On Doing Our Duty

I attended the funeral of my childhood pastor yesterday. He was well into his nineties, had lived a good, long life whose shape was defined by faith and family. I didn’t know him well. I’m not sure that knowing the pastor well would have even been on my childhood radar as something desirable or even possible. The pastor was kind of like the librarian or the Zamboni driver at the ice rink—someone who was just always there. His sermons were not particularly riveting, nor did he exude charisma from the pulpit. He was just this stable given in my life. Actually, I should check that pernicious word “just.” In a world where so many lives are characterized by instability, chaos and confusion, where so much communication is reduced to marketing and manipulation, where so many relationships are temporary and self-serving, we could probably all use a few more stable unspectacular givens in our lives.

The one word that popped up a few times in and around the funeral was “duty.” In many ways, my former pastor’s ministry was defined by a deep desire to do his Christian duty. To follow Jesus faithfully. To have his character ever more conform to that of Jesus Christ. To set a good and holy example. I’m not sure I can remember a single sermon I ever heard him preach (I take heart from the fact that his son said the same thing!) but I do remember the sight of his little red sedan motoring down the highway on the way to yet another hospital visit. I remember him being measured and kind and morally serious. Like so many Mennonites before and since, his life seemed to be defined by duty. To not be found wanting. To be worthy of the call of ministry. To not let his Saviour down. To, as the theme verse from the service puts it, “work out your salvation with fear and trembling” (Phil. 2:12).

I’ve been thinking about that word “duty” since yesterday. On the one hand, in a time where “you do you” has kind of become our mantra, where self-expression and personal liberty have become our de facto gods (outside and inside the church), we could surely do with moving the needle back in the duty direction. To follow someone who is not ourselves. To do something because Jesus tells us to (and because Jesus is smarter and better than we are). To recognize that there is a (much) higher aim to a human life than self-actualization or self-optimization or whatever our selves are busying themselves with at the moment. To choose hard roads and narrow ways because we realize that we need to be formed by something higher than what emerges out of our sin-sick hearts.

And yet…  Duty can be (and regularly is) experienced as a crushing burden. This is as true in the pietistic world of evangelicalism that I grew up in as it is in the more progressive space I now inhabit. I spent last week in Ontario attending a now triennial national gathering of our denomination. Calls to personal holiness may have been blessedly absent (for some) but there were plenty of calls to do our duty when it came to the issues dominating the social justice landscape. Whether it was relationships with our indigenous neighbours or our response to climate change or issues around gender and sexuality or adopting the correct position on Israel and Palestine or becoming more culturally diverse in our churches, the call was pretty clear. Do better. After about three days of this, I was in a conversation with a few others about what we were making of the conference thus far. One person said, “I’m getting weary of hearing, in some form or another, ‘Stop sucking so much.’” Indeed.

If we wish to speak of duty (either the pietistic or progressive versions of it) we must locate it in the appropriate theological context. It is a response of gratitude to the good news of the gospel of which is that Jesus Christ came to save sinners who cannot save themselves. And Christian duty is attempted by human beings who only ever see in part, who remain sinners, and who therefore must remain humble. We do not know as much as we think we do. We are not (nearly) as righteous as we imagine ourselves to be. We often make things worse when we are convinced that we are making things better. We regress when we imagine we are making progress, and we move forward when it feels like we are failing. This is who we are and who we have always been.

Perhaps most importantly, duty by itself often lacks joy. This is so often true of zealous pietism. Many resolutely set to the task of working out their salvation with fear and trembling exhibiting little outward evidence that this could be the path to abundant life (to be clear, I am not suggesting this of my former pastor!). It is also true of more progressive calls to activistic duty, which can also reduce to an equally grim and futile attempt to work out our salvation, if of a more terrestrial kind. And of course, both approaches frequently come with no small amount of self-righteousness toward those who aren’t trying as hard, who still suck too much at all the things we imagine Jesus expects of us.

Jesus did not come to pile burdens on already burdened people. He came to lift them. He came that we might have joy and have it in full. He did not come simply to tell us to “stop sucking” but to take all of our sucking and expose, heal, and forgive it. He came to give rest to the weary, mercy to those who keep on doing what they don’t want to do, liberation to the captives, and welcome to the prodigals. He came to proclaim and embody news that was genuinely good—that God’s love for sinners is the strongest, deepest, and truest given in the universe. God help us if we reduce this to some version of “stop sucking so much.” Duty has its place. But its place is and must only be the response of love to Love.