Rev. Eugene N. Nelson, Jr.
The Community Church of Sebastopol
July 6, 2008
Galatians 5:1; 13-15
Concerning the July 4th holiday, Peter Gomes, the chaplain at Harvard University, writes, "We Americans know that the Fourth of July means a holiday of massive proportions and the official beginning of summer. We celebrate it with flags and bunting, parades and speeches, family gatherings, and food burned to a crisp on an outside grill. We listen to band music and we close the day with a display of fireworks as large as our municipal budgets or private philanthropy will allow. And most of us retire to our beds, that night, wearily content that the Republic has survived yet one more celebration of itself."
But just what have we celebrated this weekend? My guess is that many, if not most of us, would reply that we have celebrated our freedom - land of the free, home of the brave. Freedom - a good thing to have, to preserve, to celebrate. How many times have we gone to war to defend our freedom? Even today, we find ourselves at war, no longer to destroy weapons of mass destruction targeting American cities, but, in fact, now we are told we are at war to bring the blessings of freedom to a people who have not know freedom and who, we assume, want it. I mean, who could not want freedom? Everyone wants freedom, right?
Peter Gomes again, he's also an African American pastor. "My maternal grandmother was born in 1869 in Richmond, Virginia. She had been brought up by her grandmother, from whom she had heard the details of the emancipation of the slaves and the end of the Civil War. In our family, from my grandmother's lips to my mother's ears, and hence to me, the story of emancipation and freedom was not what I would have expected. Instead of jubilation and liberation at the end of the war, there was confusion, even fear. Anxiety was high as grandma heard it and mother told it, freedom, whatever it was, was not all it was cracked up to be, and a great deal of work and relocation were required to accommodate its influences, both disruptive and benevolent, in the real lives of the real people to whom it had been quite suddenly granted."
That's interesting... the ambiguity and opportunity, the blessings and challenges, of this freedom we celebrate, both disruptive and benevolent. Which brings me to our text for today. Actually this text from Galatians has been a popular text for Fourth of July sermons since the 18th century. "For freedom, Christ has set us free." However, the problem with using this text in conjunction with a celebration of our political freedom, is that Paul was writing in the mid-first century. He knew nothing of, and believe it or not, was not anticipating the American Revolution or the country that would emerge from it. It is so easy, on this weekend particularly, to preach a sermon suggesting that the freedom wrested from the tyranny of King George III was won by none other than the great American patriot, Jesus of Nazareth. But that isn't where Paul is going here. He's speaking to the church about freedom...Freedom in Christ.
Now, a number of scholars including Dominic Crosson, who I just spent some time with last week, have suggested that when the Apostle Paul spoke of freedom, he was being far more revolutionary than George Washington or Thomas Jefferson, or any of our nation's founders. For he was not talking just about a change in government or even a changed world. Paul was talking about a new world, indeed a whole new creation. And so for him, to speak of freedom is nothing less than the freedom to risk complete transformation, to dare to see something new, to perceive and live out a whole new reality, what Jesus called the Kingdom of God - right here - right now.
And this is what Paul preached to the Galatians. In Christ you are free. You are no longer bound by the old ways, the old values, the old religious laws, your old perceptions of the world. You no longer have to see just what the group sees, value just what the group values, fear what the group tells you to fear - what Sam Keen calls, "consensual paranoia," which we've had a lot of lately. Dare to go beyond the mind you have, says Paul. Dare to give up the many attractive gods of culture that you might then center your lives ever more deeply in the one true God. Dare to walk with Jesus on the road less traveled, which is the road to a whole new world. That's freedom.
But it was hard for many of the Galatians. Paul was preaching a liberation that they weren't sure they wanted. And many began drifting back to the old familiar customs and laws, the old familiar ways of being, the old oughts and shoulds of a world with which they were comfortable. Paul was preaching liberation to a people who didn't feel the need for it, didn't want the disruption of it. Of course, as Paul saw it, they longed for a return to the very slavery from which Christ had freed them. Which brings us back to the ambiguity and opportunity of freedom.
