Every morning I’ve been doing a practice near the beginning of my morning prayers when I pray to become ‘centered’ on agape. This practice began as I used Romans 5:5 to start. I pray: May “God’s agape pour into the center of my being thru the Holy Spirit.” That prayer helps me let God’s agape open me to access God’s Presence.
What such a prayer practice means to me is
[1st] accepting agape-flow into 'the center of my being' (in ancient Greek, ‘the heart’);
[2nd] meditating on the way agape opens me to the Presence of the Holy Spirit over me, under me, around me, and thru me -- as I open to both the intimacy and the vastness of Presence.
I’ve found this to be very helpful for my spiritual development. Thru that practice I’ve slowly been able to ‘sense’ Presence permeating my being and in the next moment I ‘sense’ a deep, vast silence. As I wait upon that ‘deep, vast silence’ I gain a sense of divine Presence throughout that ‘silence’ -- in that way it’s not silence in the normal meaning of that word -- in the same way this practice has led me to realize that agape is not love in the normal meaning of that word. Then as God's agape opens me to the vastness of silent Presence, I 'sense' the spiritual connection that agape gives me with God.
Now, of course that is just the beginning of the wonder that agape brings to me. Thru that practice I have found deeper insight into Paul's conclusion that agape brings patience and kindness [1 Cor. 13: 4]. Of course, I call it “just the beginning” because I have become more sensitive to how very far I am from fully accepting agape’s patience and kindness into the everyday actions of my daily life.
I guess the most common example of my lack of progress is the way I lose patience with my grandson when he gets on my nerves and frustrates me. The need to keep working on gaining patience to handle such frustrations is one of the reasons why I talk about centering my life on agape.
It is not enough to center on agape in the moment of deep prayer, accepting God’s agape pouring into the center of one’s being; but also it’s necessary to center one’s life in God’s agape. That's needed in order for agape to work in the daily relationships and the daily times of need and struggle. That’s how we find the strength, patience, kindness, and joy of God’s agape flowing into action in our living.
But it is exactly in finding such effectiveness of agape’s help that we find our closeness to God’s Presence.
Thursday, September 30, 2010
Saturday, September 18, 2010
The Mistake of calling AGAPE ‘Love’
There are two major problems with translating spiritual ‘agape’ with the ordinary English word ‘love.’ So far in this blog I’ve only focused on the first -- that is, because Paul purposely chose not to use the ordinary Greek word for love, his meaning is corrupted if we translate what he wrote with our ordinary word for love.
Of course, a few centuries ago, translators tried using words like ‘charity’ and ‘loving-kindness.’ But neither of those words carries the spiritual meaning that Paul gave to agape when he referred to 'God's agape.' We can never begin to see what Paul was meaning without the sense of spiritual.
The second major problem is much, much worse. It happens when ‘love’ gets wrongly used to imagine God in our image. That happens when we think that God loves just like humans love.
And that is the problem with applying our ordinary word for love to divine action. All kinds of wrongful thinking comes from doing that. For example, in popularized religious groups, God is expected to love us in the ordinary way that humans love each other. That pushes them to fall into the mistake of pseudo-religious thinking that God is somehow a "super-powerful Man-in-the-clouds" who has to always protect us when we strictly follow a bunch of rules and regulations.
Such a mistaken image of God pictures this Being-up-in-the-clouds showering down love into us like rain. That’s why popularized pseudo-religion has set up a false system of rewards and punishments. Of course, that has led to the unfortunate state of affairs causing untold numbers of people to ‘lose their faith’ -- because life just doesn't work that way.
But of course, that is not at all what Jesus meant. In the Greek translation we see that clearly when a spiritual form of agape is used instead of ever using the Greek word for love (eros, philia, storge) applied to God.
Of course, where that truth stands out so starkly is when we finally get to 1 John 4:8. No First-Century Christian would have ever said, “God is eros;” or “God is philia.” That would have been turning God into human love. Something very different was meant when that verse proclaimed that "God is agape." But in the modern world that tragic error can be made when ‘agape’ is translated as ‘love.’
But we can gain better insight by quoting 1 John 4:7-12 -- leaving in agape, agapeo, and agapan where they were meant to be -- “Dear friends, let’s agapeo each other, because agape is from God, and everyone who agapeo is born from God and knows God. The person who doesn’t agapeo does not know God, because God is agape. This is how the agape of God is revealed to us: God has sent his only Son into the world so that we can live through him. This is agape: it is not that we agapeo God but that God agapan us and sent his Son as the sacrifice that deals with our sins. Dear friends, if God agapan us this way, we also ought to agapeo each other. No one has ever seen God. If we have agape for each other, God remains in us and God’s agape is made perfect in us.” (Common English Bible)
So we can see, that during the developing process of spiritual understanding in the Early Church in the first century, Christians had transformed agape into a deeply spiritual term. Of course, we today lose all that important spiritual transformation when we make the mistake of reversing that critical religious process by translating ‘agape’ as ‘love.’ Those verses in 1 John 4:7-12 have so much deeper meaning when the forms of ‘agape’ are left in -- where they were meant to be originally.
Of course, a few centuries ago, translators tried using words like ‘charity’ and ‘loving-kindness.’ But neither of those words carries the spiritual meaning that Paul gave to agape when he referred to 'God's agape.' We can never begin to see what Paul was meaning without the sense of spiritual.
The second major problem is much, much worse. It happens when ‘love’ gets wrongly used to imagine God in our image. That happens when we think that God loves just like humans love.
And that is the problem with applying our ordinary word for love to divine action. All kinds of wrongful thinking comes from doing that. For example, in popularized religious groups, God is expected to love us in the ordinary way that humans love each other. That pushes them to fall into the mistake of pseudo-religious thinking that God is somehow a "super-powerful Man-in-the-clouds" who has to always protect us when we strictly follow a bunch of rules and regulations.
