Obedience. . . what is it really? (Under the Banner of Christ with Benedict)
This post is part of a series talking about my new book, "Under the Banner of Christ with Benedict: Ancient Lessons in Christian Leadership for Times Like These"
So I am of the opinion that the idea of obedience is grossly misunderstood. St. Benedict of Nursia, or example, prescribes that "Obedience is a blessing to be shown by all also to one another as brothers. By this way of mutual obedience we advance to God."
Obedience According to St. Benedict
The first step of humility is obedience without delay. This is fitting for those who consider nothing to be dearer to them than Christ: those who, because of the holy service which they have promised, or from the dread of hell or the longing for the glory of eternal life, receive any order from their superior as though it were a divine command, and take no delay in doing it.
Such people instantly leave their own concerns and cast aside their own whims and, dropping everything and leaving their own tasks unfinished, follow through promptly and accomplish what was asked of them. Thus, as if in the same moment, both the master’s request and the disciple’s finished work are, in the speed of reverence for God, swiftly brought together. Thus does the desire for eternal life move them.
However, this obedience is only acceptable to God and pleasing to others if the orders are done without hesitation, delay, lukewarmness, grumbling or complaint, be- cause obedience offered to legitimate authority is obedience shown to God, for he himself has said: “Whoever hears you hears me.”
Moreover, obedience is a blessing to be shown by all not only to the abbot, but also to one another as brothers, since we know that it is by this way of mutual obedience that we advance toward God.
Therefore, although orders of the abbot or his appointed provosts take precedence over any unofficial order, in every instance the junior members should obey the senior members with love and devotion.
Commentary:
The very heart and soul of any genuine Christian community is the interior sanctification of each member of the community. The whole purpose of our work for the renewal of Christian leadership and of real Christian community, after all, both in St. Benedict’s own day and our own, to create spaces where Christians can be truly free to worship God and in community to live a life conducive to their sanctification—and indeed their deification.
The holy Benedict begins here a series of chapters in his Regula that lead us up the staircase of Divine Ascent: Obedience, Silence, Humility, and Prayer. Obedience is for St. Benedict—and thus for anyone opting to follow his path—not only a private matter nor even a merely vertical matter, but rather a multi-directional thing. In other words, obedience is to be given not only to God, not only to his authoritative representative the abbot (or whatever title a leader in a Christian community might hold), but also between the community members themselves as among equals. It is thus not only a matter of personal sanctification, but also a vital dimension of community life (which is likewise true for silence, humility, and prayer).
Benedict points out that prompt obedience to the will of God is the most natural thing for someone to whom nothing is dearer than Christ—even to prefer nothing to the love of Christ (as was said in the preceding chapter)—those who care to do the will of God the Father rather than caring so much to do their own will. But the question is: how are we to know the will of God in everyday life? Well, that is a matter of discernment to be sure, but a clear indicator given to us by the wisdom of the holy monastic fathers throughout the ages is that God rewards obedience (to legitimate authorities) for its own sake. Many saints have called authentic obedience “the clearest path to sanctity” but also “the rarest virtue of our day.” It is a concept utterly foreign to the anti-hierarchical paradigm of liberalism and individualism, but as Benedict shows us here, Christian obedience is in fact the furthest thing from oppression, and rather than stifling us, actually gives us great freedom in the face of oppression.
This is because obedience, rightly understood, isn’t the oppression of our will, but rather its genuine liberation. You see, we are all of us already (whether we realize it or not) obedient to either the world or Christ, either to our own whims or to the will of God our loving Father. Obedience to Christ does not chain us to something lower than ourselves, but rather is an obedience to a higher command—a higher authority than the demands of the powers of this world, and so actually frees us from slavery to any lesser thing beneath God. Obedience to God (and his mediated authority in the hierarchy of His created order) in fact gives us the strength necessary to break the bonds that chain us to what is beneath us.
To be perfectly obedient and to be totally reliant on God— true abandonment to divine providence—are one and the same thing. This prompt obedience to the will of God that Benedict describes here means to become like the angels of heaven, who obey and carry out in the self-same moment the very command. In this way we would fulfill the very thing we pray for when we say “Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven.”
Finally, we see here the fundamental principle of organizing a Christian community—indeed a whole Christian civilization: nobody is above obedience; even the head of the whole Christian people (and perforce any leader in a Christian community) must be obedient to the Gospel and its precepts that Benedict in his wisdom lays out here, and ultimately obedient to God. Indeed, the act of Christian leadership itself demands profound obedience even to the duty of serving the needs of the community.
Even the most removed and remote single person should be be obedient to God’s providence and to the demands of his or her own vocation and mission if they would live a Christian life and become holy. How much more so is it the case for those who live in Christian society with others? What greater principle for community cohesion and charitable relationships could one choose than the mutual obedience urged by the holy Benedict? What greater principle of unity? Such mutual obedience among brothers and sisters in Christ, together under obedience to Christ our true king (see Chapter 1) is a more authentic liberty, a greater safeguard of authentic equality before God and man, and a more genuine brotherhood in the Body of Christ, than the false gods that revolutionary secular- ism offers with its counterfeit epithet to these values.2 On the contrary, behold how sweet and pleasant it is when brothers dwell in such unity3 as that proposed by the way of the holy Benedict!