20160118 THE EVANGELICAL COUNSEL OF OBEDIENCE AS ESSENTIAL TO THE
MINISTRY AND CHRISTIAN LIFE
Readings at Mass
Liturgical
Colour: Green.
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First reading
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1 Samuel
15:16-23 ©
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Samuel said to Saul,
‘Stop! Let me tell you what the Lord said to me last night.’ Saul said, ‘Tell
me.’ Samuel continued, ‘Small as you may be in your own eyes, are you not head
of the tribes of Israel? the Lord has anointed you king over Israel. The Lord
sent you on a mission and said to you, “Go, put these sinners, the Amalekites,
under the ban and make war on them until they are exterminated.” Why then did
you not obey the voice of the Lord? Why did you fall on the booty and do what
is displeasing to the Lord?’ Saul replied to Samuel, ‘But I did obey the voice
of the Lord. I went on the mission which the Lord gave me; I brought back Agag
king of the Amalekites; I put the Amalekites under the ban. From the booty the
people took the best sheep and oxen of what was under the ban to sacrifice them
to the Lord your God in Gilgal.’ But Samuel replied:
‘Is the pleasure of
the Lord in holocausts and sacrifices
or in obedience to
the voice of the Lord?
Yes, obedience is
better than sacrifice,
submissiveness better
than the fat of rams.
Rebellion is a sin of
sorcery,
presumption a crime
of teraphim.
‘Since you have
rejected the word of the Lord, he has rejected you as king.’
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Psalm
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Psalm
49:8-9,16-17,21,23 ©
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I will show God’s
salvation to the upright.
‘I find no fault with
your sacrifices,
your
offerings are always before me.
I do not ask more
bullocks from your farms,
nor goats
from among your herds.
I will show God’s
salvation to the upright.
‘But how
can you recite my commandments
and take
my covenant on your lips,
you who despise my
law
and throw
my words to the winds,
I will show God’s
salvation to the upright.
‘You do this, and
should I keep silence?
Do you
think that I am like you?
A sacrifice of
thanksgiving honours me
and I
will show God’s salvation to the upright.’
I will show God’s
salvation to the upright.
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Gospel
Acclamation
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cf.1Th2:13
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Alleluia, alleluia!
Accept God’s message
for what it really is:
God’s message, and
not some human thinking.
Alleluia!
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Or
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Heb4:12
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Alleluia, alleluia!
The word of God is
something alive and active:
it can judge secret
emotions and thoughts.
Alleluia!
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Gospel
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Mark 2:18-22 ©
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One
day when John’s disciples and the Pharisees were fasting, some people came to
Jesus and said to him, ‘Why is it that John’s disciples and the disciples of
the Pharisees fast, but your disciples do not?’ Jesus replied, ‘Surely the
bridegroom’s attendants would never think of fasting while the bridegroom is
still with them? As long as they have the bridegroom with them, they could not
think of fasting. But the time will come for the bridegroom to be taken away
from them, and then, on that day, they will fast. No one sews a piece of
unshrunken cloth on an old cloak; if he does, the patch pulls away from it, the
new from the old, and the tear gets worse. And nobody puts new wine into old
wineskins; if he does, the wine will burst the skins, and the wine is lost and
the skins too. No! New wine, fresh skins!’
THE
EVANGELICAL COUNSEL OF OBEDIENCE AS ESSENTIAL TO THE MINISTRY AND CHRISTIAN
LIFE
SCRIPTURE
READINGS: 1 SAMUEL 15:16-23; MARK 2:18-22
Obedience
is one of the three evangelical counsels. Obedience is considered an
evangelical counsel because it is necessary and vital to the effectiveness
of the spread of the Good News. As Pope John Paul II has said repeatedly,
our mission is communion and this mission must be accomplished in
communion. Communion is for mission and mission is communion.
Necessarily, obedience safeguards the unity of the Church and must therefore be
considered a pre-requisite for mission. Without obedience, the Church
would be in chaos for each one would go his or her own way. As a
consequence, not only would the unity of the Church be jeopardized, but the
mission is impacted as well.
There
are different aspects of obedience. Primarily obedience is
ultimately given to God. It is mediated through the Word of God and also
through the Church. Faith is defined by the Church as the total surrender
of our intellect and will to God who reveals Himself. We believe what is
true not because of the intrinsic truth of things recognized by the natural
light of reason, but because of the authority of God Himself who reveals them,
who can neither err nor deceive. Secondarily therefore, we are to submit
in obedience to the appointed representatives of Christ, namely, the Holy
Father, the Bishops and by extension those to whom authority has been delegated
to.
St
Ignatius of Antioch in his letter to the Ephesians wrote, “If sanctification is
to be yours in full measure, it means uniting in a common act of submission and
acknowledging the authority of your bishop and clergy….. For we can have no
life apart from Jesus Christ; and as he represents the mind of the Father, so
our bishops … represent the mind of Jesus Christ. That is why it is
proper for your conduct and practices to correspond with the mind of the
bishop. A completely united front will help to keep you in constant
communion with God.” Truly, the failure to observe obedience impedes the unity
and mission of the Church.
Why
is obedience so difficult?
It is good to ask why obedience is so difficult in today’s generation.
Firstly, it is because of individualism. Today, we are brought up
in small families where children are treated as kings and queens at home. They
are being served by domestic helpers without the need to help out in household
chores and with their personal needs. This individualistic mentality has
affected the way we give regard to the opinions of others, especially those in
authority. We want to have things our way.
