To be obedient is to be faithful

After reclaiming freedom from the bondage of our past and being able to commit or invest our time and energy to a fundamental choice, obedience now becomes a question of fidelity to these chosen commitments.

Obedience to the truth
“Now that you have purified your souls by your obedience to the truth so that you have genuine mutual love, love one another deeply from the heart.” (1Peter 1: 22)

Jesus did not say that he was one of the ways, one of the truths and one of the modes of living; there is only one way, one truth and one life and that is Jesus. In this same way, there is only one human nature which stays unchanged over the course of centuries and millennia.  For example, what was love two thousand years ago remains love today and will be love five thousand years from now if the human race still exists.

Human Nature is not like the fashion which is susceptible to changes over time, and because it is immutable, in Christ, God has spoken once and for all eternity everything that He wants to impart to us. This is also the reason why the Gospel is called the Word of Eternal Life for although it is the Word of God incarnated in a particular time two thousand years ago, and in a particular place in Israel, it continues to be true in all places today and until the end of time because the diversity of culture or civilization does not alter human nature.

“... Whoever does not gather with me, scatters.”(Lk. 11:23)
The main reason why God became a man is to teach us how to live the human life; therefore the way Jesus of Nazareth  lived, what he said, what he did and how he behaved are paradigmatic, he is the gold standard, the role model for all human beings seeking self-fulfillment and happiness.

Since to imitate Jesus is the only way to live life in accordance with the human nature created by God, although it may seem unappealing but freedom is nothing else than the obligation to do good, that is, to choose Jesus’ way of living.  We are free for as long as we remain on His path; we loose our freedom when we get off His path, and set off on our own. Obedience is understood as the full submission to the truth because it is the truth, and only the truth, that makes and keeps us free. There is no authentic human life outside the parameters of human nature that God created and which the Gospel establishes.

As the Word of eternal life, the Gospel delineates our human nature and, at the same time, teaches us how to live in accordance with it. Obedience to this Word is absolutely necessary in order for our life to be as meaningful to us as it is to others and to the world in general. It is evident that we are free by the very fact that we can reject this only way of Life; that is to say we are free up until the very moment we choose to reject it. When we freely choose to dismiss the Gospel as the Magna Carta of our human life, we suffer the consequences that arise from going against our human nature.

Let us take an example from our physiological nature. In particular, the drinking of wine which taken by itself is not intrinsically evil, as opposed to what many Christian Fundamentalists claim, even going as far as rewriting the Bible, thus creating a “dry” Gospel which states that what the apostles drank during the Last Supper was grape juice and not wine.

It has been shown that drinking in moderation, especially red wine, far from being harmful, is in fact beneficial to our health. How can we then define or quantify moderation? Moderation is best quantified as the amount of alcohol that our liver can safely process. Once this quantity is formalized, our drinking habit has to be adjusted accordingly; to drink beyond this amount is to challenge and disobey our physiological nature, thus ruining our health.

Once again I quote Erich Fromm from his book, “To Have or To Be”, “Unrestricted satisfaction of all desires is not conducive to well-being, nor is it the way to happiness or even to maximum pleasure”. Hence, to take pleasure outside the limit of reality is the same as denying it, a “contraditio em terminis”.

Jesus of Nazareth the model of obedience
Jesus came into this world through the obedience of Mary, and while growing up in Nazareth, he was obedient to his parents (Lk. 2:51). During his adulthood, at every moment, he did the will of his Father and not his own; it can be said that the will of the Father had become his food (Jn. 4:34) and so great was this communion, between the Father and the Son, that “...the Son can do nothing on his own, but only what he sees the Father doing...” (Jn. 5:19).

The Letter to the Hebrews (5:8) suggests that Jesus’ obedience was not innate, but the result of a learning process where suffering played a crucial role, culminating to the point of death on the cross (Phil. 2:8). In the life of Jesus of Nazareth, the learning process of obedience ran parallel with two other progressions: the awareness of his identiy as the Son of God, and the awareness of his mission as the Redeemer of humanity.

“The Father loves the Son and has placed all things in his hands” (Jn. 3:35).  Far from being forced, to obey his Father was for Jesus something connatural with his nature and identity. In essence this was something he had chosen, his fundamental choice motivated by the love he has for his Father, because he and the Father are one (Jn. 10:30).

Obedience is fidelity
Once there was a man who loved gold so much that it became a consuming obsession for him. Gold occupied his mind and his heart to the point that all that were not gold did not exist for him; whenever he went shopping he only had eyes for the window displays of jewelry shops, he saw nothing else, or no one else; he saw neither people, nor blue sky, nor heard the noise of the city, nor smelled the scent of flowers. One day when he could resist no longer, he broke into a jewelry store and began to fill his pockets with gold rings, gold bracelets and gold chains; he was getting ready to flee when he was apprehended. Confounded, the policeman asked him, “How did you ever think you were going to escape a store full of people?” To that he answered, “What people? I saw no one, I only saw the gold”.

