Submission

"Submission"
Luke 1:38

I
It just so happened that a charismatic TV preacher, as a side job, ran a dog obedience school.  A lady brought her dog to him and told the preacher that her dog was totally wild and wanted the full obedience training.

After three weeks the lady called, and was told her dog was ready.  When she went to pick up her dog, the preacher demonstrated what the dog had learned.  First, he said, “Sit!” and the dog sat.
“Lay down,” he said, and the dog lay down.
“Roll over,” was the next command, and the dog obediently rolled over.
“That’s wonderful,” the woman exclaimed.

But then a sudden realization hit her and she asked, “But what if the dog just obeys your voice and not mine?”
“Give the dog a command,” the preacher said.
“Come,” the lady said, and the dog came to her side.  She started to walk away, and commanded, “Heel!”  The dog immediately knocked her over, placed its two front paws on her forehead and bent its head and prayed.

We’ve come to think of obedience as something that has to be force learned.  When you’re training a horse, you have to first “break” it; that is, force it to submit to your will and your command.

I remember one of the buzz phrases back in the 1980’s, pertaining to raising children was, “the strong-willed child.”  That term was used to describe a child who was stubborn or uncontrollable.  Books with titles like, Shaping the Will Without Breaking the Spirit were popular bestsellers in the parenting section of the book store.

That’s how submission usually happens.  People submit because they are out-manned or over-powered.  It isn’t about submission.  It’s about spirit-breaking and dominating.

When I’m working with couples who are preparing to get married, we get to the point of planning the service.  We talk about the vows.  We talk about the sacredness of the vows and what it means to speak a vow to another.  But there is one phrase that used to be in the traditional vows that couples refuse to say:  “...to honor and obey…”  Obey has become an ugly word.

Obedience is a form of submission, of giving our will to another out of fear of consequences. It is almost essential to obedience that there be no specific rationale for the action demanded by the authority. “Do as I tell you” leaves no room for questions. We are not supposed to understand, only to carry out.

II
The Roman culture of New Testament times was similar to our modern western culture in that freedom was one of the greatest of all virtues.  We are the land of the free.  The Bill of Rights insures certain freedoms that each citizen has by virtue of living in this country:  freedom of religion, freedom of speech, freedom to bear arms, freedom to assemble, and so on.  We work hard to make sure that none of those freedoms are trod upon.

The Roman culture during the time of the New Testament looked down their noses at slaves and servants.  There was clear contempt for slaves by those who were free.  Being free was such a value, anyone who was not free, like a slave, was deemed to be a class lower than human.  Likewise, we work hard to make sure we aren’t totally under someone else’s thumb.  We also don’t mind if we have at least a few people under our thumb, that we can order around so we can feel powerful and important.

We have to be careful, then, not to race over certain parts of the Christmas story because they make us twinge a bit.  Parts like when Mary submits to the plan of God to carry and give birth to the Savior.  Mary said to the angel messenger, “I am the Lord’s servant! Let it happen as you have said” (CEV).

What she told the angel is that she will submit to God, as a slave would submit to her master.  J.B. Phillips, in his translation of the New Testament, catches the flavor of what Mary said:  “I belong to the Lord, body and soul.”

At another place in the Christmas story, Joseph refused to take Mary as his wife because she was carrying a child that wasn’t his.  He felt betrayed and humiliated.  The angel came to him in a dream and told him to forego his pride, submit to God’s plan, and take Mary as his bride.  He woke up and without hesitation obeyed God’s word.  Two other times the angel visited Joseph with a plan from God, and Joseph submitted himself to that plan.

The wise men who searched for and eventually found the Christ child were told by God that they were not to return to Herod, but go home by a different route.  They were not to tell Herod if and where they found the Christ Child.  They obeyed, and went home a different way.

Obedience and submission are woven into the fabric of this birth story.  People were approached by God to submit to God’s plan.  Those people obeyed and followed God’s word.  God didn’t overpower the main characters of the story.  God didn’t force them to submit.  God didn’t back them into a corner so they had no other choice.

That’s what’s important to remember as we read these stories.  God allowed these people the right to say “no.”  Mary could have said no, refusing to have God’s child.  Joseph could have said no and allowed Mary to be stoned for adultery, or rejected her and marry someone else.  The wise men could have said no and gone and talked to Herod anyway.

But they didn’t.  It was more like they voluntarily and happily submitted to what God asked them to do.  Maybe it was the way God asked.  In his book, The Spirit of the Disciplines, Dallas Willard has a chapter about submission.  In that chapter he wrote,
Submission, though, is a call for help to those recognized as able to give it because of their depth of experience and Christlikeness.

