13^th Sunday in Ordinary Time
Galatians 5:1, 13-25
June 27, 2019

For Freedom

Local TV "journalism" has sunk so low that I keep promising myself that I will no longer watch the late-night news. That chatter between the newscasters has become so banal and so annoying that it puts me in a bad mood just before I go to bed. Even more annoying, the people on the tube don’t seem hear me when I shout at them to correct their grammar or challenge their inane comments.

Despite my pledge, I did watch a bit of the local news the other night. Big mistake. The closing human interest story was about a grandmother in Kentucky who had just become the oldest licensed handgun owner in the state. Ann Brewer is 89 years old, and her hands shake as she loads her new pistol, but she passed the course and made it onto Fox News.

After the piece had aired, the two young newscasters felt obliged to comment. It’s a good thing I didn’t have a handgun on me at the time.

"Good for her," said the first newscaster, his gelled hair glinting in the camera. "Your darn right," sad the other. "If she wants to sleep with a loaded gun under her pillow, more power to her. I say, let her have an Uzi. That’s what freedom in this country is all about."

Well, this isn’t a sermon about gun control, and it isn’t a sermon about young men who have more good looks than good sense. It’s a sermon about freedom. Not the evening news kind. The Christian kind, the kind of freedom the apostle Paul writes about in today’s epistle reading.

"For freedom Christ has set us free," writes Paul. "Stand firm, therefore, and do not submit again to a yoke of slavery . . ." What might that mean for you and me?

To answer that question you have to understand that "freedom" in the Pauline sense does not mean "freedom" in the Fox News sense. Consult any modern thesaurus and you will find as equivalents for the word "freedom" "autonomy," "independence," "sovereignty," "self-determination." Paul would call these things "slavery," not "freedom."

Paul understood that we human beings are free in some ways and enslaved in others. The question for Christians is not whether we are slaves or free. The question is, from what or whom are we free and to what or whom are we enslaved?

Paul wants the Christians in Galatia to understand that they are free from the law of Moses. He also wants them to be on their guard lest they fall into bondage to other masters -- especially to themselves.

You were called to freedom, brothers and sisters," writes Paul; "only do not use your freedom as an opportunity for self-indulgence, but through love become slaves to one another."

Or, if you prefer the traditional language, "You shall love your neighbor as yourself." In Christ, the law of Moses becomes the law of love. When we are bound to Christ, we are set free to love both God and neighbor.

If you’re used to thinking of "freedom" as "autonomy," this might be a bit of a stretch. If, however, you happen to be a parent, you already know what Paul is talking about.

When Andra and I were expecting our first child, some of our friends would roll their eyes and say, "Well, get ready for it. Your life is over." They meant it as a joke, I think, but it never seemed funny to me.

I suppose they meant that our life would change. We’d be less free to go out at night, or to spend money on non essentials. Our lives would become centered on the needs of the newest member of our family. We’d become enslaved to our child.

But in practice, we found parenthood to be a freeing kind of bondage. Getting up at night was a challenge, but not a form of incarceration. Selling hot dogs for the band boosters was greasy, but it wasn’t anything like making bricks without straw for the pharaoh. Saving for college meant doing without some of the things our neighbors had, but none of this felt like slavery to us. To us, this felt like freedom.

Maybe that’s what Paul means when he urges the Galatians not to become slaves to "self-indulgence," but "through love" to become "slaves to one another."

　

Paul’s term for slavery to self-indulgence is "flesh." "Live by the Spirit, he urges, ". . . and do not gratify the desires of the flesh."

"Flesh," like "freedom," doesn’t mean the same thing for Paul that it tends to mean for us. Here "flesh" means "self-centered living" as opposed to "God-centered living." Paul is not disparaging our physical bodies. As a good Jew, Paul understands the body to be a good gift of God’s creation. "The desires of the flesh" does not mean the hunger we feel for food or the sexual attraction we feel for another person. It means the pursuit of those feelings without reference to God.

He even supplies a list – the works of the flesh as opposed to the fruit of the Spirit. On the first list are some pretty nasty consequences, all of them immediately recognizable in today’s context: fornication, impurity, licentiousness, idolatry, sorcery, enmities, strife, jealousy, anger, quarrels, dissensions, factions, envy, drunkenness, carousing . . . Paul could have gone on, but ink in those days was expensive and he has more than made his point.