Such a mistaken image of God pictures this Being-up-in-the-clouds showering down love into us like rain. That’s why popularized pseudo-religion has set up a false system of rewards and punishments. Of course, that has led to the unfortunate state of affairs causing untold numbers of people to ‘lose their faith’ -- because life just doesn't work that way.
But of course, that is not at all what Jesus meant. In the Greek translation we see that clearly when a spiritual form of agape is used instead of ever using the Greek word for love (eros, philia, storge) applied to God.
Of course, where that truth stands out so starkly is when we finally get to 1 John 4:8. No First-Century Christian would have ever said, “God is eros;” or “God is philia.” That would have been turning God into human love. Something very different was meant when that verse proclaimed that "God is agape." But in the modern world that tragic error can be made when ‘agape’ is translated as ‘love.’
But we can gain better insight by quoting 1 John 4:7-12 -- leaving in agape, agapeo, and agapan where they were meant to be -- “Dear friends, let’s agapeo each other, because agape is from God, and everyone who agapeo is born from God and knows God. The person who doesn’t agapeo does not know God, because God is agape. This is how the agape of God is revealed to us: God has sent his only Son into the world so that we can live through him. This is agape: it is not that we agapeo God but that God agapan us and sent his Son as the sacrifice that deals with our sins. Dear friends, if God agapan us this way, we also ought to agapeo each other. No one has ever seen God. If we have agape for each other, God remains in us and God’s agape is made perfect in us.” (Common English Bible)
So we can see, that during the developing process of spiritual understanding in the Early Church in the first century, Christians had transformed agape into a deeply spiritual term. Of course, we today lose all that important spiritual transformation when we make the mistake of reversing that critical religious process by translating ‘agape’ as ‘love.’ Those verses in 1 John 4:7-12 have so much deeper meaning when the forms of ‘agape’ are left in -- where they were meant to be originally.
Tuesday, September 7, 2010
Agape and Kindness
In my May 16 posting I compared the most important scripture passages that gave spiritual meaning to agape. Starting with Paul’s teaching about agape in Rom. 5:5, 8:35-39, and 12:9-21; I compared them with 1 Cor. 13 and Gal. 5:14; and then with the 2 Great Commandments in Mat. 22:36-40 and the extension from that in Mat. 5:44-45; and the conclusion in 1 Jn. 4:9-12.
Not only was that spiritual teaching, but it was also practical advice. In Romans 12:2-21 Paul gave practical results from letting God’s agape fill our daily living. He said it can help us “be patient in affliction, be faithful in prayer.” The next verse may be what led the earliest French translators to use “charity” to translate “agape” -- “Share with God’s people; extend hospitality to strangers.” Then he talked about not being conceited or proud, but living in harmony and peace with everyone, even to the point of blessing those who persecute you.
To show that a complete transformation happens when living by God’s agape, Paul ended by talking about not repaying evil for evil, and not taking revenge. Of course, he learned what a radical change in human perspective happens because God then makes it possible to show agape even to enemies. Paul wrote: “If your enemy is hungry, feed him; if he is thirsty, give him something to drink.” He circled back to the beginning of this section by saying: “Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good.”
All of this unusual teaching is what has led modern writers to conclude by defining God’s agape with words similar to Rollo May’s when he defined it as “the concern for the other’s welfare beyond any gain that one can get out of it” or as “selfless giving.” [Love and Will, p. 319] Obviously, such action does not come about by just blindly following along where society tells us we must go.
For those people today who are not sure how to know if God’s agape is truly active in their lives, I refer to what Paul described in Romans. So if you are not living the way he described -- by being kind, compassionate, and charitable with everyone around you, but instead you want to take revenge against enemies and overcome evil with evil (such as using warfare to try solving problems, either in your community or around the world) -- then you can know that God’s agape is not transforming you as should be happening. And of course, both Jesus and Paul warned that it is not easy to live by God’s agape. The pressure to conform to the pattern of the world is very strong.
That's why people in every civilization on the planet are falsely indoctrinated to think there is nothing evil about taking revenge against enemies. That has been the sad state of affairs for thousands of years. But Jesus came to bring us the power to change all that. If we don’t put the spiritual power of agape to work, then Jesus died in vain. It is up to each of us.
That’s what I found when I started with the first place ‘agape’ appears in Romans (5:5), then followed Paul’s thinking right on through to the way God’s agape fulfills our lives -- God’s agape as a spiritual power that flows into us and through us when we open up to the working of the Holy Spirit in our lives and in our relationships with others. Paul implies that such is the way God’s agape makes us “be aglow with the Spirit” and “be joyful in hope” as we “serve the Lord” through LIVING by God’s agape. By truly living this way, the Holy Spirit uses agape to transform us through the renewal of our minds. That transformation brings us the ability to keep from being conformed to the selfish, egotistical, violent pattern of the human world.
It is God's agape that gives us the strength to be able to be transformed to live the non-violent lifestyle that Paul pointed out was basic to being Christian. And we can take heart because God’s spiritual power in our lives is stronger than the pressure of the world. That is the hope talked about by Paul (Romans 5:4-5). That is the hope upon which the whole future of the human race hinges.
Not only was that spiritual teaching, but it was also practical advice. In Romans 12:2-21 Paul gave practical results from letting God’s agape fill our daily living. He said it can help us “be patient in affliction, be faithful in prayer.” The next verse may be what led the earliest French translators to use “charity” to translate “agape” -- “Share with God’s people; extend hospitality to strangers.” Then he talked about not being conceited or proud, but living in harmony and peace with everyone, even to the point of blessing those who persecute you.