And it occurs to me that this might be the totally wrong sermon for a place like Sebastopol. Because, honestly, the ways of culture and conventional wisdom have been pretty kind to us. We might wonder, what's all this talk about change and freedom and liberation? Liberation from what? Life's pretty good here. In the midst of a comfortable culture, it can be very difficult for us to read our lives Biblically - to hear Paul, to hear Jesus - because we're pretty convinced that we already have the freedom they speak of. And maybe that's true. Maybe we have all the liberation we need. Paul, don't write us anymore letters. We got it. Well, maybe so.
A few years ago, Yale's David G. Myers wrote a book - The American Paradox: Spiritual Hunger in an Age of Plenty. In that book he wondered why it is we have so much yet feel like we have so little. Why is it we have more and do more and enjoy it less? In his words "We have espresso coffee, the World Wide Web, sports utility vehicles and caller ID, but, we have less happiness, more depression, more fragile relationships, less communal commitment, less vocational security, more crime and more demoralized children." But we are free...right? Myers dared to suggest, I believe much in the spirit of Paul, that we might not be as free as we like to think we are, that the freedom to get and to do and to have is insufficient in comparison with the freedom to be.
And so, Paul insisted that the Galatians' boast of freedom were nothing more than the rattling of their chains. Might be a little harsh for us, I don't know. But, I still have the feeling that if Paul was with us today, he would tell us how much he enjoyed the hot dogs and fireworks, and then he would ask, now that the celebration is over, are you ready to be truly free - to embrace the freedom Christ promises? For, you see, there is another story for us to wrap our souls in, another way to see, another way to be and it isn't the way of conventional wisdom. No, this way looks a lot like Jesus.
You know the story from the Book of Acts, Paul and Silas, in jail, perhaps facing execution. They spend their time, in jail, singing, praying, giving thanks to God and sharing their faith with the other prisoners. You get the feeling they did not even hear the loud clang of the prison doors closing behind them. The earthquake comes, the earth shakes, the doors fly open, but Paul and Silas don't run to freedom. They are already free. In fact, the jailer comes to them and says, "I want what you have." In one of the great biblical ironies, the one with the keys is the prisoner, the ones in prison are free
I think of Bishop Desmond Tutu, in the dark days of apartheid in South Africa. There was going to be a huge rally at the Episcopal Cathedral in Johannesburg. Hundreds of people were coming. The government said it would not be allowed. Then it relented and said OK it can happen. But the cathedral was surrounded with police and armed soldiers and finally the soldiers even came inside and lined the walls of the sanctuary. Imagine worshipping here today with armed soldiers, shoulder to shoulder, down the sides of our sanctuary - intimidation. Tutu got up to speak, looked at the police in full riot gear, weapons armed and ready, looked at the fear in the eyes of the people, then he turned to the soldiers, smiled and said, "We have won. You have lost. And since you have already lost, we invite you to sit down, sit with us and join the winning side." Tutu, in the midst of that horrible time, was already free. For all their weapons and armor, the powers of injustice and repression and violence had no power over him. He already had stepped into another world, he was already walking on a different path - he was already free. The way of Jesus - the way of true freedom.
Man, I'd like some of that freedom. I am comfortable and content in so many ways...maybe too comfortable, 30 years, holy mackerel! And yet, there remain so many areas of my life where I feel kind of trapped, anxious, confused, where the windows seem barred and the doors locked, where I am so cautious, so darn afraid. I think that the words of the 13th century Sufi poet, Rumi, apply to me. He said, "Why, when the world is so large, did you fall asleep in prison?" Why, when the world is so large, did you fall asleep in prison? I want to wake up. I want to see a larger world. I want to turn away from violence to seek out nonviolence, justice and peace. I want to see more than this world wants me to see. Then Paul comes along and says, "For freedom, Christ has set you free." Then Jesus comes by and says. "Follow me, learn truth, and the truth will set you free." So let us stand fast, dare to go beyond the world as it is and the mind that we have, and not submit again to yoke of any slavery.