That was a new thought for me--that submission is a reply to a call for help from another.  Is it possible that God’s message to Mary and Joseph and the wise men was not in the form of a demand or a proclamation as much as it was a call for help from God?  Did Mary hear the angel’s message not in the tone of “this is a done deal and you will obey,” as much as in the tone of, “God needs you.  You are the only one who can help.  Please participate with God in God’s plan to save the world.”

Mary becomes a willing spirit, submitting herself not to a command that has no choice, but a plea, a request of urgency.  By asking her, God recognizes that she has the depth of character and selflessness that is able to willingly submit to God’s plea.

Mary becomes a witness to all of us “no-sayers" who refuse to see how God needs us.  Are we so into ourselves and our own little self-made worlds, that any request from God is immediately seen as an arm twisting demand?  We fail to recognize that when God makes some request of us, that God has already decided we have the depth of character and faith to do what God is asking of us.  It is an honor to be told by God that he needs us to take some action.  Do we twist that honor into seeing it as a demand for our unwilling obedience?

This week I read an excerpt of a book that hasn’t been published yet.  The book is titled Reweaving the Human Fabric, by Miki Kashtan.  In this excerpt she tells about how she has always struggled with authority figures, and been rebellious to their demands, refusing to obey.  Then a light came on for her and she saw that it isn’t about obeying or rebelling.  It is about her own inner character.  She wrote:
Internally I was more preoccupied with not giving in than with knowing what I wanted and going for it.  I chose my actions reactively, not truly from within.  I didn’t see what is now so clear to me: that true choice, true freedom, emerges from inner clarity.

That, I think, is what’s behind Mary’s ready submission to God.  She wasn’t playing a game with God and resisting just for the sake of resisting.  Mary had an inner clarity, and inner sense of character that helped her realize what she wanted.  Having that inner clarity is what is so freeing.

Here’s another way to say this.  Jonathan Edwards was a great revival preacher in the early 1700’s.  He believed that submission is an exercise of the will in the direction of the affections of the soul.  (Let me say that again--listen closely.)  What I get out of that is that each of us have certain affections deep in our soul.  They could be affections for any one or any thing.  When we will ourselves to submit, we do so in the direction of those deep affections.  We willingly do what we deeply love.

So, if our affections are for God and the things of God, we will have no problem willing ourselves to submit to God and the pleas of God.  But if we have little or no affections of the soul for God, it will be hard for us to bend our will to submit in God’s direction.

Inner clarity, deep affections of the soul, no matter what you call it, that is what is at the basis for the times of our greatest and most willing obedience and submission.  Mary must have already had deep affections for God and the ways of God.  Because of her long held inner clarity, it was easy for her to submit to God and say, “Let it be to me as you have said.”

III
This inner clarity resulting in true submission does a couple of things.  First, it shows how much we value another person.  It demonstrates to others to whom we submit how important they are to us.  How important their dreams or plans are to us.  We don’t submit to people who don’t mean anything to us.  Mary’s submission to God and God’s plan was a demonstration of how much God meant to her.

Secondly, true submission, arising out of the deep affection of the soul, becomes an alignment of the inner person with outer actions.  It is possible to obey a master, or a boss, or a parent, or a spouse, without living in a spirit of submission.  We can do what others ask of us and at the same time harbor rebellion and resentment in our hearts.  We can be obedient to God, but grudgingly, as if we are being put upon.

We would rather let our submission be like paint which only covers the surface, without penetrating or sinking in.  But true submission is like stain, which penetrates deeply into the grain and fibre of the wood.  The inside matches the outside.

Frances de Sales, Bishop of Geneva back in the early 1600’s wrote this in describing the devout person: (on screen)
They are people with angelic hearts.  They are full of vigor and spiritual agility.  They have wings to soar aloft in holy prayer and they also have feet to walk among people in a holy and loving way of life.  Their faces are beautiful and joyous because they accept all things meekly and mildly.  Their thoughts, affections, and deeds have no purpose or motive but that of pleasing God.  Such are devout persons.


IV
This Advent season, spend some time in prayer, using this quote from de Sales as a mirror.  Let it penetrate the fibre of who you are, and who you want to become.  How do you see yourself in comparison to its reflection.  Look at the descriptive words:  words like “vigor,” “spiritual agility,” “affections.”  How do they reflect, or not reflect with your life.  Let these words be like God’s plea to you, a plea to your deep affections, to your sense of inner clarity, that this is who God wants you to be for him, starting this Christmas.  God’s not demanding it.  It’s a plea.  Will you submit?