"This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you."[1]
Despite the ongoing obsession of Western civilization with love, humanity needs to face the fact that this modern, Information Age culture knows very little about this most powerful motivator in daily life. This is true even though we are inundated with love-talk, in-utero to eulogy. Consider that most Americans know more about professional sports than they do about love, even though some theologians believe love is the very force which holds the Cosmos together.
The Bible, of course, brims with words about love.
God so loved the world...the disciple whom Jesus loved…love bears all things…who can separate us from the love of God? And not just in the Second Testament. My unscientific, quick check of a modern English translation counted over 120 references to “love” in the Book of Psalms alone. Not just the Bible, but literature in general is full of words about love. Though Shakespeare’s heroines were played by pre-pubescent boys in stodgy Elizabethan England, the Bard still manages to splash love across the pages of his scripts like a drunken sailor spilling wine. I suspect most people have given litle thought to whether Shakespeare's sonnets were written for boyfriends or girlfriends; they’re beautiful love poetry, and they work for all flavors.
Almost all popular music is written about love. Most of people are hard pressed to name a few popular tunes that are NOT love songs. A generation ago the Beatles proclaimed, “All you need is love…” Ra-ta-ta-ta-ta. Love was all they needed to make millions. With their careers established, the Beatles branched out into pure storytelling ballads like “Eleanor Rigby” and creative excursions like the “Yellow Submarine,” “Abbey Road,” and “Sergeant Pepper” albums. Beatle-mania began with “I Wanna Hold Your Hand” and “She Loves You”, and The Fab-Four continued to produce quality love music until they disbanded. One of their last, best offerings before the group broke up was “The Long and Winding Road,” a hauntingly beautiful love song.
Movies must have a love interest to maximize their appeal at the box office. Sometimes, romance is the story. The plot of one of the biggest movies of all time was, essentially, “The Love Boat hits an iceberg.” Today, the same producer/director has scored another spectacular hit with a sci-fi thriller that could be summarized: "Blue lovers fight for environmental freedom." (
Titanic was so-so, but I absolutely loved
Avatar.)
Even though Hollywood has refined the art of cinema romance, movies almost always neglect the deeper aspects of love. For lovers who stroll the silver screen, love equals sexual attraction, usually expressed through intense, semi-nude love-making scenes. Fun to watch, perhaps, but not a good model of what constitutes love. Certainly, passion plays an important part in many relationships, but it is in no wise the singular or even the most important element.
Besides, not all “relationships” are sexual. We have children, extended families, friends, neighbors, work associates, social and business acquaintances, church and community members—none of whom share sexual intimacy with us, even though we may love them dearly.
Some Quick Thoughts So, if people spend so much time, money, and energy on love, why do we get it wrong so often? Here are a few quick thoughts on popular misconceptions about love:
1) Sensuality. Much of what passes for love is sensual attraction and sexuality. In case you suspect I am advocating celibacy, let me hasten to say there is nothing wrong with sexual passion in romantic relationships. Few marriages last these days without the partners being lovers too, but love involves much more than passion.
2) In Love with Love. Much of what passes for love is mere glamour. At the entry level of a romantic relationship we are infatuated by the physical attractiveness of the other person. New love is a kind of madness, but infatuation is not love, and the rapture of a new relationship wears off eventually. Courtship ends, then what?
3) Enabling/Dependencies. Much of what passes for love is neurotic dependency. Some kinds of relationships are based on feelings of inadequacy. A song lyric made famous by Barbara Streisand goes:
With one person, one very special person
A feeling deep in your soul
Says you were half,
Now you're whole. [2]
Yet, what happens when two half-people find each other? The heart math doesn’t add up to two whole people. If we are in relationships simply because we perceive we lack something which is provided by the other, we have not understood the message of Jesus Christ about the divine qualities within every human being. Only two whole people can truly love one another from their fullness; half-people are locked in enabling dependencies which limit the depth of their potential for intimacy and fulfillment.
4) Fear of Loneliness. Much of what passes for love is fear of loneliness. This is perfectly understandable, considering the alienation with their everyday world in which many people live today. Until my generation, everyone pretty much knew their neighbors. My upbringing was like that; we lived in a row house in Reading, Pennsylvania in the 1950’s. My folks literally knocked on the wall to signal the neighbor lady to meet them in the yard for conversation. We never had dinner at each other’s homes, but we knew the people on both sides, across the street, and down the block by name. We also had blood relatives within an easy drive, city buses to travel to shopping areas downtown, and safe streets to walk day or night. Today in some communities, people feel imprisoned in their own homes.
