Sermon Cloud

We are entering wedding season. Those of you who read The Grapevine this weekend know that between Rev. Ed Chance and me, we are doing five weddings over the next six weeks. Weddings are always joyous occasions. People love to see beautiful brides beaming as they come down the aisle, and handsome grooms being swept up in the moment of seeing his bride-to-be glowing as she comes down the aisle toward him.

So here’s an interesting question: for those of you who are married, think back on your marriage vows and if you can still remember them, raise your hand if the word “obey” was among the promises of your wedding vows.

Admittedly in modern times, the phrase “love, honor and obey” is rarely used. In part because this line was attached only to the bride’s vows. The grooms got to say “love, honor and cherish.”

In researching a little about these old vows, I discovered that there is still a raging debate on blogs of every sort whether the state of marriage generally would be better if ‘obey’ was reinserted into the vows.  One woman responded to that line of thought, “Yeah, if husbands would obey wives a little more often, the whole world could be fixed.”

Obedience has always been a tricky problem especially in marriages, but in many other areas of life as well. Part of children’s becoming separate identities from their parents, and establishing a little individualism is the old issue of obedience to one’s parents. Children naturally try to push the boundaries of the rules, and often break the rules because a) they think they can get away with it or b) they think that their parents are being overly cautions and they are smarter than their parents.

By the time a child has become a teenager the see-saw battle of wills between parent and adolescent reaches a zenith of sorts. And when that teen goes off to college, they get their first real taste of independence and freedom, and often the first thing they want to do is violate some of the old “house rules” that they suffered under as high schoolers.

Even as adults, we have a hard time obeying other people’s rules. Some have a hard time obeying their bosses. There was a great commercial on TV a few months back. A receptionist is sitting at her desk, and behind her a vast wasteland of cubicles, all with walls about 4' tall. A person is sitting behind every desk for as far as you can see. The phone rings. The receptionist answers, “Mr. Delaney’s Office.” She pauses, “O good morning, Mr. Delaney.” “Your not feeling well today?” With that, every single employee stands up and we see that everyone has a golf bag over their shoulder. The receptionist continues, “I’ll have that ready for you when you come in. Are you stopping by later today?” All the employees sit down. “Oh, you’re not coming in today?” They all stand up again. “What about your 2:00 presentation?” They all sit down again. “You want me to conference you in from home.” They all stand up again, bags ready to go. “Very good, I’ll see you tomorrow. Feel better Mr. Delaney.” They all wait silently for her to hang up the phone. Once she places the phone down, they all bolt for the door carrying their golf bags.

Obedience is harder and harder to engender these days. There is an increasing trend toward independence, doing one’s own thing, and not following the rules. We don’t obey good etiquette, we don’t obey speed limits, we don’t obey our doctor’s advice, and we don’t obey the rules of our diets. We just want to do what we want to do, and we don’t want to do what other people tell us to do unless we absolutely have to.

Sadly, we often see God’s commandments, and Jesus’ instructions in a similar light. We treat them as if they are mere suggestions. The truth is that God loves us greatly. And though he is always ready to forgive us, we break God’s rules at our own peril. God gave us the command to love our neighbors and care for each other because our lives go much better when we care for the people around us, and avoid the pitfalls of sin. God’s commandments and rules are honestly for our own good.

We are being foolish when we decide to do things our own way. We may be exercising our independence or even our free will, which of course is allowed, but there are always consequences to the decisions we make and God, in his great love for us, gives us rules to keep us from getting ourselves into trouble. I find it interesting that after giving the 10 Commandments in Deuteronomy chapter 5, Moses declares that God says, “The LORD commanded us to obey all these decrees and to fear the LORD our God, so that we might always prosper.”

The truth is that no one is smarter than God. When God gives us instructions, it’s not to restrict our lives, it’s not to be mean to us, it’s not to take away our independence, and it’s not to box us in. God gives us those instructions, just as a parent sets rules for her children, to keep them safe and to give guidance for proper and profitable behavior.

