First Presbyterian Church Hallock, Minn.
June 27, 2010
Set Free for Freedom
Gal. 5:1, 13-25
Most of the time, I choose my texts for preaching based on the Revised Common Lectionary. The lectionary is a list of texts for each sunday that thousands of churches around the world use each week. I like the lectionary because it challenges (or forces) me to preach on different texts than I might otherwise. This is one of those sermons. I’ll be at our PC(USA) General Assembly next Sunday — July 4th — and I have to admit, I was perfectly fine getting out of the tricky business of preaching on a US holiday.
On Independence Day we celebrate our Americanness, our heritage and patriotism. It’s a messy Sunday on which to preach because the gospel of Christ isn’t really about our American identity at all. So I was perfectly happy that coincidentally my General Assembly assignment would call me away from the pulpit on July 4th. And then I read the lectionary passage today from Galatians and thought, “Geez, either God or those lectionary compilers really has a sense of humor — probably both.”
Were you listening? As we prepare for the July 4th celebration of our free country, we read from Galatians 5 that’s all about, well, freedom. Turns out I didn’t miss the tension July 4th brings at all.
Maybe this is because freedom isn’t really an American concept — well, it certainly is an American value, but it’s not solely an American one. The story of the Hebrew people in the Old Testament tells of a man named Moses whom God chose to lead the Israelites from their slavery to freedom. “Let my people go” Moses told Pharaoh, and eventually they were given liberty.
Jesus talked about freedom too. In John he said, “If you continue in my word, you are truly my disciples; and you will know the truth, and the truth will make you free.” Jesus modeled for us a life lived freely and completely before God.
Freedom is not unique to one country. Heck, consider our country’s history in which Africans were brought to our so-called “free country” and sold into slavery. And ironically, astoundingly, what kept many of those slaves going was their Christian faith in a liberating God, a God who would break down the barriers set up by their white (often Christian) owners.
Freedom. It’s American, but not only. Freedom. It’s Christian but not simply. Freedom.
Paul writes in Galatians, “For freedom Christ has set us free. Stand firm, therefore, and do not submit again to the yoke of slavery” (Gal 5:1).
In The Freedom of the Christian, Martin Luther wrote, “A Christian is a perfectly free lord of all, subject to none. [and at the same time] A Christian is a perfectly dutiful servant of all, subject to all.” Both perfectly free, subject to none and perfectly dutiful, servant of all. Sound like a paradox…what gives?
Let’s take a look at this Galatians passage and see what Paul is up to. Remember the context we talked about a few weeks ago. Things are a little off in the church in Galatia. Factions are fighting over this and that, but the main question seems to be this: do the Gentiles who have come to believe in Jesus Christ, do the Gentiles have to become Jews to follow God…or can they just be Jesus-believing Gentiles? If they had to become Jews, then they would have to be circumcised and follow all the Jewish laws and practices.
(This analogy is a little weak, but it’s sort of like, during the World Cup now that the US is knocked out, when two teams of other countries are playing and you’re watching. Can you root for one team or another without losing your American identity and support for the US team? Paul says sure you can, but some other groups are saying, “no way Jose. You can’t root for another team unless you totally become one of us, move to our country, become a citizen, enroll with the Selective Service, the whole nine yards.)
Paul is pretty clear about his position: Gentiles don’t you dare submit yourselves to more rules and regulations, he says. By Christ you are made free. Don’t be a slave to the law. By Christ you are called to freedom!
Then Paul describes what sort of freedom this freedom in Christ turns out to be. Sometimes when we think of freedom we think blank slate, anything goes, whatever works type freedom. I once heard this artist being interviewed about his childhood. I don’t remember the name of the scholar, but his parents followed this professor guy who advocated that the best way to raise children was to give them complete freedom. You were to never tell your child “no.” Now you could explain why a decision might not be a smart one — “Timmy, I don’t think you would like touching that stove right now because it is very hot and the nerves in your skin would cause a painful feeling if you touched the hot stove” — but this parenting philosophy said you could never say “no” to your child. Your children were to have complete freedom in their decisions.