To show that a complete transformation happens when living by God’s agape, Paul ended by talking about not repaying evil for evil, and not taking revenge. Of course, he learned what a radical change in human perspective happens because God then makes it possible to show agape even to enemies. Paul wrote: “If your enemy is hungry, feed him; if he is thirsty, give him something to drink.” He circled back to the beginning of this section by saying: “Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good.”
All of this unusual teaching is what has led modern writers to conclude by defining God’s agape with words similar to Rollo May’s when he defined it as “the concern for the other’s welfare beyond any gain that one can get out of it” or as “selfless giving.” [Love and Will, p. 319] Obviously, such action does not come about by just blindly following along where society tells us we must go.
For those people today who are not sure how to know if God’s agape is truly active in their lives, I refer to what Paul described in Romans. So if you are not living the way he described -- by being kind, compassionate, and charitable with everyone around you, but instead you want to take revenge against enemies and overcome evil with evil (such as using warfare to try solving problems, either in your community or around the world) -- then you can know that God’s agape is not transforming you as should be happening. And of course, both Jesus and Paul warned that it is not easy to live by God’s agape. The pressure to conform to the pattern of the world is very strong.
That's why people in every civilization on the planet are falsely indoctrinated to think there is nothing evil about taking revenge against enemies. That has been the sad state of affairs for thousands of years. But Jesus came to bring us the power to change all that. If we don’t put the spiritual power of agape to work, then Jesus died in vain. It is up to each of us.
That’s what I found when I started with the first place ‘agape’ appears in Romans (5:5), then followed Paul’s thinking right on through to the way God’s agape fulfills our lives -- God’s agape as a spiritual power that flows into us and through us when we open up to the working of the Holy Spirit in our lives and in our relationships with others. Paul implies that such is the way God’s agape makes us “be aglow with the Spirit” and “be joyful in hope” as we “serve the Lord” through LIVING by God’s agape. By truly living this way, the Holy Spirit uses agape to transform us through the renewal of our minds. That transformation brings us the ability to keep from being conformed to the selfish, egotistical, violent pattern of the human world.
It is God's agape that gives us the strength to be able to be transformed to live the non-violent lifestyle that Paul pointed out was basic to being Christian. And we can take heart because God’s spiritual power in our lives is stronger than the pressure of the world. That is the hope talked about by Paul (Romans 5:4-5). That is the hope upon which the whole future of the human race hinges.
Tuesday, July 27, 2010
Agape Prayer
I've been developing a form of prayer using the spiritual power of agape. So here is what I’ve come up with so far.
Because this is a prayer, we start and end with God. Of course, there is the realization that in the 2 Great Commandments in both the Greek Septuagint and the Greek NT, the same word is used for both devotion to God and devotion to and caring for our neighbor and our self -- that word is ‘agapan,’ the verb form of ‘agape.’ And that is the basis for the 'agape prayer.' Matthew records Jesus as saying that the 2nd Great Commandment is like the 1st.
But what is it about the two Great Commandments that is alike? Could it be that both commandments are tied together by the verb form of agape? The 2 are alike in the way agape opens us to God and opens us to our ‘neighbor.’ So the same spiritual power is an activating, enabling force in our own life, helping us reach out to God and reach out to assist other people in need. ((Jesus said … ‘You shall [agapan] the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all our mind.’ This is the greatest and first commandment. And a second is like it: ‘You shall [agapan] your neighbor as yourself.’ (Mt 22:36-40)))
So the Agape Prayer involves an expanding cycle of people to pray for. The first individual you pray for is yourself. So from Rom. 5:5, you begin the prayer by gratefully accepting the gift of agape into your heart and thus let agape open you to a devoted relationship with God. In that openness you focus with all your heart, all your soul, and all your mind on being accepted. You pray for the deep awareness that you are accepted by God. Thus your prayer practice starts by identifying with a sensation of eternal acceptance. You recognize that such is possible because, as Paul said in Rom. 5:5, agape is given you as your access to God’s Presence. Of course you need to accept the gift. So pray Rom. 5:5 until it becomes internal reality for you.
That's why this prayer begins by praying for yourself, that you may accept God's gift to you. That means preparing your heart, your soul, your mind to be opened to both the profound intimacy of God’s Presence and also to the infinite, eternal vastness of God’s Presence. (“For God so [agapan] the world ...")
("that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life.” (John 3:16))
Praying for yourself means accepting the presence of agape pouring into you -- you pray for the power to be opened to the personal closeness of the Holy Spirit. Also, the spiritual power of agape helps us pray for a deep sense of peace. The spiritual sensation that overwhelms us as God's agape comes pouring into our heart is the feeling that has been described for centuries as "God loves you."
Next, as Paul explained in 1 Cor. 13 and Rom. 12, agape is the spiritual power both opening us to our connection with God and also empowering us to reach out to others. From the eternal Source in God, agape flows thru and from us out to other people then to the rest of Creation in compassionate, caring, loving, accepting, respectful, joy-filled ways. But it helps our faith development to pray for that to happen.
That sensation of eternal acceptance helps us realize that, as Jesus so profoundly showed, the 2nd Great Commandment is like the first -- as agape becomes also the opening power to be concerned for the well-being of other people. So, once you have relaxed completely into a profound realization of agape permeating your being, bringing into your imagination a sense of what it would be like to fulfill your well-being and deep joy; then you are ready to move on to the next step in agape prayer.
STEP 2: is to pray for agape to flow into the life of a close, respected person.
Hold that close, respected person in prayer. Honestly and truly desire for the well-being of that person. Honestly desire that person to find personal well-being and deep sense of peace. Imagine that person opening to both the personal Presence and vastness of eternity. Feel the emotion of sharing in agape with that person. Practice that until you can truly, honestly feel a soft, warm, comforting sensation of compassionate, caring, loving, accepting, respectful, joy-filled relationship.