Although the place where I live now has relatively little violent crime, I’m an example of this neo-local isolation, too. I live far from family members, and I don’t know my neighbors beyond a nod of recognition as they power-walk past on the tree-shaded street of our subdivision. In this isolated lifestyle, many people cling fiercely to their mates and expect the other person to fulfill all the functions which were previously provided by family, neighbors, and a supportive, friendly community. No wonder some relationships fail to meet the needs of the partners.
5) Ego, jealousy and selfishness. Much of what passes for love is unbridled possessiveness. Occasionally, especially when I was a chaplain in the US Army working with young married couples, I have counseled young wives whose husbands got angry and abusive when other men merely noticed them. One man had jealous fits when the OB-GYN doctor performed a routine examination on his wife; another soldier took his wife’s car keys when he went to work in the morning for fear she would sneak out during the day to meet some fantasized paramour. Because the military community is a cross-section of middle class life, I suspect the problem of possessiveness is far more widespread than just the ranks of junior enlisted men in the US Army. When young couples came to me for pre-marriage counseling, they often said their plans had accelerated when the soldier-fiancé received overseas reassignment orders. Some of these young people actually confessed that they wanted to get married now because they were afraid a separation would end their relationship.
Love, in its highest expression, is not possessive but liberating.
6) Convenience. Much of what passes for love is convenience, routine, and economic comfort. Most of us know people who acknowledge they are in unsatisfying, loveless unions, yet their situations persist year-after-year because the partners would rather stay in their rut than risk changing their partners or improving the relationship.
So, What Is Love?The obvious conclusion from these short summaries is that love isn’t as easy as Hollywood pretends, but another point, seldom considered, is that love comes in more than one variety. The answer to “What is love?” depends on the context. We don’t love our children the same way we love our country. We certainly don’t love friends and neighbors the same way we love husbands and wives, unless we’re behaving like characters in a tawdry novel. What about that obnoxious so-and-so at work? How about friends and family who have been cruel? How can we “love” people who are prejudiced against us, or members of a group which stands against everything we cherish?
When Jesus said, “Love your enemies,” how far did he intend for that command to stretch? Some would say infinitely. Would Jesus insist that Jewish Holocaust survivors, or freed slaves after the American Civil War, were ethically required to love their persecutors? The question is not as clear as a first glimpse might suggest. Contemplating monstrous evil, like the holocaust or African slavery, can push thinking persons into a dark room. One can metaphysically understand “evil” as the absence of good, as it surely is, but studying the history of human inhumanity makes love of one’s enemies a difficult goal to contemplate.
In this essay, I will attempt to re-discover the underlying principles of Jesus about love by looking at four biblical-era words. It is a topic that clearly requires a separate book, perhaps several volumes. I shall attempt to do justice to the Christian understanding of love through brevity, trusting that others will follow to plumb its depths.
Four Kinds of LoveBritish Medieval literature scholar C.S. Lewis (1898-1963) wrote extensively on religion, and even when not specifically writing about his beliefs a heavy measure of conservative Christian thought underscored Lewis’s work. Some rather traditional themes about redemption and salvation dance through his science fiction novels and his well-known fantasy series,
Chronicles of Narnia. Lewis is so deft at weaving theme and plot that most readers are unaware of the deeply pious sentiments which motivated Lewis to create a talking lion who dies to save the helpless from the powers of evil. Lewis’s stories work at several levels—the Narnia Chronicles are, after all, children’s books—and this ability to communicate deep ideas in layers of meaning is a tribute to his skill as an author.
One of Lewis’s nonfiction works is a thin volume entitled The Four Loves. In this little book Lewis divides love into four categories: affection, friendship, eros (passion), and charity (self-giving). Lewis offers good insights into both the complexities of human love and provides a revised vision of the traditional view of Divine Love, yet I have always believed a complete reinterpretation of the word, based on the four biblical-era terms, would convey a more complete understanding of the vexing, beautiful, alluring power of love.
