26th Sunday of Ordinary Time, A (focus on 2nd reading) September 27, 2020
Fr. Albert St. John the Evangelist, Jeanerette
Video of 8am Mass: https://youtu.be/JWp2ZRl6PTQ
“Obedience is not a virtue.” I saw that tagline on an aerial picture of a World War II concentration camp. In that context, it’s pretty hard not to agree. The Nazi soldiers’ obedience to Hitler, the many doctors and citizens obedient to anti-Jewish and eugenic laws, even the priests and pastors obedient to leaders who told them not to preach about it. Surely that proves obedience is not a virtue, right?
But then we’re left with a problem. Do you remember why Adam and Eve were kicked out of the garden? Because they didn’t obey. This ancient hymn from Paul in our second reading rejoices that Jesus “took the form of a slave” and became “obedient to the point of death.” Jesus praises the son who obeyed his father. This makes it seem like obedience is a virtue. Well, it is. And it’s not just any virtue, but a virtue that is absolutely required if we want to go to heaven.
But what about the Nazis? The Communists? The cults and terrorists who use obedience to make people do terrible, horrific things? Good question. And the answer, as it is with so many things, is to make a distinction, to clear up the difference between two different kinds of obedience. In fact, one isn’t really obedience, but a false impersonation of obedience. Obedience is to freely comply with the will of a legitimate authority. There are two parts to that and each one is important.
What makes it a virtue is that it is freely done by a rational person. It’s about someone who has a choice and then makes that choice to obey. Sheer instinct, excessive psychological pressure, simply giving in out of laziness, or not understanding that you have a choice all make it less rational and less free and therefore less about obedience.
The other part is that important adjective at the end. A legitimate authority. Ultimately, that’s the difference between the Nazi collaborator and the heroic saint: the legitimacy of the authority which they obey. As with all of creation, there is a hierarchy, an order, a structure to authority and obedience. At the top, obviously, is God himself, who has absolute authority. God can legitimately command anything he wants. Please understand that God cannot contradict himself – he is Goodness itself, so he cannot and does not want to command us to do evil.
Under God, there are a variety of other authorities. The Church, parents, government, and superiors at work. When an authority steps outside their area or contradicts a higher authority, that command is not legitimate. A priest does not have to obey his bishop’s command to break the seal of confession. A soldier does not have to obey an order to murder innocent people. A doctor does not have to obey a government who tells her to give out contraception. A child does not have steal when his parents tell him to. An employee does not have to give into the lust of her boss. Commands that contradict a higher authority or go outside their particular area stop being legitimate. It can get a lot more complicated to sort through all the levels of authority in a specific case, but the fact remains that we do not have to obey illegitimate commands.
Still, the bigger question is this: Why should we obey at all? Human beings are sinful and tend to keep sinning, so obedience is a way to keep us away from sin. But what about Adam and Eve? They started without sin. Why did God even give them the chance, why give them an order and a chance to disobey if they were already naturally good?
Well, as with everything we believe, it is about love. Love is to will, to choose the genuine good of another person. As Paul puts it in this letter, love is when a person is “looking out not for his own interests… but for those of others.” By choosing to do what is best for another, we are also giving of ourselves, pouring ourselves out for their benefit. The love of the Trinity works like that. Father pours himself out into the Son, who pours himself out back to the Father and the Holy Spirit is the love exchanged between them.
Even before sin, Adam and Even needed to imitate this exchange, this setting aside their own interest for the good of the other. By giving them a commandment, God gave them a chance to set aside their own interest and limited perspective to practice doing something for someone else without selfish interest in mind. Obedience is a way to love the one we obey as well as a way to set aside selfishness. It is also a way to love God’s creation and design. We obey government laws likes speed limits and health codes out of love of our fellow man. We obey parents as a way to love God’s design for the family. The son in Jesus’ parable who obeys his father is able to contribute to the harvest, to the good of the whole family and community. We obey in order to get over ourselves long enough to be capable of real love, which cannot be selfish.
This is why the Son of God humbled himself, why he chose to become a human being even though he was already God, why he was obedient to the point of death, though he had to sweat blood to accept that command. He is the model, the perfect example of getting over ourselves to do what is good for another. And this practice, this virtue of self-denial is so important that it is good for us to obey even when it seems dumb or when the person in charge is insincere or corrupt. Jesus himself told his apostles to obey the high priests because of their authority even while he told them not to follow their example. Unless a person in authority gives an order that is actually sinful, we should obey not because they’re better than us, but because obedience is a virtue that prepares us and trains us to love without selfishness.
Ultimately, all authority comes from God even when the person wielding that authority is wicked. So long as the command itself is not a sin or an overreach, it should be obeyed. Obedience is a virtue, but sinful behavior is not true obedience. And when we obey legitimate authority, we are not just submitting to a human being, but to the infinite loving God whose greatest desire is our salvation and happiness, who can work through and despite wicked leaders. We submit to a God who wants us to obey him in order to be like him and be with him. To a God who wants nothing more than to forgive us for all the times we’ve disobeyed him. To a God who calls and gives us the grace to have the same attitude that is also in Christ Jesus, an attitude of humility and obedience, of mercy and of love.
Beautiful mass and homily, Father.