Virtue is its own reward, as moral philosophers tell us. The mere fact that we do good is recompense in itself because it confirms the presence of reason in us, and makes us feel more human. People of conscience appreciate this reality and rejoice in it. They deserve to experience the happiness that true virtue informs. And love is true virtue. It's not just a "secondhand emotion," as Tina Turner says in her hit song, What's Love Got to do With it? Rather, it is a good we are commanded to do by God. The bible instructs, "Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind, and love your neighbor as yourself" (Lk 10:27). Viewed this way, we don't even have to feel like loving; it doesn't have to be convenient; we don't even have to like the object of our love - we just need to go ahead and love.
True love is at its best when we feel like not loving, find it hard to love, endure pain and sacrifice in loving, but go ahead and love anyway because of God. True love is selfless and longsuffering. It seeks to serve and to give. It is the greatest Christian duty. It is a human attribute founded in reason, and it is through love that we best resemble God. In a previous post, we talked about love in the example of the Good Samaritan. In today's post, we shall look at the three kinds of love there are: agape (or worship), philia (or charity) and eros (or romance), all contained in the past two Sundays' First Readings and their continuation, as found in Genesis, chapters 18 and 19. We should start out by saying that these three forms of love are good in themselves. We can match them up with Plato's three aspects of the self: spirit, soul and body. Agape matches up with the intellectual or spiritual aspect; philia matches up with the animated or soulful aspect, and eros belongs with the appetitive or bodily aspect.
But before we proceed with today's material, let's briefly recall what we said about love when we treated the Good Samaritan story in a previous post. We said that love is the starting point for faith, and that it consists in optimal interpersonal perception, ihunaya in Ibo, which literally means "to see someone." We said true love is the situation of seeing a person for who they are, a brother or sister in Christ. This optimal interpersonal perception consequently moves us to act charitably toward them. It makes us respond to everyone we meet in ways that are congruent with the characteristics of true love as found in 1 Cor 13. Seeing people optimally makes us love them truly. Now that we've recalled the central idea in the previous post on love, let us proceed with today's charity message. Using as background material the 18th and 19th chapters of the book of Genesis, we shall explain the three basic forms of love there are: worship, charity and romance, all of which we have said are good in themselves when properly used and appreciated as the virtues they were made to be by God.
To begin with, we encounter Abraham in Genesis 18 accosted by three men. These three men were actually angels in human form. The bible says that "Abraham looked up and saw three men standing nearby. When he saw them, he hurried from the entrance of his tent to meet them and bowed low to the ground" (Genesis 18:2). In other words, Abraham did not just see the men; images of the men did not simply fix themselves on Abraham's retina, but Abraham consciously, optimally, saw these men, and recognized them to be children of God to whom he owed a measure of charity, and so he first "bowed low to the ground" before them. In other words, he worshiped before them. Abraham's starting act of love to the three men that accosted him was worship (agape). He showed love by initially recognizing the presence of God dwelling inside the bodies of the three men. "Do you not know that your bodies are temples of the Holy Spirit, who is in you, whom you have received from God?" (1 Cor 6:19a). Again, "You are gods, and all of you are children of the Most High" (Psalm 82:6).
Another way of explaining Abraham's behavior is by saying that he performed a profound Namaste to the three men. Namaste is a Hindu traditional greeting that means "I bow to the presence of the divinity inside of you." In Indian cultures, when you visit with a neighbor, you reverently clasp both your hands together and bow your head, and say, "Namaste." It is the customary form of greeting developed over the years, owing to the insight of the Hindi people that were able to recognize the presence of God in others. In our own day, people have borrowed this ancient culture and use it among themselves as a cool way of saluting one another. A celebrity famous for her culture of Namaste is my sweet and dearly beloved Oprah. I recall once when she welcomed the great spiritual writer Iyanla Vanzant on stage at a Lifeclass event in St Louis and, as Vanzant drew closer to Oprah, the billionaire talk sensation clasped her hands together and bowed reverently to Iyanla, recognizing the presence of the divinity in Vanzant, who reciprocated the gesture. Isn't Oprah simply the coolest! I love this woman, I tell you. Anyway, we're still talking of Abraham.
