Q. 39. What is the duty which God requires of man?
A. The duty which God requires of man is obedience to his revealed will.
“And Samuel said, “Has the LORD as great delight in burnt offerings and sacrifices, as in obedience to the voice of the LORD? Surely, to obey is better than sacrifice, and to heed than the fat of rams.” (1 Sam. 15:22)
Obedience to God's will does not mean everything will go smoothly, that the wind will always be at our backs and that the journey will be easy. Jesus told his disciples to cross to the other side of the lake, even though he knew the wind would be working against them. Despite the wind's contrariness, they struggled on because they knew they were doing his will. -Shawn Craig in Between Sundays, cited in Christianity Today, February 8, 1999, 72.
There is an old Jewish joke about a child who hates kreplach dumplings. His mother tries to reassure him and one evening brings him into the kitchen, standing him next to her as she prepares dinner. "Look," she says, "here's the dough. First you flatten it and shape it." The boy nods happily. "Then you take the filling and lay it across the dough.” The boy nods once more, happy as can be. "Finally, you fold the dough over the filling and you have ... "Kreplach!" The boy screams and runs sobbing from the room.
In many ways, when it comes to the word "obedience" and the theme of "trust and obey," we are in the same position as the boy in the story. Each step of the Christian faith suits us fine. We applaud faith. We rejoice when there is talk of love and hope. But then we see what all this has been leading up to; and, like the boy who hated kreplach, we scream, "Oh, no, obedience.”
It goes without saying that the life of obedient discipleship does not promise to be easy. Trusting and obeying would hardly be such difficult traits to master if we were privy to all the plans and plots intertwined around our lives. Discipleship means not knowing where we are going, but finding joy and contentment in knowing that we go there with God.
In an article entitled "God Lite," theologian James R. Edwards traces how "The more we obey God, the more real God becomes to us and the greater our love grows. And the more we love God, the more we become like God.”
"It is like a good marriage: People who love their spouses want to please them; and if they do not want to please their spouses, they can hardly talk of loving them." Edwards then shows the way in which "obedience is not a penalty levied on faith. It is the strength of faith. The Bible absolutely will not separate faith and obedience, as though obedience were some kind of inheritance tax that God levies on the free gift of salvation. God cannot separate them and still offer salvation. There is something about love that is no longer love apart from obedience. Dietrich Bonhoeffer kept saying this in The Cost of Discipleship: 'Only those who obey can believe, and only those who believe can obey."' - Christianity Today, April 29, 1991, p. 30.
“The union Christ had with the Father was the greatest that we can conceive of in this life—if indeed we can conceive of it. Yet we have no indication that even Jesus was constantly awash with revelations as to what he should do. His union with the Father was so great that he was at all times obedient. This obedience was something that rested in his mature will and understanding of his life before God, not on always being told “Now do this” and “Now do that” with regard to every details of his life or work.” ― Dallas Willard, Hearing God: Developing a Conversational Relationship with God
“Every moment and every situation challenges us to action and to obedience,” writes Dietrich Bonhoeffer in The Cost of Discipleship. “We have literally no time to sit down and ask ourselves whether so-and-so is our neighbor or not. We must get into action and obey — we must behave like a neighbor to him. Humanly speaking, it is possible to understand the Sermon on the Mount in a thousand different ways. But Jesus knows only one possibility: simple surrender and obedience - not interpreting or applying it, but doing and obeying it. That is the only way to hear his words. He does not mean for us to discuss it as an ideal. He really means for us to get on with it. - Dietrich Bonhoeffer, The Cost of Discipleship (Simon & Schuster, 1959), 196-97.
But there is something else, too, something that brings the necessary delight into our obedience. In his book “Living the Message,” Eugene Peterson comments on the secret to faithful obedience in Jeremiah’s life. He says, “He did not resolve to stick it out for 23 years, no matter what; he got up every morning with the sun. That is the secret of Jeremiah’s persevering pilgrimage — not thinking with dread about the long road ahead but greeting the present moment, every present moment, with obedient delight, with expectant hope: ‘My heart is ready!’”
What a wonderfully hopeful way to imagine discipleship over the long haul: with obedient delight offering our hearts to God day by day. This obedient delight, says Jesus will bring you the peace that this world can never give.
Today’s Lectionary Readings
Morning Psalm: 14, 76
Evening Psalm: 114, 115
Jeremiah 23:1-8
Romans 8:28-39
John 6:52-59
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