Sermonstudio

The trouble with words is that they can mean so many different things, depending on who is using them. And the bigger and more important the word, the more this tends to be true. Take, for instance, the word "freedom," or "free." That is a very important word to North Americans -- to most of the world, in fact -- and it appears to have been a very important word to Jesus. But I really wonder if we're all talking about the same thing?

Jesus stated in John 8:32 that the truth would make us free. In a runaway consumer culture, it often seems as if nearly the opposite is intended. We often define freedom as escape from everyday reality and normal constraints. Take, for instance, the article I recently read about the launch of the world's biggest (so far!) cruise ship. "In the maritime machismo battle to be biggest and the best," states an online journal, Royal Caribbean International "has bulked up a normal-sized vessel to create an ocean-bound behemoth unlike any seen before."1 The massive ship, which is wider than the White House is long, is not only larger than any previous cruise ship, it also takes the idea of a floating fantasyland to new extremes. It was not enough to have rock-climbing walls and ice-skating rinks at sea, nor merely a promenade lined with shops, restaurants, and bars. Those now-familiar staples of Royal Caribbean ships had to be made "bigger and better." The new ship's "Royal" promenade is a 445-foot-long boulevard with nightly street parades; and the climbing wall is now a 43-foot-tall by 44-foot-wide structure with no less than eleven routes of varying degrees of difficulty. There are no fewer than twenty restaurants, oodles of fitness options, and the lap-of-luxury list goes on and on.

And what is this over-the-top adventure in extravagance called? "Freedom of the Seas," what else? For it just about epitomizes the American Dream of having the time and the means -- the freedom -- to do whatever you blessed well want, especially if that means kicking back and enjoying life. As the author explains at the conclusion of the article, after describing the ship's cantilevered solarium whirlpools with their breathtaking ocean view, "The thing you should be thinking about as tiny, warm bubbles surround you is, well, freedom on the seas."2

I somehow don't think this is quite exactly what Jesus had in mind when he promised his followers that they would be "free indeed" (John 8:36). Indeed, he might have some pointed words to say to us about our slavery to self-indulgence.

So if by freedom we are not intended to hear "unlimited indulgence," then what does Jesus mean? What is a freedom worthy of the name? On Reformation Sunday, when we recall and pledge to continue the liberation of our faith from error and abuse, that is a particularly pointed question, one whose full answer we may not always want to hear.

The Oxford Reference Dictionary fills most of a densely-printed column with definitions of the word "free" and of expressions incorporating it, from "free and easy" to "free world," via "free enterprise," "free-for-all," the soccer "free kick," "free loader," "free love," and "free trade," to name just a few -- and at that, they missed "freedom fries"! The column makes for very interesting reading. However, the most basic definition of the word "free," according to Oxford, is, "not a slave or under the control of another; having personal rights and social and political liberty...; subject neither to foreign domination nor to despotic government." Expanding a bit on this concept, "free" can also mean, "not fixed or held down; able to move without hindrance; permitted to do; unrestricted, not controlled by rules."3 Or, as the Friberg Greek Lexicon says of the Greek word translated as "free" in today's gospel, it means "allowing for self-determination."4

Now, on the surface that would appear to play right into our common cultural definition of "able to do whatever I darn well want." Not held down. Unrestricted. Not controlled by rules. Having self-determination. Turn me loose, man! I am free!

Well. Hmm, now. Really? Is that what Jesus was offering? Is that what he was hoping people would accept? If you read the gospel conversation more closely, it would seem not. This conversation is unfolding on another level entirely.

First-century Palestine was a world very different from twenty-first-century North America, and the kind of freedom we know now was virtually unheard of. Democracy did not exist -- well, maybe across the Mediterranean in Athens, but not in Palestine where a local monarch answered to Imperial Rome. So there was no political freedom of the kind to which you and I are accustomed. Freedom of speech has severe limits, as does freedom of religion. And most people are chained to the grind of daily circumstance to a degree few of us today can imagine: although there is a wealthy class, the majority of the population will never take a vacation -- at best they'll manage a pilgrimage to Jerusalem for one of the major festivals -- and they lead a hand-to-mouth existence that allows for few dreams. So in discussing "freedom," the kind of political voice and consumer "good life" that we take for granted are not even on the table; they would not have entered Jesus' hearers' imaginations. A much more gritty kind of reality is in view.