To this formidable list we might add other "works of the flesh." Think of what happens when human beings pursue otherwise good things without reference to God. The results can be global warming, shrinking polar ice caps, oil-soaked beaches, and ads by corporations declaring how sorry they are for the mess they’ve made accompanied by preposterous promises to put everything right.

Have you seen that ad on TV featuring Darrel Willis, a BP employee from Louisiana? The same hubris that caused that well to blow up in the first place is the hubris that presumes to tell us, "We will make it right." Of course BP will not "make it right." With millions of gallons of oil gushing into the Gulf every day, no human power on earth can "make it right." That promise is more than insulting. It’s downright idolatrous.

"By contrast, the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control." That second list is shorter, but no less telling. How does a Christian move from one list to the other?

Well, that’s the challenge. Paul doesn’t say. He just says, "Live by the Spirit . . . be guided by the Spirit." There is no business plan. There is no operations manual. You simply bind yourself to Christ, or better still, rejoice that Christ has bound himself to you, and then hang on. The Spirit will take us where we need to go. "If we live by the Spirit, let us also be guided by the Spirit."

　

Those virtues Paul lists as the fruit of the Spirit are not goals to be achieved. They are serendipities to be welcomed and nurtured. Any pastor will tell you that the fruit of the Spirit can be harvested in bushel baskets, but it cannot be programmed.

As the Chair of our presbytery’s Committee on Preparation for Ministry, I take part in a list-serve with other CPM chairs across the country. A few weeks ago we were discussing online what we should look for in candidates for the ministry. A co-chair from California wrote, without any hint of hyperbole:

Bottom line: we need to focus all of our energies on finding and training only those candidates who have the leadership skills, the preaching skills, and the mental toughness to take 100-member churches to 200, 200 to 400, or 400 to 800. 　And we should pay whatever it takes to get those folks into pulpits. (Personal correspondence, emphasis by the writer).

So much for the fruit of the Spirit. By way of contrast, I was talking last Thursday with Rachel Hood, a member at Faith Presbyterian Church. Rachel is a recent graduate from FSU in Art History. I’ve know her since she was a first-year camper at Dogwood Acres. Rachel leaves for seminary next week.

I asked Rachel why she felt called to ministry, and she talked about how thrilling it is to teach the story of the creation to first graders at Dogwood Acres, and to help fourth-graders with their arts and crafts projects during Vacation Bible School. Her eyes lit up when she mentioned the rap sessions on Thursday nights at the Presbyterian University Center, talking about faith and the life of the mind in service to God.

Rachel didn’t once mention growing 200 member churches to 400 or 400 to 800. But she showed some clear indications that certain fruits have been growing in her life: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control, to name a few.

I hope that presbytery out in California accepts a few Rachels as candidates for ministry. They will need some Rachels in their churches to pick up the pieces when those numbers-obsessed pastors crash and burn.

If the church is to be guided by the Spirit, we had better pay attention to what the Spirit is doing to keep us free from all sorts of idolatries. Numerical growth can be a great gift. It can also be the most seductive of idols.

A shrinking church does not necessarily indicate an unfaithful church anymore than a growing church guarantees faithfulness. Check out the branches. Look for buds. Sample the fruit. You’ll know the fruit of the Spirit when you taste it.

For Christians, freedom is not autonomy. Nor is it the worship of the numerous idols that vie for our attention. It’s sacred slavery to God and neighbors. It’s walking guided by the Spirit.

This seems to be the summer for old hymns. The one that keeps ringing in my head goes like this:

I bind my heart this tide
To the Galilean’s side.
To the wounds of Calvary,
To the Christ who died for me.
 

I bind myself this day
To the neighbor far away
And the neighbor near at hand
In this town and in this land.

I bind my heart in thrall
To the God, the Lord of all,
To the God, the poor man’s friend,
And the Christ whom he did send.
 

I bind myself to peace,
To make strife and envy cease.
God, knit Thou sure the cord
Of my thralldom to the Lord.

        For freedom Christ has set us free. Stand firm, therefore, and do not submit to the yoke of slavery.

 

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