There is a lot of talk in the past few days about a stricter enforcement of the seatbelt laws. Maryland has promoted their “Click it, or Ticket” campaign for years, but because it is prom season and graduation time, they are cracking down looking for both drivers and passengers who are not wearing their seatbelts. One county police officer is especially concerned about seatbelts because his own son was killed as a teen when riding unseatbelted in the back seat of another teen’s car. They were speeding along a country road, lost control and hit a tree. All three rear seat passengers were killed when they were ejected from the car.

I have always been a proponent of wearing seat belts. As I was learning to drive, I faithfully wore my seat belt. I don’t know why but as a young adult, I began to get complacent about wearing my seat belt.

One day, the same day as the Air Florida crash on the 14th Street bridge, in that terrible snow storm in January of 1981, I was going just one mile from a parishioners house to a clergy meeting. I decided the trip was short and I didn’t need my seat belt, I would be careful. As I was approaching an intersection, a pick up truck which was trying to make the turn, slipped and lost control and slid directly across my path. I did everything I could to avoid the truck, but in a split second, my car hit the side of the truck broadside.

Because I jammed on the brakes and mashed the clutch, my lower body was stiff and my upper body was propelled forward. The top of my head smashed into the windshield, and slit my scalp open. I literally had to peel part of my hair and skin from the broken glass. I was in a daze not sure what had happened, when I began to feel a warm fluid coming down the sides of my head. I grabbed some Kleenexs and held my head together before I passed out. An ambulance ride to Shady Grove Hospital and nine stitches in the emergency room saved my life.

How stupid was I? All to save a second or two? All because I knew I could be a safe driver? How hard would it have been to obey the rules? We break the rules at our own peril, seriously. Jesus instructed us by saying, You are my friends if you do what I command you. Since God loves us so, and only wants what’s best for us, we acknowledge God’s love and demonstrate our love back to God, when we obey. It is no different than what we tell our kids. “If you love me, you will do what I ask you to do.”

We see a similar thought in our New Testament passage. John writes: By this we know that we love the children of God, when we love God and obey his commandments. For the love of God is this, that we obey his commandments. And his commandments are not burdensome, for whatever is born of God conquers the world.

When I was in seminary I learned the definition of Spiritual Obesity. Spiritual obesity occurs when our knowledge of God and of the Bible exceeds our obedience to God’s word and God’s will. In other words, we know all kinds of truths that are in the Bible, we know the difference between right and wrong, and we probably understand God’s will pretty well, but when the rubber meets the road, we fail to be obedient because we want to live our lives our own way.

What kind of obedience do you imagine I am talking about? I believe that all of us are called to be obedient in the following areas.

1 - We are to love God with all our heart, soul, mind and strength.

2 - We are to love our neighbors, as Jesus would love them.

3 - We are to be honest and transparent; with ourselves and with others, especially those close to us.

4 - We are to be fair and treat all people with the same love and care and respect that we would want to receive.

5 - We are to obey the rules: God’s rules, house rules, school rules and all laws. They are there for our protection and for the orderly functioning of our society. We are to obey the rules, and stop imagining ourselves to be exempt from having to obey them.

6 - We are to obey the authorities that God has placed in our lives, which means our parents, principals and school administrators, our bosses, police officers and government officials. Anything less leads to dysfunction and anarchy.

7 - We are to be smart – think about the consequences of our actions before we go off and do something stupid.

8 - We should live by the same rules that we expect others to obey. That means that parents, principals, bosses, police officers and government officials must abide by the same rules as they impose or enforce. So if you are in authority anywhere, don’t act as if you are above the rules or exempt from them.

9 - We are to work hard, be industrious, and seek to know God’s will for our lives and then to do that to the best of our ability.

10 - We are to see others through the eyes of Christ. We are to be compassionate, caring, gentle, loving, nurturing, supportive and helpful whenever and wherever we can.

 You may say that love is not about rules. We should all do as we should out of love, and that is correct. But we all need some guidelines, and the rules and laws in our lives are there for our protection as well as guidance. God’s rules are not there to harm us, or thwart us, or suppress our individuality. They are there to help us know right from wrong, and to help us get along lovingly with each other. If we love God, and love our neighbors, we will be obedient in all things. Amen.