First Reading:
51When the days drew near for him to be taken up, he set
his face to go to Jerusalem. 52And he sent messengers ahead
of him. On their way they entered a village of the Samaritans to make
ready for him; 53but they did not receive him, because his
face was set toward Jerusalem. 54When his disciples James
and John saw it, they said, Lord, do you want us to command fire to
come down from heaven and consume them?
55But he turned
and rebuked them. 56Then they went on to another village.
57As they were going along the road, someone said to him,
I will follow you wherever you go.
58And Jesus said
to him, Foxes have holes, and birds of the air have
nests; but the Son of Man has nowhere to lay his head.
59To another he said, Follow me.
But he
said, Lord, first let me go and bury my father.
60But Jesus said to him, Let the dead bury
their own dead; but as for you, go and proclaim the kingdom of
God.
61Another said, I will follow you, Lord; but
let me first say farewell to those at my home.
62Jesus
said to him, No one who puts a hand to the plow and
looks back is fit for the kingdom of God.
Second Reading:
5For freedom Christ has set us
free. Stand firm, therefore, and do not submit again to a yoke of
slavery. 2Listen! I, Paul, am telling you that if you let
yourselves be circumcised, Christ will be of no benefit to
you. 3Once again I testify to every man who lets himself be
circumcised that he is obliged to obey the entire law. 4You
who want to be justified by the law have cut yourselves off from
Christ; you have fallen away from grace. 5For through the
Spirit, by faith, we eagerly wait for the hope of
righteousness. 6For in Christ Jesus neither circumcision
nor uncircumcision counts for anything; the only thing that counts is
faith working through love. 7You were running well; who
prevented you from obeying the truth? 8Such persuasion does
not come from the one who calls you. 9A little yeast
leavens the whole batch of dough. 10I am confident about
you in the Lord that you will not think otherwise. But whoever it is
that is confusing you will pay the penalty. 11But my
friends, why am I still being persecuted if I am still preaching
circumcision? In that case the offense of the cross has been
removed. 12I wish those who unsettle you would castrate
themselves!
13For you were called to freedom, brothers and sisters;
only do not use your freedom as an opportunity for self-indulgence,
but through love become slaves to one another. 14For the
whole law is summed up in a single commandment, You shall love your
neighbor as yourself.
15If, however, you bite and
devour one another, take care that you are not consumed by one
another. 16Live by the Spirit, I say, and do not gratify
the desires of the flesh. 17For what the flesh desires is
opposed to the Spirit, and what the Spirit desires is opposed to the
flesh; for these are opposed to each other, to prevent you from doing
what you want. 18But if you are led by the Spirit, you are
not subject to the law. 19Now the works of the flesh are
obvious: fornication, impurity, licentiousness, 20idolatry,
sorcery, enmities, strife, jealousy, anger, quarrels, dissensions,
factions, 21envy, drunkenness, carousing, and things like
these. I am warning you, as I warned you before: those who do such
things will not inherit the kingdom of God. 22By contrast,
the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness,
generosity, faithfulness, 23gentleness, and
self-control. There is no law against such things. 24And
those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its
passions and desires. 25If we live by the Spirit, let us
also be guided by the Spirit.
Our text from Galatians today begins and ends with the concept of freedom. And since today is the day we set aside as a nation to celebrate the freedoms we have in this country, I thought that would be a great place to focus. The very idea of freedom shapes our values and our worldview. As people who live in the United States it's one of our most deeply held ideals. Just about everyone who runs for public office talks about maintaining the fundamental freedoms we have as part of our identity as a nation and as people… and freedom, like so many other ideas and ideals has lots of different meanings to lots of different people. So I thought that as we look forward to celebrating our country's freedom with fireworks and food and friends this evening, it might be good this morning to look at our notion of freedom and what it means for us as followers of Christ. For as Paul said, Christ has set us free for freedom.
Now, the first and perhaps most obvious meaning of freedom is what I
like to call freedom from.
It's an absence or a removal of
social or economic or political oppression: it's liberation from
something that holds us down. This is fundamentally the kind of
freedom that we celebrate on the Fourth of July as we commemorate the
birth of a nation that differentiated and separated itself from a
ruler who was perceived as a tyrant living thousands of miles away
across the ocean. This kind of freedom from oppression brings
independence and at least the possibility of self-determination. This
is the kind of freedom Martin Luther King Junior talked about when he
said Freedom is never voluntarily given by the oppressor. It must
be demanded by the oppressed.
It's the kind of freedom the people
of Israel experienced when Moses led them out of Egypt and across the
dry land of the Red Sea… This is the kind of freedom our
country has said we're trying to bring about for others in at least a
couple of parts of the world right now.
Often, those of us who have never experienced blatant forms of oppression take this kind of freedom for granted… Personally, I'm glad that our national predecessors didn't, and I know that historically our faith community hasn't either. Both of our parent denominations, the PC(USA) and the United Church of Christ have very strong records of working against a variety of forms of oppression… they view it as an integral part of the Christian witness because there are places in the bible that explicitly say that part of our task is to identify with and care for the oppressed, the helpless, the outcast and the poor. In our culture and our society, to identify and to care for those people means first getting to know them as people and second, working on their behalf to eliminate the oppression and injustice that holds them down… especially for people who can't do that kind of work for themselves. There are other levels and kinds of freedom many of which can't even be glimpsed, let alone reached without first being freed from what holds us back… For freedom Christ has set us free.
