When to Disobey

This is a computer-generated transcription that has been included to make the homily searchable.  It has not been verified by the author.

“We pay to Caesar what belongs to Caesar, and to God, what belongs to God.” There’s so much light in this very simple, the simple words of Jesus, where He’s distinguishing divine authority and human authorities, and what our obligations to both are, what our obedience to both should be. And so this is a difficult question. And that the very word obedience is something that we have often a bad reaction to because there’s been so many abuses of it. And so let’s try to look and understand a little bit better. What should be our obedience to God? And what should be our obedience to human authorities? And so we get light, we always want to come to Jesus, Jesus, who is the light, who is the truth. And men have all sorts of ideas about God, our understanding of God has always very limited because God is infinite. And so we see in Jesus, how does He respond to God. So Jesus came to repair the terrible, disobedience, of lucifer, and then of Adam and Eve, and then, of so many after that. And so He comes to, He knows the Father, He knows the Father, completely, everything. He knows everything of the Father, there’s nothing of the Father that’s hidden from Him, and so He knows all He has received all the love of the Father, the Father has given everything to Him. And so if we think of Himself to the Father, and in act of love and offering in obedience, so He comes, He comes, as scripture says, Here I am, Lord, I come to do Your will.  He comes to be obedient, to respond to the love of the Father, with His gift and with His offering, so that His, His love and the Father’s love are one. And so Jesus always obeyed God. Jesus always obeyed the Father, if there’s anyone who could say, I’m intelligent enough, I’m strong enough, I’m good enough, I don’t have to obey somebody else that would be Jesus. And yet, He always sought to obey the Father. And so He gives us the privilege of knowing the ways of God, because so many people wander on the wrong path, and waste their life on the wrong path, hurting themselves and hurting other people. And we only have one life here. So how can we make the best use of it? There’s all sorts of books and experts and life coaches, which are trying to show people how they can maximize their potential and make the best use of their life. Well, Jesus is the ultimate example of how we can maximize the potential   Lord has given us. And it’s simply by following the Lord’s will, because it’s His will, which maximizes, to the degree that we can’t even imagine, the hidden potential He has placed in us. And so the path of listening to the Father’s will, is another way of saying that is to truly maximize, as some people say, to be the best version of ourselves, not according to our human understanding, but according to the infinite divine plans that God has for us. And so by obedience, we enter into that we could say like this great mighty river of God’s will, which is leading, leading all humanity to fulfillment that the Lord has planned. And instead of being like so many people who are outside the river, or fighting against the river, we can enter into and be part of this great flow of God’s path. And so there’s such, so much mystery in God’s will. But He gives us the opportunity to be part of this great will, that leads to salvation and glory. But we know that it’s not always easy. That path is not always easy to work with God. It’s not always easy, but it’s always the best path for us, the one that leads to infinite happiness. And so people often think that obedience to God is in conflict with our freedom. And because that’s a misunderstanding, of the freedom that Jesus, is calling us to is not the obedience He is calling to is not civility. It is a freedom and obedience which respects our freedom. And so many people wanting to be free from God, turn to sin and become slaves of satan. And so the Lord wants us on this path of freedom. The path of obedience is the true path of freedom. For instance, say for instance, you’re very sick. And so you have a good doctor, and this doctor can figure out what’s wrong with you, and give you the indications whether it’s medicine, or some treatment, or exercise or something that can help you get better, be free of the sickness. So you don’t consider going to the doctor and learning from him, to be him imposing his will on you, but he’s actually helping you to be more free. And so in the same way God is to free us from all the limitations that sin has caused, so that we can truly live in the freedom that He wants for His children. And so, to summarize all that, and this is because the questions of obedience and disobedience can get a little bit complex. But the simple, the simple principle is, we should always obey God. We should always obey God, there’s never a time, in which it’s better for ourselves, for anyone to disobey God. We should always obey God. But the gospel is talking about what about human authorities? What’s your attitude to be towards human authorities? We pay to Caesar what belongs to Caesar and to God, what belongs to God. So why should we obey human authorities? The Catechism says, “Every human community needs an authority to govern it. For the most basic, which is a family, to every other human community, to nations needs an authority to govern it. This is founded in human nature, to help unify, to unify the community, and to help it work for the common good.” So it’s necessary and this is something that comes from God. And already in the fourth commandment, when God says, Honor your father and mother, that is also a call to obey the legitimate role of the father and mother, and also to obey legitimate authorities. St. Paul sites, or St. Paul says, ‘Let every person be subject to the governing authorities, for there is no authority except from God, and those who exist have been instituted by God.” Now St. Paul is not saying it’s under perfect authorities. He was, at some point that he would, he was living and was even killed under the Emperor Nero, a terrible emperor. Pope Leo the 13th said, reminds us that the one we must always obey is God. He says, “the only one whom we whom we ultimately