Have you ever been in the car with someone as they’re
having a conversation? You feel a little left out, and you
can’t help but try to fill in what’s being said on the other
side of the phone.
Well, this is the situation that we are in as we read
Paul’s letters in the New Testament. We’re listening
closely, trying to fill in the conversation and situation
from the other side, because what he’s saying to that
church long ago matters deeply to us today. He’s
talking about freedom. How are we to live in freedom?
This is a lesson that we never stop learning. There
are always new Pharaohs, new rulers, eager for our
obedience in exchange for meager portions of what
they or we think that we need. There’s always new
influencers, eager to fill the minds of others with
thoughts of themselves—their ideas, their opinions of
who we are or should be.
But the truth is that we are made for freedom. This truth
is deep in our bones, and over time, it begins to burn
with passion when our freedom is not honored. This is
the truth about which Nina Simone sang in the anthem
“I Wish I Knew How It Would Feel to Be Free.” It’s the
truth to which Dr. Martin Luther King referred when he
said that “truth crushed to the earth will rise again.” Our
urge to be free is so strong that “nothing on earth can
stop (us) from feeling (that we were) born for liberty,”
a hard won slice of wisdom from factory worker and
Christian mystic, Simone Weil.
The struggle for freedom in the Bible goes back almost
to the very beginning, and it does not conclude until
the very end. Our freedom faces twin threats: external
and internal threats, each of which seeks to undermine
our true source of freedom, which is God.
And so, let’s take a closer look at these barriers to
freedom, and then at the path and picture which Paul
gives us of what freedom looks like in action. But
before we do that, we need to ask: what is freedom?
It’s a hard thing to define. I think if we put ten of us in
a row, we would get ten different definitions of what
freedom is. Actually, we’re Presbyterians, so if you put
ten people in a row, you would have fifteen definitions
of what freedom is.
Freedom is often thought of as freedom “from.”
Freedom from some oppressive weight or force.
Freedom from debt, from depression, from isolation,
from illness. Freedom from a difficult situation at home,
at work. Freedom from the rat race. Freedom from the
constant competition of having to keep up with the
Joneses or coming up on top.
But here’s the problem with narrowing our definition to
simply from. The vacuum left by the absence of these
things is filled by new ones. The wisdom of Jesus’
parable in Luke’s Gospel is just this: when one evil spirit
leaves a person, the empty space is filled with seven
others, making the situation far worse than before.
We can’t simply pursue freedom from. Again and again,
throughout Scripture, God shows us that freedom is
primarily freedom for. Freedom is an opportunity for
something. But what exactly is it an opportunity for?
Well, this is where the internal threat to freedom comes
in. Freed from external constraints, what will we do?
“Whatever we want” is one possible option. Paul warns
us of the consequence of using freedom’s opportunity
for self-indulgence. And he’s not just being a strict
schoolmaster. He’s simply pointing out the natural
consequences of everyone looking out for number one,
doing whatever we want. In our life together, when we
each seek our own self-interest, whatever satisfaction
we may find is short-lived at best. In the wake of selfindulgence is social chaos. People, as Paul says, end up
“biting and devouring each other” to get what they want.
On the Fourth of July this past week, my son Luke was
interested in watching something together that related
to the American Revolution. And so, we dove a little
bit into John Adams’ story. In dreaming of our nation’s
future, John Adams understood that freedom is not
simply freedom from external constraints. In a letter
to his wife, Abigail, he reflects that, “Passions are the
same in all men, under all forms of simple government,
and when unchecked, produce the same effects of
fraud, violence, and cruelty. When clear prospects
are opened before vanity, pride, avarice, or ambition,
for their easy gratification, it is hard for the most
considerate philosophers and the most conscientious
moralists to resist the temptation.”
Adams saw what Paul before him saw: the way to true
freedom is not found by throwing off all constraints and
pursuing whatever we want. That is simply exchanging
an external constraint for an internal one—namely,
the “god of our bellies.” When we live lives of selfindulgence, short-lived satisfaction is quickly eclipsed
by an insatiable need for more. The things we pursue
end up enslaving us. We need more and more. What
we own ends up owning us. What you pursue becomes
the god that you serve, requiring more and more of you
until there’s nothing left. At the end of the day, what
have we actually gained? Jesus asks us, “What good is
it to gain the world, and forfeit (your) soul?” (Mark 8:36)
Now the tricky thing here is that we desire good things.
