SETTING THE CONTEXT

Jesus speaks the teaching we are about to read in the midst of great conflict. The religious leaders are trying to arrest him, but they are having a hard time. When the temple police go to arrest him there is concern that what he is saying and what he is doing show that he is indeed a prophet and so they hesitate. Verse 30 says that as he was teaching, many believed in him. Then Jesus turns to talking about freedom.

Read John 8:31-38

In this passage from Galatians, Paul also talks about freedom. As the Message Bible’s introduction says, “Through Jesus, Paul learned that God was not an impersonal force to be used to make people behave in certain prescribed ways, but a personal Savior who set us free to live a free life. God did not coerce us from without, but set us free from within.”ⁱ Paul gives important direction about the nature of God’s gift of freedom.

Read Galatians 5:13-26

THE SERMON

The other day I was listening to a radio program where callers were sharing what they loved about our country. One caller said, “I love this country because I can be who I want to be and do what I want to do.” The D.J. responded, “yep, that about sums it up, doesn’t it.” I can be who I want to be and do what I want to do that is how most of us, I think, define freedom.

Freedom, that’s what we are celebrating this weekend, isn’t it? The 4^th of July is the celebration of our independence and birth as a nation. I think it is very appropriate to thank God for this wonderful country of ours. Sure, I know we have a lot of faults, after all we are made up of sinful human beings, but I have lived in other parts of the world and I have visited many parts of the world and I thank God for the ideals and standard of living in of our nation. I thank God for the security I have knowing that I won’t disappear some day if I speak a dissenting opinion. I thank God for being in a country where bribes for services are frowned on as an affront to justice rather than accepted as normal business practice. I thank God for clean water, a sewage system, good roads, a huge home by some standards of the world, a huge supply of food and a huge number of opportunities to pursue happiness. We should be grateful as we celebrate Independence Day and our freedom.

As appropriate as it is to thank God for this nation, I must admit that I also struggled with how to approach this day. Some in the current civil religion give the message that God is the God of the USA that we are chosen above all other people and that is certainly not Scriptural. God is the God of all creation. God is the God of all nations. Part of our task as a church is to keep before us that God is bigger and greater, God is bigger than our boundary lines, greater than our imaginations. To be really accurate we should have not only the American flag in here, we should have the flags of every nation and a flag to represent the rest of the universe. So as we celebrate this uniquely American holiday, let us not forget that the God we worship loves all his children in all lands and YHWH (that is the divine name which means I am who I am and I will be who I will be) seeks true freedom and wholeness for all people through Jesus Christ.

True freedom, our Scripture passages today tell us, is not “doing what we want to do when we want to do it.” In the Gospel of John, Jesus tells us that obedience to what he says, living out what he tells us to do, will let us experience the truth and the truth will make us free. True freedom comes from obedience to Christ; that seems like a paradox, doesn’t it? The listeners in the story, didn’t get it. In fact, they were offended, “What do you mean, we’re no slaves!” They seem to be forgetting an important part of their story like the Exodus story and that they are currently under Roman occupation, but its not hard to imagine their indignation. As Biblical scholar Raymond Brown said, “In the course of time the sense of responsibility that accompanied the status of being a son of Abraham inevitably lost its sharpness, and for some it was replaced by a sense of automatic divine protection. In his Dialogue with Trypho, Justin [an ancient Christian writer] charges that the Jews, as seed of Abraham, expected to receive the kingdom of God no matter what their personal lives had become.”ⁱⁱ I think we need to be careful that we do not fall into that same trap. In fact, I fear that many of us have already tripped into it.

Paul tells us that we can use our freedom in one of two ways: we can use our freedom for self-indulgence which he labels as “the flesh” or we can use our freedom for mutual service in love. When “I can do whatever I want to do” is unconstrained it easily descends into decadence. Paul gives some specific examples and I’m going to use the Message Bible paraphrase, “It is obvious what kind of life develops out of trying to get your own way all the time: repetitive, loveless, cheap sex; a stinking accumulation of mental and emotional garbage; frenzied and joyless grabs for happiness; trinket gods; magic-show religion; paranoid loneliness; cutthroat competition; all-consuming-yet-never satisfied wants; a brutal temper; an impotence to love or be loved; divided homes and divided lives; small-minded and lopsided pursuits; the vicious habit of depersonalizing everyone into a rival; uncontrolled and uncontrollable addictions; ugly parodies of community. I could go on. ”ⁱⁱⁱ Paul does go on to warn “If you use your freedom this way, you will not inherit God’s kingdom.” Freedom that leads to self-indulgence is no freedom at all, it is bondage to sin.

Paul is also very descriptive of true Christian freedom which rooted in obedience to Christ involves two things: loving your neighbor and living by God’s Holy Spirit. He gives some very clear examples of this, too. I want you to hear this familiar passage of the fruits of the Spirit in a new way so I will again quote from the Message Bible paraphrase, “But what happens when we live God's way? He brings gifts into our lives, much the same way that fruit appears in an orchard—things like affection for others, exuberance about life, serenity. We develop a willingness to stick with things, a sense of compassion in the heart, and a conviction that a basic holiness permeates things and people. We find ourselves involved in loyal commitments, not needing to force our way in life, able to marshal and direct our energies wisely. …Since this is the kind of life we have chosen, the life of the Spirit, let us make sure that we do not just hold it as an idea in our heads or a sentiment in our hearts, but work out its implications in every detail of our lives.”^iv Freedom is embodied in the Christian life through a Christ-like, Spirit-led character that bears the fruit of love.

I hear people say all the time “God bless America,” but folks we all know that “God has already blessed America. People across the world envy our abundance and our freedom. God has blessed America and continues to bless America, the question is “What are we doing with it?” How are we bearing fruit for God from the blessings we have in such abundance?

Tonight I intend to enjoy the fireworks praising God for the gift of this sweet land of liberty. But I would like to also challenge us to use this Independence weekend to think about freedom; which path of freedom do you choose the path of self-service or the path of mutual service through love? Which path are we choosing as a nation? Christian freedom is so much more than doing what I want to do when I want to do it. “Long may our land be bright with freedom’s holy light.”^v Happy Independence Day. Amen.

Sermon delived by Rev. Nancy Cushman on July 5, 2009.