obey, the only one who we ultimately obey is God Himself. It would be unworthy of human dignity, he says, that one man should have to submit to another man who is equal to him in nature, unless the ruler rules in God’s name, and by His authority, for then we are giving the ascent to what God wills through His minister.” And so whenever we’re being a human authority, that’s always a person, of course, who has the same human nature than us, and might not be any better than us. But we’re not obeying them for their human qualities. But it’s when there are a legitimate authority of God, because then God Himself can be acting through that. So Pope then, as Pope Leo said, for them, we are giving our sin to what God wills through His minister, what God wills through His minister. So God wills that there’ll be human authorities, and that we should respect the legitimate, the legitimate directives of human authorities. But of course, there’s a great difference between human authorities and God, between obedience to God and obedience to men. Because human authorities are always limited, always imperfect. So our obedience to human authority is never unconditional, it’s always limited. And that’s been a danger in society, to make human authorities absolute. Like that was a danger and in ancient times, in which the emperor was seen as the god and whatever he said he was above any law, he could decide whatever he wanted, and everybody should obey Him no matter what it was. And that’s a grave danger when an authority tries to take away the personal freedom and responsibility that God has willed that each person have. And the common example that’s often cited is Nazi Germany. And but it’s not just Nazi Germany, it’s actually a common thing. And many situations in which people obey, just because they think they have to obey anything that superior says. Or they think that they are obeying for their own interest, to not want to suffer the consequence of disobedience, even when they know it’s something wrong. And so, we should never put a human obedience to human authority should never be put before obedience to God. God’s authority is always the ultimate authority. And so again, all human authorities, their authority is always limited. St. Thomas Aquinas says, “inferiors are not subject to their superiors in all things.” That’s a tyranny when, when a person pretends to have complete authority over somebody else, not in all things, but only in certain things, and in a particular way. For instance, the decision about a person’s vocation, for decision about a person’s vocation is certainly parents and others can give advice and help make that decision. But it’s each person who has to be free to make that decision for themselves. Or, for instance, the decision about who to marry, that it’s the person, it’s good to get good advice, but that has to be a personal decision. And no one has the right to force someone in that way. And so all human authority is always limited. And so that’s true also in the Church, not this is not just in a civil sphere, but also in the Church, that God wills that there is a sacred authority in the Church, the hierarchy, a hierarchy. It’s willed by God, but also like other human authority, it’s always limited. No human authority, even for instance, the pope doesn’t have complete authority over another human person. And so, I want to mention three cases in which this is very important, in which what might seem to be disobedience is actually a higher form of obedience. So three cases. So the first case is when what the authority is commanding is unjust. The Catechism says “authority is exercised legitimately only when it seeks the common good of the group concerned, and it employs morally licit means to attain it.” So it’s given two conditions – that authority is legitimate only when it’s truly seeking the common good. And also, when it’s using morally licit means. For instance, if a ruler is just doing something to for his own benefit, which is bad for the people, then that’s illegitimate or when we’re trying to an authority wants to do something good, but he’s using evil ways to impose it, then that would be illegitimate. So because authority is always supposed to act according to truth and love to what is truly good. And of course, there’s been many, many times and that’s been abused, like, that’s the case of the martyrs in Rome. They were being ordered to offer incense to the emperor or to false gods, and that there’s no authority, which has no people thought a lot of people thought that’s perfectly legitimate for the Emperor to do that. But there’s Christian martyrs are saying, No, this is there’s no one who has the right to force us to offer incense to what are false gods and they paid with their life. There’s also the famous example of St. Athanasius. And during the Arian heresy, when the great majority of the bishops were heretics, were supporting this heresy, and even the Pope was wavering. And then Athanasius was being ordered to comply. And he resisted, and four or five times he was sent off into exile, because he would not obey what was illegitimate. Or another example is in the reign of King Henry the Eighth, when he took control of the Church, and ordered the bishops to change things, and a lot of the bishops went along, not because they believe that was truly good, but because it was a lot easier to go along and obey than to disobey. And so a lot of the faithful lay people found themselves in a situation of having to disobey their king, and disobey their bishops to be faithful to God. So that’s the first case when an order is unjust, we aren’t, we should not obey it. Another case, is, when the situation is extraordinary in such a way that it doesn’t fall under normal conditions. For instance, we should obey the laws against speeding. And that’s a good reminder, a good reminder for a lot of people to hear that it’s good to obey the laws of speeding. But what is what if you encounter someone whose life is in danger, and they need to get as soon as possible to the hospital, then would it be legitimate to go beyond the speeding laws? Yes, it would be because this is an exceptional situation, the law was meant for the normal situations, this is an extraordinary, exceptional situation. And so