“We must obey God rather than man.” That verse contains some cringe-worthy words. If you’re the preacher whenever “must”,
“obey”, and “God” show up in a verse, you know there’s going to be trouble. Most people these days don’t think in such
medieval terms as “God, obey, must”. No,
today it’s “All you need is love” and “Jesus completes me.” Seriously, have you noticed that the words to
“Jesus Loves Me, This I Know” have changed?
Well, they needed to be changed.
The hymn was written back in the mid-1800’s before vaccines and such and
childhood death was a real possibility. Back
then the hymn was meant to help children deal with that possibility but today,
they’re a little scary. The most notable
change occurs in the last verse and it reflects a shift to a rather
narcissistic attitude. Originally we
sang “Jesus loves me he will stay, close beside me all the way”. But now we sing “Jesus loves me still today,
walking with me on my way.” It’s like
Frank Sinatra got his hands on the song.
“Jesus did it my way.” The change
in lyrics here captures the shift to the prevalent thought today that I don’t trust
and obey Jesus, rather he’s just there to make my life more meaningful. If you try to throw the “archaic” idea of
“God, obey, must” into a sermon these days, it’s a major downer, a downright
preacher faux pas.
So, the stand up routine is
done. I was just trying to say that we
have a problem with the word “obey” and especially when it’s used in proximity
to the word “God” and intensified by the word “must”. So that said, what do we
do with this verse, “We must obey God rather than man”? Well, I’m going to put my Bible scholar hat
on and say a good place to start would be taking a closer look at what the
Apostles meant by the word and see what gets lost in translation.
First, what do we think when we hear the word
obey? When I hear it I immediately think of
not doing that list of things I’m not supposed to do and in turn doing the
things that I am supposed to do. That’s
the “obey my commandments” approach.
I also think of Dana’s dog Cedar, my
step-dog. Cedar just loves doing
obedience training. Obedience training
teaches a dog commands and expected responses and that makes everybody very
happy. It facilitates communication
between dog and dog person. Through
hopefully positive rather negative rewards dogs learn what we want from them
and they love it.
This is largely the way we teach our
children obedience as well. But children
are different. They can choose to be
disobedient. But for me the adult, I
ain’t no dog and I ain’t no child and the “obey my commandments” approach
really doesn’t leave me feeling respected as a rational and free person.
Well, this idea of being free to make
the rational choice to obey the commandments of God rather than any other
authority isn’t what’s going on here with the Apostles. The word in Greek there isn’t the typical one
for “obey”. It’s the word for following
a strong inner compulsion to act on what you are convinced to be the truth. It’s that word with the word for “ruler”
stuck on the end of it. It is a
compulsion to obey a higher authority that you know is truth.
So, what did this compulsion led to
in the early church? The Apostles and
the Jerusalem church had become quite a scene.
People were getting healed. They
were effectively eliminating poverty among themselves by sharing everything in
common…and all this in the name of Jesus whom everyone knew had been crucified
wrongly for treason against the Romans, but the Apostles and up to 500 others
had seen him after his resurrection. A
few weeks after the Resurrection during the Festival of Pentecost which
celebrated the giving of the Law at Mt. Sinai, the Holy Spirit was poured out
upon the church and they began to tell about Jesus in many different languages. In a very rousing sermon that day Peter
publicly explained that they were not drunk for it was only nine o’clock in the
morning. No, what was going on there was
the fulfillment of the prophecies of the prophet Joel about the end times when
God would pour his Spirit upon his people.
Jesus was the Messiah. He was
indeed bodily raised from the dead. The
Holy Spirit was definitely upon them as promised. A new day of salvation had dawned. This was God’s truth and the Apostles were
compelled by the Holy Spirit to proclaim it.
They got in trouble. The Sanhedrin, the religious authorities, their
power threatened, they got jealous. They
tried to compel the Apostles with threats to stop teaching in the name of Jesus
and implicating the Sanhedrin in his wrongful death. Finally, after one healing too many they had
the Apostles jailed only to find them the next day again publicly preaching in
the name of Jesus and claiming an angel had set them free. Just as the Sanhedrin thought that fear of
their power would compel the followers of Jesus not to speak in his name, so
the Holy Spirit was compelling them to preach that Jesus, whom the Sanhedrin
had crucified, was raised. Just as the
Apostles and many others were filled with the Holy Spirit on Pentecost, so we
find the Sanhedrin saying that the Apostles had filled all Jerusalem with their
teaching in the name of Jesus.
As we can see obedience here isn’t
about doing the right moral thing as opposed to the wrong for fear God will get
you. Christian obedience is acting because
of the compulsion of the Holy Spirit to be in and under the authority of Jesus, the
Ruler, to act on his behalf. The result
of this compulsion to obey God by proclaiming the truth of Jesus is that the
surrounding community begins to get transformed to look more and more like God
is among his people.
This Holy Spirit compulsion to
obedience to proclaim the truth about Jesus is a gift which reflects itself in
what the Apostles called repentance and forgiveness of sins; two other
cringe-worthy topics in churches these days.
Repentance doesn’t mean simply stop doing the bad things we do. In Greek it literally means to be
“with-minded”, with-minded with Jesus expressed through participating in his
mission to bring in the Kingdom of God.
Repentance is being a disciple of Jesus not just trying to be a good
person and generally good citizen and going to church is part of that. Being a disciple is gathering together with
other folks who are “with-minded” with Jesus to break out the Bible and study together,
eat together, pray together, and outreach together. Actually, when you find yourself compelled to
do these things it is a sign that the Holy Spirit is at work in you. Go with it.
Forgiveness of sins is also a
gift. Forgiveness of sins is not a legal
decision made by a judge on the throne.
Forgiveness of sins is Jesus in the presence of the Holy Spirit with us
picking us up in the midst of our sinfulness and carrying us towards being free
of them. Forgiveness of sins also means having
a group of people “with-minded” in Christ who do the same, who pick us up and
bear us in all our brokenness towards freedom from our sins. This kind of repentance and forgiveness is
the heart of Christian community.
How does a church let itself be
compelled by the Holy Spirit to act according to the Truth of Jesus and his
resurrection and find the gifts of repentance and forgiveness of sins? Well, just gather together and see what
happens. Get together and start talking about Jesus. Prior to Pentecost the Apostles
hid for fear of the Jews just like we do with our ideas of faith being a
private matter. But on Pentecost just
out of the blue while they were gathered together the Holy Spirit fell upon
them. Just gather together for whatever
reason you can find and start talking about Jesus. Only, I think the
gathering together needs to be more frequent than just on Sunday morning. I’ve a firm belief that the more we Christians
get together, the more we will realize that Jesus is in our midst and convinced
of that we will begin to feel the Holy Spirit compelling us to go with this
gift of obedience and be a community of repentance and forgiveness of
sins. Amen.