STEPS 3, 4, 5: pray that agape pours into the heart of a succession of 3 people: a dearly beloved friend, then a neutral person, then someone you consider hostile (even as an enemy). Go thru the same process you went thru for the close, respected person. Practice this until you can genuinely feel the “soft, warm,” comforting feeling of loving-kindness for them. Of course, when you get to the 3rd person, remember that Jesus said,
STEPS 6, 7, 8, 9, 10: When the “soft, warm,” comforting feeling of agape has formed in you about those people in steps 3, 4, 5, then expand out to large groups of people, communities, nations, continents, and finally all of Creation. This can be accomplished because of the realization that the spiritual power of agape brings us a way to connect with others while connecting with God. And remember that God initiated this process ((“In this is [agape], not that we [agapan] God but that God [agapan] us and sent God’s Son to be the expiation for our sins. Beloved, if God so [agapan] us, we also ought to [agapan] one another. No man has ever seen God; if we [agapan] one another, God abides in us and God’s [agape] is perfected in us.” (1 John 4:9-12))).
The greater purpose of the Agape Prayer is to facilitate the flow of agape among all people.
Because this is a prayer, we start and end with God. Of course, there is the realization that in the 2 Great Commandments in both the Greek Septuagint and the Greek NT, the same word is used for both devotion to God and devotion to and caring for our neighbor and our self -- that word is ‘agapan,’ the verb form of ‘agape.’ And that is the basis for the 'agape prayer.' Matthew records Jesus as saying that the 2nd Great Commandment is like the 1st.
But what is it about the two Great Commandments that is alike? Could it be that both commandments are tied together by the verb form of agape? The 2 are alike in the way agape opens us to God and opens us to our ‘neighbor.’ So the same spiritual power is an activating, enabling force in our own life, helping us reach out to God and reach out to assist other people in need. ((Jesus said … ‘You shall [agapan] the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all our mind.’ This is the greatest and first commandment. And a second is like it: ‘You shall [agapan] your neighbor as yourself.’ (Mt 22:36-40)))
So the Agape Prayer involves an expanding cycle of people to pray for. The first individual you pray for is yourself. So from Rom. 5:5, you begin the prayer by gratefully accepting the gift of agape into your heart and thus let agape open you to a devoted relationship with God. In that openness you focus with all your heart, all your soul, and all your mind on being accepted. You pray for the deep awareness that you are accepted by God. Thus your prayer practice starts by identifying with a sensation of eternal acceptance. You recognize that such is possible because, as Paul said in Rom. 5:5, agape is given you as your access to God’s Presence. Of course you need to accept the gift. So pray Rom. 5:5 until it becomes internal reality for you.
That's why this prayer begins by praying for yourself, that you may accept God's gift to you. That means preparing your heart, your soul, your mind to be opened to both the profound intimacy of God’s Presence and also to the infinite, eternal vastness of God’s Presence. (“For God so [agapan] the world ...")
("that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life.” (John 3:16))
Praying for yourself means accepting the presence of agape pouring into you -- you pray for the power to be opened to the personal closeness of the Holy Spirit. Also, the spiritual power of agape helps us pray for a deep sense of peace. The spiritual sensation that overwhelms us as God's agape comes pouring into our heart is the feeling that has been described for centuries as "God loves you."
Next, as Paul explained in 1 Cor. 13 and Rom. 12, agape is the spiritual power both opening us to our connection with God and also empowering us to reach out to others. From the eternal Source in God, agape flows thru and from us out to other people then to the rest of Creation in compassionate, caring, loving, accepting, respectful, joy-filled ways. But it helps our faith development to pray for that to happen.
That sensation of eternal acceptance helps us realize that, as Jesus so profoundly showed, the 2nd Great Commandment is like the first -- as agape becomes also the opening power to be concerned for the well-being of other people. So, once you have relaxed completely into a profound realization of agape permeating your being, bringing into your imagination a sense of what it would be like to fulfill your well-being and deep joy; then you are ready to move on to the next step in agape prayer.
STEP 2: is to pray for agape to flow into the life of a close, respected person.
Hold that close, respected person in prayer. Honestly and truly desire for the well-being of that person. Honestly desire that person to find personal well-being and deep sense of peace. Imagine that person opening to both the personal Presence and vastness of eternity. Feel the emotion of sharing in agape with that person. Practice that until you can truly, honestly feel a soft, warm, comforting sensation of compassionate, caring, loving, accepting, respectful, joy-filled relationship.
STEPS 3, 4, 5: pray that agape pours into the heart of a succession of 3 people: a dearly beloved friend, then a neutral person, then someone you consider hostile (even as an enemy). Go thru the same process you went thru for the close, respected person. Practice this until you can genuinely feel the “soft, warm,” comforting feeling of loving-kindness for them. Of course, when you get to the 3rd person, remember that Jesus said,
"You have heard it said, ‘You shall [agapan] your neighbor and hate your enemy.’ But I say to you, [agapan] your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, so that you may be children of your Father in heaven; for he makes his sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the righteous and on the unrighteous.” (Mt 5:44-45)
STEPS 6, 7, 8, 9, 10: When the “soft, warm,” comforting feeling of agape has formed in you about those people in steps 3, 4, 5, then expand out to large groups of people, communities, nations, continents, and finally all of Creation. This can be accomplished because of the realization that the spiritual power of agape brings us a way to connect with others while connecting with God. And remember that God initiated this process ((“In this is [agape], not that we [agapan] God but that God [agapan] us and sent God’s Son to be the expiation for our sins. Beloved, if God so [agapan] us, we also ought to [agapan] one another. No man has ever seen God; if we [agapan] one another, God abides in us and God’s [agape] is perfected in us.” (1 John 4:9-12))).
The greater purpose of the Agape Prayer is to facilitate the flow of agape among all people.