This guy who was being interviewed, reflecting on his upbringing, seemed amazingly well-adjusted given his parents’ philosophy. He said his parents were almost completely consistent and supportive of the philosophy until the day his brother made some cardboard wings and climbed up on the roof ready to fly. His mother couldn’t say he wasn’t allowed to try to fly by jumping off roof. He had the freedom to attempt it. But, after a very short flight, and on the way to the hospital, his mother started really doubting this completely free approach to parenting.
The freedom Paul writes of is not a no-holds-bar open-ended freedom, but one grounded in love. “Don’t use your freedom as an opportunity for self-indulgence,” Paul writes, “but through love become slaves to one another. For the whole law is summed up in a single commandment, ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’”
The way Paul sees it, you’ve got two options when you live in freedom. You can live by the Spirit or you can live by the flesh. Now this spirit/flesh distinction is tricky, because it’s not what we first think about, probably. It’s decidedly not the case, for Paul, that “flesh” means things of the body and “spirit” means things of the mind or heart. No, as George Stroup explains, the spirit/flesh distinction goes more like: “to live in the world in the power of the flesh is to live in bondage to sin, turned away from God and neighbor. To live in the world in the power of the Spirit of Christ is to live joyously before God and freely with one’s neighbors” [Before God, p. 130].
Paul uses those long lists, the works of the flesh and the fruit of the Spirit. Paul isn’t saying that the works of the flesh have to do with your body — in fact, most of them idolatry, enmities, strife, anger, jealousy, quarrels, factions — have to with how we live in community.
Paul isn’t saying you’ve got two options for your freedom: your body which is bad and your spirit is good. Instead, he’s calling folks to freely use their bodies, hearts, mind, soul and strength to live in the freedom of Christ. And truly living free lives for Christ produces the fruit of the Spirit: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control.
Did you catch that? This freedom thing isn’t really about personal freedom, not really. Freedom in Christ is always about how we live in community, how we love one another, how we act peacefully with self-control towards each other. Reinhold Niebuhr put it this way, “Basically love means…being responsible, responsible to our family, toward our civilization, and now by the pressures of history, toward the universe of humankind.”
So we’re beginning to see what Martin Luther meant when he said we are both perfectly free, subject to none and perfectly dutiful, servant of all. This section of Paul’s letter to the Galatians ends with the call to live by and be guided by the Spirit. Christian freedom doesn’t let us off the hook, it’s freedom for, freedom for love, service, the glory of God.
The same general concept is true, I think, of our freedom as American citizens. Some of our greatest rights and privileges in this powerful nation is our freedom to act, to organize, to keep making our country a better place to live and work — not just for us as individuals, but for the whole community. We squander that freedom when we rest on our laurels because our lives are easy enough, or our freedoms are safe enough.
We always ought to be working, as Christians and as Americans, for a country that is concerned for the least of these, caring for each and every of our neighbors, fruitful and just not only for the rich and powerful, but for the poor and lowly.
Many preachers will talk about American as a “chosen people,” but I like how the preacher Joanna Adams puts it when she calls the United States a “servant people.” She says we are “called to be a servant people” then uses the words of scripture, a servant people “bringing good news to the oppressed, modeling justice, proclaiming liberty to the captives.”
A servant people — both free, and slave to all. A servant people — both grateful for what’s given to us, and quite aware that our nation is nowhere close to perfection. A servant people — free to serve, free to live for one another, free to love God and neighbor with all our heart, mind, soul, and strength. Freed to be Christ’s servant, now and forever. Amen.
Tags: 13-25, freedom, freedom in christ, Gal. 5:1, liberty, paul, sermon
Adam, Are you volunteering @ GA or doing PCOCS stuff? Was with David Eicher last week at MoPAM. Have a good time @ GA