Grace and peace to you from God our Father and from our Lord Jesus Christ. Amen. This upcoming week, we will celebrate the most important day on the national civic calendar - Independence Day, the Fourth of July. And if we took a poll and asked people to use one word to describe what the Fourth of July is all about, I think most people who didn't answer "fireworks" would say "freedom". The fourth of July is about freedom. Most people, I think, who know that the Fourth is more than just a day for picnics and fireworks, could agree on the fact that it is about freedom. The problem is, what does "freedom" mean? Here we would have more of a difference of opinion -because we have lots of ideas about what freedom means. Many people would say, It means I can do what I want, as long as it doesn't hurt anybody else. some would drop the second part and just say, It means I can do what I want, period. I've noticed that this must be a common understanding of freedom this past week, when it was so hot that I kept the windows of my apartment open most of the time. It seems like freedom to some people means you can play the sound system in your car as loud as you want - loud enough to shake the pavement - and who cares what anybody thinks. For some it seems like freedom means freedom to mow your grass at any hour of the day or night, regardless of whether your neighbor is working or sleeping. We seem to have come up with this idea that freedom means putting myself and my wants and needs at the center of the universe, and then fulfilling those wants and needs at any cost, regardless of what the consequences may be to other people. The folks that drive their cars around the corner of Morrison and Weber with their music blasting out of their cars are fulfilling their wants for image and coolness whether or not anybody else wants to hear the noise they're putting out. But that's freedom, we somehow think. Freedom to put yourself first in all things - freedom to walk over anybody and everybody who gets in your way as you try to pursue your idea of Life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. Somehow, that understanding of freedom rings hollow to me. To me, seeing freedom as "me first" seems like freedom has become the same thing as sin. Doing what you want to do no matter what. In the business world, freedom seems to mean cutting your competitor's throats as swiftly as possible, and making the maximum profit for the minimum product. It means looking after the bottom line before you look after your employees and your customers. In our families, freedom seems to mean ending marriages when they're no longer convenient or when they interfere with one partner's freedom to pursue someone else or something else. I actually had a divorced man say to me that he and his wife had ended their marriage, which included a young child, because he wanted to move to Buffalo and she didn't. Step on my freedom, and our marriage is over. I am sure that this is not what real freedom is all about. freedom, at least, as God intended it - And St. Paul gives us insight into what real freedom is - He gives us an entirely different understanding of what it means to be free and it isn’t freedom as putting myself first in all things. It isn’t freedom as my agenda and no other agendas - my way or no way. For Paul, and for Christians, freedom is something altogether different. Paul says, For freedom Christ has set you free. Stand firm, therefore, and do not submit again to a yoke of slavery. Paul tells us that freedom is a way of life, yes, but not a way of life that gives into every desire and glorifies what I want at the expense of anything else. Instead, true freedom is a life of the spirit - a life turned towards God. And this doesn't mean that the life of the spirit is not a life of the body - not at all. We still have wonderful bodies that God has given to us, and to live by the spirit is not to treat our bodies as if they were unimportant. Paul does say don't gratify the desires of the flesh - and by that he means, don't live as if your back is turned to God, as if God were not working in you, but live as if you are being led by God - live by the Spirit and you will find yourself being led in new and different ways - living a life of true freedom. Let's look first at what Paul says the life of freedom is not: He says that the life of freedom is not gratifying our every desire: freedom is not fornication - that means freedom is not having as many partners as you want in your life. Freedom is not impurity or licentiousness - it isn't living in a way that's not wholesome or that's without any structure. Freedom of course is not idolatry - having something besides God be your personal god - making a god out of money or power or even out of freedom. and freedom isn’t sorcery - things like magic, witchcraft, fortune-telling. Paul includes a long list of relationship problems that are not freedom ,either - like enmities, strife, jealousy, anger, quarrels, dissensions, factions, and envy. the things that break our relationships and turn them sour are not part of the life of freedom, although sometimes we think it's freedom when we have an angry exchange with someone, or find ourselves joining one faction or another. But it's not freedom. The last two things Paul lists as not freedoms are drunkenness and carousing drinking and partying - most college-age people think that those are the heart of freedom, but they aren't . If you look at the numbers of high school and college students who have died as a result of drunkenness and partying this year, you know that has nothing to do with freedom, but only to do with slavery. So, if all these things are not freedom - if, as the bottom line, feeding all our desires is not freedom but slavery - then what is freedom? If we thought that freedom meant me first, my desires first, and we find out that that is really slavery, then what is freedom all about, anyway? Here Paul gives the contrast - he shows what the free life - the life of freedom in Christ, led by the Spirit. The fruit - the signs of a life lived in freedom - of the spirit is a whole list of things - things which have to do not with the self, but with concern for others - the fruits are: Love - first and most important - love for God and love for others. Joy - happiness, bliss, at the wonders of God, in life and in love. Peace - that deep rooted calm that comes from having Christ at the center of our lives, and not anything or anybody else. Patience - bearing with the sufferings and aggravations of life, with all the things that inconvenience and annoy us - because Christ is what is important, and nothing else. Kindness - being kind to others, not out of expectation of being rewarded, but because it's the right thing to do, and because of Christ's kindness. Generosity - giving openly and generously, again, not out of hope of reward, but because God has given so generously to us. Faithfulness - living the life that God has called us to. Gentleness - not hurting others, but caring for others in a way that is not painful to them. Self-Control - living as if the self is not the center of things, and as if the desires of the self are not what is driving our every move. These things are what a life of freedom in Christ, led by the Spirit, is all about. Loving God and others and living it out, each and every moment, on Sunday morning and on Wednesday afternoon and on Saturday night. True freedom is not about me first but about God - Father, Son and Holy Spirit - first. Called by the Father, saved by the Son and led by the Spirit - A new way of freedom that we can truly celebrate every day of the year.
In Jesus’ name, Amen.
Christ Lutheran Home Page | Listing of Sermons by Date
|
