Thursday, 2nd Week of Easter April 16, 2026
Fr. Alexander Albert St. Mary Magdalen, Abbeville
“We must obey God rather than men.” That is one of my favorite lines in all of scripture. “We must obey God rather than men.” In seven words, it sums up every hero and saint in salvation history. From Noah who endured mockery as he built the ark to Ruth who left her homeland to join God’s people to John the Baptist to Jesus himself, there are always men and women who say, “I don’t care what the world thinks, what powerful people think, or even what my friends think, I will obey God!” All of them suffered for this and many of them died for it. Peter joins that tradition of courage to say to the same men who had killed Jesus just a few months before “we must obey God rather than men.”
Why, though? Why should we obey God rather than men? He’s so distant from us, so much beyond us that it’s hard to imagine it matters to him. How many of us have suffered from cruelty and disease and poverty and sudden disaster – things we know God could prevent? Why obey a God who allows such terrible things to happen? And what do we gain by obeying God if it gets us killed?
Heaven, of course. Even before that, we gain holiness and grace and love and a peace beyond understanding… not that that is always terribly motivating in the moment. For someone in the middle of making the agonizing choice between the approval of people they love and doing the thing God asks them to do, all that abstract, distant, spiritual motivation can seem… insubstantial. “Sure, I should obey God, but I’ll have more fun if I go along with my friends here… and what’s wrong with that?” “Sure, I should obey God, but I’ll make more money if I do this other thing and, you know, I need that money to take care of myself and others.” “Sure, I should obey God, but I’m afraid bad people are going to win unless I’m willing to do evil stuff to beat them.”
The reasons are endless, the logic is hard to beat. And yet, we must obey God rather than men not because he makes the better argument – though he actually does – but because obeying God is the only thing that makes us complete. It’s the only thing that fulfills us, makes us more fully human, and accomplishes our destiny. God seems distant, his rewards seem abstract, but they’re not. He is closer to us that we are to ourselves. The old testament saints knew this and it’s always been true, but Peter and the Apostles? They’ve got more evidence than anyone.
Jesus in the Gospel says, “the one who comes from heaven is above all. He testifies to what he has seen and heard… Whoever does accept his testimony certifies that God is trustworthy… Whoever believes in the Son has eternal life.” The Apostles heard those words coming from a human man who was also God. Then they saw that man-who-is-also-God die out of obedience to God rather than men. Then they saw Jesus rise from the dead. They also heard him say, “he does not ration his gift of the spirit” and they received that spirit at Pentecost.
“We must obey God rather than men” is something they can say and live because God became man. He proved in his own flesh that such obedience is worth it. You are here because a long line of people have believed that and acted accordingly. God has bridged the gap between God and man. I prayed a prayer at the beginning of Mass – it’s called the Collect – which asked that “Christ… may by his likeness to ourselves bring us reconciliation, and by his equality with God free us from our sins.” Jesus is like us, so he can bring us close to God. Jesus is also God, so he can free us from the sins that make approaching God so dangerous. When God asks us to obey him rather than men, he knows it is difficult, so he made it possible for both, to obey God as man and through men.
It’s a tad ironic that Peter says “we must obey God rather than men” because he is a man who often tells people to obey him. Earlier in this same chapter of the Acts of the Apostles, a man and his wife die because they lied to Peter and would not obey him. They died for refusing to obey God and trying to trick God, but Peter was the one representing God in that moment. Not that Peter is perfect. He too makes mistakes and must be rebuked. Make no mistake, however. Every time… every time a political power has attacked the Church, it was the Church who won. No empire has ever outlasted the Church.
Life is never as simple as we want it to be and doing the right thing can be tricky. People are rarely all good or all bad. Yet, that line “we must obey God rather than men” must remain our guiding principle. When we do obey human beings – like parents and pastors and teachers and civic leaders – we should do it primarily because it is the way to obey God in that moment. God became man and God continues to speak and work through human beings. We obey him by obeying those who use their authority correctly. But when… when, not if a human being asks us to do something contrary to God’s commands, we must obey God rather than men.
Psalm 146 tells us “Put no trust in princes, in mortal man who cannot save.” When we obey “princes,” it must only be because we are also obeying God, not because we actually think they can save us. God spoke through Jesus Christ. God became man and was killed by “princes” because he obeyed God rather than men. Since then, 10s of thousands of people have died rather than disobey God, 10s of millions more did not die for it, but nonetheless suffered because they obeyed God rather than men.
Until you are willing to do the same, you are not free. Until you are willing to obey God rather than men, you will remain immature, unreliable, and unable to experience the greatest joys of this life or the next. Thank God for the ways in which you have not been tested on this… yet, but don’t think you can avoid the question forever. Remember that God does not ration his gift of the spirit. Ask for that spirit of courage, imitate those who’ve gone before you, and know that before all is said and done, you will need to say many times both by word and deed that “we must obey God rather than men.” May God pour into your “hearts the strength of [the] saving food” of the Eucharist so that you can truly make those words your own.