Benedictine Rules: Finding Communion through Community

January 17, 2011 by Daniel Harrell

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If stability were a vow that we made when we joined our churches, the response to dissatisfaction would be not to leave but to stay put and pitch in to help make improvements, even if you weren't directly affected by the problems yourself. Stability causes the struggles of some to be the struggles of all and the solution to be borne by all as well. It's the way Christian communities should operate. Because Benedict understood the significance of stability, he made admission into the community extremely difficult. When someone interested in joining the monastery knocked on his door, Benedict would refuse to answer, choosing instead to see if "the petitioner should show patience and persist in knocking over several days despite the harsh treatment and reluctance to admit him." If the petitioner did persist, he would be let in and given reasons over the next six months as to why he shouldn't join. If after that he still persisted, he'd be considered for inclusion, a process that took four months more.

Benedict of Nursia was born in Italy around 480 A.D. As a teenager, he traveled to Rome to study rhetoric and law. However, according to Pope Gregory the Great (Benedict's principal biographer), Benedict soon gave up "his books and, forsaking his father's house and wealth, with his mind only to serve God, he sought for some place where he might achieve his holy purpose; and in this wisdom he departed, instructed with learned ignorance and furnished with unlearned wisdom." Turning his back on a promising career, Benedict joined a similar group of compatible pilgrims and formed a small cloister dedicated to prayer, silence, and scripture study. Over time his desire for an ever more singular focus on God intensified, and he Benedict departed the cloister for an eremitical existence (which means he lived in a cave as a hermit).

His reputation as a spiritual heavyweight grew such that another cloister of monks approached him about becoming the abbot of their monastery. Benedict warned them that they had no idea what they were asking for; that their laxity was no match for his intensity. But they insisted and he gave in, much to their dismay. Benedict proved an arduous and disciplined taskmaster, kicking their spiritual butts into line in ways they hadn't even realized were out of line. They started to grumble and complain and sulk over the severity of it all. Eventually, having grown weary with Benedict's relentless determination to reform their lives, curb their vices, and cure them of their laziness, the mutinous monks decided to poison him. However that night over dinner, as Benedict was blessing the poisoned pitcher of wine, it miraculously shattered as if struck by a stone. Recognizing in this a sign of a devious plot, Benedict stormed out of their midst, shaking the dust off his feet as he went, and yelling the equivalent of "I told you this wouldn't work!" He returned with relish to his cave and to his solitude.

However, this solitude didn't last for long. Increasingly, others began to seek out his wise counsel and guidance. His number of followers mounted to the point that he had to start organizing them into clusters of twelve with an abbot to lead each cluster, modeled after the practice of Jesus himself. Benedict spent the rest of his life until his death in 547 directing these monks in accordance with his written rule. Yet monasticism was not Benedict's invention. In fact, the ascetic tradition on which monasticism was founded traces its origins directly back to the teachings of the New Testament and before. Benedict's 6th-century version was unique in that it was intended for plain people rather than priests and clergy; anyone who simply desired a closer walk with the living God in radical imitation of Christ.

Here's a taste of Benedict's Rule. In regard to sleep: "All the monks are to sleep in separate beds. Let a candle burn throughout the night. Let them sleep in their robes, belted but with no knives, lest perchance the sleeping be wounded as they toss in their dreams. This way the monks will always be prepared to rise and hurry to pray. And when they rise, they ought to encourage one another, for the sleepy make many excuses when it comes to prayer." In regard to attitude: "Under no circumstances should complaining be tolerated no matter what the reason. Anyone found complaining should be subjected to the most severe punishment." On being late for prayer: "If anyone arrives late after the first Psalm (and in order to prevent this, chant the opening psalm slowly), he shall sit not in the choir but someplace visible so that all may see him. Embarrassment will make him reform. If he were to be kept outside the chapel, he might fall asleep or indulge in idle chatter—thus giving the devil an opportunity."

And finally this: "The service of obedience is to be shown to all for by the road of obedience, you shall travel to find God." However ". . . obedience," Benedict wrote, "will be deemed acceptable to God only when his commands are carried out without fear, laziness, hesitance or protest. God will not be pleased by the one who obeys grudgingly, not only murmuring in words but even in his heart. For even if he should fulfill a command, his performance would not be pleasing to God who listens to his complainings. Work done in such a dispirited manner will go without reward; in fact unless he makes amends, he will suffer the punishment meted out to gripers." Obedience is one of those Christian words that makes your mouth pucker. A woman was telling me recently how having to obey all the rules was the reason she'd run from church in the first place. The do's and don'ts are too oppressive. Yet obedience is not your duty to rack up points on some heavenly scorecard. Obedience—derived from the root word to hear—is hearing and then cohering to the design of God for human life. Outlined by Jesus and Paul and chiseled in stone by Moses, obedience to God is freedom and joy.

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About Daniel Harrell

Daniel M. Harrell is Senior Minister of The Colonial Church, Edina, MN and author of How To Be Perfect: One Church's Audacious Experiment in Living the Old Testament Book of Leviticus (FaithWords, 2011). Follow him via Twitter, Facebook, or at his blog and website.

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