Once Abraham had worshiped before the three men (agape), he proceeded to show them charity (philia). He pleaded with them not to pass on by, but to stop awhile so he could entertain them. He had water brought for the washing of their feet, and he instructed his wife Sarah to make bread; his servants to prepare meat, and he himself brought curds and milk and stood beside the men as they ate. He selflessly served the men. Similarly, true love moves us to compassionate and selfless service. Remember that when we were treating the story of the Good Samaritan we showed how the Samaritan - in spite of the fact that his people were not on speaking terms with Jews - saw the wounded Jew on the roadside, disembarked from his mule, and took the poor fellow to an inn for treatment. Emulating this charitable Samaritan, we all are encouraged in our own lives to selflessly serve one another. Galatians 5:13 commands us to "serve one another selflessly in love."
Serving one another selflessly in love means that we serve without seeking anything in return. In the Abraham story we are dealing with, Abraham was not expecting any recompense from the three men for his service to them. This is why when they proceeded to prophesy the birth of a son to him from Sarah his hitherto barren wife, neither he nor Sarah actually believed the three men. Their attitude toward the men was like, "Yeah right, a child indeed. Please, just eat your bread, meat, curds and milk in peace and stop this nonsense about a child." In the same way, we should not do things for other people only because we secretly want them to do something for us in return. Jesus said in this regard: "When you give a luncheon or dinner, do not invite your friends, your brothers or sisters, your relatives, or your rich neighbors; if you do, they may invite you back and so you will be repaid. But when you give a banquet, invite the poor, the crippled, the lame and the blind, and you will be blessed. Although they cannot repay you, you will be repaid at the resurrection of the righteous" (Lk 14:12-14). Besides, if we do good expecting good to be done us in return and our expectations are not met, we may feel angry and vindictive.
Abraham also showed selfless charity when he prayed for the people of Sodom and Gomorrah. It is charitable to pray for others, rather than for ourselves alone. This sort of prayer is intercessory. When the three men said that God had sent them to destroy the sinful cities of Sodom and Gomorrah, Abraham boldly interceded for the people there, even if he did not know them. He repeatedly bargained with God and struck a deal with the divine such that if ten righteous individuals were found in the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah, the cities would be spared because of the ten. In the same way, we should always pray for the sick, the suffering, and indeed everyone in the world. We should not pray to God like to some Santa Claus, with a catalog of needs: "Dear God, I want this, and this, and that, and that also - oh, and by the way, I want that, and that other thing and - you remember last summer when I asked you for that other thing; you know, that thing? Yes, I want that." True charity instead prays for the needs of others and the world. True charity seeks the other's good.
When the three men had finished their meal of bread, meat, curds and milk, they stood up to leave. Abraham bid them goodbye, and they continued on their way to Sodom and Gomorrah. When they arrived, they went to the house of Lot, pretty much the only righteous man living in Sodom and Gomorrah at the time. The bible says that as soon as Lot saw the three men he, like Abraham, "bowed down with his face to the ground" (Genesis 19:1b). He also said, "Please turn aside to your servant’s house. You can wash your feet and spend the night and then go on your way early in the morning." Lot also baked them some bread from yeast (v3b). In other words, Lot wholeheartedly welcomed the three men to his home. His hospitality toward them knew no bounds. He, like Abraham, wanted to provide for and protect the three men, and make them feel completely welcome. He, like Abraham, showed agape and philia to the three visiting men.
However, Lot's neighbors had different plans. "Before they had gone to bed, all the men from every part of the city of Sodom - both young and old - surrounded the house. They called to Lot, 'Where are the gorgeous men who came to you tonight? Bring them out to us so that we can have sex with them'" (v4-5). Here was Lot, a newcomer to the twin cities of Sodom and Gomorrah. He was a good guy, who wanted no trouble. Three men had come to his house. He had taken them under his wing; had fed them, and was providing them shelter for the night. Courtesy demanded he protect them while they stayed with him, but his neighbors seemingly would have none of it. He was distressed indeed. "Lot went outside to meet his neighbors and shut the door behind him and said, 'No, my friends. Don’t do this wicked thing. Look, I have two daughters who have never slept with a man. Let me bring them out to you, and you can do what you like with them. But don’t do anything to these men, for they have come under the protection of my roof'" (v6-8).
