COntinuing the Discussion with Fr Peter and Fr Greg, here’s my thoughts on AGAPE. This is the third term in the Eucharistic Invite in the Eastern Liturgy:
Then the scribe said to him, “You are right, Teacher; you have truly said that ‘he is one, and besides him there is no other’; and ‘to love him with all the heart, and with all the understanding, and with all the strength,’ and ‘to love one’s neighbor as oneself,’ this is much more important than all whole burnt offerings and sacrifices.” When Jesus saw that he answered wisely, he said to him, “You are not far from the kingdom of God.” After that no one dared to ask him any question.
Mark 12:32-34
Jesus is, here, participating in a rabbinic dialogue - not here in the text, alone, but in wider Jewish History. The Rabbinic consensus, including Jesus in the equation, is that to love your neighbour is to make possible the rest of the Torah. Even in later years of the Common Era, the Rabbis and saints of the Jewish people offer this commandment.
At first, (Rabbi Raphael) –may his light shine upon us–said: ‘According to the plain meaning, when a person loves, the Shechinah [the light of the Presence of God - ed] rests upon them. In this way, ‘all workers of iniquity are dispersed’ (Psalm 92:10) and it is easy to fulfil the Torah.
There is (and has been) extensive discussion within the Jewish tradition about the meaning of “neighbour”. Some feel it is anyone, some that it is only Jews. Indeed, the “only Jews” understanding is born out by the context of the verse in the Torah. But Jesus makes it clear (in “The Good Samaritan” and elsewhere) that his feeling is anyone - without regard for doctrines - is a possible Neighbour. Followers of Jesus’ teaching thus have an answer to that question. It is not just to members of “our tribe” that we are responsible.
Jesus and the Scribe both use the same word for love: αγαπαω “agapao”. It means “to entertain”. In other words, to show hospitality. It’s not a matter of agreement (as in doctrine) or of mere camaraderie: hospitality is to invite into your home, to share food with, to “break bread together”, to defend even to the loss of your own life and person (see an extreme version in Lot’s offering of his daughters in place of his guests to the people of Sodom). From this word comes the more-familiar “Agape” or Divine love. This word - agape - is the word used in the invitation to the Eucharist. So, literally, you are invited forward trusting in God and showing hospitality to your neighbour.
Let me be clear: Agape comes from Hospitality. This is the opposite of “closing communion” to only “the right people” for fear that God would strike others dead.
Imagine an unconditional hospitality. This is a shared concept among many cultural traditions - certainly the Aramaic, Jewish and Arab cultures of the Middle East. Jesus would have known of it. In the Celtic traditions, agapao is the “bottomless cauldron”: it’s what the host owes to the guest less the host become too embarrassed to show his face in public. I’ve been heroically hosted in Ireland and Canada within this tradition.
My own experience of living out this commandment is in the second person. I’ve never been very good at it, but a lot of people have made me their neighbour or else have “been neighbours” where I could see them.
I can list on one hand the religious communities I’ve entered where I’ve felt unwelcomed. But the communities where I have felt love and welcome are numerous and without regard for tradition: Congregations Beth Simchat Torah and B’nai Jeshurun, the Churches of St Mary (Time Square) and of St Mary Magdalen, all in NYC; the Church of St Gregory of Nyssa and Holy Trinity Cathedral in SF, and St Mary’s Church in Asheville.
More importantly I can list the persons who have loved me so much as to bind my wounds, care for me, provide me a home or a place, - Fr V, Dcn M and Sham. A, David and Jeannette, Rick, Marcia and Joel, Mtr Minka, Leesy, Pace, Donald, Todd, David and Jim, Wayne, RJ and Sam, Zara, Mat. Elizabeth and Fr J, Susan and Nancy, the monks… oh, the list goes much further than that, yes. What I’ve lived knowing more than anything is how unworthy I am of such care. Without going into stuff better kept with my confessor, these folks and these communities of faith have loved me and cared for me through quite a lot of royal screw-ups. Nothing huge - always human. But I’m the sort of person… well, let’s just say I don’t know how I would treat me if I showed up at the door.
But the Saints - Jewish and Christian - offer us the same point: the stranger is in the image of God. To love that stranger is to love the icon of God in a way that simple religious ritual does not. One of the saints commands us to even interrupt prayer for our brother at the door - for, following John, how can we love God whom we don’t see if we won’t love our neighbour whom we do see. John uses the same word: Hospitality. Mindful that to the early Church and - to some of us now - the Eucharist was part of a feast, John is asking, straight forwardly - How can we welcome God at our table if we bar our neighbour from it?
This is why I refuse to believe that God intends to keep any faithful seeker away from his table.
Neighbors?
Jonah was sent from Gath-hepher near Nazareth, about 25 km from the Sea of Galilee, to Ninevah, near the modern-day major city of Mosul, Iraq…
It is perhaps he was chosen because his very neighbors (Canaanites?) in Nazareth were of a different group than he was, similar in dialect to those in Ninevah (Assyrians?), possible also that it was a prejudice against these neighbors and a reluctance to include anyone like them that sent him so far out of his way.
This would be akin to asking a contemporary Israeli Jew of the West Bank to go to Mosul and witness against that city.
Perhaps only God can imagine such a thing? But, often this is what third world countries cry out for. Not to be rid of this tyrant, or that one, not for hospitals, a laptop for every child, or even schools, (granted all these things are nice), but for God fearing men and women to come and live amongst them as fragile candle lights and if need be die as martyrs, but in this way to show the love and light that God has for the world.
Maybe then we could count 4,000 martyrs for Iraq and an end of the insurgents, instead of 4,000 soldiers dead for a globalized democracy.
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I’m not sure I understand your Rabbinic tradition comments here… I’ve understood that Jesus in fact was faulted by his enemies for not participating in Rabbinic tradition of quoting predecessors’ teachings by name in order to establish position, but spoke rather ‘as one in authority’, as in upon his own authority directly.
Well you have two problems then: one, Jesus said almost nothing that is not part of the Rabbinic tradition; and two, we don’t know that *Jesus* didn’t cite other rabbis. We know the Christian communities that wrote the Gospels didn’t cite their Jewish antecedents.