Agape Namaste

Easter 6 Year B

John 15:9-17

Jesus said to his disciples, “As the Father has loved me, so I have loved you; abide in my love. If you keep my commandments, you will abide in my love, just as I have kept my Father’s commandments and abide in his love. I have said these things to you so that my joy may be in you, and that your joy may be complete. “This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you. No one has greater love than this, to lay down one’s life for one’s friends. You are my friends if you do what I command you. I do not call you servants any longer, because the servant does not know what the master is doing; but I have called you friends, because I have made known to you everything that I have heard from my Father. You did not choose me but I chose you. And I appointed you to go and bear fruit, fruit that will last, so that the Father will give you whatever you ask him in my name. I am giving you these commands so that you may love one another.”

Easter 7 Year B

John 17:6-19

Jesus prayed for his disciples, “I have made your name known to those whom you gave me from the world. They were yours, and you gave them to me, and they have kept your word. Now they know that everything you have given me is from you; for the words that you gave to me I have given to them, and they have received them and know in truth that I came from you; and they have believed that you sent me. I am asking on their behalf; I am not asking on behalf of the world, but on behalf of those whom you gave me, because they are yours. All mine are yours, and yours are mine; and I have been glorified in them. And now I am no longer in the world, but they are in the world, and I am coming to you. Holy Father, protect them in your name that you have given me, so that they may be one, as we are one. While I was with them, I protected them in your name that you have given me. I guarded them, and not one of them was lost except the one destined to be lost, so that the scripture might be fulfilled. But now I am coming to you, and I speak these things in the world so that they may have my joy made complete in themselves. I have given them your word, and the world has hated them because they do not belong to the world, just as I do not belong to the world. I am not asking you to take them out of the world, but I ask you to protect them from the evil one. They do not belong to the world, just as I do not belong to the world. Sanctify them in the truth; your word is truth. As you have sent me into the world, so I have sent them into the world. And for their sakes I sanctify myself, so that they also may be sanctified in truth.”

Please excuse my absence last week. To make it up this week I have presented last week’s and this week’s Gospels together.  Both are from the Gospel of John.  Historically, “The congregation [that wrote John] was engaged in the task of defining themselves with regard to other Christians, the Jews, and the world at large. There are signals that the church has felt forced into adopting a defensive and competitive posture. Still, they are committed to being a community of love in an environment where they are hated and persecuted by others.”*  The similarities to the present day is noticeable.  We are still defensive, competitive, hateful, and persecuted, yet ever striving for love.

The first Gospel, from Chapter 15, focuses on Agape Love.  From Wikipedia “Agape (Ancient Greek ἀγάπη, agapē) is a Greco-Christian term referring to unconditional love, "the highest form of love, charity" and "the love of God for man and of man for God".”  In John’s timeline this chapter falls during the Last Supper. “No one has greater love than this, to lay down one’s life for one’s friends.” This is a foreshadowing of events to come, the Crucifixion of Jesus, the ultimate gift of love Jesus gives to us all. Yet even this does not end our evil ways.

The second Gospel is Jesus’ final prayer for his disciples.  In this Gospel it is the last time he addresses the whole group of disciples.  Jesus draws parallels between his connection to God the Father, Jesus and the disciples, and the disciples and all the people of the world. Jesus even says, “All mine are yours, and yours are mine.” The idea of agape love toward others comes shining through in these connections.  In my love of the Venn diagram I visualize this as circles all overlapping in various ways, yet all contained within one circle as Jesus’ view of a connected loving world.  No matter our religion, Jesus loves us.  His example during his life of love for the sick, diseased, male and female, prostitute, eunuch, Samaritan, Gentile, Roman, and Jew show us he does not separate people on the basis of race, sex, nationality, or even religion. Jesus loves us all. If his prayer is to be followed then we are not to be “taken out of the world” but to stay in the world, spreading and following Jesus’ example of agape love.  But somewhere along the way we as individuals always lose sight of this. We even judge and separate ourselves within Christianity.  

In my work as a yoga therapist, I don’t judge anyone on the basis of anything, and that is hard as I tend to be a judgmental person.  But when I am working all of that goes away.  You are a person worthy of my help no matter what you bring into the session.  I leave my prejudices at the door.  I am doing my part “to protect them from the evil one” by bring health and healing through yoga.

Like most people though, I fight my own prejudices outside of work.  The church I have chosen is one of the most welcoming of Christian denominations. I struggle with those that do not fully welcome all.  I struggle even with my own denomination not welcoming non-Christians to the table, although we don’t ask either (*wink wink*). I struggle with inhuman treatment of animals too. But I had to give up vegetarianism for health reasons. We live in a world where survival of the fittest is the mantra. But what if we all raised each other up and treated all with dignity?  What if we all really viewed ourselves as part of one world circle of unity rather than a bunch of sometimes overlapping circles of segregation? I don’t have any answers, but I try to lead with love. Namaste - the good in me bows and honors to good in you.

*Introducing the New Testament by Mark Allan Powell P176

 

The Ten Commandments and the Yamas and Niyamas: Morals and Ethics

Photo Courtesy of Centre of Pan African Thought

Much of this week’s readings refer to the Holy Spirit and Trinity.  This was discussed in last week’s blog comparing Trinity to the Heart Sutra.

