Let me start with a short list of our privileges before dealing with obligations. Some of the privileges are:
·
We are adopted by God into his family
·
We are given God's favor without having to earn
it.
·
The Holy Spirit is always with us and mediates us
to God.
·
We are freed from sin and fear of death and so
can move onto perfection in this life.
·
We receive the renewing and sustaining grace of
God through the sacraments of baptism and Holy Communion
·
We enjoy the fellowship of other Christians for
the sustainment and improvement of our moral character and ability to do godly
works.
There
are many more. There is an old saying that that with great privileges come
great responsibilities. The saying has been variously attributed to Franklin
Roosevelt, Winston Churchill and others. But in fact, it was Voltaire who first
wrote it, and the exact quote is a little different: “With great power comes great responsibility.” Maybe
Jesus should get the credit, though, for he said in Luke 12.48, “To those whom
much is given, much is required.”
I submit that the answer is both yes and no. So bear with me and let me confuse the issue as only a seminary graduate can.
That there are such things as commandments of Christ is
explicitly stated by Paul in Galatians 6.2: “Bear one another’s burdens, and in
this way you will fulfill the law of Christ.” As a former Pharisee, Paul did
not use the word “law” lightly. He meant it was a requirement. Jesus himself
spoke of a new covenant and new commandments. The longest description of judgment
day in the New Testament is given in Matthew 25, where Jesus explains that the
ones who thought themselves Christ-followers are rejected because,
“… I was hungry and you gave me nothing to
eat, I was thirsty and you gave me nothing to drink, 43 I was a stranger and
you did not invite me in, I needed clothes and you did not clothe me, I was
sick and in prison and you did not look after me.”
So,
we can’t much deny that authority and a commanding voice that we should not
ignore undergird a disciple’s life. And then we come to Luke 17.7-10, in which
Jesus is teaching his disciples:
7“Who among you would say
to your slave who has just come in from plowing or tending sheep in the field,
‘Come here at once and take your place at the table’? 8 Would you not
rather say to him, ‘Prepare supper for me, put on your apron and serve me while
I eat and drink; later you may eat and drink’? 9 Do you thank the slave
for doing what was commanded? 10 So you also, when you have done all that
you were ordered to do, say, ‘We are worthless slaves; we have done only what
we ought to have done!’ ”
In
fact, we should take Jesus’ words as great assurance, not threat. Here’s why.
Jesus
risks comparing God to a taskmaster to drive home some basic truths about our
relationship with God. We tend to think that if we behave a certain way, live a
good, Christian life, that we deserve some reward from God. But that’s not
true. There are benefits to living the Christian life, but they are not
rewards. We have no right to expect rewards. To do so rejects grace as the
basis of Christian living and replaces it with a bartering relationship. But
grace is freely given and cannot be earned. We can’t earn “more grace” by
living rightly.
We
do not live together righteously as God requires. The disciples begged Jesus for
more faith because they realized they couldn’t meet even the basic requirements
from their own strength or merit. What Jesus points out is that kingdom living
is God’s gift through faith but is also an act of the will by Christian
disciples. God has already given us the faith we need. Jesus lays out the basic
commands of the kingdom: don’t lead others astray; rebuke, repent, forgive,
love God and neighbor. Living together as God commands rests on these things.
And when we have done that, Jesus says, we have merely done the bare minimum,
so don’t get all puffed up about it and expect God will reward us specially.
After all, as Paul explains, we should understand that if we think we are
meeting the standard of saving ourselves through what we do, then we don’t
understand how high the standard really is. It is too high for human beings to
meet.
Therefore,
to imagine ourselves as slaves to Christ, as repugnant as that metaphor is,
really is good news. We are not in a market economy with God. We don’t have to
barter with God for grace. We cannot earn God’s grace. Grace is not a bonus
check. God’s grace is always before
us. It is through grace we are called
to be God’s family, it is through grace we can be God’s family, and it is through grace that we will move on to
Christian perfection together.
But
it gets better, for Jesus did not think we were his slaves in the first place.
He used that illustration, I think, to make us understand how spiritually empty
our relationship with God would be if we were mere task performers, burdened
with strict requirements of obedience. Elsewhere, Jesus states plainly he does not
think of you and me as slaves, but as friends. Here is what Jesus told his
disciples in John 15, shortly before he was crucified:
15 I do not call you servants any longer,
because the servant does not know what the master is doing; but I have called
you friends, because I have made known to you everything that I have heard from
my Father. … 17 I am giving you these commands so that you may love one
another.
