“I have come down from heaven to do the will of him who sent me, not my own will. This is what he who sent me wants me to do: that I should not lose any of all those he has given me, but that I should raise them all to life on the last day”. John 6,38-39
“For their sake I give myself to you. Father, in order that they, too, may truly belong to you” John 17,19.
“My food is to obey the will of him who sent me and to finish his work” John 4, 34
Jesus’ conscience was filled with the awareness of having been sent by his Father. The Father was uppermost in Jesus’ mind. Jesus lived from his love of the Father. Jesus’ words were words that had been spoken by the Father. “The words you have heard are not mine, but come from the Father who sent me”. (Jn 14,24) “I do nothing on my own, but say only what the Father has taught me”. (Jn 8,28)
Jesus could sum up his whole life as a doing of his Father’s will.
When the disciples pressed him to eat, he could say that his food consisted in obeying the will of the Father who sent him. (Jn 4,34) When Jesus prayed, his loyalty was spontaneously put into words: “Your kingdom come. Your will be done”. (Mt 6,10) At the last supper Jesus said to the Father: “I finished the work you gave me to do”, (Jn 17,4) and on the cross: “It has been completed” (Jn 19,30). Even Jesus’ glorification was seen by him in this light:
“If you loved me, you would be glad that I am going to the Father, because he is greater than I” (Jn 14,28)
It would be wrong, however, to conclude that Jesus lived like a robot, that he was just executing instructions given to him by the Father. On the contrary, Jesus had to work out for himself what the Father expected from him in every circumstance.
The pharisees condemned Jesus for curing sick people on the sabbath. Jesus, however, had carefully considered the matter and had come to the conclusion that saving people’s lives was more important than observing the sabbath law. “Who of you, if your sheep falls into a well, will not lift it out on the sabbath? Of how much more value is a human being than a sheep!” (Mt 12,9-13) “Will you not untie your ass on a sabbath and lead it to water? Ought not this daughter of Abraham then to loosed from her bond?” (Luke 13,15-16)
Moreover, Jesus had reflected on how God, the Creator, continues to work on a sabbath, by giving life all the time.
That is why Jesus too continued his life-giving work on the sabbath. “The Son can do nothing on his own; he does only what he sees his Father doing”. (Jn 5,19) “My Father works always, and I too must work” (Jn 5,17)
Jesus’ obedience to the Father is a model of true Christian obedience: a conscious and responsible search for what is the right thing to do, and then to implement it. “Not every one who says to me: “Lord, Lord!”, shall enter the kingdom of heaven, but whoever does the will of my Father who is in heaven.” (Mt 7,21.)
Although Jesus’ complete life was lived in fulfilment of the Father’s will, he experienced this submission more intensely during his passion and death. In Gethsemani, Jesus accepted all the painful implications of his passion with a complete surrender to the Father. “Not my will, but your will be done”. (Lk 22,42) Jesus’ cry “Why have you forsaken me?” ( Mt 27,46) indicates the depth of his anguish and the extent to which we should appreciate his sacrifice. It was the greatest sign of his love for us (see Jn 15,13).
Jesus’ surrender to death “in obedience to his Father’s will” has often been horrendously misunderstood, and then turned into a caricature of what Christian obedience should be like.
It was claimed that the Father had determined Jesus’ death by his absolute will, in order to satisfy his divine justice through the shedding of his Son’s blood. Through his bloody sacrifice Christ paid the price on behalf of all. The theory was partly based on a mistaken philosophy of justice and on a misreading of vicarious suffering expressed in Deutero-Isaiah and applied to Jesus. It gave a wrong twist to the way in which Jesus’ death is said to be the will of the Father. (see Is 52:13-53:12; Mt 26:36-43)
The theological construction above is wrong.
-) How then should redemption be understood? Jesus’ crucifixion was a crime. Jesus calls it a sin and repeatedly protests his innocence. In that sense it was not willed by God and could not be willed. What happened is that Jesus and his disciples met violent opposition. For Jesus to be true to his mission, he had to stand by his disciples to the end. He was not like the hired shepherd who runs away in the face of danger. He was ready to die for his sheep. (see Jn 10,11-15) This readiness of Jesus to die was pleasing to his Father; only in that sense it was the Father’s will. “The Father loves me because I am willing to give up my life, in order that I may receive it back again. No one takes it from me. I lay it down of my own accord”.(Jn 17,18)
Thomas Aquinas commented on this:
This is the highest model of command and obedience: infusing love and response to that love.
