In the religious horizon, obedience can acquire a theological modulation. It becomes homage to God and an exercise of faith. Thus, we can face the events of our existence, we can meet persons, can go through experiences every day with an attitude of obedience to God. This is why we can express it also as vow. In this perspective, obedience is a theological act: it is not only a moral act as in the civil area.

However, we must specify well the object of obedience. In fact, we could run the risk of identifying the will of God with the events, with the persons in authority, with the Scriptures, which transmit the event of salvation to us.

I wish to point out the attitudes, which can turn our actions into acts of obedience to God. I wish to prove how it is possible to live obedience without falling into passivity;  to act according to the prescriptions of the superiors without favouring the worldly form of power; "to inhabit" all the situations, even the senseless ones, in such a way as to allow the Spirit to give them a saving form.

I think that we need to start from the experience of Jesus. In fact, the fundamental criterion of life is, for the Christians, that of making our own "the mind of Christ" (Phil. 2,5) or, in other words, "to keep the eyes fixed on Jesus, who leads us in our faith and brings it to perfection" (Hebrew 12,2).

The obedience of Jesus

The obedience of Jesus is his welcoming constantly the Word of the Father that became flesh in him, namely his thought, his desire and activity. In fact, the incarnation is not realised in an instant, but through the whole historical existence of Jesus up to the fulfilment of Easter, when "He was designated Son of God in power by his resurrection from the dead" (Rom 1,4). Therefore, obedience constituted the area of the process of incarnation; it was the exercise of his faith. He lived faith/obedience in an exemplar way to the point of becoming a model for us.

This link was not valued by the scholastic theology, which attributed to Jesus the beatific vision from the very start of his existence. Obedience, therefore, did not include in Jesus the phase of discernment, of prayer and of suffered decision, which constitutes the area of our obedience. The type of human life which -according to the traditional opinion- Jesus lived, in the hypothesis that he saw everything in God from the very beginning, was very different from ours. Though deeply involving all the human faculties, his activity would thus fulfil the playing of a script in a drama; like an actor who plays his part integrally and faithfully, Jesus would constantly refer to the perfectly known will of the Father and would follow his word with total faithfulness. This way of reading the adventure of Jesus deprived the Gospel stories of their meaning and filled them with additional, often deforming, messages. It followed that a falsified reading expressed many aspects of the history of Jesus. The reflection of Jesus on making choices, the evaluation of circumstances and his prayer to choose with coherence, had no relevance. In fact, they were completely ignored by the Bible experts and by the theologians. Maritain spoke of a "parody of humanity"!

Faith is the first incidence of the divine action in the life of men. It would have no sense to think that the action of God in Jesus has not aroused an attitude of acceptance and listening, an attitude of faith. Jon Sobrino has observed that the scholastic thought has surprisingly finished by denying that faith constitutes the human condition, by denying it in Christ. He writes that, if we do not attribute faith to Christ, "we may call him one of us, but he is not like us in the depth of the human reality. We may highlight the humanity of Jesus at various personal-existential, social and even political levels, but if we do not accept his faith, Jesus remains infinitely distant from us and -paradoxically for theology- this would mean that faith is not essential to define the human reality"2.

Even the knowledge of God in Jesus has been progressive. He learned to pray, to read the Scriptures, to know the tradition of his people. Through this gradual growth, he became "a successful figure of the perfect believer"3. Faith and, therefore, obedience to God have reached in Jesus such richness as to allow the definitive acquisition of the "Name". "In this perspective, faith  becomes, in Jesus, the principle itself of the revealing and historical modality of incarnation and, at the same time, the foundation of that relation which realises the kingdom in his person"4.

How and whom was Jesus obedient to? He was obedient to the Father in the continuous listening to His Word. His entire existence was a listening/welcoming of the divine word/action, which flourished in Him as love up to the extreme manifestation of the cross. In particular, his passion and death are presented by the Christological hymn of Paul in his letter to the Philippians, as supreme moments of his obedience ("obedient up to death and death on a cross", Ph 2, 8).

However, to determine the specific object of his obedience in his death, we need to keep in view three interlaced data. The first one is that the death of Jesus and the sufferings preceding it were contrary to the will of God and, therefore, could not be the object of his obedience. The sufferings and the death of Jesus were the consequences of the refusal of conversion and of sins, a result of political compromises and an unjust convergence of private interests. Death, as such, was contrary to the will of God and Jesus could not have desired to die. In the situation, in which He found himself, following his proposal of religious renewal, Jesus perceived the need of continuing to reveal the love of God, of expressing the power of goodness, of showing that the Gospel he had announced was true and "saving". This revelation was in tune with the will of God. Thus, Jesus found himself in the dramatic situation of fulfilling the will of God, that is, of obeying God in an unjust and sinful situation and, therefore, contrary to his will.