Some of the conclusions I reach will be very close to Lewis’s views on love, other times not so. For example, he does not elect to discuss hesed, dutiful love, and prefers to establish a separate category for affection. Furthermore, I have assiduously attempted to avoid merely re-writing his book in an essay format. The notes from which this discussion proceeds come from preparation I did for a sermon series over twenty years ago, well before I had read C.S. Lewis’ book. The similarity of my procedure—even the sequence which puts friendship, eros, and agapé in that order—suggests I probably gleaned some “original” ideas from long-forgotten seminary lectures I attended in the 1970s, whose sources reach to Lewis’s 1960 work. Let this chapter be a new statement, then, on the four kinds of love, and let the reader compare my work with Lewis to see how they differ and where they coincide.[3]
Four Words Although the four words I will discuss are implicit in the teachings of Jesus, the Second Testament only puts one of them explicitly on his lips, and that connection is dubious. The problem is that Jesus likely spoke Aramaic, but the Christian Scriptures were written in Koine Greek, the common language of Hellenistic civilization. Yet, there is some possibility that Jesus was a lot more cosmopolitan than he is ordinarily pictured. For a long time, scholars believed Jesus was from a sleepy backwater town in northern Palestine, but recent archaeological evidence suggests that the Roman city Sepphoris was within easy walking distance. Conceivably, Joseph of Nazareth took his son along to practice their carpentry trade in the bustling, expanding Roman town. Sepphoris boasted a Roman theater and an impressive array of tile mosaics, some now coming back into the light as archaeologists delicately sweep the ruins with fine hair brushes.
Because of the practical need to do business in affluent, Roman Sepphoris, Jesus may have spoken conversational Greek, maybe even a little Latin. The Greek words we’ll discuss in this chapter (philia, eros, agapé) might have been well-known to him, because the concepts behind them certainly play major roles in his stories and teachings.
More likely, Jesus knew the Hebrew word (hesed). Everyone familiar with the gospels knows that Jesus read aloud in the synagogue, and scholars have noted that, as a full adult Jew, he would have gone through the typical Hebrew education for his day. By the 1st century, Hebrew was a dead language which had to be studied so Jewish children could read the Bible, much like European youth for centuries studied Ancient Greek and Latin to read Homer and Virgil in their original tongues. The adaptive Jewish community had produced Greek and Aramaic translations of the “Old Testament” for study and discussion, much like we translate the whole Bible into English versions today. We begin with the Hebrew word.
1. HESED – Love is Steadfast and LoyalIn the Hebrew Bible, a common word for love is hesed, often translated “steadfast love.” Well-known passages come to mind:
Praise the Lord!
O give thanks to the Lord, for he is good;
for his steadfast love endures forever![4]
Hesed is the kind of devotion that soldiers owe to their commanders, the respect children feel for their parents, and the allegiance citizens pay their country. It is grounded in duty, the whole-hearted faithfulness to someone, or some cause, which deserves our loyalty. Now there's a new concept: Loyalty. Are you old enough to remember loyalty? Elbert Hubbard put it this way:
"If you work for a man, for heaven's sake work him: speak well of him and stand by the institution he represents. Remember, an ounce of loyalty is worth a pound of cleverness. If you must growl, condemn, and eternally find fault, why not resign your position? And when you are on the outside damn to your hearts content, but as long as you are part of the institution, do not condemn it; if you do the first high wind that comes along will blow you away and you will never know why."[5]
Can you recall when working for someone meant working for someone? Nowadays, feeling a sense of ownership and pride in the business which employs you marks the employee as somewhat naive. Water cooler talk is seldom about how to make the company better, and discussions of the boss too often deteriorate into “ain't it awful” games, orgies of complaint with itemizations of managerial faults and abuses.
This is especially true about the workplace which should generate the polar opposite reaction in workers, the local church. Most clergy can relate horror stories about disloyal, back-biting, conspiratorial Board members, who seem to relish their role as tormentor of the Minister. Seldom to one's face, of course. Clergy have told me they could deal with honest opposition, provided the aggravated member came to them directly and expressed concerns in the open. Unfortunately, many people despise confrontations, so they follow the line of least resistance and air their grievances in private with other church members.
This practice of
triangulation, which is sometimes called
enlisting support, may temporarily ventilate a person’s frustrations, but it also begins to undermine group cohesion and works against loyalty to the minister, which clergy must have to effectively lead a congregation. Consequently, when looking for a church assignment after a hiatus of several years, I told all the committees who interviewed me that, if I became their minister, I would never speak ill of them behind their backs and asked them to do likewise. In actual job situations of churches I have served, my positive-speaking system usually broke down over time. People have diffucilty living without complaints. Myself included. But I continue to hope that cooperation and dialogue will triumph in human relations. If I were starting out as a minister today, there would be continuous, ongoing classes offered in Rev. Will Bowen's "complaint free" system.