"'Get out of our way,' the neighbors replied. 'This fellow came here as a foreigner, and now he wants to play the judge! We’ll treat you worse than them.' The neighbors kept pressuring Lot and moved forward to break down the door of his house" (v9). At this point, the three men inside the house became infuriated. They reached out and pulled Lot back into the house, and then went outside to confront the mob. They struck all the men outside blind. Now, let us reflect on this awhile. We have already said that true love is optimal perception, properly seeing everyone as a sibling and child of God. Lot's neighbors however refused to see the three handsome men as children of God. Unlike Abraham and Lot, they failed to see the presence of God inside of the three men. All they saw were the gorgeous bodies of the men, and they lusted after these. And so the attitude of the three men was, "Well, since you refuse to see properly, you really don't need eyes." This is why the three men struck the lustful neighbors blind. Similarly, we have eyes. We're supposed to "use them or lose them."
The love that Lot's neighbors had for the three beautiful men was eros, or sexual love. They observed the three men come to visit Lot, and they said to themselves, "Woo-hoo, here come three sexy men!" They then waited till dusk, and surprised Lot and his guests. This was improper. Forget the fact that Lot even offered to give them his virgin daughters in his bid to protect the three men, but the neighbors actually intended to rape the three men, to force their will on the innocent visitors! The bible says they pressured Lot and stormed the door. They were insistent. Their attitude was like, "Look Lot, give us those three men so that we can love them (romantically) whether you or they like it or not. We won't take no for an answer. Bring them out to us right now, or else we will break your door and fetch them out by ourselves." Dreadful, simply dreadful! And when matters got to a head, the three men, who really weren't men at all but angels - but of course the lewd neighbors didn't know that - had no choice but to strike the aggressive neighbors stark blind.
And once they had done this, the three men hastened Lot and his family out of the cities, cautioning them not to look back. It was time to completely destroy Sodom and Gomorrah. Enough was more than enough already. Lot and his family had to be quick. They ran as fast as their legs could carry them toward the hills on the outskirts of the cities. They had no time to take all their stuff with them, and the three men, or angels, did not let them take anything. Their lives were more important than their possessions. All human life is worth more than material possessions. And we all are called to love people more than physical things, because people have souls. But Lot's wife was concerned with physical stuff. She loved physical and material things more than soulful and spiritual things. She was concerned with the appetitive aspect, rather than the soulful and spiritual aspects of herself, and so she looked back with regret at the stuff she was leaving behind. She wanted to see, to perceive, to grieve over, to love her physical and material possessions, and she too was consequently struck blind. Her eyes ossified and became like stone - but not just her eyes, all of her body became a pillar of solid salt. Incredible! She was punished, like were Lot's lustful neighbors, for focusing solely on physical, material or bodily love; love for individual bodies or for material possessions; appetitive love, eros. Conversely, Lot and Abraham were gratified in the worship (agape) and charity (philia) they displayed to the angels that came visiting in human form.
In all, we have today considered the three kinds of love, and they are: worship (agape), charity (philia), and romance (eros). Worship is the highest of the three; charity is next in value, and the lowest of the three is romance. We find the three at play in the passage, Genesis 18-19. True love, or optimal seeing, is observable in the profoundly worshipful obeisance Abraham and Lot paid to the three angels that visited them in the form of men, and in the charitable hospitality they showed to these visiting men. Conversely, Lot's lustful neighbors and his own wife were respectively punished for preferring in the first instance the bodies of the visiting men to their souls and spirits, and in the second instance material possessions to her own life. Lot's neighbors and his wife showed appetitive or sexual love in the wrong manner and at the wrong time, and were punished for it. Indeed, Jesus says, "What does it profit a person to gain the whole world and lose their soul?" (Matt 16:26). Like the rich fool (Lk 12:13-21), what life are we to use in enjoying the whole world we've gained when we lose our soul? Let us therefore be wise. Of the three types of love there are - agape, philia, and eros - let us rank them in that order, in terms of their value.