When Jesus started his public life, he did it in the conviction of succeeding and of obtaining a change in the religious life of his time. Then he progressively aroused negative reactions and a deep resistance. Wherefore, He reflected on what he had to do, confronting himself with the Scriptures. He prayed and involved his own disciples in his prayer (He took with him Peter, John and James and went up the mountain to pray, Luke 9, 28). Finally, He decided to continue his journey and to go to Jerusalem (see Luke 9, 51). He was convinced that, to show the truth of the Gospel He had announced, there was no other possibility, but that of living to the depth and of waiting for a sign of God's faithfulness. Therefore, it was a need of historical character to convince him of "loving till the end" (see Jo 13,1). If He had not allowed God to manifest the truth of the Gospel He had announced, everything would have ended with his being condemned. Jesus deduced the sign of divine confirmation from the wisdom tradition (see Wisdom 2) and from the prophetic writings, particularly from the lyrical compositions of the Servant, which speak of the light seen by the Servant and the multitude of people who would recognise him.

This is why Jesus did not want his death. However, once men had decided it, He could not help going on with his mission. He wanted to go on loving, overcoming hatred and violence meekly, introducing saving dynamics and revealing God's mercy. This was the particular object of the obedience of Jesus to the Father, exercised, however, in a situation, which was contrary to the will of God.

The saving efficacy in the obedience of Jesus is not in the order of a mundane efficacy, but rather of a saving efficacy. In this sense, his project underwent a temporary scandal, which appeared as a failure. This is how the disciples and Jesus himself lived it. Jesus, however, lived his historical failure in an attitude of trustful abandonment into the hands of the Father, waiting for the realisation of the kingdom to come from Him. The resurrection was God's answer to the obedience of Jesus, for which we say that God rose Him from the dead. The saving efficacy does not concern the success of historical projects, good and just as they may be, but allows Life to realise his historical project, also through situations of failure and defeat. The project of Life is the fullness, which leads the person to a definitive identity. We can always reach this, also in the failure of our designs and perspectives.

The obedience of the disciples of Jesus

In the evaluation of the obedience to God, it is necessary to keep always in mind that the level at which the adhesion to the action of God is realised, is never the one in which the phenomena take place; this means that there is never a situation which corresponds fully to the will of God. However, every historical event can be lived in a functional way for the growth of God's children. We may say that, in the act of obedience, not only the person and the others are at play (the circumstances, the law, the superior, the oppressor, etc.), but there is always the presence of a transcendent component: the gift of God. The historical event never realises the good, the truth, justice and life fully, because all creatures are limited and imperfect. The will of God concerns the "end", the "fulfilment", the "perfection", which all the historical situations aim at. This is why the adhesion of the person who obeys is always provisional. It tends to overcome the situation and implies an "interior detachment". This is the space where prophecy inserts itself; a prophecy which is obedience to the existing transcendent dynamics within history.

When a Christian is asked to live obedience before God, he is not asked to take for granted that the situation, in which he finds himself, reflects the will of God or that the decision of the superiors identifies itself with the divine project. This judgement is not a component of obedience. In fact, there may be situations, which we may consider unjust for serious motives, and decisions, which we may dutifully doubt about.  However, to obey remains necessary.  Obedience implies the commitment of fulfilling the will of God in all the situations we live in, just or unjust, perfect or imperfect as they may be. Fulfilling the will of God means to reveal the power of good, to express the power of love, to carry on injustices in such a way as to deprive them of the negative dynamics with opposite pushes. All this happen in the situations, which we cannot evade, since they are our environment of life, fixed by sometimes casual circumstances and by the decisions of the superiors.  When this happens, we live every experience positively, namely we obey God, though in the awareness that the situations are not the best.

Moreover, obedience implies the conviction that the way we operate is always inadequate and imperfect, yet it suffices to lead us "beyond" our action and to reach the personal perfection which is fulfilled in the acquisition of "the name written in heaven" (see Luke 10, 20), the name of son/daughter.

To live the events with faith, therefore, does not mean that God wants them or that they correspond to his plans for us. It rather means that, by inhabiting them we can, in any case, "fulfil the will of God", that is, we can reveal His love and spread the dynamics of the kingdom. In the ecclesial institution, to obey does not mean to believe that the decision of the bishops and, in general, of the superiors corresponds perfectly to the will of God. In fact, it is possible cultural factors, personal tendencies or prejudice may influence their decisions, which, therefore, do not fully correspond to the will of God. However, also in these imperfect situations, and as such, not in tune with the absolute will of God, it is possible to obey God, namely, to fulfil his will. This is because when we fulfil a task with commitment and serene souls, we remain in the rules of the community life and we pursue the common good. In this sense, we fulfil the will of God. The good we make by accepting the community decisions, is habitually superior to the eventual imperfection, which their decision and execution entail. Thus, though not doing the best thing in absolute, we are able to reveal the love and the perfection of God.

The required interior attitudes

Now we can outline some spiritual attitudes required to live the above exposed will of God. We can mention four of them.