What
then shall we make of what Paul called the law of Christ? I would like to
suggest that we should think of Christ’s commandments as liberating opportunities
rather than mere commands. We should understand missions, ministries and
services in Christ’s name as the means of freedom far greater than mere
obligations.
The
great myth or misconception about Christian obligations is that they are
obligations. Jesus is not recruiting puppets, he seeks soul mates. We do not
have a contract with God, we have a covenant sealed with his Son’s own blood. With
that great privilege comes not great obligations, but the ability to live
liberated from all that separates us from what God created us to be. As Paul wrote
to the Galatians, “For freedom Christ has set us free.” We are liberated from the
dictatorship of a personal autonomy unshaped by godliness or divine virtue. In
contrast, wrote John Wesley, we are made alive as people who are washed and sanctified,
“as well as justified, in the name of the Lord Jesus, and by the Spirit of our
God.’ [1]
You are really changed [Wesley wrote]; you are not only
accounted as righteous but actually made righteous. The inward power of the
Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has made you really, actually free from the
power of sin and death. This is liberty, true gospel liberty, experienced by
every believer: Not freedom from the
law of God, or the works of God, but from the law of sin and the works of the
devil. See that you stand fast in this real, not imaginary liberty, wherewith
Christ has made you free. And take heed not to be entangled again in the yoke
of that vile bondage to sin, from which you are now clean escaped.
For
freedom Christ has set us free: free to love, free to live in joy and peace and
patience. Free to be generous in all we have, free to be gentle with even those
who offend us, free to control ourselves to live in ways to please God.
We enjoy
privileges of receiving and liberty of giving. Privileges of receiving are the
work of the Holy Spirit. Liberties of giving are what we do in return. We have
the privilege of gathering for worship, for singing, for studying the
Scriptures together. We can do most of these things privately as well. Wesley
called them acts of piety. In these acts the Holy Spirit is the principal actor
spiritually renew and restore us.
And
we also have the freedom to carry out acts of mercy, done both on our own and
in cooperation with other disciples. These are what we do to bring the good
news by word or deed to one another and to those whom God seeks to bring into
his family.
It
matters to Jesus and it should matter to us how we think of him and our
relationship to him, so here is why we can be assured we are friends of Jesus serving
in love rather than slaves of God obeying in fear:
Slaves
try to do as little as they can to get by. Friends look for ways to help one
another.
Slaves try
to avoid the master. Friends seek one another’s company.
Slaves
wait to be told. Friends volunteer.
Slaves
want to escape. Friends want to draw closer.
Slaves
serve the master out of fear. Friends serve one another out of love.
Love is
the key.
We
are free to relate to one another the same way that God relates to us: in grace
and mercy and love – especially love.
God
is love, and any community following God must be love, also.
4 Love is patient, love is kind [says Paul].
It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. 5 It is not rude, it is
not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. 6 Love
does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. 7 It always protects,
always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. 8 Love never fails. (1 Cor
13:4-8)
I used to think it was a tossup whether the greatest
privilege God gives us is to receive his love or to be empowered ourselves to
love divinely. And then I realized there is no real difference because God both
loves us and loves others through us.
The
work that Christ does today he does with our arms. When we embrace the
outcasted, the scorned and unloved, we hold them with Jesus’ arms. When we bear
our neighbors’ troubles, we uplift them with Jesus’ hands. When we give food to
the hungry, it is by Christ they are fed. When we welcome a stranger, we clasp
his hand with the hand of Christ. When we carry clothes to the naked it is
Jesus’ fingers which button their shirts. We heal the sick with Jesus’ hands
and we visit the dying to embrace them to Christ’s own breast.
In
Christ we accept our flaws and imperfections not because we condone them in
ourselves, but because Jesus accepts us despite them. Therefore, we can boast
in our shortcomings because Christ’s love is perfected through them.
There
is no greater privilege, nor any greater freedom, nor any greater joy to be
found in this life.
[1] “A
Blow at the Root,” http://ucmpage.org/articles/wesley_blow_at_root.html,
slightly paraphrased