The natural tendency toward nay-saying becomes deadly when coupled with disloyalty, and the combination has frustrated many a good ministry from developing a loving, open community under the vigorous leadership of a clergyperson who mutually trusts and is trusted by the people.
How about patriotism? Communities create their own compelling reasons for individual behavior. One of my seminary professors remarked that when he studied in Europe, quite a few years ago, he sent his son to German public school. It was raining the first day of class, so the lad wore a typical American school kid’s yellow raincoat. Kids are kids all over the globe, so he was bitterly ridiculed for the cultural faux pas, and for not having a proper European backpack book-bag. Of course the American parents rushed out, bought the book-bag pack, and their son went smiling off the class the next day with no further incidents. Time passed quickly and the professor completed his studies and moved his young family back stateside. When the boy showed up at school with the European back pack and no raincoat…well, you can guess the reaction from his American school mates. A new yellow raincoat solved the problem.
Who told the children to ostracize their chums for non-compliance with the dress code? No one, of course. There was no nefarious plot behind their corporate behavior; that is just an example of how cultural dynamics operate. I often experienced a different twists on this group-think phenomenon in my ten-year career as a teacher.
From the early 90’s until the turn of the 21st century when I returned to full time ministry, I took an unofficial sabbatical from church leadership and taught in the Georgia public schools. Working with the young people was a great experience; when I taught middle school and sponsored the Drama Club I spent so much time with sixth, seventh and eighth graders that my wife once grumbled, “All your friends are under fifteen.” Then I moved to high school, and I discovered a different world. Those students had formulated and consolidated their values, and they were somewhat impervious to teacher suggestions.
Although my senior high school students displayed lots of admirable traits, there were a few areas where the generation gap (I was then in my early 50’s) created problems for me. Patriotism—or the lack of it—for example. Disturbingly, most of my 11th grade homeroom students flatly refused to say the "Pledge of Allegiance" each morning. When I asked them why, I got mumbles instead of answers. Not that they had any political or ethical objections to the pledge, of course. Their silence was social, not an act of protest. In what was probably an excessive use of teacher-power, I detained a band of 11th graders after the bell and refused to let them go to first period class until they told me why they would not say the pledge. One young man finally blurted, “Because I don’t have to!” Nobody else said the pledge, and he didn't want to stand out. Bottom line on why this group of high school students wouldn't pledge allegiance to the flag?
It just wasn't cool.
In fairness to the kids, this was in the late 1990’s, before 9-11 re-awakened American patriotism. The lesson this teacher learned that morning is still valid. Culture often determines values, and when it comes to religious values, those ideas must be examined in the light generated during an interactive dialogue between embedded theology and the biblical-theological Jesus.
What would Jesus do about war, and how much would he have advocated patriotism? His recorded remarks, if they are historical, suggest a degree of loyalty to the social order as long as it does not compel individuals to violate their higher calling as children of a loving God.
That definitely would not be cool.
Remember Loyalty?Eastern mystics have long understood the need for loyalty—to spiritual leaders like gurus, sages, and teachers, but also to representatives of social order. In the closing decades of the 20th century, some Westerners laughed at TV images of the Japanese soldiers who stayed in hiding on remote Pacific islands until decades after WWII had ended, but no one laughed in Japan. Asians understand loyalty. If you've read James Clavel's novel
Shogun, you know that the Samurai code of honor, Bushido, rested squarely on the principle of Hesed. Samurai would promptly take their own lives if ordered by their liege lord. Dishonor required defeated armies to commit seppuku, or hara-kiri (literally, "belly cutting"), a form of ritualized suicide. This demonstrated their fidelity to Bushido, which in the mythology of Shinto guaranteed their re-birth as Samurai.
Modern Japanese workers seldom kill themselves when their corporations are swallowed up by hostile mergers, but bosses nevertheless expect fierce loyalty of employees, who can usually count on working for the same company for life.
Where the principle of Hesed is applied, relationships firm up. Dependable love reshapes the dynamics of collegiality, co-working, partnership, friendship, marriage and family. An argument could be made that today, especially in the realm of romantic love, a little stubborn loyalty wouldn't be a bad thing.