Just as we owe obedience to our physiological nature, we also owe obedience to our supernatural nature, which is our vocation or our fundamental choice, like Jesus did. All our time and energy ought to be dedicated to the vocation that we choose, with the same determination as the gold lover in the story.

“No one who puts a hand to the plough and looks back is fit for the kingdom of God” (Lk. 9:62). Obedience is the faithness to all that God calls us to do and to become.  Therefore once we commit our time and energy to the fundamental option of our choosing, it is the faithfullness to this commmitment which fuels the initial call and keeps our vocation strong. For instance, those who initially answer the call of love by choosing marriage, will find that it is the faithness to this commitment that will keep, uphold and nurture the love later on.

Lookout for the rules, so the rules will lookout for you
In life, we obey more often than we would like to admit; we obey our body when it is hungry and asking for food and when it is thirsty and asking for water; we adhere to these and many other directives relating to our basic bodily needs and we do them without even thinking, because we know that they exist for our own good.

In addition to the physiological needs, we also have social necessities. Being the social creatures that we are, we grow up interacting with others with whom we form groups. The existence and the permanency of these groups demand that there be rules which define their identities and their objectives. These rules are heeded by all the members, not only because the rules were made by them, but also because the group fulfills the social needs of each and every one of its members all the while seeking the common good.

Keep the rules and the rules will keep you - Everywhere we turn there are rules. In life, we are free to choose the game that we want to play; once we make that choice we must then abide by its rules. By heeding them, they will act as lookouts for us, giving us a sense of belonging and security.

The alternative would be not to choose, keeping all the options open, setting up camp on a crossroad, not investing nor committing time and energy to any project or to anyone like the foolish servant in the parable of the talents, who hid the talent that he received. It is true that by not choosing we remain free but one day, near the end of our lives, we will realize that we have never actually lived because we have wasted our time and energy in futilities by going against our human nature.

More than just surviving, being human means to implicate, to commit our time and energy to a project of social benefit. What is good for the community is good for us. When we are not useful to others we are useless even to ourselves; our life will only be meaningful to us if it is significant to others.

Fr. Jorge Amaro, IMC

The intersection of life

As it was suggested in the previous article on the topic of obedience, when our behaviour ceases to be reactive, that is, manifest uncontrollable responses to external stimulus, and becomes proactive, that is, planned and decided freely by our reason -- specifically, when we are in possession of ourselves and are consciously in command of our actions -- then we are free and able to do whatever we want, or better still, whatever God wants from us and for us.

At that moment, we would feel as if our lives were in our hands, filled with the time and energy needed to devote ourselves to something worthwhile. When we spoke about chastity, we concluded that life is in fact made up of time + energy + fundamental choice. We also noted that animals and plants, indeed all living beings in general, are formed by time and energy governed by nature; only humans have self-awareness, are conscious of possessing time and energy, and know that is up to them and not nature to regulate, use, and give meaning and purpose to their lives.

Do not work for the food that perishes, but for the food that endures for eternal life... (Jn. 6:27) -- After the multiplication of loaves, the crowds thinking that they have found the golden egg hen, went looking for more bread, like the Samaritan woman who went every day to the well to search for more water. Jesus advised them that for this sort of bread that keeps them alive, they would have to work. “God feeds the birds of the air but he does not put the food in their nests", the birds do have to go out and collect this food which God provides for them in nature. Whoever does not want to work should not eat, says St. Paul; the bread that sustains our physical life must come from our sweat and labour.

Like the life of other living beings, our lives also cannot be reduced to the vicious circle of work to eat and eat to work, not even to bread and circus as the Romans used to say, i.e. bread and fun. To be alive and to live are not the same thing; we do not live to stay alive but rather we are alive in order to live. Against this backdrop how sad it is, and senseless, are the lives of those who waste their time and energy pursuing means of life, that is, wasting their lives making more and more money thinking that by so doing they can increase their lifespan. "You fool! This very night your life is being demanded of you. And the things you have prepared, whose will they be?" (Lk. 12:20)

Hence Jesus warned us to work not so much for the bread that perishes but to spend our time and energy to work for the bread that endures for eternity; and rather than just a little time, the gospel suggests that this should be the main activity of our lives: Therefore do not worry, saying, "What will we eat?" or "What will we drink?" or "What will we wear?" For it is the Gentiles who strive for all these things; and indeed your heavenly Father knows that you need all the things. But strive first for the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well. (Matt. 6:31-33)

Jesus is the bread we are the bread
Jesus' discourse on the Eucharist ends with the declaration that he is the bread, and therefore whoever eats his flesh and drinks his blood is the one who has eternal life; something that the Jews and many of Jesus' disciples could not bring themselves to accept fearing others would see them as cannibals and vampires. For this reason they abandoned the Master and Peter speaking on behalf of the remaining few recognized that these words of Jesus were words of eternal life, that is, words that lead to life eternal.