We want good things. It’s why we’re drawn to them—
because they’re good! But, as St. Augustine points out,
they’re harmful not because they are bad, but because
they are good things loved in the wrong order or in
the wrong way. They are, as he says, disordered loves.
Food, companionship, respect, self-worth. These are
good things, but loved in the wrong order and at all
costs in the wrong way, their pursuit can hurt not only
us but everyone around us. Disordered loves wreak
havoc on individuals and communities.
Freedom must be about more than simply being free of
all external and internal constraints to pursue whatever
we want. And that’s because we were created, and are
created, in the image of God. Whatever freedom we
have, therefore, is in the image and likeness of God’s
freedom. And we learn in the Bible that God is not
simply free from but primarily free for.
Free for creating beautiful things out of nothing. Free
for loving God’s creation, even when it turns against
Him. In Jesus Christ, we see God’s freedom to not wait
for His love to be reciprocated or earned. No, in Christ
we see God’s freedom to love even those who hate
Him, to love us even as we are crucifying him. In Jesus
we see God’s freedom to disregard the social taboos
of the most religious in order to show God’s favor for
people cast out of religious circles. Freedom is for, in a
word, love.
God’s freedom is lived out and expressed relationally,
in relation to us. God shows us who God is and what
freedom looks like through uncoerced acts of free and
steadfast love showered upon us, again and again and
again and again. God’s love is free. It’s not dependent
on us living up to this or that standard. God loves us,
not out of obligation, not to reward us for our good
religion or best behavior, not because we have done
this or accomplished that. God is free of all of that.
“While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.” When
we are at our best, God loves us. When we are at our
worst, God loves us. God’s freedom is expressed in
God’s unbound and eternal love.
Paul is saying that we are free in precisely this same
way. Yet, too often we remain tied up and imprisoned
by internal and external barriers to freedom. But
whether we are pressed in from the outside or are our
own worst enemies, the way out is love. Freedom is the
opportunity to love. To misuse freedom’s opportunity
for self-indulgence or our own ends—rather than to
love—is to be a prisoner who chooses to remain in his
cell, even though the door is open.
So, what happens when we make the decision to walk
through that door? Fruit grows. Fruit grows in the way
that Paul describes them. Relational fruit. Fruit like love,
joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness,
gentleness, self-control. This is what freedom in Christ
looks like in action. The presence of these fruit is a sure
sign that we are living by the Spirit, abiding in Christ,
engaged in his way of life, branches whose life is drawn
from the vine. The absence of these fruit should give us
pause; they should move us to ask seriously whether
we have gone off course, whether we are no longer
sailing by the winds of the Holy Spirit.
“Second Presbyterian Church is a welcoming
community of faith where Jesus Christ transforms lives.”
That is our mission statement. It is what we aspire to
be and to become. We are here to be transformed by
Jesus Christ, so that we might bear spiritual fruit for the
good of everyone around us. Like branches of a healthy
fruit tree, we need to be well nourished by streams
of living water, so that we may be free to bear the
relational fruit of the Spirit.
These are fruit that no money can buy. No one can
achieve or produce them on their own. They are God’s
fruit, which grow as we love our neighbors, even as we
love ourself, with patience, with kindness. When we
rein in self-indulgence and replace it with self-control,
when we exchange irritability with patience and
gratitude for the gift of the person in front of us, when
we live like this, God’s fruit grows in us.
Now, this kind of fruit takes time to grow. It doesn’t
grow over night. As pastor Eugene Peterson remarked,
“If I want a potato for dinner tonight, it will do me no
good to plant it this morning.” Like all good fruit, the
fruit of the Spirit requires careful tending over time, day
by day, until by God’s grace it is fully grown.
Our freedom, like God’s freedom, is expressed in taking
every opportunity we have, every day, to love each
other as God has loved us. It is that kind of freedom
that we were created for, and which bears fruit that
lasts. Amen.