2. Philia - Love Is FriendlyLoyalty alone is not enough to form a high theology of love. So, let's add the next element, a Greek term found in the Second Testament, PHILIA, which can be translated "friendship." Before the feminist revolution, we called it "brotherly love."
The term philia is found only once in the Second Testament at James 4:4, and even there it appears to have in an uncomplimentary context. ("Do you not know that friendship with the world is enmity with God?") The word itself simply means "friendship" or "brotherly love." Philadelphia was named after it. The “city of brotherly love” was founded by Quakers.
What Does Friendship / Brotherly Love Imply?
• Equality. Friendships are mutual relationships.
• Trust. Friends are loyal and faithful.
• Free choice. We don't choose family, but we choose friends.
• Enjoyment. Friends are people we like to have around.
• Reciprocity. Friends will do things for us, and we for them.
Doubtless this war-plagued world could use a lot more philia. Friends get along by learning that anybody can have a bad day, even the people we like best. Some kinds of behavior steps so far out there that even a friend must call it wrong.
This was surely the case when four white Los Angeles policemen beat up Rodney King, an African-American taxicab driver who was allegedly high on drugs at the time of his arrest. When the brutal beating was caught on videotape and played repeatedly on all news networks, many people who saw the video—myself included—thought it showed a disgraceful abuse of police powers. A predominantly white jury nevertheless acquitted the policemen. In the aftermath of the acquittal, racially motivated riots broke out across the country. The worst violence occurred in Los Angeles itself, with fifty-five deaths, 2,383 injuries, over 7,000 fire responses, and more than 3,100 businesses vandalized by angry mobs. Total damage in the Los Angeles riots amounted to over $1 billion.
In the midst of this ferocity, a plainly bewildered Rodney King came to the microphone and asked the nation, perhaps the world, a profound question:
“People, I just want to say, you know, can't we all just get along?"[6]
His question was motivated by a spirit not unlike philia, a simple desire to coexist in a friendly world, regardless of the momentary evils which might spring from the combination of human free will and spiritual immaturity. Although it was plainly wrong for those policemen to beat and abuse Rodney King, an offense compounded by their acquittal by an all-white jury, the rioting in the aftermath of the verdict only expanded the tragedy and further alienated black and white communities. Rodney King’s plaintive question lingers to this day as one of the few good legacies in this sorry affair: “Can't we all just get along?"
The spirit of philia is still needed in this world.
3. EROS - Love is appreciation. The word eros not specifically found in the Second Testament, although it is implied in several places. Usually it is thought of as sexual love; we get the word "erotic" from eros. However, the meaning goes much deeper. Eros does denote sexual desire, passionate aspiration, and sensual longing, but it also can mean the upward longing for the eternal and the divine.
Generally, eros refers to the attraction felt for some beautiful or desirous object, idea, or event. Although the word is not found in the Bible, but its influence is everywhere. For example, the Song of Solomon, which is clearly meant as a hymn to erotic love.
Hebrew consciousness struggled mightily with its erotic side. Documents found among the Dead Sea Scrolls refer to a fine levied for public nakedness. Biblical rules included prohibitions against sex during menstrual period, against men & women wearing each other's clothing, against any kind of public nakedness--including exposure of the middle of the body, against all forms of lesbianism and homosexuality, against a woman intervening in a quarrel between her husband and another man by seizing the opponents sexual organs, and against worshipping through the cult of temple prostitutes. It is interesting to note that prostitution for money itself is never explicitly outlawed. All the condemnations are leveled at so-called “sacred prostitutes” of the various non-Hebrew temples. Of course, all forms of adultery were punishable by death.
What was the definition of adultery? It was a sexual act committed between a married woman and someone who was not her husband. Note that a married man having sex with a single woman was not considered an adulterer; that was fornication, a lesser sin. Jesus leveled the playing field somewhat when he told the crowds that even thinking about it is tantamount to doing it, so don’t act so high-and-mighty.
Eros also referred to appreciation of beauty. To gaze at a magnificent statue was eros; to be carried away by a glorious sunset on the sea was eros. Anything which brought delight through the senses could be understood as eros.
