Opening to the Spirit
Today’s word: Obedience
rules was also important.
When did the word “obedience” become such a negative concept? Was it the radical sixties when freedom was cherished? Perhaps it was the “look out for number one” decade of the seventies? I'm not sure, but perhaps its time for a new perspective. Obedience is a spiritual discipline. We are called to choose the needs of the many over our own needs or ego. This means that when a church committee has taken a decision about something, people don't convene a “parking lot meeting” to upset the applecart. This means that though we may be on the opposite side of a vote, we support the group. We work together as a church, on common goals instead of selfishly going our own way.
I just finished a two year term chairing our church Conference. This has provided me some wonderful memories, and also some frustrating moments. Sometimes I wonder what life might be like if everyone was taught how to play together and learned obedience, like on an Atom hockey team.
3) A few years ago, our continental ministers association embarked on a collegial conversation around the central question: Whose Are We? No, that's not a typo. Related to the timeless identity question of "Who are we?," this asked us to name what commands our loyalty, determines our moral code, or undergirds our faith commitment. Predictably in my denomination, this led to a barrage of more varied questions: To whom do we belong? To whom or to what are we in service? Whence comes our moral authority? What helps us stay the course and inspires our unwavering obedience?
For two years in conferences and retreats, regional gatherings, webinars and Zoom calls, we explored the theme that led us further and beyond. Exploring the difference between obedience and submission or compliance. We shared stories of vocation, calls to ministry: how, when, where, by whom or by what. The result was widespread renewal: a strengthened clarity of purpose, a celebration of personal and professional faithfulness, and yes, submission to what some call God and others supreme goodness, or what theologian Paul Tillich named Ultimate Concern. I reread the Charge to the Minister from my service of ordination. One clergy blogger's answer: We may serve a church or community, work with others in shared ministry. Yet our "Boss" is not whoever currently issues our paycheck or signs our membership card.
Employers change like seasons, institutions change leadership and mandates, political regimes swing back and forth like pendulums, rules and laws constantly revised. The finite is always in flux, either progressive or regressive. Yet we are called to stay the course, to resist blind obedience predicated on the notion that someone in authority, with sufficient power to command it, deserves our unquestioning compliance. In our heart of hearts, we owe obedience to the vows and commitments we've made in good faith. In service to a code of ethics, values and principles superseding demands of whoever happens to wear the temporary mantle of power. We are in service to the holy.
Whose are we? If our answer is God or ultimate goodness, surely we owe not grudging but joyful obedience.
4) I remember taking my dog to obedience lessons. She learned to come when she was called, and to sit or lie down on command. Treats were given as a reward for each good behaviour. Things got complicated when she learned the commands “off”, to stop jumping on people, and “drop it”, to release anything she had in her mouth. Previously, she was not a jumper, or one to pick up things she shouldn’t but, once she learned that she would get a treat when she stopped doing these things, she started doing them just to be told to stop and then to get a treat. One could say that she was following the letter of the law, but missed the spirit of it completely. It was all about the rewards and nothing about really wanting to be good.
Some people are like this. Have you noticed that it is sometimes those with the best “manners” who can be the most cruel? Sometimes we follow the rules of etiquette with the hope of gaining the reward of being seen to be well-mannered, rather than living with real love for the people around us. Like dogs behaving well only for the treat, we can miss the deeper purpose.
Let us all remember that our obedience is to God. Or, in words that are the same, but maybe easier to understand, let us all remember that our obedience is to Love. Let us love each other in deep obedience to the Love we ask to rule us. In the words of the great hymn, “teach us how to love each other; lift us to the joy divine.”
One word, four voices: To what or to whom do you owe obedience?
Rev. Mead Baldwin pastors the Hatley, Waterville & North Hatley United Churches; Rev. Lynn Dillabough is now Rector of St. Paul's in Brockville ON. She continues to write for this column as a dedicated colleague with the Eastern Townships clergy writing team; Rev. Lee Ann Hogle ministers to the Ayer’s Cliff, Magog & Georgeville United Churches; Rev. Carole Martignacco pastors Uuestrie – the Unitarian Universalists in North Hatley.