Friday, April 16, 2010
Agape and Compassion
For the last few decades we’ve been hearing people talking more and more about compassion. I think that is a way to overcome the problems of confusion with the English word ‘love.’ There also has been increased work on the spiritual meaning in compassion. All this could mean that ‘compassion’ is a much better English word to use to translate ‘agape.’ But of course, even though it is closer to agape’s meaning than the word ‘love,’ it still falls short of the full meaning of agape.
One person who did a masterful job of finding spiritual meaning in ‘compassion’ is Matthew Fox, the Episcopalian priest (who was kicked out of the Roman Catholic Church). In his 1979 book titled A Spirituality named Compassion, he started by talking about the way joy shows the difference between true compassion and mere pity. Then he quoted an old German proverb used in Max Scheler’s The Nature of Sympathy:
“A sorrow shared is a sorrow halved; but a joy shared is a joy doubled.” (p. 3)
He quoted 1 John 3:17-18 to show the Early Church’s connection between justice and the agape of God,
When I look back all the way throughout the last 2,000 years, I find it tragic that something as centrally important to the start of Christianity as agape -- somehow got lost. It is now absolutely crucial to the future of Christianity that we bring agape out of its deep exile and find its meaning for our period of history. This recovery is so crucial that Christianity does not have much of a future without doing that.
When agape was mentioned in the 12th and 16th Centuries, the English word used to translate it was ‘charity’ because of the understanding that the highest form of agape leads to works of feeding, sheltering, clothing, educating, counseling, comforting, forgiving, and providing the necessities of drink and medicine. Did that mean that the system of justice needed to be set up in society so that people who did have those necessities were able to receive them? And of course we remember how Jesus used the Parable of the Good Samaritan to show that agape had to lead to actions of helping people, even if those people were being discriminated against by the society. These were seen to be acts of justice-making.
Unfortunately, in the 18th and 19th Centuries, many people in positions of power and authority felt threatened by too many people receiving such help to lift them out of poverty, so processes were set in motion to destroy the good meaning involved with the word ‘charity.’ But we now know that agape means all that and so much more.
Even today there are many people who are so threatened by talk about justice that they will rant and rave against churches that preach about the need for Christians to work for social justice. That is why it’s so important to keep in mind the connections between agape and justice-making.
But the Apostle Paul understood this fully, as we see in the way he put together the 2 Great Commandments from Jesus: “The whole of the law is summarized in a single command: ‘Have [agape] for your neighbor as yourself.’” (Gal. 5:14) Agape is what brings together our neighbor and our God. Others in the Early Church also understood that it is our works of agape, shown in helping others, that will constitute the dwelling of God among us. (1 Jn. 4:12)
One person who did a masterful job of finding spiritual meaning in ‘compassion’ is Matthew Fox, the Episcopalian priest (who was kicked out of the Roman Catholic Church). In his 1979 book titled A Spirituality named Compassion, he started by talking about the way joy shows the difference between true compassion and mere pity. Then he quoted an old German proverb used in Max Scheler’s The Nature of Sympathy:
“A sorrow shared is a sorrow halved; but a joy shared is a joy doubled.” (p. 3)
Fox considered compassion to be our “richest energy source.” And yet, in our period of history, “compassion remains an energy source that goes largely unexplored, untapped and unwanted … almost in exile.” And that problem makes everyone into victims -- “and all dying from lack of compassion.” But he deeply believed that, as hard as it is do, all people were capable of learning compassion -- as a better way of living, “a more fun-filled and justice-oriented way.”
He quoted 1 John 3:17-18 to show the Early Church’s connection between justice and the agape of God,
"If anyone has material possessions and sees his brother in need but closed his heart to him, how can the [agape] of God be in him? Dear children, our [agape] is not to be just words or mere talk, but actions and in truth."
When I look back all the way throughout the last 2,000 years, I find it tragic that something as centrally important to the start of Christianity as agape -- somehow got lost. It is now absolutely crucial to the future of Christianity that we bring agape out of its deep exile and find its meaning for our period of history. This recovery is so crucial that Christianity does not have much of a future without doing that.
When agape was mentioned in the 12th and 16th Centuries, the English word used to translate it was ‘charity’ because of the understanding that the highest form of agape leads to works of feeding, sheltering, clothing, educating, counseling, comforting, forgiving, and providing the necessities of drink and medicine. Did that mean that the system of justice needed to be set up in society so that people who did have those necessities were able to receive them? And of course we remember how Jesus used the Parable of the Good Samaritan to show that agape had to lead to actions of helping people, even if those people were being discriminated against by the society. These were seen to be acts of justice-making.
Unfortunately, in the 18th and 19th Centuries, many people in positions of power and authority felt threatened by too many people receiving such help to lift them out of poverty, so processes were set in motion to destroy the good meaning involved with the word ‘charity.’ But we now know that agape means all that and so much more.
Even today there are many people who are so threatened by talk about justice that they will rant and rave against churches that preach about the need for Christians to work for social justice. That is why it’s so important to keep in mind the connections between agape and justice-making.
But the Apostle Paul understood this fully, as we see in the way he put together the 2 Great Commandments from Jesus: “The whole of the law is summarized in a single command: ‘Have [agape] for your neighbor as yourself.’” (Gal. 5:14) Agape is what brings together our neighbor and our God. Others in the Early Church also understood that it is our works of agape, shown in helping others, that will constitute the dwelling of God among us. (1 Jn. 4:12)
Tuesday, March 16, 2010
Agape in Romans 5:5 and 12:9-10
I want to do for today what the Apostle Paul did with the word ‘agape’ for his time. He expanded the meaning to aid in spiritual development. When he started doing that, most of the Greek-speaking, non-Jewish audiences he addressed would not have known what he was talking about. 'Agape' was not a word in common usage.
