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When aspirants go through the ordination process in the Diocese of North Carolina they’re put through a sort of meat-grinder weekend of one-on-one meetings with members of the Commission on Ministry, each of whom has a set of questions that they have prepared for those discerning their call to ministry. My most vivid memory of that weekend was when I was asked, “How do you feel about obedience?”

I didn’t miss a beat: “I’m fine with obedience. Just not blind obedience.”

That may have been the source of my first speed bump on the road to priesthood. 

But given the chance to do it again, I wouldn’t change a thing. 

“If you love me, you will keep my commandments.”

“You will keep my commandments.” What do we think of when we hear this? What commandments is Jesus talking about? And what does it mean to keep them? Perhaps it’s self-evident; we obey God, right? But what does it really mean, to obey? To obey, God? 

Being brutally honest with ourselves, doesn’t this statement make us just a little uncomfortable? 

“If you love me, you will keep my commandments.”

The tension that haunts this statement lies in a disconnect between what God means by obedience—what Jesus is saying here– and what we have been conditioned to think that obedience is. We generally think first of a power differential—that someone with greater power seeks to impose their will on someone with less power. We think of it in varying degrees, from the usually well-intentioned parental, “Because I said so”, to the less benign, “Do this, or else.” Most recently in our common life we’ve seen law firms, universities and media outlets embodying the concept of “obeying in advance”; a term coined by Timothy Snyder in his book, On Tyranny: Twenty Lessons from the Twentieth Century, and which is characterized by capitulating to unjust demands and threats rather than risking the consequences of speaking truth to power.

Certainly the church has not been immune from exhibiting this understanding of what obedience is. History is replete with the worst forms of “because I say so,” and “do this or else”, from the Crusades and the Inquisition to coercive and violent missionary activities among indigenous populations around the world. And this is really the saddest bit; when obedience to church or state becomes couched in terms of obedience to God. When someone’s call for obedience is for the sole purpose of building up their own side of the power differential: “We can do this the easy way, or the hard way.” This isn’t life-giving, this isn’t obedience; it’s soul-sucking submission.

A slight diversion: I can see how someone would wonder about scripture passages that depict God as an angry vengeful enforcer of compliance and conformity. A closer interpretive lens will show that the writers themselves were seeking conformity and compliance with their own religious authority. They created God in their own image. So the question that we must always ask of Scripture is, “Is it about love?” Because, as former Presiding Bishop Curry always says, “If it’s not about love, it’s not about God.” That’s not to say that these passages don’t have something inspired to teach us—it just may not be what we expect. 

So, that said, it’s not a surprise, given our culture, our history, and even our own Bible, that some of us may read today’s Gospel passage with some apprehension. Because that’s the way we’ve been trained.

“If you love me, you will keep my commandments.”

It does not say, “I will love you if you keep my commandments.” But that is what we often hear. This is not a transactional statement.

Okay, then what is Jesus trying to tell us?

The Rule of the Society of St. John the Evangelist (SSJE) turns our encultured understanding of obedience on its head, linking it with freedom, and love.

Which may seem a wee bit counterintuitive.

The Rule says, “The Gospel of John will teach us to experience obedience as a growing freedom to love all that God desires and wills.” 

In other words, the generative and all-encompassing love of God yearns primarily for the flourishing of the Creation. To choose to enter into that love is to become one with that desire for flourishing and well-being. It is not coerced—it is a choice. Obedience to the loving God out of choice is a choice of freedom—a freedom that is the release from what SSJE’s Rule calls attachments and self-centered preferences in favor of a desire for what God desires. In true obedience our desires become one with God’s.

This is not as simple as flipping a switch; it is a practice that requires trust. Nor is it a passive discipline—something that simply happens to us. On the contrary, and again counter to what we thought we knew about obedience, the Rule says:

“[Obedience] requires us to be attentive to our own needs and gifts. It spurs us to be imaginative and hopeful about ourselves as active contributors to our common life.”

Has anyone ever asked you to obey by inviting you to be imaginative and hopeful? Wouldn’t that be wonderful? 

We’re not subsuming ourselves to become automatons on a Mission From God. We are called to exercise the God-given gifts of curiosity and creativity and, yes, initiative, as we discern how to go forward. 

The practice and discipline of holy listening is vital to true obedience, not only because it calls for honesty, humility, and generosity, but because it calls for listening from both parties. It is one thing for human beings on different sides of a power differential to make that power differential secondary to the goal of the common good. In fact it is a huge challenge, especially in our divided world. But imagine further, that God also engages in holy listening–with us. Imagine that God first calls us, and then hears our questions and doubts and frustration with being asked to release our plans and expectations in order to embark on a new path, a new vision, all unfolding in ways we don’t yet understand. 

God listens.

“If you love me, you will keep my commandments.”

Love comes first. Before anything.

And now what?

Even with a more nuanced understanding of what it means to obey God, what does that mean for us and for the world?

“I will not leave you orphaned; I am coming to you.”

Most often this is understood to indicate Jesus’ reassurance to his disciples that he will be with them, though not corporeally, that he will send the Holy Spirit, the Advocate, to guide them, and that he will come again in the last days. Yes/and…Biblical storyteller Richard Swanson also invites us to consider who are the orphaned around us now; the vulnerable and abandoned, those without help, without hope, without love. Consider how Jesus might come to them in a non-eschatological way; not at the end of time, but right now. 

“…keep my commandments.”

Swanson says that if you translate the Greek into Hebrew instead of English, the word would be “mitzvot”, which does mean “commandments”, but not simply Commandments with a capital C. It means all of those actions that God says lead to life and tikkun olam, the healing of the world:

He writes, “Look for things that lead to life, and do them. Don’t stop. You aren’t in charge of raising the entire universe to life, but when you see something that helps, protects, nurtures, loves, or just generally gives life to someone who has that kicked-in-the-stomach feeling, do it. Just do it… this little scene in John’s story links doing those things with messiah coming to people who feel abandoned and turning the world right-side-up…”

“I will not leave you orphaned,” Jesus says. Because I am present in every mitzvah that you do for your neighbor. Do these mitzvot, because I love you, and you love me; because my desire for this beautiful world is your desire too. 

This isn’t blind obedience. Our eyes are wide open to the invitation to become collaborators in the unfolding Dream of God.