In Jesus' day, slavery was commonplace. Some slaves were captured in military raids, and of course some were born into slavery, but it was much more common for people to be enslaved as restitution for debt, or to enter slavery voluntarily as an escape from poverty. While the degree of slavery varied -- some slaves actually had quite a bit of autonomy and even respect5 -- there was always a certain insecurity to being a slave, because if push came to shove, the slave's life was not his own. He could be reassigned, sold, married, or deprived of a partner, all without his consent. And while he might well find a degree of economic and social security in the household of a good master, he was never fully a part of that household, but a kind of onlooker to the lives of those who had choices. So when Jesus spoke of freedom as opposed to slavery, his audience understood viscerally what he meant, and keenly appreciated the distinction between the slave and the son of the household. The latter had choices. The former did not.

And many of those who heard Jesus compare them to slaves were offended. "We are descendants of Abraham and have never been slaves to anyone," they protested. "What do you mean by saying, 'You will be made free'?" (John 8:33).

Now that actually is a very interesting protest, because on the surface it wasn't true. The Israelites had been slaves in Egypt, nearly a thousand years before; more recently they had been, if not exactly slaves, certainly not free, during the long exile in Babylon. And finally, the very people now arguing with Jesus were in a very un-free state, subject to Rome and ruled by a puppet king. To say, "We have never been slaves to anyone" is an affront to historical reality.

But in another sense, they were absolutely right. Remember the book of Esther, where Esther's courage to speak up foiled Haman's wicked plot? Haman had wanted to massacre all the Jews in the Persian Empire -- and why? Because Mordecai the Jew had refused to bow down to the powerful noble when he passed by. Never mind that bowing to nobles was what everyone in Persia did; Jews didn't. They acknowledged the sovereignty of no one but God. They might be exiles over a thousand kilometers from home, subject to a foreign power -- whose laws, by the way, they obeyed -- but they would not give anything that could be construed as worship or absolute loyalty to any earthly sovereign. It just wasn't going to happen. In spirit they were slaves to no one; and their tenacious fidelity to their nation and their God earned the grudging respect of many of their conquerors.

But if Jesus' interlocutors were talking about a spiritual autonomy and resilience6 that gave the lie to political subjugation, Jesus was talking about something deeper yet, something that challenged their confident identity as people of God ... something that challenges us, too. He was talking about slavery to sin, subjugation to anything that is less than God and apart from God -- and it is a slavery we all fall into. As an example let's consider a woman Carter Shelley told about, a woman named Agnes.7

Agnes had a knack for church work. Had she been 25 instead of 72, she would have been a natural for the professional ministry. The Sunday school classes she taught were excellent. Her energies were limitless. She'd served on the church session, had been to General Assembly and was currently Presbyterial president. Agnes' church commitment was frequently used as an illustration to other church officers, young adults, and teens as a fine example of Christian charity and commitment. She was always the first in the house of grieving. Ever ready to bolster the weak or say a corrective word to a noisy child.

Neither the minister nor any of her friends could ever remember having seen Agnes angry. If she didn't like the new inclusive language "Alternate Lifestyles," Agnes didn't pout or get angry. She would merely discuss these unnecessary changes with others, do a little telephoning, and in no time at all things would be back the way they were supposed to be.

You see, Agnes was a good communicator and a good source of information. If something good, bad, or interesting happened to anyone in the community Agnes would know all the details. She could tell you which recent widower was rumored to be entertaining which recent widow, or how much the MacAlileys' new house had cost, and whether Mr. Jones would soon be going out of business or not.

People were shocked when a new member complained that Agnes Hayes was a gossip. No one would think of criticizing Agnes! And sure enough, not long after this, it was discovered that this new member had had reason to be concerned. Did you know that she had recently left a husband who had abused her for years and had come to town to start a new life? Agnes knew and soon everyone knew.

If Jesus had met Agnes on the street and demanded that she "repent, turn away from your sins," Agnes would have readily agreed to forsake the second lump of sugar in her morning coffee, would acknowledge her tendency to eat too many sweets and that she wasted too much time watching television. Beyond that, Agnes would be hard put to know what she could do differently. With her many years of church service, committee work, and faithful participation she was a full member of the household of God.

