Don Friesen
Christian Archibald Herter (1895-1966) was the Governor of Massachusetts from 1953 to 1956, and was later to become Secretary of State (1959-1961) under President Dwight D. Eisenhower. He was a graduate of Harvard and the recipient of many honours, but while running for a second term as Governor he attended a church barbecue, no doubt one of many. It was late afternoon, Herter was famished, and as he moved down the serving line he held out his plate to the woman serving chicken. She put a piece on his plate and turned to the next person in line.
"Excuse me," said Herter, "do you mind if I have a second piece of chicken?"
"Sorry," she said. "I'm supposed to give only one piece of chicken to each person."
"But I'm starved," said Herter.
"Sorry," she said. "Only one to a customer."
"Do you know who I am?" said Herter. "I'm the governor of this state!"
"Do you know who I am?" replied the woman. "I'm the one in charge of the chicken. Now move along, mister." (Bits & Pieces, May 28, 1992)
It Was Hard to Get this Word Past the Censors!
Today's biblical word is "obedience," and in human relations it's not always clear who should be obeying whom. The letter, "O," is not for "overeating" or for any other negative biblical words, like "odious" and "onions," or for "offensive" words like "obscene" and "oppression". I chose the word, "obedience" for the letter, "O," a word that in its various forms occurs more than 200 times in the Bible. The word, "old," occurs over 400 times, but I'm saving that for my seventy-fifth birthday and retirement Sunday!
On this, a day some of us mark as Mother's Day and many churches mark as the Festival of the Christian Home, some of you may think that the choice of the word, "obedience," is an indirect message to our children. The New Testament says, "Children, obey your parents in everything, for this is your acceptable duty in the Lord." (Colossians 3:20; compare Ephesians 6:1) I wish I would have discovered this Bible verse about twenty years ago! It's a bit late now.
One doesn't hear many sermons anymore about obedience, and one reason to avoid the word is its association with marriage, if not family life. It's not that long ago that the word, "obey," was removed from wedding vows, but it should never have been there in the first place! That is not the word that the New Testament uses when it talks about the marriage relationship. Nevertheless, its use has left a residue of domination associated with a relationship God intended to be one of mutual love.
The word, "obedience," has a fundamentally negative ring to our ears, for it calls to mind those who reach for this word in order to protect the status quo. It grates on our sensibilities and we've developed phrases designed to dismiss any calls to obedience. We talk about blind obedience, or legalistic obedience. We talk about those whom we perceived as calling us to mindlessly obey, be it our elders or other authority figures. The word, "obedience," seems incompatible with good words like independence, individualism, and freedom. If in past generations it was important to obey your conscience, it's now sufficient to listen to your conscience.
The word, "obedience," seems incompatible with our North American ethos. Most of us are of an independent streak; we don't take kindly to being told to obey — and people from Saskatchewan doubly so; we can devote our whole lives to being contrary. We are committed to doing our own thing and doing it our own way. Of all the biblical words I've chosen to represent the alphabet, the word, "obedience," sits least comfortably with us. Our mantra? Let your own conscience be your guide and take no guff from anybody!
The Master of Evasive Manoeuvres
Perhaps the word, "obedience," makes us think of gospel tunes like "Trust and obey, for there's no other way," which feels like we're left absolutely no room to manoeuver! And so, for those of us who have dedicated ourselves to avoid this word and idea, I have good news! The Bible provides us with a patron saint — a master of evasive manoeuvres — the prophet, Jonah. Some of the other prophets were reluctant to do what God was asking of them — Jeremiah, for example — but Jonah took avoidance to a new level.
God wanted Jonah to go to the city of Nineveh and call it to repentance. Jonah didn't want to go. Now, I've been in enough uncomfortable situations that I've developed a few avoidance techniques of my own. I'm not going to tell you what they are, in case you think I'm practising them on you, but my techniques are mostly passive in nature and so I have a lot to learn from Jonah. God said to Jonah, "Go at once to Nineveh...." (Jonah 1:2) And Jonah lost no time — not in setting out for Nineveh, but in setting off in the opposite direction! Had it been me, I would have pretended, first of all, that I didn't hear the call. Then I would have lingered and loitered and taken my time, acting nonchalant and disinterested, hoping God would lose interest and move on to another project. Not Jonah. Jonah's avoidance techniques are active in nature, and he lost no time in making the appropriate arrangements to avoid what God was calling him to do.