And when people realize this freedom from
whatever is holding
them down, a whole new world is opened up with a new kind of freedom
that I like to call freedom to.
This is the kind of freedom
that allows an ability to choose from a wide variety of options. It's
the freedom of someone standing in an unintimidated ballot box when
they are able to cast a vote for anyone they want… there's even
space for a write-in candidate. The first amendment to the
constitution of the United States guarantees certain freedoms: freedom
of religion, freedom of speech, freedom to assemble, freedom of the
press and they all promise that a variety of options in practice will
be open and that we, as citizens governed by the document, will be
able to choose between the possible options… these
are freedoms to.
And there's an interesting dilemma that arises with a freedom to
choose from a variety of options. Ghandi put it this way…
Freedom is not worth having if it doesn't include the
freedom to make mistakes.
And there are some who go even further
by not only allowing for mistakes, but say that you are not free if
you're not free to choose wrong and even to choose irresponsibly. And
you know, they're right… this is also the freedom of a college
freshman who's away from home and away from parental oversight for the
first time. You can't have a one-sided freedom… if you are only
able to choose what is good, than what you have is only partly a
choice. Paul knew that and so right after he proclaimed that the
Galatians had freedom, by saying that it's for freedom Christ has set
us free, he immediately encouraged them, so don't submit again to a
yoke of slavery. And in case they didn't get what he was talking
about, a few verses later, he gave a whole laundry list of things that
might be a yoke of slavery. fornication, impurity, licentiousness,
idolatry, sorcery, enmities, strife, jealousy, anger, quarrels,
dissensions, factions, envy, drunkenness, carousing, and things like
these
Every one of those things are alive and well in our society
as they were in his… and if we wanted to, we could probably add
more… in fact, you probably already know the things that tend
to grab hold of you that might be considered a yoke of slavery…
So feel free to add your personal struggles to the list. Paul says to
the Galatians, with the freedom Christ has given, you have the ability
to choose unhelpful and perhaps unhealthy things…and if you so
desire, there's no one who's going to forcefully stop you from
embracing the shadow side of everything you have the freedom to
do… but that's not what you're here for. In our day and age the
kind of freedom Paul warns against is flaunted all over the place. It
seems like if you have enough money, prestige, power, popularity or
some other kind of influence, you can do pretty much anything you want
to and get away with it.
I saw that phenomenon as a high schooler. I remember as a kid people
would ask me what I wanted to do when I grew up… when I was
young I would respond with the normal kid answers… I want to be
a fireman… I want to be an astronaut… there were even
times I was really ambitious and I would say that I wanted to be a
dinosaur… but by the time I was late in high school I came up
with what I thought was the perfect answer to that question…
whenever someone asked what I wanted to do when I grew up I said I
want to have enough money and time to do whatever I want to do
whenever I want to do it.
I wanted to be unencumbered… I
wanted to be free to do anything and everything that appealed to me.
That's the kind of freedom that we so often associate with life in
this country… there's no doubt about it… freedom from
what oppresses is essential. Freedom to choose from a wide variety of
possibilities is wonderful… And it wasn't until a few years
later when I realized that there is still a deeper sense of freedom
that brings with it a more fulfilling experience. Nations and people
might be able to provide freedom from
and even freedom
to
… but that deeper sense of freedom I'm talking about is
what I call Freedom for
and as it turns out, that's the kind of
freedom Paul seems most interested in communicating to the
Galatians… You were called to freedom, he says and the question
becomes what are you going to do with it. And it's surprising, at
least it was to me, that right in the middle of his discussion about
freedom, Paul urges the people who have been freed to become
slaves… but not in the old way of being slaves where you're
held captive by something… and not by becoming slaves to your
own self interest… Christ has made you free, he says, so in
love become slaves to one another. Deeds done in Christian freedom
aren't done only to satisfy some sense of duty or demand…
they're guided by addressing the real needs of real people. Actions
taken in Christian freedom aren't dependent on what sort of response
those actions may bring, they're based on doing what's right for the
particular circumstance at a particular time. Decisions made in
Christian freedom aren't made out of fear or anxiety, they're based on
understanding who God is, trusting that God is for us, and a desire to
give something back to the God who has given us so much.
You see fundamentally freedom is a gift from God and the way to
experience freedom is to knowingly and willingly bind ourselves to God
as God has already bound God's self to us. To be mindful of what's
important, to seek God's desire, to understand God's character and to
go where God leads. Where we are free, we have been given freedom for
a reason and that reason is to follow God's call in love and in
service. And so tonight, as we watch fireworks and celebrate
freedom… don't only consider what we have been freed
from… as we see the rocket's red glare and the bombs bursting
in air remember also to turn toward God with joy and consider what we
have been freed for. The whole of the law is summed up in the single
commandment You shall love your neighbor as yourself.
May we
have the courage to live it in freedom. Amen.
The foregoing sermon was given by Rev. Dan Holland at the United Parish of Bowie on July 4, 2010.
© 2010 Daniel Holland
