This is the fifth in a
series of eight sermons based on Greg Ogden’s book Essential Guide to
Becoming a Disciple: Eight Sessions for Mentoring and Discipleship.
So, Dana has been taking
our dog Nellie to agility classes lately.
Agility is the run, jump, obstacle course stuff. It’s fun for energetic little dogs who like a
challenge. Yet, to do this sort of
thing, one needs a dog who will obey, which means do what it is expected to do
when it is expected to do it.
To get a dog to be
obedient isn’t too difficult. You have to make the reward for your dog doing
what you want it to do greater than the pleasure it would otherwise get from
doing what it wants to do. You have to
spend a good deal of time with your dog showing it lots of love and playing
with it to build the bond that will make it want to please you. Then, when it is time to train, it will
experience the training exercises as a really fun play time with you. In time, the dog will learn and will obey
without reserve even for no reward because it’s fun and it pleases her person.
But
there are some prerequisites to canine obedience training. First, the dog
person needs to have the right kind of temperament, which includes patience,
understanding, love, self-control, the ability to express affirmation
enthusiastically, and the desire to feel the joy of watching one of God’s
finest creatures learn and excel at completing tasks. Second, you need a dog who really wants to
please you. This is most every dog so
this is why the temperament of the dog person is most important. Grumpy, angry, impatient people who yell and dole
out negative, overly punitive consequences for undesired behaviour will have
difficulty getting a dog to want to please them.
Some dogs are easier to
train than others. Our dog Nellie is
quite smart and quite stubborn. She
requires a lot more patience and time.
We even had to get a shock collar.
The joy of harassing our cats is way more reward to her than a bland
cookie treat. To walk her, we have to
use a gentle lead that fits on her nose instead of clipping a lead to her
collar. She can’t pull or go after stuff
without a bit of discomfort. One day
she’ll figure obedience out. She’s not
even a year yet. Dogs and obedience
training, it’s an adventure.
When I think of the word
obedience dog training is the most benevolent thing that comes to my mind. Obedient and obey are two words that I really
don’t like, I mean I really don’t
like them. They make me think of a
relationship in which the parties concerned are not equals. They make me think of someone of a higher
standing trying to impose their will on another more vulnerable person. Slavery was a system based on
“obedience”. It used to be, and unfortunately
still is in many parts of the world, that marriage involves a system of
obedience that is male dominated and abusive.
Raising children is too often seen as a system of obedience. I don’t want my children to “obey” me. I want them to respect Dana and me, their
elders, their teachers, and coaches and strive to do their best in the many
systems of rules in which they have to live realizing that we have their best
interests in mind and there are consequences for their actions.
I don’t like it when Bible
translators put the word “obey” into the mouth of God, into the mouth of Jesus. We are not dogs. Jesus doesn’t call us his slaves. He calls us his friends. In the Great Commission when Jesus
commissions his disciples, gives them the charge of making disciples and
empowers them to carry it out, he instructs them to teach these disciples
they’ve baptized into the life of God to keep, to observe his
commandments. Obey is about the worst
word you can throw in there. Let me
explain (and this means a Greek lesson).
The Greek word here,
“tereo”, primarily means to watch over, to guard, to keep safe; like a teacher
or a sitter watching over children. It
is the idea of protecting something precious.
Jesus’ teachings are precious. Jesus’
commandments are precious. They are of
value. A commandment isn’t just a rule
written on the books somewhere to be obeyed or suffer the consequences. A commandment is a commission, a
responsibility entrusted to us to carry out.
A commandment from Jesus is a precious responsibility he’s given to us
for us to guard with our very lives by incorporating it into our lives. His commandments are precious because they
are life giving to those who follow him.
To incorporate his teachings into a system of “obedience” would be to
legalize them and make them death-dealing duties that we grow to hate rather
than a source of life that we love.
Looking at John’s Gospel, Jesus
calls us his friends because he has made known to us everything that he heard
from God the Father. He has spoken to us
the words of God the Father that he himself has heard. The powerful thing about words from God is
that when God speaks, what God says comes about. In essence, Jesus has spoken words from the
Father to us, into us in the power of the Holy Spirit; words that will take
effect and grow in us.
The primary word to us that
he has spoken is that the Father and Son by the Holy Spirit have come to us
made their home with, in, and among us.
We have been given a wonderful gift.
God is here, among us, in us. This
wonderful gift in turn produces in us in us a hunger, an inexplicable
compulsion to want to know Jesus and to live according to his ways, his
teachings because it pleases him and gives us joy.
There are two primary ways
for us to keep Jesus’ his commandments, the words of God. First, from Jesus’ word spoken to us arises
the desire and capacity to carryout his command for us to love as he has loved
us. We lay down our lives for one
another. In Matthew it would sound more
like “Love the Lord, your God, with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength,
and your neighbour as yourself.” This precious
commandment is a living word spoken into us that we are to keep safe and
nurture by incorporating it into our lives as our way of life. By doing this we will discover and experience
the eternal life that Jesus promises us.
As Jesus’ commandments are
a words of God spoken to us that get into us and have effect, they create in us
a hunger to know Jesus and to love him by keeping his commandments. We will find what Ogden calls “a spiritual
growth plan” helpful. This is incorporating
into our lives daily devotional time to worship and pray and to read and study the
scriptures and meditate upon them. A
spiritual growth plan must also include meeting together with other disciples
to do the same with the added benefits of fellowship and sharing our
lives. Finally, God did not mean for us
to keep this precious gift to ourselves, we must find ways of sharing it with
those who don’t know they’ve been given the gift too. Alcoholics know that the best way to stay
sober is to help somebody else stay sober.
So it is with Jesus and the love of God.
The best way to know Jesus and his love is to share it with those who
don’t know it.
We will have difficult
choices to make. Jesus’ way is utterly
counter-cultural and will have us struggling with our own selfish
nature’s. There will be times when we
wish Jesus would put a shock collar on us or stick us in our crates until we
are refocused. But one thing is certain,
as we go along the way of discipleship we will more and more come to realize
that God truly loves us, enjoys us, even likes us; and we will come to know
just how patient and understanding God is, how God only wants what’s best for
us. God feels joy over us and is
enthusiastically affirming. God is not
some grumpy, impatient, yelling, beat you with the paper because you peed on
the floor tyrant who demands complete obedience or else. God is the loving communion of the Father,
Son, and Holy Spirit and God has chosen you to be a part of his family. Isn’t that wonderful. Keep this precious word deep within your
heart, soul, and mind, and heed it with all your strength. Amen.
