Freedom in Christ: Freedom to Make the Right Choice

June 30, 2019              Freedom          Galatians 5: 1; 13-25

Rev. Peter Hofstra

            Christ makes us free.  It says so twice in the first verse, “for freedom, Christ has set us free”.  Sounds redundant, doesn’t it?  But is it? 

            With July 4 approaching, “freedom” should be ringing in our ears.  America is about to turn 243.  Freedom was the cry of 1776 and the American Revolution.  We kicked out the Brits because they were impinging on our freedoms.  These are ‘freedoms to’, freedoms to do things.  But what is freedom as an ideal?

            Freedom is a foundational concept for our church.  What is our call?  To give our hearts to the Lord eagerly and sincerely.  That assumes we are free to do so.  How can we truly be eager or sincere about anything if we are doing it under duress or threat? 

            Imagine a philosophy class considering this question, “what is freedom?”  I have to imagine because I never took a philosophy class.  It feels more like a comedy sketch.  I imagine some older gentleman in a slightly creased suit, hand in his pocket, twirling his glasses in the other hand, squinting out at the lecture hall and asking, “What is freedom?”  The answer might be some kind of academic nonsensical double talk, “Freedom is a metaphysical transcultural intersocietal neurological astrological construct….”  It might be fairer to say that we know freedom when we see it, but defining it is more challenging.

            Some would argue that freedom is a ‘state of being’.  There is truth to that.  In honor of the 4^th, consider our history.  Before the Civil War, people were in two ‘states of being’ in this country.  There were slaves and there were free.  Drill down a little bit, consider the African American community.  Pardon the old fashioned language, but there were slaves and there were “free blacks”.  To be free was to be “not a slave”.  Freedom was conditional.

            From there, I think we can understand that when Paul is telling us that Christ makes us free, it is not because Jesus is inserting us into a philosophical, metaphysical construct.  He is freeing us FROM something.  He is freeing us from sin.  That is foundational to our salvation through Jesus’ death and resurrection.    

            Using the language of our history, the bible tells us we were slaves to sin, but now we are free, through Christ.  Freedom is a condition of the work of Christ at Easter. 

            But Paul doubles the wording: In freedom, Christ made us free Paul says.  Freedom has two meanings here.  First, ‘in freedom’ means that Jesus was free from sin, ever tempted, never fell for it.  In that freedom, his sacrifice on the cross was a perfect atonement, worthy of God for our sins and we were made free from the consequences of sin.  Thus free, we can choose how we shall again enslave ourselves again.    

            That is the language that Paul gives us.  We are free to become slaves to one another, through love, to fulfill the great commandment, thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself.  Or we are free to use the opportunity of self-indulgence.  We are free to gratify the desires of the flesh.  Which carry their own consequences.  But Paul does, in fact, warn us

If, however, you bite and devour one another, take care that you are not consumed by one another.

Let me sidebar for a moment.  I have to say, I am not a big fan of Paul’s language that we have to be enslaved to one another, not a big fan of slave language at all.  Slavery has a cruel and vicious history in our experience.  Yes, slavery was different in kind under the Romans, but to make that case undercuts our own experience with slavery in our nation’s history.  Maybe more current language is that we have a life choice to make.  We are free to choose how we shall live.  More important than the language of how we express it-our life choice or enslavement-more important are the consequences of those choices. 

On this, Paul is very clear.  If we choose the flesh, if we choose self indulgence,  

the works of the flesh are obvious: fornication, impurity, licentiousness, idolatry, sorcery, enmities, strife, jealousy, anger, quarrels, dissensions, factions, envy, drunkenness, carousing, and things like these. I am warning you, as I warned you before: those who do such things will not inherit the kingdom of God.

But given the preferred choice, love of neighbor, By contrast, the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. There is no law against such things.

            Freedom is then a choice.  We can choose to love our neighbor, we can choose to be self-indulgent.  Jesus chose love of neighbor, chose to love us to the point of giving up his life for us.  There is no argument as to which choice Paul is calling upon us to make here, for the love of neighbor.

            But while it is easy to state things as black and white, as right and wrong, to talk about them in absolutes, life is never that cut and dried.  Because sometimes the church, seeking to love neighbor, falls down and becomes self-indulgent when they place other things as more sacred than the love of God and neighbor.

            In college, I attended a church because of their active young adult fellowship.  It was a good place for me to be at that point in my life.  And this church took seriously the application of biblical precepts to the things of everyday life. Which was a good thing.  Until it was not.

            A gentleman, recently divorced, joined the church and our active young adult group.  Married too young, divorced quickly, came to the faith afterward as he was seeking to build a new life.  God bless him.  Eventually began a relationship with one of the women in the group.  Good and fine.  Then his ex-wife came to the church.  Maybe not so bad unto itself.  She also expressed that she had come to believe.  Again, something to celebrate.  And she wanted to reconcile with her ex-husband.  He did not want to, that relationship was done.  She went to the leaders of the church to back her play, and they did.  They said he must reconcile with his ex, in the name of Christ and the sanctity of marriage, thus cutting off his new relationship.  My friends ended up leaving the church, there was schism in their families, because of this, because they would not “accept” the guidance and discipline of the church. 

            My take is that church became self-indulgent in declaring that marriage was more important than neighbor.  It was a decision made from the best of intentions.  But that church went from gentleness to strife, peace to dissension, love to quarrels. 

            This is a big and painful example of what can happen when love of neighbor is lost in the freedom that we have in Christ.

            The fact of the matter is no one in that church leadership was out to hurt anyone else.  They felt they were doing God’s will.  They were taking it seriously.  And there was a time when they probably could have enforced their will upon the members of their church.  But that was also a time when “marriage” was sacred and blessed by the church, but what happened inside the marriage-all too often abuse, even violence, that was “none of the church’s business”.

            The law of God is very clear, love God, love neighbor, everything else derives from that.  When the church decides something is more important than neighbor, even some as important as marriage, things can break down.  How about a lesser example, like daring to challenge the conclusion that so many churches make, “we have always done it this way”.  The ‘tradition’ has become its own sacred cow.  As soon as a church finds itself saying something like that, there is a danger that their freedom has shifted from love to a self-indulgent danger-even unintentionally. 

The challenge for any church looking to be faithful to the witness of Jesus Christ is how consciously and intentionally they can connect a statement like “we’ve always done it this way” to the precept that we exercise our freedom to love our neighbor.  But how?

The challenge for the church is to honestly and openly review its own behavior to see what is happening.  If the fruit of the spirit are manifest, love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control then things are probably okay.  And the tradition serves the Lord’s purpose.

But if there is dissension in the church, if factions are forming, if there is anger or jealousy or strife, those behaviors are warning signals.  They should be telling us LOUD AND CLEAR that our freedom has moved from the love of neighbor into something else, something sinful, something disruptive.  The tradition has become important unto itself, and the bible calls that idolatry.  Because the consequences for that are very clear.  Those who do such things will NOT inherit the kingdom of God.

It is the mature and loving church that can look at itself with a critical eye and catch these things when they are happening.  And when they do, the solution in clear.  In Christ, we are made free.  We are free to stop what we are doing and begin again.  We are not only free to, but blessed with the opportunity to confess to God and to one another and receive the sweet healing of forgiveness.  And in those moments of renewal and forgiveness, the church grows spiritually-both inwardly and outwardly. 

            So to understand what freedom is in Christ enhances our understanding and wisdom of how freedom is the gift of God that can be the loving joy in which we give our hearts eagerly and sincerely to the Lord.

Amen.