So just as Paul’s influence helped the word gain new meaning for the 1st Century, the word started gaining new meaning during the 20th Century as it became used, once again, by more and more people. And I’m expanding on that meaning in this blog.
But in the 19th Century, when ‘agape’ was reintroduced as a religious term after centuries of not being used, most people considered it just as arcane and unusual a word as it was considered by the Greek audiences Paul addressed. To show how Paul expanded the word’s meaning, I’ll focus just on 2 sections in Romans.
Especially when we read through chapter 12, we are reminded so much of 1 Cor. 13, that I couldn’t help but think that he was showing conclusions he had come to after reflecting on what he had written in 1 Cor. 13. (Most scholars agree that Romans was written after Corinthians, even though Romans became listed first when the New Testament was finally put together as a whole unit.)
No one knows for sure, of course, about how that unusual Greek word ‘agape’ first became used by Christians to speak to Greek-speaking audiences, but there might have been a connection with the Septuagint (LXX), the Greek translation of the Hebrew scriptures. Those translators of LXX might have started using ‘agape’ because it sounded similar to the Hebrew word for love (ahaba). Because Paul grew up in the Greek-speaking coastal city of Tarsus and was educated by Pharisees, he would have known that the two Great Commandments given by Jesus referred to Deut. 6:4-9 and Lev. 19:18. So he knew that, in the Greek version, both those passages used ‘agapan,’ the verb form of ‘agape.’ That may have been what started the use of ‘agape’ by Christians. (Those 2 Commandments are the only place in Mark where any form of ‘agape’ appears.)
The next step for Paul may have been to expand on the link between the 2 Great Commandments. In other words, asking the profoundly important question, “What is there about agape that links religious devotion with how we treat other people?” I think the first major answer to that question was 1 Cor. 13. Then he expanded on that in Romans chapters 5, 8, and 12.
But our starting place is the first place ‘agape’ appears in Romans -- that’s the passage I’ve mentioned in previous postings (Romans 5:5) as playing such an important part in my morning prayers for the last couple of years. So we need to start where Paul did -- with God’s agape as a power that comes to us when we open up to the working of the Holy Spirit in our lives. This verse shows how Paul linked agape with the Holy Spirit.
Keeping that linkage in mind helps when we read 12:2 -- then we can understand that the Holy Spirit uses agape to transform us through the renewal of our minds. That transformation (sometimes very slow in some people because of their resistance, or rapid in others because they throw themselves open to God’s Presence) brings us the ability to keep from being conformed to the selfish, egotistical, violent pattern of the human world.
That transformation also liberates us from being controlled by the worldly pattern, although, the tremendous pressures from the human world are very difficult to overcome because the forces of the world have been building up for the 6,000 years of the process that has been named ‘civilization.’ (Ralph Waldo Emerson once said, “The end of the human race will be that we will eventually die of civilization.” That slow death is what we have to overcome.)
Then in the next 5 verses Paul listed other gifts that come to us from the Holy Spirit as he did in 1 Cor. 12. Even though he did not say in exact words (as he had done in 1 Cor. 13:13) that the greatest of these is agape, he implied that by starting vs. 9 with agape. Also implied in that verse is his awareness that the word ‘agape’ was being used in so many different ways that he wanted to make sure his reader understood that he was using the word in the highest way (the Greek word that Paul used has been translated as “genuine” or “sincere” or “non-hypocritical” or “not a pretense” or “without dissimulation”).
What he seemed to have been talking about is our need for the genuineness of personal relationship (or as Rollo May put it: “authenticity in relationship.” [Love and Will, p. 306]) Paul recognized that need, and so he made the point that through the Holy Spirit we receive God’s agape to help us find such authenticity.
Then in the next 10 verses he spelled out practical actions that God’s agape helps us do (as he had done in 1 Cor. 13:4-6). He started a little differently with the list of actions in Romans; by implying that, if we use it in the right way, agape helps us discern what is good and what is evil. Then he gave a list -- similar to 1 Cor. 13 -- by beginning with the action of treating others as kind family members would treat each other, with respect, showing honor toward the other.
He showed how he was using the spiritual meaning God’s agape -- he talked about being “aglow with the Spirit” as we “serve the Lord” through living by God’s agape. He concluded with joy -- “Be joyful in hope.” This verse shows the link between agape and joy and hope.
So just as Paul’s influence helped the word gain new meaning for the 1st Century, the word started gaining new meaning during the 20th Century as it became used, once again, by more and more people. And I’m expanding on that meaning in this blog.
But in the 19th Century, when ‘agape’ was reintroduced as a religious term after centuries of not being used, most people considered it just as arcane and unusual a word as it was considered by the Greek audiences Paul addressed. To show how Paul expanded the word’s meaning, I’ll focus just on 2 sections in Romans.
Especially when we read through chapter 12, we are reminded so much of 1 Cor. 13, that I couldn’t help but think that he was showing conclusions he had come to after reflecting on what he had written in 1 Cor. 13. (Most scholars agree that Romans was written after Corinthians, even though Romans became listed first when the New Testament was finally put together as a whole unit.)
No one knows for sure, of course, about how that unusual Greek word ‘agape’ first became used by Christians to speak to Greek-speaking audiences, but there might have been a connection with the Septuagint (LXX), the Greek translation of the Hebrew scriptures. Those translators of LXX might have started using ‘agape’ because it sounded similar to the Hebrew word for love (ahaba). Because Paul grew up in the Greek-speaking coastal city of Tarsus and was educated by Pharisees, he would have known that the two Great Commandments given by Jesus referred to Deut. 6:4-9 and Lev. 19:18. So he knew that, in the Greek version, both those passages used ‘agapan,’ the verb form of ‘agape.’ That may have been what started the use of ‘agape’ by Christians. (Those 2 Commandments are the only place in Mark where any form of ‘agape’ appears.)