Jonah set out to flee to Tarshish (1:3), on the coast of Spain, at the opposite end of the then known world. This is no idle plan, for if you consider that the Israelites were not a seafaring people and that many of the metaphors in the Bible associated with the sea are negative in nature. It took some gall on Jonah's part to head off to sea! And this wasn't just a simple one-two-step evasive manoeuver, it took some work putting these plans in place! First Jonah had to find his way down to Joppa; then he had to find a ship that was heading for Tarshish; and then he had to raise sufficient funds for the fare. Jonah, however, was no slouch, and the Old Testament tells us that he "went down to Joppa and found a ship going to Tarshish; (and) paid his fare and went on board" (Jonah 1:3), and while in the back of his mind Jonah must have known that there was no place he could go that God could not follow, perhaps he hoped his manoeuvres would send a strong signal to God that Nineveh was not on his own shortlist!
Well, we know the story. God was somewhat persistent and arranged for a storm, a storm mighty enough that even the seasoned sailors on board were scared to death. They each started crying to their respective gods; they threw precious cargo overboard, hoping to lighten the ship's load — and Jonah? Well, Jonah was into Evasive Manoeuver #5, fast asleep in the hold of the ship! When all else fails, seek the psychological escape of sleep.
The captain of the ship appealed to Jonah to call on his own god; one more prayer, one more god, might just do the trick. Jonah, however, was still bent on avoidance, and even when the ship's crew realized that their plight was on Jonah's conscience, he remained committed to avoiding his mission. And then, in what amounts to an extreme evasive manoeuvre, Jonah suggested that they throw him into the sea. The sailors were very reluctant to do this, but as the sea became more and more tempestuous, they relented, threw Jonah into the sea, "and the sea ceased ...its raging." (Jonah 1:15) Like us, this man had an extreme aversion to obedience, and he opted for the ultimate escape — death. This is avoidance at a whole new level, and many of us would be reluctant to go that far. Jonah certainly has a lot to teach us about upgrading our penchant for passive avoidance to more robust, active evasive manoeuvres.
This Is Serious Comedy!
Now let's be honest. This is comedy! A friend of mine saw the mock-umentary film, A Mighty Wind, and, given its dry humour, he didn't realize that it was a comedy until some time into the film. The story of Jonah is one of the first mock-umentaries ever written, with all the conventional devices of a prophetic work and call, but with some delightful twists. If you don't realize that at first, it should be clear when a whale is added to the story, and if not then, it should be abundantly clear by chapter three, when even the animals are ordered to cover themselves with sackcloth and sit in ashes and "cry mightily" to God. (Jonah 3:8)
There are other hints of Jonah's satiric intent. Prophets were most often called to prophesy to their own people, who were of their own faith, and to whom they could appeal out of their own tradition. Nineveh was a most unusual choice, for it was the centre of Israel's fiercest enemy. A Hebrew prophet in Nineveh was a no-go — it was unthinkable — and even if God had found some way for it to happen, any prophet in his or her right mind would have jumped at the chance! Not Jonah.
The story of Jonah is like the story of the 1929 Rose Bowl game, when during the first half of the game one of the players (Roy Riegels) recovered a fumble for California on his own thirty-five yard line, but then, in evading some of the Georgia Tech tacklers he became confused and started running in the wrong direction! He ran sixty-five yards in the wrong direction, and it was only when one of his teammates (Benny Lom) managed to outrun him and tackle him on the one-yard-line that a score for the opposing team was prevented!
It reminds me, too, of the time, a number of years ago, when a somewhat inebriated motorist drove onto the Queensway on the wrong side, and when the police finally managed to stop him, all he could do was complain that the stretch of highway he had just travelled had too much oncoming traffic and too few exits!
Jonah is not a serious prophet, and the ridiculous lengths to which he goes to avoid what would have been a plum posting, all things considered, makes him a comedic figure. And to compound his laughable state, it appears that everywhere he goes people are open to the ways and will of God. The sailors want to serve the God of Israel (Jonah 1:16); the people of Nineveh are ready to repent, after what amounts in Hebrew to only a five-word sermon (3:4-5); the king of Nineveh only heard about Jonah second-hand, but immediately "...he rose from his throne, removed his robe, covered himself with sackcloth, and sat (down) in ashes." (3:6) Even the cattle and the sheep get in on the fasting (3:7) — everyone but Jonah!
