164 Mandates

    (Note: This blog entry is based on the text for “Mandates”, originally shared on November 8, 2021. It was the 164^th video for our YouTube Channel, Streams of Living Water (https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCB7KnYS1bpHKaL2OseQWCnw), co-produced with my wife, Rev. Sally Welch.)

   Many people are very concerned about mandates that require certain behaviors of them in order to take part in civil society. What are mandates, and what specific things do Christians believe that can be of help in deciding how to respond to them? Today, we’re going to find out.

   Each year in the Christian calendar, we celebrate Maundy Thursday. It happens during Holy Week, the week before Easter.

   Maundy Thursday marks the Last Supper, the first celebration of Holy Communion, on the night in which Jesus was betrayed. It includes the washing of the feet of the disciples by Jesus as a witness to serve one another, and the giving of a new commandment by Jesus.

   “Maundy” is an Old English word rooted in the Latin word “mandatum”, which means “commandment”. “Mandatum” is also the root word for “mandate”.

   Christians are now responding to mandates given by governments, employers, teams and schools to get vaccinated and to wear masks or to not participate normally in those institutions. I think that we can find a great deal of inspiration for how to respond to mandates in the events of Maundy Thursday.

   The whole text is in John 13:1-17, 31b-35, but Jesus gives the new commandment at the end, in verses 34-35,

³⁴ I give you a new commandment, that you love one another. Just as I have loved you, you also should love one another. ³⁵ By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.”

   This is how a Christian approaches mandates. We ask what is the best way to express our love for one another, not for ourselves. We start, not with an assertion of personal freedom, though we are free, but with an assertion of personal service.

   Martin Luther, the 16^th century Church reformer, taught that God rules the world through two kingdoms, the kingdom of this world so that governments are to be measured by what God is calling them to do, and through the Kingdom of God at work in the Church, so that the Church is to be measured by what God is calling it to do. God rules in different ways, but God rules through both.

   So, the first question a Christian asks when given a mandate by the government or the Church is, “Is my government, or the Church, acting in accord with God’s will for the people”? That is, “How does this fulfill God’s vision for a good society”?

   In his work “On the Freedom of a Christian (aka “A Treatise on Christian Liberty”), Luther wrote, "A Christian man (or woman) is the most free lord of all, subject to none. A Christian man (or woman) is the most dutiful servant of all, and subject to everyone."

   Our behavior is not rooted in the requirements of the law, but in the new Creation we have been made to be in Jesus Christ. Our behavior is rooted in the love for one another that comes from our love for God.

   When some of the disciples had been caught up in seeking their own personal well-being, Jesus responded, in Matthew 20:25-28,

²⁵ But Jesus called them to him and said, “You know that the rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them, and their great ones are tyrants over them. ²⁶ It will not be so among you; but whoever wishes to be great among you must be your servant, ²⁷ and whoever wishes to be first among you must be your slave; ²⁸ just as the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.”

   The mandate we were given on Maundy Thursday is that we live in love to serve one another, as Jesus came to serve us. This new commandment, or mandate, is to love one another.

   Years ago, there was a restaurant/drive-through in San Dimas called “Bravo Burgers”. There’s still one in Pomona, but I still miss it here.

   Most of their food packaging had “Phil 4:13” written on it. Philippians 4:13 says,

I can do all things through him who strengthens me.

   The owner said that he put that verse on his packaging out of gratitude to God.

   But, he said, “There isn’t a day that goes by when someone doesn’t come in and ask, ‘Who’s Phil?”

   Philippians 4:13 is often seen and quoted as meaning that, in anything I want to do or don’t want to do, God strengthens me. But that’s not what it says.

   The context of that verse is this, Philippians 4:11-13,

¹¹ Not that I am referring to being in need; for I have learned to be content with whatever I have. ¹² I know what it is to have little, and I know what it is to have plenty. In any and all circumstances I have learned the secret of being well-fed and of going hungry, of having plenty and of being in need. ¹³ I can do all things through him who strengthens me.

   Paul is writing to the Church at Philippi to answer their concern for him by saying that serving Jesus Christ is all that matters, our personal need or lack of need is irrelevant to our service in Jesus Christ.

   This is at the very core of what it means to be a Christian. Paul nailed this down in an earlier passage in his letter to the Philippians, in chapter 2, verses 2-8,

. ⁴ Let each of you look not to your own interests, but to the interests of others. ⁵ Let the same mind be in you that was in Christ Jesus,

⁶ who, though he was in the form of God,
    did not regard equality with God
    as something to be exploited,
⁷ but emptied himself,
    taking the form of a slave,
    being born in human likeness.
And being found in human form,
⁸     he humbled himself
    and became obedient to the point of death—
    even death on a cross.

   Can love be commanded? Yes, but not for our behavior alone, but because we have been fundamentally transformed by the love of God in Jesus Christ demonstrated on the cross, the love that shapes us in the Holy Spirit, the streams of living water within us, and the love of the church for us and expressed through us.

   How many coronavirus or variant deaths would be acceptable in our churches? None. Should the church be known as an institution that is indifferent to community health? No. Should we be willing to risk the lives and health of others as long as our own is not at risk? No

   Is there any risk in receiving the vaccine? Some think there is. So, is it an expression of the kind of love with which God first loved us, to say, “I’ll let others be the guinea pigs?” Or, “I’ll let others get the vaccines until we reach herd immunity, and then I’ll be fine?” Or, “I’m not old or immuno-compromised so I’ll take my chances and if I transmit the virus to those at risk, ‘O well…’”.

   What is the best expression to others of the sacrifice of Jesus on the cross instead?

   Maundy Thursday reminds us of Jesus’ mandate, “that you love one another. Just as I have loved you, you also should love one another.”

   So the question to ask ourselves, as Christians living in response to God’s gift to us of the living relationship with the one true living God when considering mandates, is “What is best for others?”

   Wearing your mask, getting a vaccine, whatever we think they accomplish for ourselves says to others, “I care about you.” You don’t do it for yourself, you do it for others. We live for others because we belong to God.

   As Paul writes in Romans 14:7-8,

⁷ We do not live to ourselves, and we do not die to ourselves. ⁸ If we live, we live to the Lord, and if we die, we die to the Lord; so then, whether we live or whether we die, we are the Lord’s.