Obligation?

Welcome to Jeff, a guest sandblogger. Jeff is a dear friend and a gifted writer. He has a great sense of humor, and he walks with God. Thank you to Jeff.



Kim is serving on the team of an Emmaus Walk this weekend, so she invited me to be one of the guest bloggers. Her invitation is a gift to me, and my response is “yes!” And in this context, I am thinking about obligations.

During my Wednesday morning prayer group, Ken asked us to consider whether our attendance and involvement in church was out of a sense of obligation. The easy answer for me was “no.” I went on to say that I go out of a sense of commitment. My parents led me to church but never once dragged me. When I got to the age where I could make a choice, they allowed me the freedom to stay home. Sometimes I took them up on the offer and slept in.

The question about obligation stuck with me because earlier in the week I had received an e-mail that closed with “Much obliged.” I think the sender of the e-mail meant her closing as an informal “thanks,” but it is more than thanks, isn’t it? It means, “I owe you” or “I am indebted to you.” So that idea was already on my mind when Ken asked the question about church attendance. What does it mean to do something out of obligation? It has a negative connotation to me for something that is forced on me that I do not want to do, like, say homework or preparing tax returns.

You might say that everything we have is a gift from God, and we owe it to God—we have an obligation to respond to God’s grace by at least showing up for worship once a week. I’m “much obliged” to God; I am indebted to God for the gift of life and everything else; I am obligated to worship God.

I love words, and there is so much power in words. You think you know what “obligate” means? Check out the etymology. It comes from the Latin root obligare which means, literally “to bind to.” Think about how a life in community with Christ binds us together with God and each other in love.

I have re-thought my misunderstanding of “obligation.” Yes, I go to church out of obligation. Not that I must go, but that I just cannot not go.

Blest be the tie that binds our hearts in Christian love; the fellowship of kindred minds is like to that above.