True love is at its best when we feel like not loving, find it hard to love, endure pain and sacrifice in loving, but go ahead and love anyway because of God. True love is selfless and longsuffering. It seeks to serve and to give. It is the greatest Christian duty. It is a human attribute founded in reason, and it is through love that we best resemble God. In a previous post, we talked about love in the example of the Good Samaritan. In today's post, we shall look at the three kinds of love there are: agape (or worship), philia (or charity) and eros (or romance), all contained in the past two Sundays' First Readings and their continuation, as found in Genesis, chapters 18 and 19. We should start out by saying that these three forms of love are good in themselves. We can match them up with Plato's three aspects of the self: spirit, soul and body. Agape matches up with the intellectual or spiritual aspect; philia matches up with the animated or soulful aspect, and eros belongs with the appetitive or bodily aspect.
But before we proceed with today's material, let's briefly recall what we said about love when we treated the Good Samaritan story in a previous post. We said that love is the starting point for faith, and that it consists in optimal interpersonal perception, ihunaya in Ibo, which literally means "to see someone." We said true love is the situation of seeing a person for who they are, a brother or sister in Christ. This optimal interpersonal perception consequently moves us to act charitably toward them. It makes us respond to everyone we meet in ways that are congruent with the characteristics of true love as found in 1 Cor 13. Seeing people optimally makes us love them truly. Now that we've recalled the central idea in the previous post on love, let us proceed with today's charity message. Using as background material the 18th and 19th chapters of the book of Genesis, we shall explain the three basic forms of love there are: worship, charity and romance, all of which we have said are good in themselves when properly used and appreciated as the virtues they were made to be by God.
To begin with, we encounter Abraham in Genesis 18 accosted by three men. These three men were actually angels in human form. The bible says that "Abraham looked up and saw three men standing nearby. When he saw them, he hurried from the entrance of his tent to meet them and bowed low to the ground" (Genesis 18:2). In other words, Abraham did not just see the men; images of the men did not simply fix themselves on Abraham's retina, but Abraham consciously, optimally, saw these men, and recognized them to be children of God to whom he owed a measure of charity, and so he first "bowed low to the ground" before them. In other words, he worshiped before them. Abraham's starting act of love to the three men that accosted him was worship (agape). He showed love by initially recognizing the presence of God dwelling inside the bodies of the three men. "Do you not know that your bodies are temples of the Holy Spirit, who is in you, whom you have received from God?" (1 Cor 6:19a). Again, "You are gods, and all of you are children of the Most High" (Psalm 82:6).
Another way of explaining Abraham's behavior is by saying that he performed a profound Namaste to the three men. Namaste is a Hindu traditional greeting that means "I bow to the presence of the divinity inside of you." In Indian cultures, when you visit with a neighbor, you reverently clasp both your hands together and bow your head, and say, "Namaste." It is the customary form of greeting developed over the years, owing to the insight of the Hindi people that were able to recognize the presence of God in others. In our own day, people have borrowed this ancient culture and use it among themselves as a cool way of saluting one another. A celebrity famous for her culture of Namaste is my sweet and dearly beloved Oprah. I recall once when she welcomed the great spiritual writer Iyanla Vanzant on stage at a Lifeclass event in St Louis and, as Vanzant drew closer to Oprah, the billionaire talk sensation clasped her hands together and bowed reverently to Iyanla, recognizing the presence of the divinity in Vanzant, who reciprocated the gesture. Isn't Oprah simply the coolest! I love this woman, I tell you. Anyway, we're still talking of Abraham.