How do the Jesuses of scripture view this type of love? Surprisingly, biblical pictures rather unanimously show us a man who enjoyed life and exhibited a love of good things. He took pleasure in the perfumed oil a woman massaged into his feet; he enjoyed partying, making good wine at marriage feast at Cana. He went to dinner parties, drank wine, consorted with females, and generally had a good time whenever he could. In fact, Jesus was apparently known for partying so much that his detractors called him a “glutton and a drunkard…” [7] One might infer his attitude toward eros was that passion for life is good; life’s good pleasures are to be embraced, not shunned. Aesthetics are important, because beauty is a gift of God. Sensuality-sexuality is the entry-level of romantic relationships.
It is not difficult to imagine Jesus encouraging his followers to enjoy the world and its beauty, because not to do so is sinful.
Was Jesus Married?Recent theories have floated around about Jesus and Mary Magdalene having an intimate relationship; I have heard my good friend Bishop John Shelby Spong speculate that perhaps Magdalene was his wife. This interesting, albeit irrelevant, question will probably never be answered, but a sexually active Jesus is nothing to fear unless there is something inherently dirty about sex itself. The by-products of human sexuality are ritually unclean in Hebrew thought—to include semen, menstrual flow, etc.—sex itself is a
mitzvah, a blessing, which is not only allowed but encouraged on the Sabbath. In fact, nothing in the Jewish Law or the life and teachings of Rabbi Yeshua suggests anything like an abhorrence for normal pleasures. If Jesus was the Messiah, he was unquestionably an erotic Savior in the full sense of the words.
4. AGAPÉ - Love is compassion—selfless, altruistic and counterintuitive.This is the word favored by NT writers when they speak of Love. It actually means 'selfless love,' the kind that puts the other person first. Perhaps the most powerful biblical example of agapé is the story told by Luke which has come to be called the Parable of the Good Samaritan. I discuss this parable at length in the next essay, but suffice it to say that the Samaritan had no motivation for personal gain in his actions of merciful kindness to the wounded traveler. The unconscious man wasn’t even able to say “Thank you” to this unknown benefactor.
The Samaritan, who was a member of a despised ethnic minority, exceeded all reasonable expectations, not only treating the victim’s wounds but carrying him to an inn, paying for his room and board, and offering more compensation if the money he provided ran out before the victim recovered. That is agapé. It goes the second, third and fourth mile, not for personal reward but simply because it is the loving thing to do.
The “Good Samaritan” story calls for humanity to see that other humans have the right to exist and be regarded with dignity. Apparently, the 1st century church believed the heart of the gospel was this understanding of selfless love. Agapé is more than a moral suggestion; John’s gospel uses this verb in the “new commandment” which Jesus gives his followers(John 13:34-35):
"I give you a new commandment, that you love (agapate) one another. Just as I have loved you, you also should love one another. By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another."[8]
Remember the Robbers?It is important to recognize that agapé as demanded by the biblical Jesus—i.e., all people have the right to unqualified acceptance and positive esteem—seems to run afoul of the natural order. In nature there are no rights, only powers. It is a giant leap forward when a species of omnivores, like homo sapiens, accords rights of existence to its own members and begins to hesitate before attacking, killing and eating the stray who has wandered among them. An ocean of blood separates “Live and let live” from the more primordial question “What’s in it for me?” Tolerance of diversity is the moral equivalent of coming down from the trees and walking upright. And, in the social evolution of our race, the movement from coolly tolerating outsiders to embracing the stranger in an act of altruism constitutes a leap from the forest floor to the stars.
Although it may seem counterintuitive for a species member to seek the health and well-being of his rivals, these altruistic values are essential building blocks for all complex societies. Just as the Lakota needed to trust that the hunter sleeping in the next lodge would not steal his horses and kill him in the night, so do nation-states need to know the default behavior of their economic and political adversaries in other lands is not opportunistic aggression but peaceful, commercial competition.
This tolerance is based on mutual need, but Jesus and other great teachers of humanity have long called for humanity to move beyond tolerance to a place where respect yields to mutual admiration and trust. The human race has its challenges—some of us have not yet come down from the trees, or given up tribal warfare. The good Samaritan is the model to emulate, but there are still robbers on the road who have not learned this lesson yet. If 9-11 taught the world anything it was this lesson. Peaceful, kindly humans must continue to help the victims out of the ditch, but someone has to deal with the robbers or the victimization will continue.