The
second reason is due to the separation of reason from faith. In
this modern world of rationalism, faith is seen to be incompatible with science
and reason. The modern man trusts himself more than God. So
anything that cannot be explained, such as miracles, would be unacceptable.
Man thinks that reason is greater than faith. So when it comes to
matters of intellectual disagreement, many are not willing to submit their
intellect to faith. The truth in life is that many things require us to
take risks, especially when a leader is realizing the vision mapped out for his
community. Because vision is only realized in the future, faith is
required.
At any
rate, whether it is individualism or rationalism, it is but the manifestation
of pride, the root sin of all other sins. This was of course the sin
of Adam. He wanted to be like God. The disobedience of Adam and Eve
came about because of pride. This explains why, in the first reading,
Samuel told Saul that “rebellion is a sin of sorcery, presumption a crime of
teraphim.” In other words, we think we know all the secrets and mysteries
of life without consulting God because of pride. Sorcery becomes the
occult means of seeking to know the hidden mysteries of life without God.
Pride is also manifested in the sin of presumption because we presume we know
more than God or His appointed representatives. Presumption is the cause
of self-justification, rationalization and compromise.
In view
of the importance of obedience and the consequences of disobedience, we are
invited by the Word of God today to recognize that if we want to offer
sacrifices to God, the best sacrifice we can offer to Him is obedience.
Indeed, Samuel remarked, “Is the pleasure of the Lord in holocausts and sacrifices
or in obedience to the voice of the Lord? Yes obedience is better than
sacrifice, submissiveness better than the fat of rams.” God speaks
through the psalmist too, “Why do you recite my statutes, and profess my
covenant with your mouth, though you hate discipline and cast my words behind
you?” And our response is “To the upright I will show the saving power of
God.”
To
paraphrase the above text, it will not be the sacrifice of studies, doing
manual labour, offering our services to the community, etc that will please
God, but obedience. Even if we are very generous with our time in serving
the community and the people of God, all is lost without obedience. For
we might be doing more harm than good to the community by our disobedience and
individualistic attitude. Only to those who learn obedience can they be
truly said to offer the highest and purest form of sacrifice.
Thus,
when we obey, we must obey totally and fully, not even reluctantly, that is
both external compliance and interior assent of the mind and heart.
Even if we obey but the heart refuses to submit, that obedience cannot be said
to be obedience but merely compliance more out of fear and resignation.
Rather, as Jesus invites us, obedience requires that we must be consistent with
what we do in life. External obedience is an expression of interior
obedience. This is what the parable of the bridegroom, the cloak and
wineskin is all about. We must be consistent with our faith; which is to
surrender ourselves to God in all things and not to rely on our own
intelligence and will. Obedience is simply being faithful to God and
therefore to ourselves.
Indeed,
Saul was rejected not because he was totally disobedient, but that he was
not completely obedient. His was a selective obedience. He kept the
booty and did not destroy the enemies as was instructed. Samuel’s
judgement on Saul was this, “Since you have rejected the word of the Lord, he
has rejected you as king.” So it is not even enough to be obedient in some things.
We are obedient to God and to His appointed representatives in some
areas. But we are disobedient in matters that we cannot accept.
However, true obedience is not only surrendering our minds and wills to
things that we agree with, but also for those that we cannot agree with.
True obedience precisely lies in this. For this reason, God rejected Saul
because he was disobedient in not destroying the booty he won from his enemies.
This
seems to be rather unreasonable of God! Maybe we would say God should be more magnanimous to
recognize the good things, or rather those times when Saul was obedient to
Him. This is because the failure to be obedient even in small things will
eventually lead to disobedience in major things. This was also the case
of Adam and Eve. It was their presumption that led them to compromise
with the Devil in taking the forbidden fruit. If one cannot be obedient
in small matters, we cannot expect him or her to submit to more important
matters. We begin by saying “yes” to small things so that we can say the
ultimate “yes” when we are called to die to self for God and for others.
Indeed,
the lack of obedience is not simply disobedience, but a manifestation of the
failure to trust in God. Saul, being the King of Israel, failed to
rely on the power and wisdom of God and brought disaster to his people.
This was the case for all the kings of Israel and Judah. Instead of
trusting in God, they trusted in themselves and their military might to fight
against their enemies.
And if
there is a lack of faith in God, it is because humility is lacking as
well. Obedience is the concrete manifestation of humility.
How do we know we are humble? Not when we are behaving humbly and
modestly! The real sign of humility is obedience. This explains why
the letter to Philippians describes the self-emptying of Christ in terms of His
obedience in becoming a man, even unto death on the cross. So a truly
humble person obeys simply because God says so and in faith, he obeys not
because he thinks it is reasonable but simply on the authority of God who spoke
either through His Word or through the Magisterium.
Truly,
without obedience, all the good we do can be destroyed by our lack of obedience. We
allow the devil to deceive us by our pride. We bring about disunity and
eventually destroy the mission of communion since we want to achieve this
communion without being in communion with Christ and his successors.
Of course,
obedience need not be a blind obedience. We need not behave like
the Pharisees who observe the discipline of fasting blindly more to satisfy
their ego and pride than out of humility. Obedience requires dialogue but
at the end of the day, we must leave our superior to make the decision.
In
faith we believe that the one who is entrusted with the authority is also given
the charism to do what is right and good for the Church even when he makes human mistakes.
But God’s wisdom and power will be able to transform whatever human mistakes he
makes into something good for the Church. Faith, therefore, is the
expression of obedience and humility is the gateway to faith.
Written
by The Most Rev William Goh Roman Catholic Archbishop of Singapore © All Rights Reserved
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