The next step for Paul may have been to expand on the link between the 2 Great Commandments. In other words, asking the profoundly important question, “What is there about agape that links religious devotion with how we treat other people?” I think the first major answer to that question was 1 Cor. 13. Then he expanded on that in Romans chapters 5, 8, and 12.
But our starting place is the first place ‘agape’ appears in Romans -- that’s the passage I’ve mentioned in previous postings (Romans 5:5) as playing such an important part in my morning prayers for the last couple of years. So we need to start where Paul did -- with God’s agape as a power that comes to us when we open up to the working of the Holy Spirit in our lives. This verse shows how Paul linked agape with the Holy Spirit.
Keeping that linkage in mind helps when we read 12:2 -- then we can understand that the Holy Spirit uses agape to transform us through the renewal of our minds. That transformation (sometimes very slow in some people because of their resistance, or rapid in others because they throw themselves open to God’s Presence) brings us the ability to keep from being conformed to the selfish, egotistical, violent pattern of the human world.
That transformation also liberates us from being controlled by the worldly pattern, although, the tremendous pressures from the human world are very difficult to overcome because the forces of the world have been building up for the 6,000 years of the process that has been named ‘civilization.’ (Ralph Waldo Emerson once said, “The end of the human race will be that we will eventually die of civilization.” That slow death is what we have to overcome.)
Then in the next 5 verses Paul listed other gifts that come to us from the Holy Spirit as he did in 1 Cor. 12. Even though he did not say in exact words (as he had done in 1 Cor. 13:13) that the greatest of these is agape, he implied that by starting vs. 9 with agape. Also implied in that verse is his awareness that the word ‘agape’ was being used in so many different ways that he wanted to make sure his reader understood that he was using the word in the highest way (the Greek word that Paul used has been translated as “genuine” or “sincere” or “non-hypocritical” or “not a pretense” or “without dissimulation”).
What he seemed to have been talking about is our need for the genuineness of personal relationship (or as Rollo May put it: “authenticity in relationship.” [Love and Will, p. 306]) Paul recognized that need, and so he made the point that through the Holy Spirit we receive God’s agape to help us find such authenticity.
Then in the next 10 verses he spelled out practical actions that God’s agape helps us do (as he had done in 1 Cor. 13:4-6). He started a little differently with the list of actions in Romans; by implying that, if we use it in the right way, agape helps us discern what is good and what is evil. Then he gave a list -- similar to 1 Cor. 13 -- by beginning with the action of treating others as kind family members would treat each other, with respect, showing honor toward the other.
He showed how he was using the spiritual meaning God’s agape -- he talked about being “aglow with the Spirit” as we “serve the Lord” through living by God’s agape. He concluded with joy -- “Be joyful in hope.” This verse shows the link between agape and joy and hope.
Sunday, March 7, 2010
How Agape can be Thought to be Similar to Love
I’ve been asked, "Why does ‘agape’ and ‘agapao’ get translated as ‘love’ and ‘loving’?” The question comes from my claim that originally ‘agape’ was not a common Greek word for love. “So why did the Greek-speaking Christians and Jews start using ‘agape’ and ‘agapao’ in a way that had a meaning similar to love and loving?” Obviously the English translators thought that there was a similarity or they wouldn’t have used the English word ‘love’ to translate ‘agape.’
So after spending the first 2 months of writing this blog by focusing on the differences, I decided today to try looking at the similarities that led people to translate ‘agape’ as ‘love.’
This concern has a special problem, of course, in America today. The modern world has produced so much confusion about love that there is no common agreement about what the word means. It’s used for everything from ‘liking [something] a lot’ to ‘sexual intercourse’ to ‘the force that holds the Universe together’ -- and an amazing variety of relational meanings in between. I’m even old enough to remember when General Motors tried to use the word to name a truck, but at least they knew enough to change the spelling to “Luv.” Recently the car manufacturers have picked up that weirdness in some of their advertising, by showing people "in love" with their cars or SUVs or trucks.
Actually, the confusion extends back thousands of years, but it has just gotten worse in the last 100 years. Even in the Bible there are a few examples of people loving the wrong way, and misusing the power of agape, and also using the word 'agape' to refer to “liking a lot” and liking in a way that leads to problems.
And then there is such a widespread problem in the modern world with dysfunctional families that the model of family relationships is not totally helpful for understanding love. Maybe the ancient Greeks had a similar problem so they used two different words for love between parents and children: 'storge' and 'philia.' (Before the Bible was written in Greek, no where in Greek literature was ‘agape’ used to refer to family relationships -- nor for that matter for any intimate or casual relationships.)
When I started searching through blogs, I saw hundreds of examples of the confusion over what kind of love. Everyone who tried connecting ‘agape’ with ‘love’ had trouble trying to figure out what kind of love applied to agape. Most people find it necessary to add all kinds of qualifiers onto ‘love’ when trying to use it to mean ‘agape’ -- as some sort of way to force the translation to work. Even though everyone recognizes there is something different about agape, there is no agreement about what causes the difference.
So when we start looking for similarities, we know we have to look at the BEST kinds of love (not just “liking a lot” -- after all, loving is about relationship). Of course, there are many good things to say about the best kinds of love, because loving relationships are such an important part of being human. Even the large number of people who want to translate ‘agape’ as ‘love,’ admit that ‘agape’ would have to be the very best kind of love that is possible. So we need to start with the best qualities of love. What comes to mind first are the qualities of caring and concern. Also, there is acceptance.