The nature of the bread that lasts for eternal life, which nourishes and makes the eternal life possible, is different from the bread that feeds this life and perishes. Just as the water that Jesus promised the Samaritan woman, this bread also comes from within.

Furthermore, Jesus being the way, the truth and the life, is the person whom we need to imitate to stay in the truth and to have an authentic life -- the only way that leads to the Father and to eternal life. For this reason just as Jesus is the bread we too are called to be bread. We are then the time and the energy that feed and give life to the human value or cause which becomes our fundamental choice. So, just like Christ, we too are called to "put all the meat on the grill" as a Spanish saying would have it.

The fundamental option as a commitment
The fundamental option is the decision that takes over our whole life, it is the objective, the goal, and what gives meaning, colour and flavour to everything each and every day of our lives. It is the flame that is kept burning by the fuel of our life, i.e. our time and energy. It is the point of support of the lever that raises the world in Archimedes' principle. It is the motivation, the inspiration that brings together all our resources and puts them at the service of a goal, a target that we have chosen.

Life is made up of many choices and decisions; they are what give colour, flavour, aroma and meaning to our existence. These small choices generally affect us in one or more ways and may impact us a little or a lot but never to the point of changing our entire life. The fundamental choice, however, is the decision of all decisions, the master choice, the mother of all choices because it influences our present and our future; for the most part it is irreversible; it is the reason of our being. It is the purpose to which we give our time and energy; it is the mouth to which we are the bread.

The cause, or fundamental choice, to which Nelson Mandela fed with his life was to end Apartheid in South Africa; for Beethoven, it was the music, for Picasso, to paint, for Gandhi, it was the independence of India through nonviolent means; for some parents, their children; for the teachers, their students; for the doctors, the sick... More than a profession, life becomes a mission.

There is no life without commitment
They live as if they will not die... and die as if they had never lived. Dalai Lama

When it comes the time to make our fundamental choice, we are at the crossroad of our lives or in a more up-to-date way of thinking, at least in Europe, we are at the roundabout of our lives. We cannot stay there forever, or for a longer period than it is acceptable. Often when we remain undecided for too long, life ends up deciding for us, or the government does as is the case in some countries with respect to the unions of young unmarried couples who live together where after some time, the state considers them married. In Lisbon there is a roundabout known as "the clock roundabout" because at the center of that roundabout there is a big clock. It is as if it was telling us that while we remain undecided, time passes, and some opportunities do not appear a second time in life...

"I want to keep all my options open" -- I used to often hear this said by young Americans and Canadians. During childhood and early youth, everything is in fact open. But to keep your options forever open would be like being one of those statues we often see in the middle of an intersection; avoiding all commitments in order to be free is like being alive but not living and risking dying without ever having lived.

For those who do not know where to go there are no favourable winds -- "You can't have your cake and eat it too"; "You can't have the sun in the threshing floor and the rain in the meadow". At an intersection or in a roundabout, to choose a path, to say 'yes' to a path, means to say 'no' to all others. You cannot compromise; life ends up being heavily penalized for those who pretend to live more than one life; often to those who want everything they end up losing everything instead... To marry a woman means to say 'no' to all others; to be ordained as a priest means to say 'no' to marriage. To immigrate to a country means to leave behind one's own. All of us were or will one day be at the crossroad or the roundabout of our existence: that is the day when we take our life in our own hands and decide what to do with it.

For this reason the Father loves me, because I lay down my life ... No one takes it from me, but I lay it down of my own accord. (Jn. 10:17-18) -- We were free while stopped at the intersection deciding on which path to take; we are free while going around in a roundabout without choosing a path; life is a gift and only by giving it up can it be lived. We have no choice, in fact, we either give our life or it is taken away from us, like the one who hid his talent. For those who want to save their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake will find it. (Matt. 16:25)

Absolute freedom does not exist nor would it serve any purpose. We are free until the moment when we voluntarily sacrifice this freedom in a commitment to life, to society and to the world. From that moment on, we begin our obedience to that commitment. Freedom exists in life only to be delivered. Once we are committed to the fundamental choice we no longer possess ourselves, after that to live is to obey...

Fr. Jorge Amaro, IMC