"Until Everybody's Free"--June 19, 2023

"Until Everybody's Free"--June 19, 2023

"Then Jesus said to the Jews who had believed in him, 'If you continue in my word, you are truly my disciples; and you will know the truth, and the truth will make you free.' They answered him, 'We are descendants of Abraham and have never been slaves to anyone. What do you mean by saying, You will be made free?' Jesus answered them, 'Very truly I tell you, everyone who commits sin is a slave to sin. The slave does not have a permanent place in the household; the son has a place there forever. So if the Son makes you free, you will be free indeed.'" [John 8:31]

"Free indeed." I've been thinking a lot about this well-known line of Jesus today in particular, on this, the commemoration of Freedom Day, or Juneteenth.  I will admit that it wasn't until I was well into my mid-twenties before I had ever even heard of Juneteenth or learned the story, which probably suggests a whole conversation unto itself about how we choose to tell, and not to tell, our histories.  But today I can't help but reflect on the memory held by this date on the calendar, and how powerfully it illustrates what Jesus says.

The story, in short, goes like this: it was on this date, June 19, in 1865 that word finally arrived in the slaveholding state of Texas, that both the Civil War was over (with Lee's surrender to Grant, back in April of that year), and that those who had been enslaved in the rebel states of the Confederacy had been declared "forever free" by the Emancipation Proclamation that went into effect on January 1, 1863--some two and a half years prior.  When the news was announced there in Galveston, it meant that in the last holdout strongholds of slavery, finally there was hope of liberation.  And it is a reminder, too, that the Emancipation Proclamation by itself could not set people free, especially those who had never been told what it said--and at the same time, that winning a war on a battlefield could not by itself set them free, either.  Ultimately, it was when the truth came and met them where they were that those who remained in chains could be liberated. (Of course, the actual practice of that liberation has always been more elusive than the words of the initial promise--as Dr. King would put it a hundred years later at the March on Washington, it was a "promissory note" that had "come back marked insufficient funds" for the descendants of those enslaved). But this is one of those days in our nation's history where, even if only in part, we are witness to the way the speaking of truth sets people free.  Despite the efforts of the Confederacy, of White slaveholders, and of the whole economic and social system of the time to maintain and perpetuate slavery, eventually the truth was spoken that set real people free... indeed.

I think it's worth us remembering that Jesus describes his own mission and ministry in those same terms--the setting free of those who are in bondage.  We are so used to thinking and talking about Jesus as the one who "gets us into heaven" like he is a travel agent booking a spot on the cruise ship for us, that we can forget Jesus' own way of talking is about something wider and deeper than an afterlife reservation.   It is about releasing human beings from the various ways we are held captive--and that we keep putting ourselves and one another into captivity.  Jesus has come to free people--he even said as much in his opening sermon at his hometown synagogue in Nazareth: "The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to bring good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to let the oppressed go free, to proclaim the year of the Lord's favor" (see Luke 4:18-19). And he does that by what he says--his "word" that "sets us free"--rather than needing an army to conquer, weapons to destroy with, or political power to threaten with.  Jesus is convinced that the truth is enough to make people free.

For a long time in our own nation's history, the fear of losing status, power, wealth, and a way of life kept slaveholders (and all parts of society that depended on slavery for cheaper crops and labor) from being able to love their neighbors whom they had enslaved. And that fear led them to keep the truth of emancipation hidden from the human beings they claimed to own for as long as they possibly could.  Fear does that to us--it makes us hide from truths that make us uncomfortable or threaten our way of life, and it distorts our vision of other people. But the kind of truth Jesus brings breaks the power of that fear and enables us to love.

It's always funny to me in this scene that the people who reply to Jesus seem to have selectively remembered their history--insisting they have never been slaves to anyone, when in fact the formative story of ancient Israel was slavery to Egypt for 400 years.  And of course, that refusal to face an uncomfortable truth is part of why they are still captive--when we cannot face our stories truthfully, we will always been captive to the version of history that we'd prefer to remember, and all too often we'll stop at nothing to silence any other versions of history exactly because they make us squirm.  Jesus insists on being one to tell us the truth, not to make us feel bad but to set us free--and so that others who are held captive by the lies we tell ourselves can be set free, too.

And so that we're clear, that "Truth" Jesus tells isn't just an abstract concept--it has everything to do with him and with the way of life he makes possible.  Jesus tells us that we no longer have to be captive to fear any longer--not fear of losing power, not fear of being rejected, not fear of facing our failures and mess-ups... and therefore we can be humble, vulnerable, and honest.  Jesus tells us that we no longer have to be captive to our old pet hatreds and bigotries any longer... and therefore we are enabled to love and welcome those we had gotten comfortable condemning.   Jesus tells us that we no longer have to be captive to the insecurities that make us push someone else down in order to puff ourselves up... and therefore we can claim our identity as God's beloved, and see it in everyone else.  All of that is possible because Jesus' mission is to set people free--not at the point of a gun but with the words of his mouth.

Today is a day to remember just how high the stakes really are in this life for telling the truth and refusing to keep it from others.  And today is a day to remember that Jesus has come so that all of us might be liberated by his word of love, until all of creation is made new.  After all, as Fannie Lou Hamer put it, "Nobody's free until everybody's free."

Maybe today it begins in your life and mine as we tell someone else that, on Jesus' authority, they are free indeed.

Lord Jesus, give us the grace and courage to tell the truth about ourselves, and the faith to believe the truth you speak about us, so that we might all be free.