In that sense, giving us the spiritual power of agape is understood by us as God caring for us. So we feel God’s concern that we are able to have access to God’s manifested Presence with us. We experience this as being drawn to God in a powerful, close, joyful, caring (in other words, loving) way. And then we are enabled to open up to God's Presence in our times of prayer, sensing this deeply over a long period of time in a disciplined way gives us the feeling of relationship that can only be expressed as "falling in love" with God.
When we also are able to sense God's agape as coming to us through others, then we grow spiritually to know God's agape flowing out to others as caring. And then when we are thus drawn into close relationships with those around us, we are empowered through agape to reach out in caring and concerning actions to accept others, and to help them, and to share in mutual respect.
And of course, we have the strong examples in the Gospels of Jesus showing caring and concern. So when the Disciples looked back over the years at their relationship with Jesus and at his teachings, they remembered his loving care for and acceptance of everyone. They also remembered his teachings about his followers needing to treat others with care and acceptance and mutual respect. So when it finally came time to write the Gospels in the Greek language for the new non-Jewish Greek-speaking people, they used 'agape' every time Jesus used 'love' in the Aramaic language he originally used to speak to his Jewish audiences.
All of that, of course, comes under a similarity between love and agape. So even though it makes a little sense for translators to use the English words ‘love’ and ‘loving’ to translate ‘agape’ and ‘agapao’ in some places, we can lose something important in translation if we too quickly try to understand agape by our 21st Century confusion about love. Our word ‘love’ puts unfortunate limitations on what the New Testament originally meant by ‘agape.’ So we come back to the reality that originally, ‘agape’ did not mean what people normally mean by the word ‘love.’ In fact, St. Paul was trying to take it in a completely different direction in 1 Cor. 13 and Romans 5:5 & 12:9-10 (even though at other times he seemed to use it to mean something more similar to love).
What I’m discovering in my research is that agape was far, far more than what we mean by love.
So after spending the first 2 months of writing this blog by focusing on the differences, I decided today to try looking at the similarities that led people to translate ‘agape’ as ‘love.’
This concern has a special problem, of course, in America today. The modern world has produced so much confusion about love that there is no common agreement about what the word means. It’s used for everything from ‘liking [something] a lot’ to ‘sexual intercourse’ to ‘the force that holds the Universe together’ -- and an amazing variety of relational meanings in between. I’m even old enough to remember when General Motors tried to use the word to name a truck, but at least they knew enough to change the spelling to “Luv.” Recently the car manufacturers have picked up that weirdness in some of their advertising, by showing people "in love" with their cars or SUVs or trucks.
Actually, the confusion extends back thousands of years, but it has just gotten worse in the last 100 years. Even in the Bible there are a few examples of people loving the wrong way, and misusing the power of agape, and also using the word 'agape' to refer to “liking a lot” and liking in a way that leads to problems.
And then there is such a widespread problem in the modern world with dysfunctional families that the model of family relationships is not totally helpful for understanding love. Maybe the ancient Greeks had a similar problem so they used two different words for love between parents and children: 'storge' and 'philia.' (Before the Bible was written in Greek, no where in Greek literature was ‘agape’ used to refer to family relationships -- nor for that matter for any intimate or casual relationships.)
When I started searching through blogs, I saw hundreds of examples of the confusion over what kind of love. Everyone who tried connecting ‘agape’ with ‘love’ had trouble trying to figure out what kind of love applied to agape. Most people find it necessary to add all kinds of qualifiers onto ‘love’ when trying to use it to mean ‘agape’ -- as some sort of way to force the translation to work. Even though everyone recognizes there is something different about agape, there is no agreement about what causes the difference.
So when we start looking for similarities, we know we have to look at the BEST kinds of love (not just “liking a lot” -- after all, loving is about relationship). Of course, there are many good things to say about the best kinds of love, because loving relationships are such an important part of being human. Even the large number of people who want to translate ‘agape’ as ‘love,’ admit that ‘agape’ would have to be the very best kind of love that is possible. So we need to start with the best qualities of love. What comes to mind first are the qualities of caring and concern. Also, there is acceptance.
In that sense, giving us the spiritual power of agape is understood by us as God caring for us. So we feel God’s concern that we are able to have access to God’s manifested Presence with us. We experience this as being drawn to God in a powerful, close, joyful, caring (in other words, loving) way. And then we are enabled to open up to God's Presence in our times of prayer, sensing this deeply over a long period of time in a disciplined way gives us the feeling of relationship that can only be expressed as "falling in love" with God.
When we also are able to sense God's agape as coming to us through others, then we grow spiritually to know God's agape flowing out to others as caring. And then when we are thus drawn into close relationships with those around us, we are empowered through agape to reach out in caring and concerning actions to accept others, and to help them, and to share in mutual respect.
And of course, we have the strong examples in the Gospels of Jesus showing caring and concern. So when the Disciples looked back over the years at their relationship with Jesus and at his teachings, they remembered his loving care for and acceptance of everyone. They also remembered his teachings about his followers needing to treat others with care and acceptance and mutual respect. So when it finally came time to write the Gospels in the Greek language for the new non-Jewish Greek-speaking people, they used 'agape' every time Jesus used 'love' in the Aramaic language he originally used to speak to his Jewish audiences.
All of that, of course, comes under a similarity between love and agape. So even though it makes a little sense for translators to use the English words ‘love’ and ‘loving’ to translate ‘agape’ and ‘agapao’ in some places, we can lose something important in translation if we too quickly try to understand agape by our 21st Century confusion about love. Our word ‘love’ puts unfortunate limitations on what the New Testament originally meant by ‘agape.’ So we come back to the reality that originally, ‘agape’ did not mean what people normally mean by the word ‘love.’ In fact, St. Paul was trying to take it in a completely different direction in 1 Cor. 13 and Romans 5:5 & 12:9-10 (even though at other times he seemed to use it to mean something more similar to love).
What I’m discovering in my research is that agape was far, far more than what we mean by love.
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