of kindness; the wise rejoicing in the truth; and the basis of such a profound compassion that “bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.”

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.