The hard part for Agnes, and perhaps for us, is in recognizing our own subjugation to sin. After all, we're not cocaine users, child molesters, or streetwalkers. Jesus' words aren't as necessary for us as they are for Agnes or the Pharisees or Osama bin Laden. But we are wrong.

We are as much enslaved to sin as any of these others; if we are to be free, then we must let Jesus tell us the truth about the lies we live, not just the easy-to-spot sins of somebody else. And we must let him tell us the truth about the lies that our present-day church lives -- often very difficult to tease out from things we need to hold onto. We dare not presume to say to ourselves, "We have John Calvin as our father," and let that excuse us from facing our own slavery today. For, as the Reformers wisely recognized, the church must always be reforming, always breaking away from its slavery to all that is less than God and apart from God.

This is not freedom as the luxury to do what we please, but freedom as the often costly and difficult move away from the besetting sins of our own life, our own church, our own society, in order to realize more fully God's intention for us. And like any departure from slavery, it often brings a very intense insecurity, as we learn to live without certain familiar structures, and to make our own decisions and take responsibility for our own choices.

It is not easy to live with freedom. As poet Irving Layton once observed, "Only the tiniest fraction of mankind want freedom. All the rest want someone to tell them they are free."8 Genuine freedom -- freedom rooted, as Jesus described it, in knowing the truth -- is tremendously demanding. It is much easier to sell our freedom to whoever will most advantageously relieve us of it: a family, a church, a nation, an opinionated newspaper editor, anyone who will tell us what to think and what to do, so that we don't have to figure it out for ourselves.

Knowing Jesus, in the kind of depth that gives us a foundation for genuine freedom, is as demanding as knowing -- and continuing to know, continuing to break new ground with -- your spouse. It's not easy. God does not change, but the world in which we meet God does, and so there is a constant need to question yesterday's truths and revise yesterday's practices. It is frankly much easier to find a good rut and stay there. And in church we often do just that, mistaking our rut for a viable relationship.

"If you continue in my word," Jesus said to those who had been nodding agreement to his teaching, "you are truly my disciples; and you will know the truth, and the truth will make you free" (John 8:31-32). Continuing in Jesus' word is like continuing in any other relationship: to do it well requires constant effort, not assuming you already know everything you need to know, or are already doing everything you need to do.

In our present moment, when people are abandoning the church in droves, we would do well to look at which of our ruts have become sins -- things that are keeping us apart from God and what God is doing in the world.

Have we become indistinguishable from a bankrupt culture?

Have we so deeply overwrapped the Christian message with worn-out patterns of communication that no one realizes there's anything worth hearing in there?

Have we gotten so caught up in internal institutional concerns that we have nothing to say to the crying needs of the world?

Come break new ground with me, says Jesus. Continue in my word; deepen the relationship; be truly my disciples, so that I can break you free of stagnation and futility, and make you full partners in both the work and the reward of the household of God. Now that would be freedom! Amen.

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1. "Lots of fun, luxury on Freedom of the Seas, world's largest cruiser," by Aaron Sagers of The Morning Call, August 27, 2006 (http://www.mcall.com/travel/all-freedomcruiseaug27,0,1579907.story).

2. Ibid.

3. Joyce M. Hawkins, Editor, Oxford Reference Dictionary (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1986), p. 319. Punctuation slightly altered for pulpit use. Italic in original.

4. Friberg Greek Lexicon, electronic edition included with BibleWorks 6.0.012d, defining eleuqerov.

5. E. A. Judge and K. A. Kitchen, "Slave, Slavery," in Douglas et al, editors, New Bible Dictionary, 2nd edition (Wheaton, Illinois: Tyndale House Publishers, 1982), pp. 1121-1125.

6. John Marsh, Saint John, Pelican New Testament Commentaries (New York: Penguin Books, 1968) p. 363.

7. From Carter Shelley's response to my "Marketing the Messiah" piece for December 11, 2005, The Immediate Word, online publication of CSS Publishing Company. I have altered Carter's wording slightly. www.sermonsuite.com.

8. Irving Layton in The Whole Bloody Bird (1969), as quoted in Colombo's Concise Canadian Quotations, edited by John Robert Colombo (Edmonton: Hurtig Publishers, 1976), p. 88. Emphasis mine.