"Obedience"
Rev. Paul Mitchell
Vashon United Methodist Church
July 8, 2018
Psalm 132; Mark 6:11-13
Obedience. It’s probably one of
the least favorite words in the American English lexicon. At least when we
apply it to ourselves. We probably like it when we apply it our children, or
our employees, our pets, or our machines. Our common understanding of the word
“obey” is to do what you are told. We are supposed to obey the laws of the
land, the laws of nature, the commandments. We are especially incensed when we
believe we are already in full compliance and someone tells us what to do.
Obedience may be unpopular because we don’t like to do difficult things. But I
would argue that obedience is the easiest option. Obedience is the path of
least resistance. Obedience is what allows totalitarianism to thrive. Obedience
is a haven from error and confusion. Obedience is what allows us to go on about
our usual daily business while oblivious to injustice and oppression, loss and
grief. Obedience is what allows the priest and the religious scholar to cross
to the other side of the road when confronted by the distasteful misfortune in
the gutter.
The rejection of obedience is
probably one of the reasons religion in general and particularly Christianity
is in decline in our nation. Our worship of individualism has risen to a level
at which nobody wants to be told what to do. There are exceptions, of course,
and we are seeing them played out in the public realm – both religious and
secular. The decline of evangelicalism in America lags the decline of mainline
Protestantism in part because of the centrality of obedience among
evangelicals. Obedience is the central organizing principle in an authoritarian
household. Obedience in such settings is often confused with loyalty. The
obedient dog or child or spouse complies with the directions of the central
authority, even when that obedience is ultimately detrimental to the entire
household. In the secular realm, masses of people, who venerate persona and
popularity, worship obedience even to their own detriment and the detriment of
the common good.
We are talking about obedience
because today is the culmination of my multi-year project to preach on the
fifteen Psalms of Ascent. Even before Eugene Peterson began his paraphrase of
the Bible, The Message, he
paraphrased these fifteen Psalms, and around them he built his book A Long Obedience in the Same Direction.
He saw discipleship of Jesus Christ as a journey characterized by obedience.
Peterson sums up each of the fifteen Psalms with a single word, and the word he
chose for Psalm 132 is obedience. It is fitting then that this is the
final Psalm in my series.
It is our inherent desire to draw
near to God that motivates pilgrim people to make the arduous ascent to the
city of the peace of God. That the community of believers must make this ascent
to a rocky, arid, fortified hilltop is an expression of their fear of the power
and judgement of the divine. In that high and mighty place was the ark of the
covenant, the box-shaped throne upon which was thought to brood the glory of
God, the shekinah. Inside the box
were kept the broken fragments of the covenant that Moses brought down from
another high place for the common good. It was thought that whoever kept the
box also wielded the power of the Almighty. An aspiring warlord could capture
the ark, and thus command the loyalty – the obedience
and compliance – of the community of believers. As a result, its authority was
vulnerable to attack and capture. David is credited with just that. He attacked
Saul, captured the Ark, and ultimately contained it in the fortified city –
Jerusalem – the city of the peace of God. Psalm 132 celebrates David for his
obedience to YHWH. David liberated God’s glory from a self-interested warlord.
David also aspired to build the house where the wind/breath/spirit could be
codified and controlled – wielded for his own self-interest, and for the
establishment of a dynasty. We also know David as an adulterer who murdered his
most trusted lieutenant to satisfy his lust for Bathsheba.
So, we must ask ourselves, if that
is what God really wants from us. Does God really call us to blind allegiance
to a particular iteration of the public order, or to the authority figures in
the systems in which we are enmeshed? What obedience does God require? It may
help, as it often does for me, to dig into the origins of the terms we use to
define our faith. It turns out that there is no word for obedience in the Hebrew
Bible. When the word “obey” does appear in English translations of the Hebrew
Bible, it is only one of several translations of the word שָׁמַע – to hear.
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| Listen Child Edouard Boubat |
Its first appearance is when Adam and Eve “hear” the presence of YHWH walking in
the cool of the garden. They cower, knowing they have not complied with God’s
initial instructions. In other words, they have not understood and internalized
what God most deeply wanted them to hear – that self-interest would lead to
suffering and death.
שָׁמַע is the word that we know from the
exodus, in which God proclaims to the community of believers “Hear, O Israel….”
And שָׁמַע is also used throughout the
Psalms, to address YHWH. “Hear the cry of our hearts, O God!”
