7. THE OBEDIENCE IN FAITH
As we have seen, the special characteristic of the family of Nazareth, the one that makes it the model for every Christian family, is the fact that it has Jesus as its centre of unity. In the Holy Family, thanks to the presence of Jesus, people's freedom, family ties and obedience of faith become one. In it, thoughts, desires and gestures are in perfect accord with God's will. In Nazareth, one learns what today's world forgets and rejects: that obedience is the intimate form of freedom and the basic condition of love.
The truth of obedience
Today it seems very difficult to accept this elementary truth. We are too used to thinking that freedom is autonomy and obedience is its opposite. We have become mired in horizontal, flat relationships, without depth or summit. Anything vertical, differentiated and interpellating appears to us as a threat to our freedom: telling a truth immediately seems synonymous with intransigence, and correcting an error is felt as disrespect for one's own ideas. Much of the psychological discomfort from which people suffer stems from a conflict between freedom and truth, between desire and law. If it were true that man is simply an individual and his ideal individualism, then we should be fine. Instead, we are bad, with ourselves and with others. And this is because the truth is that we are always and everywhere sons and daughters, brothers and sisters, husbands and wives, and we learn to say, “I thank the ‘thou’ of the one who loves us; and he who loves us is not afraid to tell us and bear witness to the truth, is not afraid to correct us and invite us to repent.”
In this sense, obedience is in no way equivocal with pure dependence or with the opposite of independence: it is belonging, acceptance and correspondence to those who in love precede and accompany us. After all, obedience is the form of freedom understood from the perspective of love. In the essay, ‘What is a Family’, the brilliant French philosopher F. Hadjadj warns against the presumption of knowing what freedom is outside the family space, because, paradoxically, in the family one experiences a ‘freedom without independence’, that is, a freedom that in any case is played out within a network of constraints, not instead in an impossible self-sufficiency. One understands then that obedience can never be motivated by mastery, nor can it ever be identified with subjection. Obedience is fraternal understanding, filial love, nuptial complicity.
It must be understood that true obedience is reasonable and religious, not irrational; and it can be fraternal, filial or conjugal, but never servile. Obedience is the substance of family love, because in the nuptial, filial and fraternal bonds we are defined, and therefore we depend, on the gaze, the word, the care of the other: to be spouses is to choose to be chosen, to be children is to be received, to be brothers and sisters is to share the same origin. That obedience belongs intimately to the experience of love is indicated by the word itself, which has its root in the Latin ob-audire, and means to listen to another, to adhere to a relationship, to be in relationship! In this sense, obedience is not only not the opposite of freedom, but obedience makes one free, so much so that in Latin, free means 'sons'! which was clear in ancient societies: to be nobody's was to be a slave. This is also the case today, but at the moment it is difficult to understand this: rather, the idea that having ‘fewer ties is to be freer’ is passing. That this is not true, however, is told by the rates of fear and loneliness that grip the hearts of too many people.
The obedience that is faith
The Bible and the Catechism, starting with the experience of Abraham, our father in the faith, happily speak of the 'obedience in faith'. It means that obedience is an intimate quality of faith, that faith has an obediential structure. Obedience is to recognise God's fatherhood, it is to hear and put into practice His Word, it is to observe and love His holy Law, it is the desire to make His will one's own will; it is no longer existing for oneself, it is conforming to Christ and being docile to the Spirit, it is living in an original way within the ecclesial bond. We find the best demonstration of the positive value of obedience in the experience of the saints: they are the most obedient and for this very reason also the freest, the most transparent, the most original, the most innovative, the most fruitful. Yes, because obedience is the attitude of those who do not want to exalt themselves at all costs, but decide to bear witness to Christ at the cost of their lives, and in this way become original and exemplary, unmistakable and unforgettable.
Jesus, with his authority as Son and Servant "obedient unto death on a cross" (Phil 2:8), explained with simplicity the intimate relationship between obedience and freedom: "if you abide in my word, you will truly be my disciples, and you will know the truth, and the truth will make you free" (Jn 8:31). That is: obedience to the Word makes us know the truth, which alone is capable of making us truly free. Jesus' very authority is based on his obedience: he reveals the fatherly face of God because he feeds on God's Word, reports God's words, and does God's will in all things. As theology explains, Jesus' obedience to the mission he received from the Father is the historical translation of his eternal proceeding from the Father. This is why Jesus can say: “He who sees me sees him who sent me” (John 12,45).
Obedience in the house of Nazareth
In Nazareth, the obedience of faith is lived to perfection. It consists first of all in recognising how each person has a specific and marked physiognomy, an unmistakable position in God's plan: Jesus is none other than ‘God with us’, Mary is the ‘Virgin Mother’, Joseph is the ‘son of David’. Again, Jesus is the 'Holy One', Mary is the only ‘Immaculate creature’, and Joseph, despite being among sinners, is called a 'righteous man'. Obedience brings clarity, does not create confusion, does not disrupt family ties! Each person is recognised with his or her own originality, and in the Holy Family, this means three things: Incarnation of the Word, virginal pregnancy, Davidic descent, all necessary for God's plan to be realised in its fullness.
In the obedience of faith that is lived in Nazareth, however, there is nothing automatic, because in obedience, there is always something that cannot be understood, something that exceeds the possibilities of reason and displaces the orientation of freedom. Mary wonders how it is possible what God proposes to her; Joseph wonders whether in the face of God's plan in his bride, it is not good to take a step back; for both of them an inspiration from heaven, an angelic message, is needed. Jesus even submits to Joseph and Mary and keeps himself hidden for thirty years, because, as von Speyr admirably says, “He wants to experience human nature as it is transformed outside of paradise. He also wants to learn what he already knows": he wants to experience God's love as a man! And we too, in Him, are called to obedience in order to live, as men, as sons of God!
It should not be thought, however, that in Nazareth the family relationships were all an idyll: the holiness of people does not remove the inevitable tensions: in the case of the Holy Family this does not happen through a lack of love, but on the contrary through an excess of grace. Faced with Jesus, his words, his gestures and the reactions he aroused in others, Joseph and Mary were deeply astonished, amazed. When they found the twelve-year-old Jesus in the temple, although they could and should have understood, they could not. Yes, because obedience confronts the mystery and is the best opening to the mystery, for if at the moment one cannot understand, it is only through obedience that one can then understand. When Jesus is thirty years old, Mary will understand that, that Child first brought to the Temple and then found among the Temple doctors, would become the new Temple (Jn 2:19 and Mt 27:51)! And she will understand that in her, the Ark of the Covenant, the Church would take shape, in which every Christian is constituted as a "temple in the Lord" (1 Cor 3:17 and Eph 2:21).
Roberto Carelli SDB