There are also references in this week’s readings to keeping the commandments and words such as boundaries, vows, good conduct, God’s will, and good conscience bring the commandments to mind in all the readings. I created a chart comparing the Ten Commandments to the Yamas and Niyamas.  The Yamas and Niyamas are the ethics and morals of yoga.  Niyamas refer to our relationship to ourselves or inner world, and Yamas refer to our relationship with the outer world or others. They do not perfectly line up with the Ten Commandments, but the result is virtually the same: rule for living a moral and ethical life…

Yamas and Niyamas	Ten Commandments
Ishvara Pranidhana ~ Surrender~ Niyama	1. You shall have no other gods before me.
Santosha ~ Contentment~ Niyama	2. You shall not make for yourself an idol
Svadhyaya ~ Self-study~ Niyama	3. You shall not make wrongful use of the name of the Lord your God
Brahmacharya ~ Non-excess~ Yama	4. Remember the sabbath day, and keep it holy.
Tapas ~ Self-discipline~ Niyama	5. Honor your father and your mother
Ahimsa ~ Nonviolence~ Yama	6. You shall not murder.
Saucha ~ Purity~ Niyama	7. You shall not commit adultery.
Asteya ~ Non-stealing~ Yama	8. You shall not steal.
Satya ~ Truthfulness~ Yama	9. You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor.
Aparigraha ~ Non-possessiveness~ Yama	10. You shall not covet your neighbor’s house; you shall not covet your neighbor’s wife

 

Acts 17:22-31

Paul stood in front of the Areopagus and said, “Athenians, I see how extremely religious you are in every way. For as I went through the city and looked carefully at the objects of your worship, I found among them an altar with the inscription, ‘To an unknown god.’ What therefore you worship as unknown, this I proclaim to you. The God who made the world and everything in it, he who is Lord of heaven and earth, does not live in shrines made by human hands, nor is he served by human hands, as though he needed anything, since he himself gives to all mortals life and breath and all things. From one ancestor he made all nations to inhabit the whole earth, and he allotted the times of their existence and the boundaries of the places where they would live, so that they would search for God and perhaps grope for him and find him—though indeed he is not far from each one of us. For ‘In him we live and move and have our being’; as even some of your own poets have said, ‘For we too are his offspring.’ Since we are God’s offspring, we ought not to think that the deity is like gold, or silver, or stone, an image formed by the art and imagination of mortals. While God has overlooked the times of human ignorance, now he commands all people everywhere to repent, because he has fixed a day on which he will have the world judged in righteousness by a man whom he has appointed, and of this he has given assurance to all by raising him from the dead.”

Psalm 66:8-18

Bless our God, O peoples, let the sound of his praise be heard,
who has kept us among the living, and has not let our feet slip.
For you, O God, have tested us; you have tried us as silver is tried.
You brought us into the net; you laid burdens on our backs;
you let people ride over our heads; we went through fire and through water; yet you have brought us out to a spacious place.
I will come into your house with burnt offerings; I will pay you my vows,
those that my lips uttered and my mouth promised when I was in trouble.
I will offer to you burnt offerings of fatlings, with the smoke of the sacrifice of rams; I will make an offering of bulls and goats.
Come and hear, all you who fear God, and I will tell what he has done for me.
I cried aloud to him, and he was extolled with my tongue.
If I had cherished iniquity in my heart, the Lord would not have listened.

 

The Epistle: I Peter 3:13-22

Now who will harm you if you are eager to do what is good? But even if you do suffer for doing what is right, you are blessed. Do not fear what they fear, and do not be intimidated, but in your hearts sanctify Christ as Lord. Always be ready to make your defense to anyone who demands from you an accounting for the hope that is in you; yet do it with gentleness and reverence. Keep your conscience clear, so that, when you are maligned, those who abuse you for your good conduct in Christ may be put to shame. For it is better to suffer for doing good, if suffering should be God's will, than to suffer for doing evil. For Christ also suffered for sins once for all, the righteous for the unrighteous, in order to bring you to God. He was put to death in the flesh, but made alive in the spirit, in which also he went and made a proclamation to the spirits in prison, who in former times did not obey, when God waited patiently in the days of Noah, during the building of the ark, in which a few, that is, eight persons, were saved through water. And baptism, which this prefigured, now saves you--not as a removal of dirt from the body, but as an appeal to God for a good conscience, through the resurrection of Jesus Christ, who has gone into heaven and is at the right hand of God, with angels, authorities, and powers made subject to him

 

John 14:15-21

Jesus said, “If you love me, you will keep my commandments. And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Advocate, to be with you forever. This is the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it neither sees him nor knows him.  You know him, because he abides with you, and he will be in you. I will not leave you orphaned; I am coming to you. In a little while the world will no longer see me, but you will see me; because I live, you also will live. On that day you will know that I am in my Father, and you in me, and I in you. They who have my commandments and keep them are those who love me; and those who love me will be loved by my Father, and I will love them and reveal myself to them.”