FIFTH SUNDAY AFTER PENTECOST – 01 JULY 2007

ST PAUL LUTHERAN CHURCH, ABQ NM – The Rev. P. L. Holman

1 Kings 19:15-16, 19-21; Psalm 16; Galatians 5:1, 13-25; Luke 9:51-62

“Living For Freedom”

Fill in the blank:

FREEDOM IS NOT ______.  FREEDOM IS _________.

We have a lot to say about freedom, no matter our age. Mostly we think of our own freedom – to speak, or do what we want. It is freedom of speech that allows groups like the KKK to gather and spew hate, or certain radio personalities to say disparaging things about female athletes. It sells – it is, after all, a free country. In these times of increased threats of terrorism and economic crises, the failure of Congress to achieve agreement on a new immigration policy, and a weakened if not almost absent resolve to be the people this nation was created to be; amidst inevitable crises of health and relationship, and the craziness of life when all we want is a bit of peace, it is a good to consider what freedom means.

Paul writes in his letter to the Galatians that it is for FREEDOM Christ has set us free. This freedom he speaks of is truly free -- a gift. It doesn’t need a duly elected government, or a constitution; it is simply free. Yet it also is not about personal freedom. It isn’t just freedom from something – Paul reminds the Galatians that Christ has set them free FOR something: free through love to be servants (doulos) of one another. The people of the region had been struggling. Some considered this new-found freedom in Christ to mean they could do anything they want. No, Paul says, it isn’t about self-indulgence (wow! Can we hear that?). It isn’t about my car, my house, my investments, or even my family. It’s about the neighbor – that one we greeted earlier, that one we passed on the way to church, that one we didn’t think to invite to worship with us, that one we saw from a distance yesterday holding a sign and against whom we locked our car doors as we neared the stop light.. It isn’t about comparing and one-upping. Take care, if that’s your bent, Paul says, lest in your zeal to gnaw at each other you are consumed by one another. Talk about the downside of a consumer orientation….

No, Paul says, this freedom Christ gives is the freedom to be led by the Spirit into new ways of living, into surprising new adventures.  The call of Elisha gives us a glimpse of that path. Mantled by Elijah he gathers his family for a farewell feast, then having served up his livelihood gives up a life following the cycles of the seasons for one filled with unpredictability and surprise. “Then he set out and followed Elijah, and became his servant”[v.21].

In a way, this relationship of mentor and apprentice can symbolize our call to serve the neighbor. Yet this first covenant sort of following, a path guided by the law handed down from generation to generation, ultimately falls short of God’s will. It is this path proscribed by law that Jesus turned on its head. You are free from the law and all its constraints, he reminded his followers. It isn’t circumcision or obedience to Torah or the like that will make a difference in your life, that ultimately will save you. That is still making freedom all about you. For you to be truly free, Jesus said, you must serve your neighbor.

Christ freely gives each of us this freedom. It is gift, no strings attached. The journey of following the Giver, however, the journey of “living for freedom” will cost you everything.

The cover article in THE LUTHERAN for July 2007 is about the freedom to live faith at work. The relationships we make from Monday through Saturday reflect the values reinforced at worship on Sunday. The question is not, as the author says, whether we should bring our faith to work or school with us. We can’t separate faith from daily life – “people of faith” is who we are. Rather, the question becomes, “How does our faith impact our daily routines?” Faith is about using our roles “to uplift and add value to the lives of the people around us, for Jesus’ sake.” It’s more about faithful BEing than about faithful DOing.

At the Outreach Team meeting yesterday I suppose I was a thorn in their collective flesh as I struggled to help them articulate WHY we need to engage in Talking and Listening Circles again. Why now? Convince me this will make a difference in my life, in our life together. Convince me it matters. Of course, it does matter that we practice getting to know one another, that we practice listening and sharing light moments and deep pains, that we develop our ability to hear and trust the rhythms that will guide our movement forward together. It does matter that we identify the paths and bridges between our neighbors’ needs and our resources, and vice versa. Finding a way for us to speak the faith, to joyfully live the faith that is in us is essential to living free.

In his letter to the Galatians Paul identifies the works of the flesh. They include such things are idolatry and quarrels, dissentions and envy. We know about those. But those who live by the Spirit, he says, will manifest the fruits of the spirit – among those blessings is the fruit of gentleness. Humility, according to the Greek word; of the earth, a living with open hands and honest trust in the One who from the very beginning created us in freedom, living open to the risky business of love. This freedom to follow Christ can lead us into a future we wouldn’t ever choose.

I watched in awe as the clip from the courtroom proceeding earlier this week was played on the ten o’clock news.  Vickie Dixon’s parents were brutally beaten and left to die in the trunk of their burned out car. At his sentencing hearing she addressed the man convicted of murdering them: “I want you to know I forgive you for what you have done, and I want you to have this Bible.” As he pondered the gift that woman was able to give Jim Belshaw quoted several clergy in his JOURNAL article a few days later. One pastor called it an offering of love, “which is what forgiveness is, after all.” Another said it’s a gift that works both directions. Two others took it forward – “I know I will destroy myself if I hold resentment and if I hold onto anger…. It won’t do me any good. So I’m taking this stance [to forgive].” “Forgiveness is being able to move into the future, hoping for the best for the person who wounded you.” Forgiveness -- for freedom, set free to live.

This week in the midst of our national celebrations I invite you to ponder your freedom as a Christian. What does the freedom Christ has given you call you to be about in your life? How does Christian freedom reshape our relationship to the national freedoms we often disparage or take for granted? The words of US Appeals Court Justice Billings Learned Hand, spoken to a patriotic rally in NYC’s Central Park on May 21, 1944, offer us this vision:

What then is the spirit of liberty? I cannot define it; I can only tell you my own faith. The spirit of liberty is the spirit which is not too sure that it is right; the spirit of liberty is the spirit which seeks to understand the mind of other men and women…. which weighs their interests alongside its own without bias; the spirit of liberty remembers that not even a sparrow falls to earth unheeded….[it] is the spirit of Him who, near two thousand years ago, taught mankind that lesson it has never learned but never quite forgotten: that there may be a kingdom where the least shall be heard and considered side by side with the greatest. [As cited on www.nacdl.org/public.nsf/Enews2002e67]