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Story
Abba John the Dwarf went away to an old Theban in Scetis who lived in the desert. Once his Abba took a piece of dry wood, planted it, and said to him: Water it every day with a bottle of water until it bears fruit. The water, however, was so far away from there that John had to go out late in the evening and come back the next morning. Three years later, the tree came to life and bore fruit. Then Abba took some of the fruit and brought it to the church, and said to the brothers: Take and eat the fruit of obedience!
(c) Fr. Pius Sammut, OCD.
Clarification of Terms
The following terms are applicable to this writing, along with the meaning given.
Ecclesial. Pertaining to the church, or in the Greek New Testament, ecclesia.
Authority. The right to and exercise of power, exercised with free will, for the good of the community and granted by the whole community.
Obedience. Chosen submission to the right to and exercise of power by persons or groups who serve in authority roles for the good of the community.
Authority-Obedience Principle. The universal principle that order at all levels of nature and social systems operates, implicitly or explicitly, with reliance on persons or groups in authority and other persons or groups in obedience to authority.
Synergy. Cooperation in free will, including cooperation between authorities and those under authority in a shared partnership free of domination or coercion from either direction.
Theophanic. Pertaining to the universal manifestation, or presence, of the Presence of God without confinement within the dimension of time and space.
Comments
There is a wide-spread phenomenan called a “flight from authority.” Jeffrey Stout, in The Flight from Authority: Religion, Morality, and the Quest for Autonomy, addresses this matter. Stout speaks of the attempt in modern times to free ethics and political thought from religious tradition; to place them solely on “reasonable” basis (Nancy Murphy and George F. R. Ellis, The Moral Nature of the Universe). Is there a flight from authority within Christianity?
Authority, generally, places us in a position of recognizing that another person or group has some power over our lives. Usually, obedience is implicit or explicit. The power may be by genetics, as in family systems, or delegated, as in social systems. Ecclesial systems have such positions of authority, likewise. Basic job descriptions evidence a hierarchy of authority and resultant obedience.
An evidence of the flight from authority is the attempt to deny hierarchies. That is, to disregard the validity of systems of increasing authority and, thus, responsibility. Nature is replete with examples of hierarchies, however.
Equality of person does not rightly indicate equality of position or authority. Rather, social hierarchies and the obedience to and respect for them, as well compassionate exercise of the authority, are essential for order. If everyone leads, no one leads. When a system does not honor an explicit or implicit chain of command, so to speak, or better chain of responsibility, the system will suffer from matters like lack of direction, excessive conflict, inertia, …
The Jesus of the Gospel of Luke uses a wise saying when he speaks on responsibility. This is found in St. Luke 12.48 (AV) and indicates the responsibility of increased authority for action and accountability in a system of ascending delegation of responsibility:
For unto whomsoever much is given, of him shall be much required: and to whom men have committed much, of him they will ask the more.
Of great import in the above passage is the context of responsibility. The person or group does not exercise authority as a quality they possess apart from the group. Authority is, by nature, communal, not simply conferred in a linear manner or representative. Therefore, for a Christian within a church to oppose the rightful authority of an ordained person is to deny the right conferred by the whole body of Christians. Likewise, the ordained person, as all others in a church, never serves apart from honoring the status of serving as one of the communion. Each person in the church is equally the Body of Christ, together. Of course, understandings of the above are shaped by the different church systems. As a United Methodist clergyperson, for example, the local congregation does not ordain me; rather, I am ordained in the Conference of a larger system of Districts and churches… While the Authority-Obedience Principle remains the same in ecclesial systems, some such systems are more mature in their understanding of the operations of the Church and more true to the patristic, or early, church. These ecclesial systems are less shaped by the cultural adaptations, or digressions, of individualistic culture in the West.
