It’s always important for us as Christians to remember that our allegiance is first and foremost to God—not to a particular government or country. St. Paul reminds us today that our citizenship is in heaven—and so in many ways, not of this world, as Jesus says of his own kingdom when confronting Pilate at his trial before the crucifixion.
And yet we are rightfully bound to respect the government insofar as it doesn’t compel us to sin as a rightful means for God to order the world for our good living. As citizens of this country, of the United States of America, we are fortunate to be able to enjoy a way of life that many the world over do not and cannot. And so it is right for us to give thanks to God for the life that we have, knowing that all that we have is from God. But what does it mean for us to truly, truly recognize and appreciate that fact, that truth—all that we have is from God? Ponder that as we go forward…
Let us pray. May only God’s Word be spoken and may only God’s Word be heard; in the name of Jesus. Amen.
The Lutheran Theological Seminary at Philadelphia had a very diverse student body when I was there. I had classmates that came from Philadelphia, the surrounding counties, from New England, from Ohio, from Texas. But not just the United States. I had classmates that came from other countries as well—Myanmar, Japan, Namibia, India, Tanzania. We had women and men, gay and straight, rich and poor, straight-out-of-undergrad and second, third, or even fourth career folks. No matter who you were, where you were from, or what your background, everyone had to participate in an anti-racism workshop. Even if you’d had such a workshop or training before, the seminary still required that every student do the anti-racism workshop. It was part of the seminary’s commitment to fighting racism. Because that’s what anti-racism is; it’s not just being against racism, but actively working to undo the harmful effects of racism.
I participated in the workshop one Saturday in my first year as a seminarian. Part of the workshop was an exercise that had us participants line up along the one wall of the indoor basketball court. Then one of the workshop leaders would give us directions. Some examples: “If you are right-handed, take one step forward,” or “if one or both of your parents graduated from college, take one step forward,” or “if you were the first person in your immediate family to graduate from college, take one step back,” or “If you have ever skipped a meal or went away from a meal hungry because there was not enough money to buy food, take one back.”
There were many questions, mixed up, telling us to move forward or move backward. Some of the participants moved almost all the way across the basketball court. Most of us, like myself, found ourselves somewhere in the middle, to varying degrees. But there was one participant who was still along the wall at the end of the exercise—they were a person of color, not from the United States. The facilitator explained how the farther we moved across the basketball court represented, in a way, how far “ahead” our life circumstances, circumstances that were out of our hands, placed us in relationship to other people. The exercise was supposed to show us that although we are all equal, all the “the same on the inside,” not all our circumstances are the same that help or hurt us along life’s journey—and sometimes those circumstances are things that we had no hand whatsoever in contributing to.
It was at about this point that the participant along the way erupted bawling and ran out of the gym. All of us were naturally startled by what’d just happened. The facilitator left immediately, and the rest of us were left murmuring about what was going on. A few minutes later, the participant returned with the facilitator, cleared up from crying, but obviously distressed.
The facilitator told us that the participant wanted to share something with us. I can’t remember exactly what they said, but the gist was this—there were so many “move backward” questions for this participant that they couldn’t go back any further in the room because of the wall we all started at. While some were almost at the other side of the basketball court, and most of us were somewhere in the middle, this participant couldn’t go backward any further because there was a literal wall stopping them. But their life circumstances were so bad, that according to the exercise, they should’ve been further back. They were that far behind the rest of us, or we were that far ahead them, because of circumstances out of any of our control, that none of us had any role in making happen—yet here we were.
It was truly an eye-opening experience and made us all consider just how much where we end up in life isn’t just a matter of what we do for ourselves. Sometimes the deck really is stacked for our stacked against someone…We aren’t really totally free to determine our own destiny, as much as we might like to think we are.
Today’s readings all in some way speak to the notion of freedom. This weekend, and in the next two days especially, across this country, people will celebrate “freedom” as we mark our nation’s 247th birthday.
July 4, 1776—the day the founders of this nation publicly read those famous words for all to hear, “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness.”
Liberty, another word for freedom.
This is the heart of the United State’s great promise.
This is the land of the free, and so once again, on this weekend and on this July 4, we celebrate this cherished ideal and what we hope it represents. That we can all enjoy the rights our Creator has endowed to all men, the blessings that God has given us and all people.
Yet it’s not the notion of political freedom that today’s readings are speaking of. Political freedom, in truth, might rightly be understood to come from the freedom that is spoken of in today’s readings…a secondary kind of freedom. Today’s readings speak of freedom that God provides—but that comes to us through the sacrifice of Jesus. The readings speak of Christian freedom—freedom that comes in living into the relationship that God gives us because of Jesus. Yes—God desires that all people live in freedom, but the freedom that truly sets us free, “free indeed,” is the freedom that comes in relationship with God, freedom that comes from relationship with God through the Son—through Christ Jesus.
Often I hear people bemoaning the erosion of values in this country, that we need a return to good morals. We do suffer from an erosion of values in this country, but it’s not what most people mean when they say that. Most often such talk is directed at other people, but the truth of the matter is, the reparation of morality in this country begins close to home, in your own household, with your own self. Christ has set you free, indeed, but that freedom isn’t an occasion for you to judge others, but rather to take stock of your own life, your own morality.
Christian freedom is not a license for indulgence, but an obligation to live a life of love, righteousness, and service. It involves the exercise of responsible choices, rooted in loving other people and creation as Christ loved us—and in so doing giving glory to God. The freedom Jesus gives us compels us, impels us to use our freedom to bless others, work justice, and cultivate virtue. Christian freedom is not a self-centered pursuit, but a call to embrace and express the love of Jesus in the world. It’s an invitation to live in the fullness of God’s grace and to walk in the freedom that comes from surrendering to Jesus’ lordship in love and service, just as he surrendered himself to the will of God in loving and serving us. In exercising this freedom, we find true life, liberty, and happiness.
German anthropologist Dr. Ursula Ahnenforsch was working with in a village in South Africa among the Xhosa people to learn more about their way of life. As part of her study, she proposed a game to some of the kids. She put a basket full of fruit at one end of the road in the village, and then told the kids that whoever got to the basket first won the fruits as a prize. She had all the kids line up and told them, when he shouted “Hamba!” which means, “Go!”, they should could run to the basket. And so the kids lined up, he shouted “Hamba,” and then something Dr. Ahnenforsch didn’t expect happened. The kids all took each other’s hands and ran together, and got to the basket of fruit together. And so they sat together enjoying the fruit together.
When Dr. Ahnenforsch asked them why they’d run holding hands when whoever could run the fastest could’ve had all the fruits for themselves, one of the kids piped up and said, “Ubuntu. How can one of us be happy if all the other ones are sad?” In case you didn’t know, “Ubuntu” in the Xhosa language means, “I am because we are.”
So it is for us all of us in our freedom. None of us are truly free until all of us are truly free. This is what Jesus came down from heaven in order that we might believe—that life in him sets us free. Living like Jesus, the true and abiding Word of God, is a living a life of freedom. To have Jesus abide with us is to believe in him, and to believe in him sets us free to live as he lived—living not for ourselves, but for the sake of the world, the people, plants, animals, rocks, rivers, seas, birds, mountains, fishes, stars, and skies that God so loved. Living by loving.
And so as the Son sets us free by his love so that we like him might love, we are free.
We are free indeed.
In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
The Rev'd Daniel W. Spigelmyer, Jr. 