But For What?
Dr. Jim Wilson, June 27, 2010 If I were to ask you, “What is the one word that best captures what it means to be an American?” what would you answer? Freedom would be my choice as well. Now what if I were to ask, “What image best captures this notion of freedom?” what would you say? I agree---the Statute of Liberty. For nearly 125 years, Lady Liberty has stood at the entrance to New York Harbor welcoming those yearning to be free. Each time I see the Statute of Liberty, I remember an incident several years ago in Joliet when I listened to immigrants who had come to this country as children tell of what it meant to them and their families to see the Statute of Liberty for the first time. They had fled tyranny and oppression in Eastern Europe. Their passion for freedom embarrassed me and those who like me who had taken this freedom for granted. I will never forget their witness. Let me pose a second question. If I were to ask you, “What is the one word that best describes the soul of the Christian faith?” what would you answer? That is a bit more difficult, perhaps. Yes, freedom would also be my answer. If I were to ask you, “What image best captures this freedom?” what would you say? I believe the Cross is that image. It is clear that St. Paul would agree wholeheartedly. For him the Cross is the symbol of God’s grace overcoming the powers of this world to set us free for the gift of salvation in Christ Jesus. Freedom is for Paul the hallmark of the Christian faith. Now if I pushed this discussion up a couple of more notches and asked, “How would you define this freedom we enjoy as Americans and this freedom we have been given in Christ Jesus?” how would you respond? My guess is you would respond rather quickly with a list of such freedoms---freedom from tyranny, from political and religious persecution, from violence, from violations of basic rights and so on. And for Christian freedom, you probably would answer, freedom from the law and its requirements, from sin, from death from the powers and principalities of this world, etc. You would be spot on. These are good and truthful answers. However, their focus is on what we are free “from,” not what we are free “for.” This morning I want us to focus on what we are free “for,” asking ourselves, “I have a good idea of what God’s love has freed me from, but what does this love free me for?” It is this aspect of freedom I hear Paul speaking about in our text. Paul spends the first four chapters of his letter establishing a theological understanding of how we are justified; that is, made right with God. You will recall that there are those in the Galatian churches who are demanding that Gentile converts be required to obey the Jewish Law, especially the rite of circumcision, in order to be considered Christians. Paul takes on these “Judaizers” in a lengthy and tightly-woven argument which concludes that such demands are incompatible with the faith he teaches; that since the faithful are justified not by works of the Law but by the grace of God received by faith in Jesus Christ, such demands are inconsistent with the Gospel. Christians, in other words, have been set free from the demands of the Law and all human efforts to gain justification. That is the Good News! That is the freedom we have in Christ Jesus. He makes this clear with his opening words: “For freedom, Christ has set us free.” But he just as quickly offers a word of warning: “Stand firm, therefore, and do not submit again to the yoke of slavery.” This has been his experience. Christians set free in Christ Jesus, but then finding freedom difficult, slip back into the security of the Law, that “yoke of slavery.” That is the danger posed by the Judaizers and their demands. To force Gentile Christians to obey the Law would be a denial of the freedom they received and make them again prisoners of the Law. Thus, he warns the Galatians to be resolute in maintaining the freedom the Gospel gives. Paul then gets specific. He warns the Galatians to celebrate their freedom but not use it as “an opportunity for self-indulgence.” He follows the warning with a rather peculiar understanding of freedom: “…do not use your freedom as an opportunity for self indulgence, but through love become slaves to one another.” How counterintuitive is that? Freedom for the Christian is found in servanthood. Such is the nature of Christian freedom. Paul reminds the Galatians and us that that the whole law is summed up in one word or commandment according to Jesus---“You shall love your neighbor as yourself.” Here is what we are freed for---the love of neighbor. Of course, God’s grace frees from the law, sin, death etc. But it frees us for loving the neighbor. He is not ignoring the call to love God. He is simply emphasizing the ethical demands the Gospel makes. Paul concludes his discussion of Christian freedom by drawing a contrast between two opposing life orientations---that of the flesh and that of the Spirit. This is not a contrast between our lower and higher natures. Rather it is a contrast between where life is grounded. The flesh is life grounded in the old unredeemed order marked by the powers of sin and death. The Spirit, by contrast, is life grounded in God’s grace and marked by freedom, joy, and hope. Certain behaviors express these orientations and Paul enumerates several of them. The works of the flesh are behaviors like fornication, impurity, idolatry, enmity strife jealousy, envy, drunkenness and the like. The fruit of the Spirit are behaviors like love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness and self control. Note how the works of the flesh are destructive to relationships while the fruit of the Spirit build community. Freedom, Paul concludes, is for building and strengthening community. Christian freedom nurtures our life together. I believe this teaching of Paul speaks a timely Word to us. His warnings speak to what I perceive to be a very real threat to our freedom as Christians and in a similar way to our freedom as Americans. The threat of submitting the yoke of slavery is very real. I see this possible threat in three particular ways, The