One could argue a variety of ways to make the metaphorical highways of life safe from robbers—retribution to reconciliation—but the point here is that nothing in the teaching of Jesus requires denial of the problem or capitulation to helpless suffering. Tough love can still be an expression of agapé. If you doubt this, meditatively visit the Jerusalem Temple and ask moneychangers.
Applications of Agapé Agapé applies to all kinds of relationships, friend-to-friend, person-to-acceptable co-worker, even person to obnoxious jerk. In her book
Seeing Children, Seeing God, St.Pul School of Theology's Professor Pamela Couture says that caring actions which must be independent of the response of the person served. “True generosity continues even when others do not respond as we would like; otherwise, our kind actions were bait, rather than generosity.”[9] This sounds very much like Charles Fillmore:
"Let us give as God gives, unreservedly, and with no thought of return, making no mental demands for recompense on those who have received from us. A gift with reservations is not a gift; it is a bribe.[10]
Even if a truly “Christian” response to enmity from those served requires forbearance, the interactive quality of the event is still paid into the sum of the experience for Pastoral Theology, or we would not be having this discussion. Perhaps, in certain circumstances, a thankless rebuff is more conducive to spiritual growth than a hug-and-a-kiss, although the latter certainly feels better.
Love Prescription: What is Needed in Relationships?1) Less Eros and more Agape. It’s not that eros is bad, it’s that the sensual-attractive side of relationships has been overplayed. This is so self-evident in Western society that the case need not be explicitly stated; everyone old enough to operate a TV remote knows our culture wallows in sensual-sexual imagery.
2) Less Hollywood and more Jerusalem. Perhaps this idea is contained in the first point, above. Glamour is alluring; action-adventure stories where evil is destroyed in the last moments of the movie give us a sense of satisfaction. Yet, the world is infinitely more complex than two teams of super-attractive athletes squaring off in a battle between good and evil. Who were to good guys and bad guys in the biblical stories? Were the Romans evil, or the Jews? One could understand the Second Testament setting as a struggle between imperial, enslaving Rome and freedom-loving Israel; yet the same story can be cast as a battle between urbane, progressive Hellenistic civilization and fanatical religious terrorists, with Jewish zealots playing the role of Al Qaeda in the 1st century. Certainly there have been times when one side represents monstrous “evil” such as the Nazi’s, but most conflicts have been less black-and-white. Rodney King’s hard question should be set in the stained glass windows of every church in the world:
“Can’t we all just get along?”3) Less emphasis on attractiveness and more on compatibility. This is especially true for romantic relationships, but it probably applies equally to all forms of human interaction. Pretty people have both an advantage and disadvantage in our culture. The advantage is obvious; physically attractive people are simply treated better in almost every circumstance. This has been shown in study after study. A stunningly attractive woman once confessed to me, as her minister, that she didn’t know what people actually thought about her, because they always related to her physical beauty and not her ideas, character, or even personality.
4) A good measure of Philia. Mutuality and reciprocity; each side gives more than 50 percent. The best kind of relationships share and allow for the occasional episode of temporary insanity in others.
6) Resolve conflicts without Winning or Losing. Quarrels between intimates or strangers can best be resolved by looking for solutions rather than identifying villains. Agapé represents the hope for better human relationships, that each participant wishes good will for all and is willing to strive selflessly to achieve healing of the nations.
___________________________
Notes: [1] John 15:12.
[2] "People,” lyrics by Bob Merril. Online source: http://www.seeklyrics.com/lyrics/Barbra-Streisand/People-From-Broadway-Musical.html. Accessed 01-24-08.
[3] C.S. Lewis,
The Four Kinds of Love (NY: Harcourt Brace, 1991).
[4] Psalm 106:1.
[5] Elbert Hubbard (1856-1915), quoted at “Quoteland.com” website. Source: http://forum.quoteland.com/1/OpenTopic?a=tpc&s=586192041&f=099191541&m=6531055101 (accessed 01-19-08).
[6] Rodney King Home Page; http://lsnhs.leesummit.k12.mo.us/dtwp/spring07/historical/hour5/historical_bradr/index.htm (accessed 05-15-07).
[7] Matthew 11:19.
[8] John 13:34-35.
[9] Pamela D. Couture,
Seeing Children, Seeing God, (Nashville, TN: Abingdon, 2005), 57.
[10] Charles R. Fillmore,
Dynamics for Living (Unity Village, MO: Unity Books, 1967), 208.