The concept of synergy is key to the understanding of authority and obedience in ecclesial contexts. The Trinity is how the Church has spoken of the mutual-cooperation within God as three Persons. The nature of the Infinite, then, is communal; this implies cooperation, communion, communication, ... The very idea of authority and obedience, understood as synergy, not domination or coercion, exits in the Infinite. This is comparable to the idea of forms in Plato. That is, authority and obedience are eternal verities, for nothing in time can be apart from deriving in pureness from the Word, the Logos. Consequently, when a community is being a godly communion, it respects the pristine blessing of authority and obedience, modeling its life on the Trinity, whether consciously or not. And, synergy implies a compassionate use of authority, which entails recognition of the imperfection of authorities and built-in mechanisms to address such matters. Therefore, we cannot assume the infallibility of even godly and sincere persons in authority or those served by them. This is why feedback systems must be in place: to protect the person in authority and those in positions subordinate.
Possibly, a surprising paradox to many persons would be the following. The Trinity entails God obeying God, God exercising authority over and with God. One indication of this arises in the Gospel, when Jesus says things like the following:
But I do nothing without consulting the Father. I judge as I am told. And my judgment is absolutely just, because it is according to the will of God who sent me; it is not merely my own. (St. John 5.30, NLT)
Then, St. John 17.23 speaks of the prayer of Christ Jesus for his disciples, for you and me. The passage indicates that we participate in the synergy of the Trinity, with the Father and Son, and thereby, with the Spirit. God by God is Trinitarian, we by Grace are invited into intimacy with the Triune Presence:
I in them and you in me, all being perfected into one. Then the world will know that you sent me and will understand that you love them as much as you love me. (NLT)
By this time, you might be thinking of a question. “What is practical about this article for the spiritual journey?” Well, I proceed to application at this point. The opening story concerns the value of obedience and authority. The relationship of Jesus Christ to his disciples, the relationship of ecclesial leadership and laity, following the example of Christ and the disciples, implies that the Body of Christ is structured in a synergistic manner and with hierarchical subsystems. This includes responsible authority and responsible obedience.
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This synergy of systems, being at the core of the Jesus movement, is entailed in the image of the Triune God. Jesus chose twelve disciples not just to train a group and send them out to share the Good News. Jesus chose the disciples because that is the nature of Reality; Jesus was being Trinitarian. So, to be the Church, not simply a member of a church, entails participation in this Trinitarian aspect, which is rooted in the tradition of the Hebrew tribes and Judaism, Christ and his disciples, and the tradition of the Church.
Therefore, compassionate exercise of authority and compassionate acceptance of authority in the churches is essential to be Christian in being and becoming. The churches cannot be the Church without living the Authority-Obedience Principle. We must resist an individualized and privatized façade of spirituality or tribal-social church mentality that sees its personal or group operations outside respect and obedience toward in-system, at all levels, authority. There is no godliness without authority; there is no godliness without obedience. In the matter of authority and obedience, relativism is anti-Christian and, thus, inimical to the Body of Christ. Individualism is errant practice, for it denies in practice the truth of the Trinity; thus, many churches, calling themselves orthodox, or biblical, are errant in that their attitudes toward authority are individualistic and deny a central Christian teaching of the Trinity. Indeed, the modern and postmodern individualizing of Jesus, and in non-Trinitarian terms, expresses the movement in the larger culture toward a theologically errant individualism in ecclesiology and over-all life processes.
I cannot be obedient to Christ, respect the Body of Christ, and grow rightly in relationship to God without respect for the ordained authorities appointed over the United Methodist Church and their roles. Saying I am a United Methodist means respecting the delegated roles and persons of its leaders. That is my position as a United Methodist pastor. That is living the Authority-Obedience Principle.
This whole concept of authority and obedience is counter-cultural. Essentially, the message in many churches is this: “I will obey, only when I agree.” And, “I will respect you, only when you agree with me.” St. Paul spoke for us not to be conformed by the world-system (Romans 12.1-2). This is what much of Christianity is doing regarding to the topic for today. The churches are reflecting the individualism of the larger culture and, thus, denying both their leaders and themselves in the potential for transforming larger culture into attitudes and actions conforming to the Triune God.