in that case, it would be good to disobey the law, because you’re actually obeying a higher law. In fact,  that principle is very clear. And like in canon law, the Catholic Church, it’s so this we have this very developed canon law. But it says that the most important thing is, it says is that the supreme law of the Church is the salvation of souls. So after giving all these detailed laws about different situations that normally guide the Church, but the supreme law of the Church is the salvation of souls. And so sometimes it might be necessary to do something, which is not according to the normal situation, to obey the highest law, which is the salvation of souls. So that’s the second situation, extraordinary cases. And the third case is somewhat similar. It’s when a higher authority gives a different order. Like St. Thomas Aquinas says that if the governor gives one order, but then the king, or the Emperor gives another order, then we should obey the order of the highest authority. And so that’s especially true when speaking of God. God wants us to obey the normal human authorities that He has established. But He can, and does sometimes command something directly, particularly giving a person a particular mission, because God can do whatever He wants. And however He wants.  What he has established in the Church is for our good, and so it’s the normal means, the usual means. But sometimes He acts outside that, which might seem a contradiction, but it’s all part of His great divine plan. And if we’re listening to Him more attentively, with that can help us recognize these extraordinary situations. And so the prophets are examples of that. So God established, and the people of Israel, the priest, who worked with that with their knowledge of the law, were, who were supposed to transmit the law to the people. But then sometimes God would raise up prophets, who were not part of the normal structure, the normal system, but just people that God Himself would raise up. He chose whoever to raise up to give a special message. And it was particularly important when there was a lot of corruption. And so in those situations of corruption is often necessary to raise up prophets. That one example in Scripture is the prophet Daniel, where there’s two there’s two elders of the people who are very corrupt. And they’re trying to condemn Suzanna, and Daniel is just a boy with no particular authority, until but the Lord gives him a special grace and calls him to stand up and denounce what these authorities of Israel we’re doing. And so he had an authority which was not according to the normal hierarchy, but an authority coming directly from God. Another famous example is Joan of Arc. This young maiden, who in this critical time of France in which France was being overrun and the king was very weak. God raised up this young maiden to lead His armies, lead the armies of France to victory. And then there was this unjust trial of Joan of Arc led by a Bishop, who ended up excommunicating her and then burning her at the stake. So that was an ecclesial trial, unfortunately, but a very, of course, a very corrupt situation. And that’s the way that the apostles respond to the Sanhedrin. When they say we must obey God rather than men, when the Sanhedrin, were trying to get them to not speak anymore in the name of Jesus. And so all these cases, and all these cases, what might seem to be disobedient, is actually a higher form of obedience, is a more perfect obedience, when there’s an unjust ruling, or when there’s an extraordinary situation that doesn’t fall under the normal, normal restrictions, or when there’s a special direct command from God. And so in all of us, Jesus is our motto. Jesus was not a revolutionary who came to destroy all authority, on the contrary He always obeyed God, His father, and He obeyed human authorities, when they were not in contradiction with the authority of His father. So He was obedient to human authority when it didn’t contradict a higher authority. And so He obeyed during His hidden life. Jesus was, when he was growing up, it’s as simple as a simple carpenter ‘sson and then carpenter, He obeyed the legitimate authorities. And bet one time, there’s that time with Scripture tells us about when He was 12 years old, when He actually disobeyed His parents, who were the holiest authorities on Earth. There’s never been holy authorities, than St. Joseph and our Blessed Mother. And yet there was a time in which Jesus had to disobey them, because of obedience to His Father, not because they were doing anything wrong. But this is one of those cases, as we mentioned, which God was giving a special order. But He didn’t, didn’t say then from then on. A Scripture doesn’t say after that, that he went home and became a rebellious teenager. That’s not what St. Luke said. It said he was submissive to them. So He continued to be obedient to them, except when the Lord was asking Him, as Father was asking Him something else. So He was obedient. But when the time came for Him to begin His public ministry, which He had received by divine mandate, from His father, He listened to His father, and was perfectly obedient to His Father. And, in loving obedience, even though that would cost Him His own life, cost Him so dearly.        And so He’s given us the example of the obedience that God wants – True, holy, humble, trusting, loving obedience, that permits us to realize the designs of salvation, and to obey human authorities, when it’s part of this great divine design of salvation, but not to obey human authorities, when it’s in contradiction to that. Brother, Mikael, this coming Saturday is going to give a talk, which will go more in depth on this important topic, because there’s a lot of confusion with all the disarray in our society, and with all the disarray and confusion, and also in our Church, then this is a very important topic. And so brother will be going more in depth than I can do in this homily right now. But just to summarize, we should always obey God. And we should normally obey legitimate human authorities when they’re acting within their authority, except when it’s in conflict with a higher law. We pay to Caesar what belongs to Caesar, and to God, what belongs to God.  Amen.

KEYWORDS / PHRASES:
Matthew 22:15-21