SERMON Free to Be . . .
Pentecost
4 C (Lectionary 13): 1 Kings 19:15-16, 19-21; Psalm 16; Galatians 5:1, 13-25;
Luke 9:51-63
Thirty-one
years ago this week, this country celebrated its bicentennial. It is Fourth of
July that I will never forget. The four of us spent the afternoon with friends
picnicking in a field outside a music shed (really a barn) in
One
really had a sense that evening that the American revolution
was about a call to real freedom and a real call to throw off what the founders
frequently called the yoke of tyranny of British rule.
Which makes what we hear Paul say to the
Galatians this morning eerily appropriate on this the week of our independence
celebration. As we just heard, Paul tells the
Galatians that they, too, have been called to freedom. And he directs them:
"Stand firm, and do not submit again to a yoke of slavery." Not
surprisingly, preachers like Ezra Stiles and revolutionaries like Tomas Paine
frequently quote and paraphrase these passages prior to the American Revolution.
And persuade colonists to take up the cause of freedom in the process.
And
the end of it all was "freedom."
Now
had you asked me in 1976 to define "freedom," I might have been
tempted to quote the line from Janis Joplin song, Me & Bobby McGee:
"Freedom is just another word for nothing left to lose." Lee had just
finished graduate school, and I had just graduated from law school. Neither of
us had a job for the fall. I was waiting to look for jobs until we knew where
we would be. The academic job market was a disaster. Lee had turned down one
offer. By July 4, we hadn't exactly panicked, but I had started to study for
the
So,
if I had been asked to define "freedom" in 1976, my first thought
would have been Marlo Thomas' LP record Free to be . . . you and me -- the
album on today's bulletin cover. I had
discovered this record a few years earlier. As a committed feminist and the
mother of daughters, I loved it. Amie and Caroline loved, too. We knew all the
words by heart. Not too long ago, I gave our granddaughter a little book with
the lyrics and stories in it. Listen to the lyrics of the title song:
There's a land that I
see
Where
the children are free.
And I say it ain't far
To this land from where
we are.
Take my hand. Come with
me,
Where
the children are free.
Come with me take my
hand,
And we will live . . . .
In a land
Where the river runs
free --
(In a land)
Through the green
country --
(In a land)
To a
shining sea.
And you and me
Are free to be
You
and me.
. . . [the last
verse] . . .
Grows to be his own man.
In this land, every girl
Grows to be her own woman.
Take my hand. Come with
me,
Where
the children are free.
Come with me take my
hand,
And we will run . . . .
To a land
Where the river runs
free --
(To a land)
Through the green
country --
(To a land)
To a shining sea --
(To a land)
Where the horses run
free --
To a
land where the children are free.
And you and me
Are free to be
You
and me.
In
1976, I would have said (and would still say) that social freedom is true
equality -- not only gender equality
which Free to be . . . you and me is about, but racial and economic
equality as well.
Which is not at all the kind of freedom
that founders of this country had in mind. For
Ezra Stiles, the preacher, freedom was freedom from a British threat of renewed
religious oppression. For other revolutionaries, the yoke of bondage to be cast
off was the British monarchy and its economic stranglehold on the colonies.
Freedom did not encompass gender, racial, or social equality. Thomas Jefferson
was not alone in owning slaves. And it certainly did not mean that there was nothing
more to lose.
Which brings us to Paul.
"For freedom," Paul writes, "Christ has set us free." What
then is this freedom about?
Well,
there are a number of things that it is not about. It is not about Janis Joplin
personal freedom because it is not about isolated individuals. It is not about
societal freedoms because it is not about society at large. It is not about
political freedoms because it is not about government.
Paul's
freedom is Christian freedom. And that freedom is breathtaking.
And
to understand just how breathtaking you have to realize what Paul means by
"flesh" and what he means by "Spirit."
By
flesh he does not mean skin and bones and blood and hair and eyes and ears.
Rather, he means our human nature which opposes itself to God through self-seeking.
The Spirit for Paul is
not just any spirit. It is not, for example, Oprah's "human spirit."
Rather, the Spirit is God's Spirit.
In
a part of Paul's letter that we did not hear this morning, Paul assures the
gentile Galatian Christians that, through Christ, they are free from observing
the law of circumcision and from following the Mosaic Law. This morning, Paul
goes on to say that even though these gentile Christians are not obliged to
follow the Law, they should, through love, through agape
-- through love like God's love for us -- become slaves to one
another. And in so doing we in fact fulfill the law
that is the one true abiding law: the law that we love our neighbor as
ourselves.
It
is only then that Paul goes on to speak of the works of the flesh --
narcissistic, volitional acts that oppose God as well as undermine the
Christian community: fornication,
impurity, licentiousness, idolatry, sorcery, enmities, strife, jealousy, anger,
quarrels, dissensions, factions, envy, drunkenness, carousing. Not unfamiliar,
are they? Paul contrasts these narcissistic, volitional works of the
flesh with the fruit of God's Spirit -- fruit that is
realized in acts of love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity,
faithfulness, and self-control -- all acts that strengthen the community, all
acts that illustrate how, in freedom, we become slaves to and for one another.
This
then is a breathtaking freedom! It is Spirit induced and Spirit led and Spirit
guided. It is communal. We are not in this alone. And it is happening in this
community of faith now. There are those in this community who are ill or facing
major changes. There are young families, not unlike our family thirty-one years
ago, who are dealing with irrational market forces and unanticipated unemployment.
None of this is easy. But it is made bearable because this is a community that
cares. A community that loves. That takes seriously
its call to be the Body of Christ. We are bearing one another's burdens,
helping where and when we can.
And
we are praying. As Karl Barth the theologian has written, "To clasp the
hands in prayer is the beginning of an uprising against the disorder of the
world."
And
what an uprising that is! Successful as it was in terms of its political
objectives, the American uprising that we celebrate this week pales in comparison.
And for that we thank our God and the Spirit that guides us.
Amen
July
1, 2007
Ruth
VanDemark, pastor