Above: The Reverend Doctor Martin Luther King, Jr.
Image Source = Library of Congress
Rejecting Agape
FEBRUARY 3, 2019
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Jeremiah 1:1-10 (TANAKH: The Holy Scriptures):
The words of Jeremiah, son of Hilkiah, one of the priests at Anathoth in the territory of Benjamin. The word of the LORD came to him in the days of King Josiah son of Amon of Judah, in the thirteenth year of his reign, and throughout the days of Jehoiakim son of Josiah of Judah, and until the end of the eleventh year of King Zedekiah son of Josiah son of Judah, when Jerusalem went into exile in the fifth month.
The word of the LORD came to me:
Before I created you in the womb, I selected you;
Before you were born, I consecrated you;
I appointed you a prophet concerning the nations.
I replied:
Ah, Lord GOD!
I don’t know how to speak,
For I am still a boy.
And the LORD said to me:
Do not say, “I am still a boy,”
But go wherever I send you
And speak whatever I command you.
Have no fear of them,
For I am with you to deliver them
–declares the LORD.
The LORD put out His hand and touched my mouth, and the LORD said to me:
Herewith I put My words into your mouth.
See, I appoint you this day
Over nations and kingdoms:
To uproot and to pull down,
To destroy and to overthrow,
To build and to plant.
Psalm 71:1-6 (1979 Book of Common Prayer):
1 In you, O LORD, have I taken refuge;
let me never be ashamed.
2 In your righteousness, deliver me and set me free;
incline your ear to me and save me.
3 Be my strong rock, a castle to keep me safe;
you are my crag and my stronghold.
4 Deliver me, my God, from the hand of the wicked,
from the clutches of the evildoer and the oppressor.
5 For you are my hope, O Lord GOD,
my confidence since I was young.
6 I have been sustained by you ever since I was born;
from my mother’s womb you have been my strength;
my praise shall be always of you.
1 Corinthians 13:1-13 (New American Bible):
If I speak in human and angelic tongues, but do not have love, I am a resounding gong or a clashing cymbal. And if I have the gift of prophecy, and comprehend all mysteries and all knowledge; if I have all faith as to move mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing. If I give away everything I own, and if I hand my body over so that I may boast, but do not have love, I gain nothing.
Love is patient, love is kind. It is not jealous, it is not pompous, it is not inflated, it is not rude, it does not seek its own interests, it is not quick-tempered, it does not brood over injury, it does not rejoice over wrongdoing but rejoices with the truth. It bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.
Love never fails. If there are prophecies, they will be brought to nothing; if tongues, they will cease; if knowledge, it will be brought to nothing. For we know partially and we prophesy partially, but when the perfect comes, the partial will pass away. When I was a child, I used to talk as a child, think as a child, reason as a child; when I became a man, I put aside childish things. At present we see indistinctly, as in a mirror, but then face to face. At present, I know partially; then I shall know fully as I am known. So faith, hope, and love remain, these three; but the greatest of these is love.
Luke 4:21-30 (The Jerusalem Bible):
And he [Jesus] won the approval of all, and they were astonished by the gracious words that came from his lips.
They said,
This is Joseph’s son, surely?
But he replied,
No doubt you will quote the saying, “Physician, heal yourself” and tell me, “We have heard all that happened in Capernaum, do the same here in your own countryside.”
And he went on,
I tell you solemnly, no prophet is ever accepted in his own country.
There were many widows in Israel, I can assure you, in Elijah’s day, when heaven remained shut for three years and six months and a great famine raged throughout the land, but Elijah was not sent to any one of those; he was sent to a widow at Zarephath, a Sidonian town. And in the prophet Elisha’s time there were many lepers in Israel, but none of these was cured, except the Syrian, Naaman.
When they heard this everyone in the synagogue was enraged. They sprang to their feet and hustled him out of town; and they took him up to the brow of the hill their town was built on, intending to throw him down the cliff, but he slipped through the crowd and walked away.
The Collect:
Almighty and everlasting God, you govern all things both in heaven and on earth: Mercifully hear the supplications of your people, and in our time grant us your peace; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.
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Some Related Posts:
Prayer of Praise and Adoration:
Prayer of Confession:
Prayer of Dedication:
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Love bade me welcome; yet my soul drew back,
Guilty of dust and sin.
But quickeyed Love, observing me grow slack
From my first entrance in,
Drew nearer to me, sweetly questioning,
If I lacked anything.
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“A guest,” I answered, “worthy to be here.”
Love said, “You shall be he.”
“I the unkind, ungrateful? Ah, my dear,
I cannot look on thee.”
Love took my hand, and smiling did reply,
“Who made the eyes but I?”
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“Truth, Lord, but I have marred them. Let my shame
Go where it doth deserve.”
“And know you not,” says Love, ”who bore the blame?
My dear, then, I will serve.
You must sit down,” says Love, “and taste my meat.”
So I did sit and eat.
–George Herbert (1633)
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The love in 1 Corinthians 13 is agape. There are four types of love in the New Testament, with agape being the highest form. For a description of agape I turn to Volume X (1953), page 167 of The Interpreter’s Bible:
Agape is another kind of love which roots in the undeserved goodness men have received in Christ.
Agape is a type of love which extends to one’s enemies, looks past mutual interests, and is not merely sentimental. It is the love which God has for us. Thusagape is crucial, greater even than faith and hope, which are also commendable and of God.
This was the love which qualified Jeremiah and kept him company on his difficult vocation, one fraught with rejection. And this was the love which Jesus, also rejected, embodied in a unique way. This was the love those who tried to kill him at Nazareth lacked.
Agape is hard for many people to practice, for we are flawed. This statement applies to me. But I like agape; I seek to come nearer to living it. One poetic expression of the essence of agape is the George Herbert poem I have quoted in this post. My choir at St. Gregory the Great Episcopal Church, Athens, Georgia, has sung the Ralph Vaughan Williams setting of it. The text speaks to me of what I have received and continue to receive from God. I can do better, by grace, and I am. And I have much room for improvement.
Agape is also intolerable for many people. They seek to destroy it. The reason for this, I suppose, is that it reminds them of their shortcomings. And, instead of admitting those failings, some people react defensively and fearfully. Thus violent people have, throughout history and into the present day, persecuted pacifists, from Quakers to Anabaptists to Mohandas Gandhi to Martin Luther King, Jr. New England Puritans hanged Quakers in colonial times. Anabaptists in Europe and elsewhere have attracted a host of foes. There was, for example, state-sanctioned persecution of Amish and Mennonite conscientious objectors in the United States during World War I. And Gandhi and King became victims of assassins. Before King’s death many of his self-identified conservative coreligionists condemned his stances on civil rights and the Vietnam War. (I have notecards full of citations, quotes, and summaries from back issues of The Presbyterian Journal, which midwifed the Presbyterian Church in America in the early 1970s. The Journal, publishing immediately after King’s death, continued to condemn him.)
Our human intolerance for agape has caused quite a body count to accumulate. May God forgive us.
KENNETH RANDOLPH TAYLOR
APRIL 11, 2012 COMMON ERA
THE FEAST OF SAINT DIONYSIUS OF CORINTH, ROMAN CATHOLIC BISHOP
THE FEAST OF SAINT ANTHONY NEYROT, ROMAN CATHOLIC MARTYR
THE FEAST OF GEORGE AUGUSTUS SELWYN, ANGLICAN PRIMATE OF NEW ZEALAND
THE FEAST OF SAINT STANISLAUS, ROMAN CATHOLIC BISHOP OF KRAKOW
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SUNDRY THOUGHTS 
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