Surely, this is not meant to
portray the community of believers dictating to God, demanding that God obey
their whims and desires. Instead, it consistently conveys a genuine plea – an
invitation – to hear deeply – to listen with your whole being. God says to the
community of believers, “Hear me, you who
are torn between fascination and terror, for my heart is with you. Listen
deeply to my desires for your well-being.” And the community of believers
says, “Hear us, Holy Being –
Being-Who-Is-Becoming – our heart yearns for you, even as we know we cannot
hope to comply with your law of love.” Obedience, then, is the practice of
very deep listening, the desire to know, and the intention to be at peace – to
dwell in the city of the peace of God.
Aside from the broad generational
and cultural rejection of institutional authority, we who think of ourselves as
the community of the faithful – the followers of Jesus – may have another
reason to be skittish about the word obedience. Of the dozen or so instances of
the word obedience in the Greek Testament, most could also be translated
“submission” or “surrender” – at which we bristle. The most familiar instance
is from Philippians 2: “Your attitude
must be the same as that of Christ Jesus: who, though in the image of God, did
not deem equality with God something to be clung to – but instead became
completely empty and took on the image of oppressed humankind: born into the
human condition, found in the likeness of a human being. Jesus was thus humbled
– obediently accepting death, even death on a cross!”
Jesus was the obedient one. The
exemplar of God’s desire for humanity. But notice this: The Gospel accounts do
not portray Jesus as being obedient to the law in the usual manner expected and
interpreted by the same priests and religious scholars who walked by on the
other side. Instead he taught a radical obedience – a deep listening to the
heart of God – through the commandments – to what lay beyond them. The Jesus we
meet in Mark is this Jesus. Mark does not elaborate on the nature of Jesus’
teaching in his home town where his authoritative teaching is acknowledged, but
its source is called into question. Jesus’ activity in the Gospel Mark thus far
has mostly been the healing of persons considered outside the realm of
respectability – who by their nature or circumstances are categorically unable
to obey the commandments. And his teaching thus far has primarily been to
undermine the interpretation of the Sabbath as time in which it is appropriate
to stand by and watch as the beloved of God suffer. This is threatening to
those who want to cover their ears and avert their eyes and avoid conflict at
any cost. This is good news for those who have been cast aside, who have been
waiting for someone to notice – to hear their cries.
Last week we heard from Terri
Stewart a little about The Anatomy of
Peace. The authors of The Anatomy of
Peace suggest that conflict and its resolution are rooted in the heart.
They suggest that we are wired to think well of those around us – even the one
who seems to be different – the “other.” The natural state of our heart is at
peace toward the other, seeing them as a person rather than an object. A person
shares community and humanity with me. If I begin to see the other as an object
– as a vehicle, as an obstacle, or as irrelevant to my self-interest – my heart
is no longer at peace. The behaviors that well up out of a heart at war
are against our common community and humanity, and I need to justify those
behaviors, and then to recruit allies in that justification, and soon the
conflict seems unavoidable. However, if we cultivate hearts at peace by opening
ourselves to the possibility that our life is intertwined with the life of an
other, and that we can share in the common good, conflict subsides even
in the face of real differences. The heart at peace is obedient to the heart of
God.
Throughout these fifteen sermons
on the Psalms of Ascent I have stressed the pilgrim nature of Christian discipleship.
The ancient pilgrims were certain of their destination despite not having yet
arrived. There was a way to get there, though it may have been difficult. We
too can ascend to the city of the peace of God. That city is situated in the
matrix of connections between our hearts. In recent weeks I have stressed the
importance of centering prayer as an embodiment of the journey upward to the
city of the peace of God. That is the prayer of deep listening. The
contemporary mystic, Richard Rohr, notes that this kind of deep listening
prayer is not an escape from our common life, but a means of exploring and
discovering the connections between our hearts. It is not an easy practice,
though there is nothing simpler. The daily practice of sitting in silence without
agenda or expectation can be a little underwhelming. I have been taking 20
minutes every morning for the past five weeks. Most days do not hold a profound
experience of “the Holy Other.” But every day that 20 minutes is quieter,
shorter, and more deeply connected to the other.
Brian McLaren notes that “Jesus doesn’t dominate the other, avoid the
other, colonize the other, intimidate the other, demonize the other, or
marginalize the other. [Jesus] incarnates into the other, joins the other in
solidarity, protects the other, listens to the other, serves the other, even
lays down … life for the other.”[i] Why? Because
Jesus is obedient to the desire of Abba God to draw us ever closer to the
center and to one another.
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