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Lenten Devotionals 2009 - Monday of Holy Week
Welcome to OneLife Ministries. This site is designed to lead you prayerfully into a heart experience of Divine Presence, Who is Love. While it focuses on Christian teaching, the writer hopes persons of other faiths find inspiration here. Indeed, "God" can be whatever image helps you trust in the Sacred, by whatever means Grace touches you. Please share this ministry with others, and I hope you return soon. There is a new offering daily.
Blessings,
Rev Dr Brian K Wilcox
Pastor-Teacher, Author, Workshop Leader,
Spiritual Counselor, Chaplain
We are now in the last week of Lent. This week is, in Latin, Hebdomada Sancta, Holy Week. Our writings this week will pertain to themes of this sacred journey toward the Cross, and through it to Easter.
LISTENING TO THE SCRIPTURES
7In the days of his flesh, Jesus offered up prayers and supplications, with loud cries and tears, to him who was able to save him from death, and he was heard because of his reverence. 8Although he was a son, he learned obedience through what he suffered. 9And being made perfect, he became the source of eternal salvation to all who obey him, 10being designated by God a high priest after the order of Melchizedek.
*Hebrews 5.7-10 (ESV)
RECEIVING SACRED TEACHING
Here is an astounding teaching: Jesus learned obedience. Does this mean he was ever disobedient? The Scripture does not say so; rather, it speaks of Christ becoming acquainted with obedience, in like fashion to us. And within the Design of God, Jesus was to learn that in suffering. This places our topic within the focus of this Holy Week, when we walk with Christ to and through the Cross.
I cannot emphasize too strongly the import of obedience in the life of Jesus. He was subject to the same Order of Nature as you and I. If obedience was central to his life, so it must be to us.
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The story is told of a pee-wee baseball game. A young boy got up to the plate. Holding his bat, he looked over to his coach. The coach gave a signal to sacrifice bunt. He promptly proceeded to take three big swings. He struck out. The coach ran up to him and said: “Didn't you see me give you the signal to sacrifice?” “Yes,” the boy replied. “But I didn't really think that you meant it.”
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We may behave as though Jesus did not mean want he said. Yet, Jesus explains that obedience to the way of life he teaches is to be priority for a Christian or Christian body of spiritual brothers and sisters. Jesus meant it; to be Christian means we cannot ignore it. And the Christ teaching is a reflection of a spiritual Order, not a mere "do good and stay out of trouble," or "please God for God wants to be pleased" ideology.
My dad had a view of family. He was spiritual head of the family. We three boys were to obey our parents. If we did not want to obey, we could choose to leave. He would let us leave; obedience was priority over we boys just doing what we wanted to do. That was the Order of the family as a graced Christian society, an Order accepted as ordained by Grace for the good of children and society. Such obedience was preparing us for living as responsible, obedient citizens of society and obedient members of the Church.
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The Christian teaching is that Divine Providence implanted in Nature, our world, and as a reflection of the multifaceted, infinite being of God, a hierarchy of virtues - an Order. Obedience is within the Order in which our lives are implanted by Grace. This Order extends into the heavenly spheres, also.
The word "order" provides insight into the spiritual implications of "Order." The English "order" is from the Latin ordin, meaning "row, rank, regular arrangement." There is a holy Arrangement.
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Therefore, obedience to God, as well as among humans, is not a matter of subjectivity, social convention, or mere religious decision. We are born into an Order of ascending and descending duty.
Erasmo Leiva-Merikakis, for example, in Love's Sacred Order, writes on the Order of Love - love being of varied loves. He titles one of his chapters "The Highest Cannot Stand Without the Lower." This implies more mature love - higher Order love -, such as agape - Divine Love - can only be actualized well by honoring lower loves in the Order - such as, storge, or familial love. Obedience to lower loves prepares for higher loves, while higher loves rely on obedience to lower loves. So, obedience is based within an objective Structure, and this Pattern is in Nature itself, reflecting the facets of Divinity.
Leiva-Merikakis, agreeing with the Gospel, posits a statement that reflects the Order, and a way of speaking that flies in the face of our pluralistic, subjective approach to obedience; yet, he, like Christ, grounds the Harmony in Love: "God loves us by urging us - no, by commanding us! - to fulfill the utmost possibilities his grace has put within us." This means you and I embody the Order, and within us is to be actualized, progressively of course, the Harmony that is within the Godhead.
