June 30, 2013
A Vision of Freedom
- Galatians 5:13-25
- J. C. Blankenbeker
As I thought about the sermon for this morning, I couldn’t help but be reminded of a story I once read about a substitute preacher. The story is told of a preacher who was filling in for a wonderfully gifted preacher who had become sick and needed someone to take her place on Sunday. The substitute agreed but felt inadequate in filling in for such a good preacher. When he entered the pulpit, he struggled for a metaphor that would express his humility in his task. “I feel inadequate in taking the place of your minister this morning. She is such a good preacher and brings the light…just like the sunlight through a clean pane of glass. I, on the other hand, am like the piece of cardboard that you have seen substituted for the pane in a window.”
He went on and preached a pretty good sermon…At the door after wards, a good sister of the church enthusiastically said, “Preacher, you’re no cardboard; you’re a real pane!”
That pretty well sums up how I’m feeling about this morning. But in all seriousness, as I reflected upon the scripture readings for today, I found in them, what I am calling “A vision of freedom”…a Christian vision of freedom to be more precise. And really what more appropriate time is there for us here in the United States to be pondering this idea of freedom, than just a few days before this nation’s 237th “great anniversary festival” as John Adams once described it.
The fourth of July is a great opportunity to reflect, specifically, on the meaning and nature of the freedoms we are blessed with here in the United States, but also more generally to ask ourselves the question, “what does it mean to be truly free?” Do governments and bureaucracies (of various types) or even constitutions give us our freedoms or does true freedom come from some other source?
To help us reflect on this question, from a Christian perspective, the apostle Paul was kind enough to elaborate a bit on true freedom in his letter to the Galatians. Paul’s vision of freedom is rooted in discipleship to Jesus; it is rooted in one’s active response, to God—initiated faith, and it is one’s faith in Christ that makes one truly free to make the right choices and to live a life in service to God and others.
We must also understand that Paul is not talking about the same kind of freedom that we talk about in this nation on Independence Day; he is not talking about free speech, freedom of religion or the right to petition one’s government, no, Paul is addressing more of a spiritual freedom.
You see the churches in Galatia were in turmoil; they were struggling with this concept of true freedom in Christ and Paul is writing to address this concern. Some Jewish-Christians had come to Galatia after Paul and began to preach a different gospel of Jesus; one that included following the “Law” or the “Torah” in addition to faith in Christ.
Paul’s vision of the freedom found in Christ does not include being led by the “Law” or anything else for that matter. Paul’s main argument is that true freedom is found in faith alone; faith in Jesus Christ; and Paul knows that faith in Christ changes everything in a believer’s life. Paul encouraged the Galatians to reclaim the freedom that he first preached to them.
It is somewhat ironic then that, in Paul’s vision of freedom in Galatians 5 he chooses to use a form of the same Greek word… “doulos”…meaning slave or servant… in verse 1, when he describes the restraints of the law as a “yoke of slavery”,…he then uses that same word to describe how believers in Christ are to use our freedom verse 13. “But through love,” Paul says, “become slaves to one another.” (Gal. 5:13). That is a powerful word from Paul. He is arguing that the freedom we have as believers in Christ actually subjects us to a new law…a law of love. We are literally to be servants of one another.
For Paul, freedom in Christ comes with it an obligation, a willingness…a desire…a need to be a faithful disciple to Christ…which pretty much means we stop living only for ourselves and our own desires and we start to put God first and other people before our selves.
In another use of irony, Paul turns back to the “Law” to “Torah”, summed up by the commandment to “love your neighbor as yourself,” as the guidepost as the standard for how the believer in Christ is to live in freedom. Comedian Jon Stewart of “The Daily Show”, said “Remember to love your neighbor as you love yourself. And if you hate yourself…then please---just leave your neighbor alone.”
To live out the commandment to love God and love your neighbor as yourself… requires our active participation it requires us to choose …to live into this vision of freedom…and that choice is a daily choice.
Paul uses the example of the flesh versus the Spirit as a way to understand the types of choices we have to make. A good way to think about the flesh versus the Spirit for Paul is to think of the flesh-driven choices of life as those which tend to isolate, create barriers to community and those choices that turn our focus inward on ourselves…less concerned with the needs of others. Whereas the Spirit-driven choices of life tend to break down the barriers to community, open’s one’s life to include others and the focus turns outward, away from self and toward God first and then to the needs of others around us.
We can make choices which are vindictive and self-serving, like those of Jesus’ disciples (James and John) in today’s gospel lesson, when they asked if they could bring down fire from heaven when confronted with rejection at the Samaritan village. Or we can make the choice to ignore the call of God for a time…like those who are asked to follow Jesus but had seemingly reasonable excuses that prevented them from committing themselves wholeheartedly to the task of participating in God’s kingdom.
We, like the Galatians, like Jesus’ disciples, and like those who are asked to follow Jesus all have a choice to make…we are free to choose either a Spirit-led freedom that leads to faith in Jesus (which is freedom rooted in loving and serving God and one another)… or… we are free to choose to be enslaved to a self-centered, “me” first approach to freedom, a flesh-driven freedom, which Paul would say is no freedom at all.
All of us here today have had to make some tough choices in our lives and concerning our faith. Some of the faithful, Spirit-led choices I have been privileged to see or hear about in my short time here at Northminster have been an inspiration to me. This Church has been through a lot in the 68 years since its founding. Lots of things have changed…the building has changed, the property has changed, the membership has changed, the surrounding neighborhood has changed, the leadership has changed and tragedies of various types have found their way to this community over the years.
With every moment of change or tragedy comes with it a choice; a choice to stay the course or to move on…a choice to give up because things are too difficult or a choice to keep the faith and struggle through the messiness of life together…a choice to isolate and withdraw or a choice to reach out and build community. Sometimes those choices are difficult and break our hearts.
But Paul’s vision of freedom in Christ is an invitation…it’s an invitation to relationship with Christ and Christ’s church. It’s an invitation to experience the fruits of the Spirit of God…to experience love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness, and self control.
As Paul wrote down these fruits of the spirit, we must remember that Paul was writing to a church in turmoil… a church tearing itself apart not knowing which direction to go…not knowing what to choose. Dean and professor at Duke Divinity School, Dr. Richard Hays reminds us of what Paul is getting at with the metaphor of the fruits of the Spirit. Dr. Hays writes “Fruit cannot be humanly manufactured; it can grow only organically, as God gives the growth—in this case, through the life-giving energy of the Spirit.”
The fruits of the spirit are a result as God’s faithfulness and a result of the freedom we experience in Christ Jesus. So as we celebrate this week during the national holiday on July 4th, and as we ponder meaning of true freedom…let us remember Paul’s vision of freedom in Christ…and may we choose continually to be led by the Spirit, to follow Jesus and choose to live our lives in service to others.
Thanks be to God. AMEN.