The meaning of obedience does not principally lie in the faithful execution of some commands. Obedience is our fundamental surrender to God. Jesus’ entire life was one act of obedience.
“He was humble and walked the path of obedience to death”. (Phil 2,8) Jesus’ sacrifice was first and foremost the loving submission of his human will. “You do not want the sacrifice and offering of animals... Then I said, here am I, O God, to do what you want me to do” (Heb 10,5-6). Jesus who learned obedience especially “by means of his sufferings”, was heard by the Father because he was humble and committed.
Paul could simply say that Jesus has saved us through his obedience. (see Rom 5,19)
When applied to Christians, obedience refers to one’s surrender to God in faith. (see Rom 1,5) When people embrace Christ, it means that they come to obedience. (see Rom 15,18) Being a Christian means “obeying the good news”.(see Rom 10,16) The sanctity of a Christian consists in “obeying with all your heart the truths found in the teaching you received” (Rom 6,17) . Peter says: “Be obedient to God and do not allow your lives to be shaped by those desires you had when you were still ignorant” ( Pet 1, 15).
Obedience is essential to our Christian life. According to Scripture, being obedient means that one acknowledges one’s dependence on God, dependence both for existence and for salvation.
Like Christ, a Christian should live from the awareness that everything we have is a gift from God. (see 1 Cor 4,7) Our life of faith is a response to God’s invitation, a loving surrender to his call. As in Jesus’ parable about the two sons invited to work in the Father’s vineyard, the obedient child is the one who freely decides to do what he or she understands to be God’s will. (see Mt 21,28-31)
Obedience is the substance of a Christian’s self-gift to God as much as it was Christ’s. Obedience implies the happy and voluntary arranging of one’s life according to the Father’s loving guidance.
God wanted that we should be born, brought up and saved as members of a community. God ordered our life in such way that our dependence on him would find expression in dependence on other human persons: on our parents, on political rulers and on his religious representatives. Obedience to God necessarily includes obedience to human authorities as well.
A self-relying, autocratic Christian who refuses to listen to others in the Church, makes of himself/herself a contradiction in terms. (Mt 18,15-17) No one can truly accept the autonomy of God and reject God’s right to rule us through deputies. Rejecting his delegates, we reject the person who gave them responsibility.
In the early church, Paul exacted obedience from the faithful whether he was living with them (Phil 2,12) or addressing them through a letter. (2 Thes 3,14) He praised the Corinthians for having been obedient to Titus who had been delegated by Paul to settle some matters on his behalf. (2 Cor 7,15) To be obedient in theory is of no use if it is not shown in practice. General willingness to accept authority will necessarily involve obedience in specific instances. True obedience will not be motivated by human respect and the opportunistic desire to please.
Obedience does not mean a giving up of our own responsibility, of using our own reason and of listening to our own conscience. Authority and individual liberty go together. Both the person in charge and the brother or sister “seek God’s will together in a trustful dialogue, or through general agreement in what pertains to the whole community” (Vatican II, The Renewal of Religious Life, no 25).
If we have serious reasons to disagree with guidelines issued by those in authority, our loyalty may demand that we protest. If requirements clash with our own well informed conscience, we will have to act by its dictates. However, we should always retain our respect for authority in the church.
The church of today wants mature and responsible members. The church is re-examining the way in which she exercises authority. In a time of transition like ours we can expect different interpretations of how authority and obedience should be understood. The “blind” obedience of the old Ignatian school clashes with the ideal of “adult” obedience found with modern thinking and is no longer acceptable today.
But however responsible and adult we may be, we should never give up obedience itself. The phrase “I refuse to obey” jars with our Christian surrender to God. If, for good reasons we cannot obey Church leaders in specific instances, we may only do so because we are obedient to God.