first is that we simply find freedom too difficult, too challenging and are lured by the easy life promised by servitude. After all, to live in freedom is hard work, filled with decisions that must be made, responsibilities that must be met, attempting to follow Jesus rather than popular culture, struggling with how to live a faithful life. Sometimes we react like the Israelites as they contended with the demands of freedom on the Exodus. They longed for life back in Egypt where meals were provided, decisions were made for them, and responsibilities were few. Such is the lure of servitude---ease and security. But such is the yoke of slavery. Freedom isn’t free. It comes at a cost. Dan and Julie joined Grace Church in Joliet. They were excited about being a part of the church. Soon, however, that excitement began to wither. They wanted me and others church leaders to tell them what to believe and how to believe it, what to do and how to do it---not in general terms but in detail. We had several conversations. I encouraged them to pray, to talk with others, to join a Bible Study all so they could grow in their faith. But I told them I would not tell them what they had to do because they had to shape their own discipleship. They eventually left Grace Church and joined a fundamentalist church that was only too eager to tell they what to believe and do. Later I heard they had become dissatisfied and left there as well. The Gospel frees us to walk as faithful disciples and that means we must take responsibility for our lives and decisions. This is not easy. Yet freedom never is! A second danger to our freedom is for us to regard freedom in overly individualistic terms, so much so that freedom is reduced to my rights, my desires, and my hopes without any thought of the community. I think we live in a culture where such a notion of freedom is prominent and is encouraged. Freedom for so many means simply doing what I want, when I want, and as often as I want and any restrictions on me is a violation of my freedom. Such is not the freedom we have in Christ Jesus. We are freed from the Law but not from the community. We are freed from the Law but not from the call of our neighbor. Paul’s most basic point about Christian freedom is this: We are freed from the Law and freed for loving service. That is what it means to be free in Christ Jesus. He is well aware that if freedom becomes merely individual prerogatives there will be self-indulgence, people will “bite and devour” one another in the name of freedom. We are no strangers to such experiences. We see such behavior from some TV evangelists who use the Gospel to support their own opulent life style. Some have fallen victim to scandal. Others continue along the path. We have seen such behavior from those who claim to have all the answers. They claim to offer freedom, but when egos take control, that yoke of slavery for followers is very near. I am thinking of those churches that appear to be more of a cult. I believe we see this misuse of freedom in some of our music, in contemporary praise choruses and even old favorite hymns where we sing, “I” “I” “I” forgetting that Christ Jesus calls us into community. Certainly there is a personal dimension to our faith. But the personal is in relation to the freedom we have to share life in community. Finally, a third danger is to use the freedom we have in Jesus Christ to make all morals, all ethical behavior relative. After all, some argue, if we are free from the Law and if it is the business of grace to forgive, then anything goes, all is good. Such is the charge levied against Paul. This is a notion I hear often as recently as last week. This is a misuse of our freedom. When we are set free by God’s gracious love in Christ Jesus we are set free from the world of flesh and are given residence in the world of the Spirit. No longer is our behavior expressive of the old, unredeemed order. It now expressed the New Order grounded in grace. Now certain behaviors are no longer options for us because they are inconsistent with whom we are. We live in the Spirit. Our freedom is defined by God’s grace and guided by God’s Spirit. Our ethical behavior is grounded in love for the neighbor. Such is this freedom we have in Christ Jesus. This point was made for me in a rather dramatic fashion by Will Campbell in his autobiography, BROTHER TO A DRAGONFLY. Campbell tells of an incident following the fatal shooting of a young seminarian during a voter registration drive in the early 1960s in Alabama. The young seminarian was gunned down in cold blood as he stood drinking a Coke outside a country store by a deputy sheriff. Campbell’s agnostic and argumentative friend, newspaper publisher, P.D. East confronts him with a question. “Preacher Will,” asks East, “What’s your Mr. Jesus going to do with that deputy who shot that young man?” Campbell confesses he did not want to answer but he knew if he didn’t P.D. would continue to press him unmercifully. He thought for a few moments and then answered, “P.D. Jesus is going to forgive him and set him free.” P.D. immediately followed with another question. “Preacher Will, what do you suppose George Wallace is going to do with that deputy?” Campbell answered, “I suppose he is going to set him free.” With that, P.D. jumped up and shouted, “Preacher Will, you’re telling me that your Mr. Jesus is just like George Wallace.” Campbell hesitated for a moment and then said, “No, P. D., for when George Wallace frees a man he frees him to kill again. But when Jesus frees a person, he frees that person to love. He takes that person to a freedom where it never occurs to that person to kill someone.” For freedom, Christ has set us free. The freedom we have been given calls us to live in a New Reality defined by God’s gracious love, a world of the Spirit in which freedom is understood as love of neighbor. You have been set free by the love of God in Christ Jesus. Go to live in that freedom as you express that which you have been freed for, a life of loving service, a life lived in the power of the Spirit, a life lived in grateful thanksgiving. Thanks be to God! Amen! |
