Paul,
a servant of Jesus Christ, called to be an apostle, set apart for the gospel of
God… to bring about the obedience of faith among all the Gentiles… including
yourselves who are called to belong to Jesus Christ, to all God’s beloved in
Rome… Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. [Romans
1:1-7]
You may have noticed the phrase, the obedience of faith… It is surely a curious expression. If obedience means doing what we’re told, straight
away, then in the spirit of the 21st century it sounds unlikely –
although sometimes, as we know, what we might call simple unquestioning obedience
is necessary. But in biblical use this
word is much more nuanced. Paul does not
mean doing what you’re told, or any slavish obedience to church precepts or
rules of faith. The Greek word he uses
here (hupakoē, υ͑πακοη) is much closer to the old English word hearken… it is a particular quality of
listening, attending to someone, or to some task, or to some duty or
obligation… It is the attention
necessary to master a skill, a profession, a language or a science. Often it is the attention needed to
understand, rather than simply assuming we understand. My private bête noir is the person who interrupts you, mid-sentence, with some
banality, and then says, “Sorry… go on…”
This person may be listening in a way, but is not hearkening or
attending, and is more present to him/herself than to you.
So Paul writes of the obedience of faith… This
obedience is attending to God, so far as we can, with the whole self. In contemplative life and prayer we use various
words for it such as being present,
and consenting... In our wider lives it develops into an
awareness of God everywhere around, and even when we are giving our attention
to other matters altogether, as we often are, this consciousness of a listening
and attending heart, and awareness of God, is never far away.
So the
obedience of faith has much to do with the great watchword in Advent…
awake! Wachet auf! in German, and the subject of one of the greatest hymns
of Christian faith:
Zion
hears the watchmen singing,
And
all her heart with joy is springing;
She wakes, she rises from her gloom…
Obedience
of faith then is hearkening, listening for a word, bearing
pain, discerning the time for change, or even suspecting that the time may be
near, turning to a neighbour, asking in love (as Simone Weil put it), What are you going through…? Obedience of faith is consenting to
change in ourselves, as the Spirit of Christ may ask. It is claiming freedom from habits and rules
and requirements which inhibit fresh understanding. It is stability, confidence in the way we are
being led, especially when the way ahead is not clear. Obedience
of faith is recognising our fears, and in prayerful disciplines of silence
and stillness seeing them eroding and losing their power… all from hearkening, from
the obedience of faith.
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