Therefore, applying this to contemplation means that the contemplative is not on an individual journey. She is praying and living in communion. She cannot use inner communion with God, like an inner voice, as a private experience not subject to the larger Church and its voice, any more than someone can follow a personal interpretation of Scripture devoid of correction and modification within the influence of the Church.
The danger of contemplation is that the contemplative will find some inner voice the authority, apart from the voice of the faith communion—contemplative teachers, generally, warn that not all so-called manifestations or voices “heard” in meditation are of the Truth. The inner voice and outer voice work in consort. Christ does not speak apart from the Body of Christ. The Spirit leads into truth, but the Spirit, being Communion, does so within the accountability structure of the Communion, the living Church, transcending time and space. One needs to question seriously any inner or outer message that diverges from the voice of the larger Church. The Spirit has been speaking through the Church for two thousand years. To act and think apart from that voice, even though that voice is not always consistent due to the failings and changes in the Church itself, is not a Christian approach to listening to the Spirit. And, it is not a Trinitarian way, either.
The voice of the Church will take new directions over time, but they are to continue to agree with the essential insights arising from the New Testament and the Church of the first centuries. For example, the Trinity will remain central to Christian faith, but the way the Trinity is spoken of and appreciated can change with understandings from cosmology. However, to remove the Trinity is to make Christian faith other than Christian.
Last, the question can be posed: Where does the ultimate basis of authority and obedience come from? In a pre-modernist cosmology, and still present in the consciousness of many persons, the authority-obedience synthesis derives from God as an object separate from Nature or a force within Nature. The first is a transcendent theism, the last an immanent polytheism. Both no longer apply in a postmodern culture; we need a synthesis of transcendence and immanence. Transcendent theism and immanent polytheism find expression in a theophanic theology, or theophanic epistemology. What “God” refers to is included within the synthesis of transcendence and immanence. Transcendence and immanence, therefore, dissolve in awareness of and trust in Presence. And, this Presence is neither here nor there; Presence is neither up nor down. Therefore, the very structure of the Cosmos must give us hints of the ethics of systems, including the meaning of authority and obedience, and the truth of synergy. Order, made possible through synergy, is thus imprinted in and manifested through Nature, in the Image of the Trinity. Ecclesial must include a synthesis of theology proper with cosmology, for Trinity applies to the Universe.
If the ultimate purpose of the universe is to make possible free, moral response to the creator [i.e. authority, obedience, synergy], then there is a need for the creation of a universe where ordered patterns of events occur, for without this order free will [synergy depends on free authority and free obedience] is meaningless. (Murphy and Ellis)
Ultimately, the Universe must bear the image of the Trinity, if not in completion now, moving toward completion. This makes science a theological process. If this is not the case, then, there is conflict in image between the Universe and God and, thus, a division in Nature. And, consequently, there could be no harmony between Creator and Creation, and Nature could not sustain the presence and operations of the ecclesia, or Church universal.
Reflection
What did you learn from the above writing?
What did you agree with?
What did you disagree with?
What is the relation between theology and cosmology?
Spiritual Exercise
Each morning, dedicate all the members of your body to the use of the Sacred One. Name parts of the body, including the tongue, the ears, the hands, the feet, the brain, the eyes, …
Make sure you have a sacred space in your home for time alone in prayer and spiritual reading.
Make sure you are in a covenant group. For more information on covenant groups, write me at the address below.
Consider, if you are not already, sponsoring a child through Compassion International. You can find out more about Compassion International by going to www.compassion.net to read about sponsoring, in the name of Jesus, children living in poverty. Thanks! Brian K. Wilcox
Brian’s book An Ache For Union can be purchased at major book dealers.
To contact Brian, write briankwilcox@comcast.net .
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