This week’s column reflects on something Bishop Dan Edwards said in his talk on Sunday.

Bishop Dan Edwards wasn’t at St John’s on Sunday to talk about love. He was there to talk about suffering, and about his book “God of Our Silent Tears”, which formed the basis for our Lenten series discussions. Love and suffering are undeniably interwoven, and so in the course of his talk +Dan mentioned C.S. Lewis and the book “The Four Loves”. In that book, Lewis talks about the four ways the ancient Greeks understood the concept of love and how those manifest in the life of a Christian.

It is “agape” love that most interests me. My biblical Greek lexicon defines ἀγάπη as “love, generosity, kindly concern, devoted-ness.” It is the word for love most used in the New Testament, when the writers are talking about Jesus and God and humanity. It is the kind of love that wants nothing bad to happen to the other, that wants only the best for the other. It is a charitable kind of love.

Bishop Dan defined it as God loving us for simply being. Not for doing, but for being. It’s the love God put on display when Jesus stood up after having been submerged in the Jordan River for his baptism, and God said, “You are my beloved. With you I am well pleased.” Jesus hadn’t done anything to merit such a declaration. He had not yet begun his ministry. He simply stood up. God loved him not for doing but for being.

I had a very personal—and startling—experience of agape love in seminary. I shared this story with one of the Lenten small groups and it occurred to me I’ve not shared it more widely.

I attended seminary at The School of Theology at the University of the South in Sewanee, TN. It is an old and distinguished university and the seminary attached to it was founded in 1878. The seminary draws largely from the southern Episcopal dioceses. As a seminarian from the Diocese of Idaho, I was a geographic oddball. In retrospect, I was something of a fashion oddball as well, favoring jeans and t-shirts, the occasional pair of cowboy boots, and colorful cotton bandanas around my forehead. My southern classmates tended to dress much more conservatively: think seersucker trousers, saddle shoes, bow ties, subdued twin-sets, and so on.

As part of our formation for the priesthood we were required to attend church more or less daily. There were a number of services from which to choose, and I opted for Morning Prayer because it fit well with my class schedule. The seminary chapel, designed in 2000, is in the woods and features mostly glass walls and a skylight at the peak of the cathedral ceiling that runs from one end of the building to the other. I used to ride my bike there, drop my knapsack of books on the narthex floor, head in and sit down. I used to spread my arms across the back of the chairs to my right and left, tilt my head back, and watch the birds landing in the tree branches far above my head. I used to imagine that as we creatures bound to earth showed up to worship, seminarian by seminarian, God unbound by space and time flew in to join us, bird by bird.

One morning in my second year, I chanced to look around at my arriving classmates instead of up at the arriving birds. I noticed how nicely everyone was dressed. I watched them each genuflect, cross themselves, and drop to their knees on the kneelers to pray. I never did those things. I was suddenly flooded with shame and despair. “God, what a mistake this is! I am so wrong for this. I’ll make a terrible priest.” Those words, cried out silently, came from somewhere deep inside, behind my sternum.

Just as suddenly, I heard a voice—to my right and slightly behind me. The voice said quite clearly and kindly and firmly, “I love you, just the way you are.” It was so loud it startled me. I thought it might be one of my classmates, messing with me—there’s something about school that brings out the inner thirteen-year-old in us all—and I spun around to say, “Shut up! We’re not supposed to talk in chapel! You’re gonna get us in trouble!”

Except that there was no one there. For several rows on all sides, the chairs around me were empty.

I had had an audible experience of the agape love of God. I wonder if, when he stood up dripping from the river, Jesus was as surprised as I was. I like to think so.

I came to understand that I was loved for being, for being me, however glorious or unappealing that happened to be at the moment. I found myself longing for everyone to be able to hear that same voice, saying those same words, clearly, kindly, and firmly: I love you, just the way you are. That’s God agape loving us, loving us for being and not for doing. The doing we do isn’t done in order to earn that charitable love; it’s a natural response to being loved that way.

The desire that others might hear that same voice saying those same words became the energy that first fueled my vocation, and continues to do so today.

Why does God love us in this way? I offer the words of C.S. Lewis from his book: In God there is no hunger that needs to be filled, only plenteousness that desires to give…God, who needs nothing, loves into existence wholly superfluous creatures in order that He may love and perfect them.” [1] The very nature of God is agape love—love that creates us “wholly superfluous creatures”, perfects us, and regards us with charity just as we are.

We’ll see more evidence of this charitable love in the washing of feet at Maundy Thursday, in the devotion of those who sit watch with the consecrated elements through Maundy Thursday night into Good Friday, on the cross where God himself chose to experience the suffering we experience, and at the Great Vigil where in darkness Love brings forth new life. We’ll celebrate it at Easter, and I pray we will carry it forward with us, remembering that the voice saying, “I love you, just the way you are” speaks without ceasing to us all.

[1] C.S. Lewis, The Four Loves (New York: Harcourt Brace, 1960), 126-127.