Once Abraham had worshiped before the three men (agape), he proceeded to show them charity (philia). He pleaded with them not to pass on by, but to stop awhile so he could entertain them. He had water brought for the washing of their feet, and he instructed his wife Sarah to make bread; his servants to prepare meat, and he himself brought curds and milk and stood beside the men as they ate. He selflessly served the men. Similarly, true love moves us to compassionate and selfless service. Remember that when we were treating the story of the Good Samaritan we showed how the Samaritan - in spite of the fact that his people were not on speaking terms with Jews - saw the wounded Jew on the roadside, disembarked from his mule, and took the poor fellow to an inn for treatment. Emulating this charitable Samaritan, we all are encouraged in our own lives to selflessly serve one another. Galatians 5:13 commands us to "serve one another selflessly in love."
Serving one another selflessly in love means that we serve without seeking anything in return. In the Abraham story we are dealing with, Abraham was not expecting any recompense from the three men for his service to them. This is why when they proceeded to prophesy the birth of a son to him from Sarah his hitherto barren wife, neither he nor Sarah actually believed the three men. Their attitude toward the men was like, "Yeah right, a child indeed. Please, just eat your bread, meat, curds and milk in peace and stop this nonsense about a child." In the same way, we should not do things for other people only because we secretly want them to do something for us in return. Jesus said in this regard: "When you give a luncheon or dinner, do not invite your friends, your brothers or sisters, your relatives, or your rich neighbors; if you do, they may invite you back and so you will be repaid. But when you give a banquet, invite the poor, the crippled, the lame and the blind, and you will be blessed. Although they cannot repay you, you will be repaid at the resurrection of the righteous" (Lk 14:12-14). Besides, if we do good expecting good to be done us in return and our expectations are not met, we may feel angry and vindictive.
Abraham also showed selfless charity when he prayed for the people of Sodom and Gomorrah. It is charitable to pray for others, rather than for ourselves alone. This sort of prayer is intercessory. When the three men said that God had sent them to destroy the sinful cities of Sodom and Gomorrah, Abraham boldly interceded for the people there, even if he did not know them. He repeatedly bargained with God and struck a deal with the divine such that if ten righteous individuals were found in the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah, the cities would be spared because of the ten. In the same way, we should always pray for the sick, the suffering, and indeed everyone in the world. We should not pray to God like to some Santa Claus, with a catalog of needs: "Dear God, I want this, and this, and that, and that also - oh, and by the way, I want that, and that other thing and - you remember last summer when I asked you for that other thing; you know, that thing? Yes, I want that." True charity instead prays for the needs of others and the world. True charity seeks the other's good.
When the three men had finished their meal of bread, meat, curds and milk, they stood up to leave. Abraham bid them goodbye, and they continued on their way to Sodom and Gomorrah. When they arrived, they went to the house of Lot, pretty much the only righteous man living in Sodom and Gomorrah at the time. The bible says that as soon as Lot saw the three men he, like Abraham, "bowed down with his face to the ground" (Genesis 19:1b). He also said, "Please turn aside to your servant’s house. You can wash your feet and spend the night and then go on your way early in the morning." Lot also baked them some bread from yeast (v3b). In other words, Lot wholeheartedly welcomed the three men to his home. His hospitality toward them knew no bounds. He, like Abraham, wanted to provide for and protect the three men, and make them feel completely welcome. He, like Abraham, showed agape and philia to the three visiting men.
However, Lot's neighbors had different plans. "Before they had gone to bed, all the men from every part of the city of Sodom - both young and old - surrounded the house. They called to Lot, 'Where are the gorgeous men who came to you tonight? Bring them out to us so that we can have sex with them'" (v4-5). Here was Lot, a newcomer to the twin cities of Sodom and Gomorrah. He was a good guy, who wanted no trouble. Three men had come to his house. He had taken them under his wing; had fed them, and was providing them shelter for the night. Courtesy demanded he protect them while they stayed with him, but his neighbors seemingly would have none of it. He was distressed indeed. "Lot went outside to meet his neighbors and shut the door behind him and said, 'No, my friends. Don’t do this wicked thing. Look, I have two daughters who have never slept with a man. Let me bring them out to you, and you can do what you like with them. But don’t do anything to these men, for they have come under the protection of my roof'" (v6-8).