This idea of Order is why Jesus never asks us, for example, to love God or others. He does not recommend, or suggest, we love God and others. He commands us to love God and others. The Order is honored with a "You shall," even as this is seen in the Ten Commandments.
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So, we cannot simply do what we want and get away with it. We cannot just say, "Well, this is my right, and it hurts no one else. So, do not tell me I cannot do it. It is my right." The argument for wholesale abortion "This is my body, and I can do what I want with it" violates Order, and such a theory of dis-Order invites a chaos that will tear apart the cohesion of our culture and selves.
Likewise, the Lord's Prayer for good reason never refers to a "personal" right. But from start to finish it is about living within a Harmony dependent on, first, responsibility to God, second, life with the graces and duties of relationships of shared accountability.
We cannot enjoy intimacy with God in agape, while we fail to obey the duty of philia, or friendly love. The higher manifests and enriches the lower in the hierarchy of divine Order, even as the lower prepares and inducts into the higher.
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Notice what Jesus says about obedience to his teaching defining who truly knows him. In speaking of our final judgment, when we are accountable for our lives, he says:
22 On that [last] day many will say to me, "Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, and cast out demons in your name, and do many mighty works in your name?" 23 And then will I declare to them, "I never knew you; depart from me, you workers of lawlessness."
*Matthew 7.22-23, ESV
Jesus proceeds to link knowing him, not just knowing about him, to obeying his teachings. He uses a story, as follows:
24 "Everyone then who hears these words of mine and does them will be like a wise man who built his house on the rock. 25And the rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew and beat on that house, but it did not fall, because it had been founded on the rock. 26And everyone who hears these words of mine and does not do them will be like a foolish man who built his house on the sand. 27And the rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew and beat against that house, and it fell, and great was the fall of it."
*Matthew 7.24-27, ESV
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No, we do not obey Jesus always. We are none fully obedient to Christ. Yet, we are to grow in obedience to His teaching in the Gospels, and as illumined to us by spiritual brothers and sisters and the Holy Spirit.
And we do not have to rely on our strength and determination alone. If we truly will to do the will of God above all else, we will be enabled to do it. It begins with our willingness and surrender to admit God can do for and through us what we by ourselves can never do. Paul assures the Christians at Philippi: “God is working in you to make you willing and able to obey him” (Philippians 2.13, CEV).
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Surely, we do not all agree on all the particulars of the Order to which we are to submit; yet, we can agree on respecting and seeking to reverence the divine Harmony. We need to strive, certainly, to grasp the higher virtues that define most the dignity of being Human. Yet, the lower Aspects are vital, for without obedience in small matters, the structure of Harmony will ultimately be abandoned in social chaos.
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I have heard it said often by well-meaning persons: "Sin is sin. There is no big sin or little sin." Yes, there is bigger sin and littler sin, for sin is defined within the providential Harmony of virtues. This, too, the Church evidences in its teaching on venial sin and mortal sin - though we do not have to agree with the particulars of such a theology to respect the point of logical gradations of sin. Indeed, Nature would tell us that to steal a cookie is not equal to murdering someone.
Again, however, the higher Aspects of Order rely on the lower Aspects. If we excuse smaller sins, not thinking they are of importance in obedience, then, slowly the whole structure of society and self collapses. We become un-done by irreverence. In obedience, we show reverence, and we bring into the sphere of earthly Nature blessing.
Blessings!
Rev Dr Brian K. Wilcox
Passion/Palm Sunday
April 5, 2009
QUIETLY RESPONDING
1. In what ways are you learning obedience? Is there a particular area God is using in your life to teach you a more mature obedience?
2. Have you a pattern of failure in living obediently in some area of life? Do you forgive yourself for that? Do you will to do what you need to correct that pattern? Are you willing to get the help you need to learn obedience in that area?
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*OneLife Ministries is a ministry of Brian K. Wilcox, of SW Florida. Brian lives a vowed life and with his two dogs, Bandit Ty and St. Francis. Brian is an ecumenical spiritual leader, open to how Christ manifests in the diversity of Christian denominations and varied religious-spiritual traditions. He is Senior Chaplain for the Charlotte County Sheriff's Office, Punta Gorda, FL.
*Brian welcomes responses to his writings or submission of prayer requests at barukhattah@embarqmail.com .
*Contact the above email to book Brian for Spiritual Direction, retreats, or workshops. You can order his book An Ache for Union at major book dealers.
*The etymology of "order" was taken from: Dictionary.com Unabridged. Based on the Random House Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2009.
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