Submission

WED., FEB. 19, 1992, 9:45 AM
OFFICE, PULLIAM HALL

One major theme at your Bible study group this morning was that of submission. In your culture at this time this tends to have negative connotations, which raises the issue of whether this is a portion of Holy Writ to accept as truth or ignore as cultural preference. Your comments today were mostly appropriate, but you need more insight on this matter… and I’m the best One to provide this for you.

Submission is a concept that you should view in a both/and way. In one sense it does wreak of submitting to the dominance of another or others. The implication is that a person who does this sort of required obeisance is less of a person and should stand up for her own “rights.” The major negative connotation comes from the exercise of power by one over another. In your culture now there is strong feeling against such display of power and of people submitting to the power of another.

The other extreme is that there is true merit in being submissive to a legitimate power. The model, of course, is My submission, as Jesus, to (the) power and wisdom of My Father, Almighty God, Omnipresent and Omniscient. I did the will of My Father, even unto a painful, humiliating death. Even as I cried out from the cross for mercy, I quickly regained My submission and said, clearly, “Not My will, but Thine be done.” You should see strength in this submission, the strength to do what My Father would have Me do. In turn, then, I, as Jesus and as the Holy Spirit, can ask for submission by you and by many others. There are many other tasks you could be doing now, but I call it strength that you submit to My call to you. It is a general and persistent call… away from your own wisdom to a dependence on Mine. It just becomes more insistent when you stay away for several days.

As Jesus I was perfection, and you can assume that I did My Father’s bidding throughout My life. I remain the model, but I also lived in a time and culture where this kind of submission was well accepted. As God I showed My powers often enough and in enough ways to validate the allegiance that I demanded from Jesus.

You are much less perfect, and your culture values submission only in specific instances. Even in the military, when submission to authority seems necessary for success in battle there is still the conviction that in certain circumstances officers and even ordinary service folk must question the judgment and orders of a superior. In other words, be submissive and compliant only when the commands seem reasonable and ethical. Might does not always make right.

In your medical system the ethic has been that patients and other medical personnel should be submissive to the judgment and accepted wisdom of the physician. Now that ethic is being challenged. Patients are being nudged toward giving up submission for assertiveness. Don’t be compliant until you have been given alternatives. This shall produce some “good,” but also some harm. There will be loss as well as gain. Assertiveness is a trait different from submissiveness, not necessarily and always “better.”