1. An on going listening to the Word of God echoed in history. Obedience to God does not consist in fulfilling actions, but rather in listening to the Word while carrying on the acts, which we must perform. The attitude of listening flows from the conviction that every situation is the expression of a richer and deeper reality, that it has a transcendent component, which can be recognised and accepted. From this derives the conviction that the experience in act is not the last expression of good and justice, it is not the fulfilled perfection, not the absolute good, not the truth. In fact, it contains tiny fragments of truth, of good, of justice. The attitude is even more fruitful when it is lived together by superiors and subjects alike.
   
    

2. This is why obedience must be constantly enwrapped in prayer, because prayer is an exercise of listening, a practice of welcoming. Since listening must be continuous, being it realised in all the concrete situations, and since the daily experiences often lead us to distraction because of their interference and annoyance, we need specific moments to practise the listening, to the end of remaining always in syntony. Prayer is a practice to remain constantly in syntony with the creating force, with the word that echoes within the events.
   
    

3. Full involvement in the situation: in fact, without a full involvement we are unable to bring to emergence the fragments of life, of good, of truth, which it contains.
   If, for instance, we obey a superior with internal reservations, with distance, saying,  "I do it because you have said it, yet I know that it leads nowhere", then it will surely lead nowhere.                                                                                        This obedience misses that involvement, which allows the fragments of good, of truth, of right to emerge, to be lived and, therefore, to appear in its efficacy and to reach its efficacy.
   
    

4. The fundamental intention must be always the "Kingdom of God". At personal level, this is the development of the spiritual dimension of the person and the spreading of new, fraternal and right styles. It is urgent not to consider the realisation of our own project, what the superior has decided, or what the event implies in itself, as criteria. The object of obedience is the flowing life, the good in search of new streets, the truth, which wants to express itself: that is, something ever greater, ever at play in our life. Wherefore, the constitutive dimension of obedience is the attention to be paid to the something "more", which constantly seeks to express itself and for which we are asked to obey.                                                                                  

When these attitudes are lived in the monasteries, in the religious or ecclesial communities, we are able to overcome the temptation of self-reference, which characterises narcissism, as well as the passive attitude of subjection, which prevents life from inventing its new forms in the different historical situations.

Therefore, religious obedience asks for a theological horizon, namely, it is an act of faith, a trustful abandonment in God, a welcoming of the gift of life, by which we can grow as sons and daughters.

The reasons we can bring to execute an order or to refuse obedience generally concern a superficial planning: to be more or less fit for a given task, being able to insert oneself harmoniously in the community, and so on and so forth. These are valid, but not sufficient reasons for a religious obedience.  They are not the reasons for which we are to obey, if we want to accomplish a theological act. The "reason" of obedience is that, in a given situation, we welcome a gift of life, which makes us grow as children of God; we are, therefore, capable to interiorize a divine gift, which nurtures our filial structure.

The "object" of obedience is not the given situation, but the gift, which it allows us to welcome. We do not say that the situation, which the superior presents, is the best or the most appropriate. Thus, to obey means; in this situation, which does not depend on me, because it is connected to decisions made by others or to casual circumstances,  I commit myself to listen to and to welcome the word of God to the end of witnessing to his love and growing as a daughter of God.

To educate to obedience, therefore, we must educate to the listening of God's Word, to the awareness of the active presence of God in our life.

Objection of conscience

Our reflection on obedience would not be complete, if we did not confront it with the possible objection of conscience. This is the expression of obedience to God, when it is in conflict with the will of men; it is the revenge of the children's freedom before the law, when it is against one's own conscience. Before the Synedrion, St. Peter expressed this principle efficiently, "we must obey God rather than men" (Acts 5,2).

During the church history, above all in the first centuries, there were several forms of objection of conscience, even in the supreme morality of martyrdom. However, as the Church went on acquiring structures of power, the objection of conscience became rarer and more difficult. During the latest centuries, the Christian morality found it difficult to admit as legitimate some forms of objection, which seemed to impose themselves as dutiful. Speaking of the objection of conscience against the military service, Pius XII said, "If a people's representation and a government … in extreme need,  with the legitimate means of internal and external politics, provide defence and realise dispositions, which are necessary, they equally behave in a non immoral way, so that a Catholic citizen cannot appeal to his conscience to refuse the services  and fulfil the tasks fixed by the law"5. Not even ten years after this talk of Pius XII, the Council gave clear indications about the legitimacy of the objection of conscience to the military service, inviting the governments to fix corresponding laws. "Moreover, for the sake of equity, the laws are to consider, in a humane way, the case of those who, for motives of conscience, are not ready to use the arms, but accept any other form of service for the human community"6. Today, this has become an official attitude in the Church, to the point that Bishops and ecclesial Movements have no difficulty in proposing, for instance the fiscal obedience against military expenses.

The objection of conscience, however, is legitimate only when it expresses faithfulness to the future of the Kingdom. Otherwise, it is the expression of private interests and selfishness, which are forms of faithfulness in the past. The true objection of conscience, therefore, is not simply a refusal, but a prophecy and the indication of a journey.