“Why do you call Me ‘Lord, Lord,’ and do not do what I say?” (Luke 6:46)
Here is a meditation for us all. It would do well for us to call this question to mind every time we say, “Lord, have mercy,” or hear it sung in church. Unfortunately, we all know the reasons why it tends to be a title without having the implications of obedience.
A. It’s a word that’s not used much in our culture. We are proud Americans. We know the history of our nation and the revolution that made it possible for us to affirm: “All men (and women) are created equal.” The founders left all lords on the other side of the Atlantic. We are a people who honor, and even some worship, wealth—a plutocracy, not an aristocracy.
B. Jesus Christ lived among the very poor. We honor Him as our Lord because He is our Master. St. Paul writing to his spiritual son Titus begins by calling himself a servant of God, [doulos tou theu], literally, “slave.” This is the way the apostles and disciples thought of Jesus Christ in their relationship to Him. This is what He is saying to His listeners. It’s what the centurion understood to be the Lord’s authority over the unseen powers of heaven, which He commanded—the same control he had over his own servants.
C. Not only do people in our culture not always mean what they say, we take for granted others speaking to us are not necessarily forthright either. Only the naive and innocent take the promises of politicians and hyperbole of sales persons at face value. How long does it take a child to learn to discern a commercial on television or radio from the program he or she is watching? We can gather from the first three words of somebody on the other end of our telephone line if the caller is someone we want to speak with or a solicitor. Some of us more than a half century old might remember in our childhood when a handshake was as good as a contract, that a person’s word was precious to him or her, and integrity was measured by truthfulness. That’s no longer the case.
What then are the implications in calling Jesus Christ “Lord” and meaning what we say? First and utmost, unconditional surrender of our wills to His will and plan for our lives. It cannot be a now and then affair. True Christian freedom can only come about when we give ourselves completely to Jesus. It means thinking through the insight that God has a plan for the universe and for ourselves. With much spiritual growth and effort capped with the grace of the Holy Spirit, we may come to grasp that profound truth and live by it. Either we live by that wisdom or we don’t, but we cannot do so only now and then. “You shall know the truth and the truth shall set you free” (John 8:32), but only when that happens and you hold to His teachings, “Then you will know the truth.”
When we call Jesus “Lord,” we mean much more than “Master.” We are identifying Him with the heavenly Father. To avoid using the word “God,” considered more than disrespectful to the Jews, they used some euphemism: Adonai, Elohim, for example, and “Lord” being another way of addressing God without using His holy Name, as we find replete throughout the Psalms. Yes, He is our God, the second Person of the Holy Trinity, in all ways equal to the Father and the Holy Spirit. (”Light of light, true God of true God, of one essence with the Father” [Nicene Creed]). He is far more than an historical figure, regardless of the influence He made on the world and of course on ourselves.
Father Vladimir Berzonsky