Freedom FROM... and Freedom FOR--August 21, 2020

 

"Freedom FROM... and Freedom FOR"--August 21, 2020

"For you were called to freedom, brothers and sisters; only do not use your freedom as an opportunity for self-indulgence, but through love become slaves to one another. For the whole law is summed up in a single commandment, 'You shall love your neighbor as your self.' If, however, you bite and devour one another, take care that you are not consumed by one another." [Gal. 5:13-15] 

Maybe Janis Joplin was right:  maybe "freedom's just another word for 'nothing-left-to-lose'." 

Freedom is one of those words that gets thrown around in conversation in America almost to the point where it loses its meaning. What do we want? "Freedom!"  What do we stand for? "Freedom!" "Freedom" gets invoked as the goal for everything from the Civil Rights movement of the 1960s marching to end segregation to present-day rallies of people who don't want to be inconvenienced by wearing masks during a pandemic. But what is this reality called freedom that we're so quick to shout about? So often, our picture of freedom has to do with not letting anyone tell us what to do, or being able to do whatever we want whenever we feel like it. And the story that often gets told in America is that freedom is our goal--the purpose and meaning of our lives. We are told to believe that freedom is an end in and of itself, rather than a means toward something more important, more vital, more life-giving.

But maybe that's the problem.  Maybe we've been thinking of freedom the wrong way... possibly for a very, very long time.  Maybe so long, in fact, that we have stopped considering that freedom might be more than just the angry insistence that no one can make me be kind to someone else (which, on the face of it, sounds like a sort of jerkish thing to dig your heels in on).  Maybe we made such a fuss for so long about what we think we need to freed from that we haven't given much thought to what we are freed for.

And the trouble in all of this is that freedom doesn't make much sense as an end in itself--we've got to ask, what is the point of freedom? Some might argue back that the "point" of freedom is to be able to do whatever we want, but that only begs the question--what is it that we truly want? Or maybe more to the point, what is it that we truly need, what do we ache for? And what is it that freedom allows us to move toward? We are often so quick to assert what we are freed from (as in, "You can't tell me what to do!" or "I'm free from your authority over me--I don't have to listen to you!") that we miss the more important question of what we are freed for (as in, "Without the old constraints on me, what am I able to do now that I couldn't before? What will I use my freedom for?). The real life-giving question is that second one: "What are we freed for?"  Once you've established you're free to do what you want... what is worth spending your day, your time, your love, your energy, your lifetime, for?

This is really where Paul is headed with this passage--after having fought so hard with the Galatians to let it sink in that they really are free in Christ from the old constraints of the law and the old barriers to community, Paul wants the Galatians to understand that freedom easily gets distorted if pursued just for its own sake. So easily in the name of "protecting our rights" or "proving our independence" or "not letting anybody tread on me," we trample on what really is worth having--the grace of being able to love others together in community. We can become so consumed protecting our own freedoms that we isolate and insulate ourselves and in the process cut ourselves off from everyone around us. We preserve our calendars so we don't have to give up our precious free time to invest in the needs of others; we hold back on sharing the concerns on our hearts with others because we don't want to let down our facades of independence. We refuse to be inconvenienced for someone else's sake, and so we make a fuss about wearing a mask in public.  And we get in a tizzy, especially many of us Americans, about not wanting to lose our freedoms, when sometimes what we are most deeply and truly aching for is the connection that comes from serving someone else. 

If you ask Paul, freedom is not something to pursue as a goal--it's a channel along the way, a condition that makes it possible for us to be drawn into the new reality of God's community that we are most deeply in need of. Freedom is worth having only insofar as it frees us up for love--to be loved freely (and to allow ourselves to believe that God really does love us in freedom apart from our earning) and to love others freely in Christ (no longer with the constrictions of race or class or gender or outsider status). So yes, we are free in Christ, and amen to that--but we are free for something, for someone, too. We are freed for love of neighbor, of stranger, of enemy. We are freed in order to be the people we are aching to become. 

So, with all due respect to Janis, freedom is more than just having nothing left to lose--maybe really, it about the ability to be brave enough to give yourself away in love.

Today, what are you freed for? Or better yet, whom are you freed for? How can you use the freedoms you have in this day (freedoms that are part of the political realm we live in, but also the freedom we have from God in Christ Jesus) to be drawn more deeply into love and to draw others in love? What kind of freedom could you find today in serving someone else? Risk it today.... 

Great God who is our Goal and our Journey, keep our minds straightened out about what is means and what is end in our life, and lead us to freely follow you until we are united at last with all your freed ones.