"'Get out of our way,' the neighbors replied. 'This fellow came here as a foreigner, and now he wants to play the judge! We’ll treat you worse than them.' The neighbors kept pressuring Lot and moved forward to break down the door of his house" (v9). At this point, the three men inside the house became infuriated. They reached out and pulled Lot back into the house, and then went outside to confront the mob. They struck all the men outside blind. Now, let us reflect on this awhile. We have already said that true love is optimal perception, properly seeing everyone as a sibling and child of God. Lot's neighbors however refused to see the three handsome men as children of God. Unlike Abraham and Lot, they failed to see the presence of God inside of the three men. All they saw were the gorgeous bodies of the men, and they lusted after these. And so the attitude of the three men was, "Well, since you refuse to see properly, you really don't need eyes." This is why the three men struck the lustful neighbors blind. Similarly, we have eyes. We're supposed to "use them or lose them."
The love that Lot's neighbors had for the three beautiful men was eros, or sexual love. They observed the three men come to visit Lot, and they said to themselves, "Woo-hoo, here come three sexy men!" They then waited till dusk, and surprised Lot and his guests. This was improper. Forget the fact that Lot even offered to give them his virgin daughters in his bid to protect the three men, but the neighbors actually intended to rape the three men, to force their will on the innocent visitors! The bible says they pressured Lot and stormed the door. They were insistent. Their attitude was like, "Look Lot, give us those three men so that we can love them (romantically) whether you or they like it or not. We won't take no for an answer. Bring them out to us right now, or else we will break your door and fetch them out by ourselves." Dreadful, simply dreadful! And when matters got to a head, the three men, who really weren't men at all but angels - but of course the lewd neighbors didn't know that - had no choice but to strike the aggressive neighbors stark blind.
And once they had done this, the three men hastened Lot and his family out of the cities, cautioning them not to look back. It was time to completely destroy Sodom and Gomorrah. Enough was more than enough already. Lot and his family had to be quick. They ran as fast as their legs could carry them toward the hills on the outskirts of the cities. They had no time to take all their stuff with them, and the three men, or angels, did not let them take anything. Their lives were more important than their possessions. All human life is worth more than material possessions. And we all are called to love people more than physical things, because people have souls. But Lot's wife was concerned with physical stuff. She loved physical and material things more than soulful and spiritual things. She was concerned with the appetitive aspect, rather than the soulful and spiritual aspects of herself, and so she looked back with regret at the stuff she was leaving behind. She wanted to see, to perceive, to grieve over, to love her physical and material possessions, and she too was consequently struck blind. Her eyes ossified and became like stone - but not just her eyes, all of her body became a pillar of solid salt. Incredible! She was punished, like were Lot's lustful neighbors, for focusing solely on physical, material or bodily love; love for individual bodies or for material possessions; appetitive love, eros. Conversely, Lot and Abraham were gratified in the worship (agape) and charity (philia) they displayed to the angels that came visiting in human form.
In all, we have today considered the three kinds of love, and they are: worship (agape), charity (philia), and romance (eros). Worship is the highest of the three; charity is next in value, and the lowest of the three is romance. We find the three at play in the passage, Genesis 18-19. True love, or optimal seeing, is observable in the profoundly worshipful obeisance Abraham and Lot paid to the three angels that visited them in the form of men, and in the charitable hospitality they showed to these visiting men. Conversely, Lot's lustful neighbors and his own wife were respectively punished for preferring in the first instance the bodies of the visiting men to their souls and spirits, and in the second instance material possessions to her own life. Lot's neighbors and his wife showed appetitive or sexual love in the wrong manner and at the wrong time, and were punished for it. Indeed, Jesus says, "What does it profit a person to gain the whole world and lose their soul?" (Matt 16:26). Like the rich fool (Lk 12:13-21), what life are we to use in enjoying the whole world we've gained when we lose our soul? Let us therefore be wise. Of the three types of love there are - agape, philia, and eros - let us rank them in that order, in terms of their value.
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