Then there is the ridiculous notion that we could escape God's presence. The psalmist wrote, "Where can I go from your spirit? ...where can I flee from your presence? If I ascend to heaven, you are there; if I make my bed in Sheol, you are there. If I take the wings of the morning and settle at the farthest limits of the sea, even there your hand shall lead me, and your right hand shall hold me fast." (Psalm 139:7-10) The psalmist had given much thought to God's omni-presence, as it were, but took comfort in it.
The story of Jonah is serious comedy, reminding us that it is not the strength, boldness, courage or cleverness of prophets that brings God's will to pass. There is no doubt that we can be obstructionist and go to some length to frustrate God's will, but let's be serious — neither Jonah's reluctance nor our own can hold God's will at bay forever. I hope you don't tire of my quoting of Francis Thompson's poem, "Hound of Heaven," but there are elements of the Jonah story in this poem:
Fear wist not to evade as Love wist to pursue.
(Francis Thompson, 1859-1907, "Hound of Heaven")
The word, "obedience," may grate on us, but it's an important word in our own tradition. It's similar to a German word that often crops up in Anabaptist literature, the word, "gelassenheit," which means surrender and yielded-ness to God's will. The mystical literature of the Middle Ages abounds in the description of this quality, deemed necessary for the contemplative life. Well! Leave in the monasteries, we might say, but the Anabaptist tradition kept much more of the monastic elements of the Church than did Protestant traditions, and we kept them because we believed, as Jesus taught (Luke 8:21), that it wasn't sufficient to hear God's word, it was important to do it! That's what obedience meant to our spiritual forebears!
When Dorothy and I leave our adult children at home during a vacation, we often leave written instructions for them. While we're gone we'd like them to water the plants, water them a certain way, weed the garden, take in the mail, take out the garbage, and so on. It would be humourous — but aggravating — if, when we returned, they said, Oh, yes, we found the letter you left, and we enjoyed reading it. In fact, we met weekly for what we now call Letter Study! We've even memorized some of the paragraphs. At which point I might ask, But did you water the plants? Weed the garden? Take in the mail? Take out the garbage?
Jesus said, "Not everyone who keeps saying to me ‘Lord, Lord' ...will enter the kingdom of Heaven, but the (one) who actually does (the will of God)." (Matthew 7:21, PHL) He told the crowds, when asked about his family, "My mother and my brothers are those who hear the word of God and do it." (Luke 8:21) And Jesus himself, says the New Testament, "humbled himself and became obedient to the point of death...." (Philippians 2:8)
Michael Sattler, one of the early Anabaptist martyrs, wrote to his church from prison, saying, "In this peril I completely surrendered myself unto the will of the Lord, and ...prepared myself even for death for His testimony." (May, 1527) The idea of martyrdom seems inconceivable apart from such spiritual surrender. There are two kinds of obedience, wrote Sattler; there is "slavish obedience," which is legalism, and there is "filial obedience," which is based on love for God and which can never do enough for God.
The word, "obedience," may not resonate as well with us as do other biblical words, but if nothing else, the book of Jonah teaches us that disobedience is also deserving of parody. And obedience need not look that wussy. I remember being deeply moved by the example of Thomas Merton, a modern monk deeply committed to peace, but who stopped writing for the cause of peace when ordered to do so by his Trappist superior. Merton's decision to obey the wishes of his superior was far more than submission to authority; it was based on the deep conviction that we are accountable to the Christian community, and that it is often through the Christian community that God speaks and leads and calls and begs, and as in the stories of Jonah and Francis Thompson, will persist, until we find — and follow — the path God has chosen for us and become the kind of person God wishes us to be. Far from being a matter of divine coercion or manipulation, we offer what Madeleine L'Engle refers to as "loving obedience". "Loving obedience is doing the Lord's will with enthusiasm — doing the Lord's will filled with the Spirit of God." (Glimpses of Grace)
May God grant us the grace and the humility to find that spiritual treasure, and rejoice in our discovery! AMEN
"I fled (God), down the nights and down the days;
Finding and Following the Path God Has Chosen for us
I fled Him, down the arches of the years;
I fled Him, down the labyrinthine ways
Of my own mind; and in the mist of tears
I hid from Him...
Still with unhurrying chase,
And unperturbčd pace,
Deliberate speed, majestic instancy,
Came on the following Feet,
And a Voice above their beat --
‘Naught shelters thee, who wilt not shelter Me.'"
All quotations of Scripture, unless otherwise noted, are from the New Revised Standard Version.