Scripture readings: Leviticus 25:8-13;
Romans 8:1-21
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| Flags blowing around Desert Aire/Mattawa WA July 2016 |
We can’t understand what it means to
be a Christian unless we know what it means to be free. Freedom is not the most
common word used in the Bible to describe a Christian, but freedom (in the
Bible) is just as important as any other word to describe who we are, and what
God intends us to be. The word freedom is just as important as any other word
in the Bible to help us understand the Good News of Jesus, and new life that
comes from Jesus.
The good news of Jesus dying on the
cross for the sins of the world, and his rising from the dead to defeat the
power of sin and death, is God’s fulfillment of a promise he made to the world
many, many times through the people of Israel. It’s the central promise of the
Old Testament. And the promise has always been about freedom.
In the Garden of Eden, our human
race rebelled against God in the desire to be our own gods and goddesses. (Genesis
3:5) It was a rebellion to make ourselves smart enough to be independent, so we
could be in charge.
In a sense, our rebellion was about
freedom, because we thought that the freedom for which God had made us was not nearly
enough. When we rebelled for the sake of our own brand of freedom, we altered human
nature. We became a hereditary race of rebels and failed gods.
This is not the way to freedom. This
is not the way to the sort of freedom that brings any meaningful, lasting
happiness.
Every new generation has been born
with their parents’ addiction to this ancient rebellion. The patterns of human
life show our slavery to this addiction. And yet, in that same garden, God
promised that there would come a time when the human race would be set free
from slavery.
The promise was brief, and simple;
and it was made (strangely enough) by God to the devil, who had taken the form
of a snake. God promised that a time would come when a descendant of Adam and
Eve would crush the devil and his power. God said, “I will put enmity between
you and the woman, and between your offspring and hers; he will crush your head
and you will strike his heel.” (Genesis 3:15) A human would be hurt and, by being
hurt, he would kill the devil.
Jesus was terribly hurt by the
devil, working through human powers, on the cross. Jesus was hurt to the death.
But he rose alive. He can no longer be hurt or defeated. He’s infinitely free.
The devil is the defeated one. We
can rightly call him a dead man walking. The devil and the rebellion he led are
defeated and in retreat.
Jesus in his hurt, and in his
rising, sets us free from the devil, and from sin and death. Jesus plants his
Holy Spirit in those who trust him, and the Spirit has the power to plant the
sacrifice and victory of Jesus in us.
Through what Christ has done for a
fallen world, and for each one of us, the Holy Spirit has the authority to
write our personal declaration of independence from the power of the devil, and
from the power of sin, and death: and this is exactly what he has done. This is
the meaning of what Paul writes to the Christians in Rome: “Through Christ
Jesus the law of the Spirit of Life has set me free from the law of sin and
death.” (Romans 8:2)
In the Gospel of John (8:36) Jesus
says, “If the Son sets you free, you shall be free indeed.” So, if we belong to
Jesus, we ought to know what it means, and what it feels like, to be free.
But freedom is confusing. Sometimes
the rebel nature, lurking in us all, jumps at the chance to be confused about
freedom. Our confusion about freedom gives us an excuse to go back to our old
addiction. There are so many advantages that come from the excuse of confusion.
Sometimes freedom seems to be the exact
opposite of what Christians are about. Being Christian seems to be about rules
and not freedom.
If you think about it, though,
freedom needs rules. The old radio news-man, the late Paul Harvey, would say,
“Freedom without self-discipline is anarchy.” Freedom needs priorities.
My grandpa Evans had an insight into
the danger of being confused about freedom. He had a saying he used, when
someone passed him on the highway in dangerous circumstances. If someone passed
him on a curve where no one could possibly know what was coming, or if someone
passed on a straight-a-way where anybody could see the cars approaching without
the room to pass, he would say, “That guy is in a hurry to his own funeral.”
I drive fast, but I am very cautious
about passing, most of the time. I also try to always stop in time, but that
clearly doesn’t work. We all know people who, in the name of freedom, are in a
hurry to their own funeral.
The sin, and the defeat, and the
slavery that came out of Eden began when human beings decided to set up shop as
their own little gods and goddesses. They wanted the failed freedom of being in
charge, and of being at the center of their own lives. (Genesis 3:5-6)
Everybody is tempted this way. Some
people try to pretend they are their own little gods and goddesses by living
like they’re in a hurry to their own funerals. Others are in a hurry to the
funeral of their relationships with the people who love them and count on them.
They’d rather have what they want, the way they want it, than have real love.
They kill the freedom that comes from trust and hope. They’d rather keep their
false freedom.
Good people are different. It is
easy for good people to be tempted to use goodness as a mask. Without admitting
or facing what they’re doing, they act like little gods and goddesses by using
a bunch of rules to give them the right to sit in judgment on others. They use
the mask of goodness to control and wound others.
It all comes from the same old motivation.
It’s all part of the same natural reflex of our slavery to the old rebellion of
Eden. Paul wrote most of his letter to the Romans to warn his friends of this
danger. If we belong to Jesus we will learn to listen to his friend Paul.
By the power of the Holy Spirit, the
work done for us by Jesus becomes part of us. The personality of Jesus becomes
part of us. It motivates us and grows in us. It’s not like being brainwashed,
or having part of your brain removed. It isn’t like being bullied by someone
bigger, and tougher, and smarter than you are; although God is bigger, and
tougher, and smarter.
It is more like finding a friend and
finding your real self that was lost in Eden long before you were born. And
that friendship, and that lost self, fit you so well that you will never be
happy without them again.
Paul describes the new self that is
really your true and long-lost self. He says that the Holy Spirit makes it
possible, and the Spirit doesn’t interfere with your real freedom when he gets
this new life growing in you. It is life in the image of God, and you were
created for a life in the image of God in the first place. Your long-lost self
is your long lost freedom.
Paul says that the image of God
planted in you by the Holy Spirit looks like this: “But the fruit of the Spirit
is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness,
and self-control. Against such things there is no law.” (Galatians 5:22-23)
We stop thinking about rules that
hold us in a vise, or laws that others are always using to judge us when we
fail. The Spirit gives us a holy freedom.
When the Holy Spirit is at work in
our lives we stop thinking about rules and we start thinking about Jesus. We
start thinking about the love of God, and how we desire to love God with
everything in us, and to love our neighbor as ourselves. The Spirit brings
Jesus into us. We grow in our freedom to love God, and our neighbor, and even
ourselves in this new life.
Martin Luther, one of the great
reformers of the church five hundred years ago, wrote something about all of
this that is so good that (if you have never heard it before) you need to hear
it, and think about it. Luther wrote: “A Christian man is the most free lord of
all, and subject to none, a Christian man is the most dutiful servant of all,
and subject to everyone.” This is the freedom of being a Christian. This is the
freedom of belonging to Jesus.
This leads us to the Book of
Leviticus and the amazing principle of The Year of Jubilee. In Old Testament
times, if you lost everything, and if you lost every legitimate way of supporting
yourself and your family and, if your relatives had no way of helping you, you
only had two options. One was to become an outlaw and live by robbery and
murder: and that was forbidden.
The other option was to become a
slave. Then someone with resources would take you in and provide for you, in
return for your labor.
But God’s law for God’s people
required that anyone who bought you would only have you and your labor for six
years. When the six years were over and the seventh year came, you had to be
restored to freedom (if you wanted it), because God’s people are supposed to be
free. (Exodus 21:2-11; Leviticus25:39-43) When your slavery was over, you
recovered your long-lost self. You found your true freedom-self.
In the Old Testament world, land was
the symbol of freedom and dignity. When the people of Israel entered the
Promised Land, each family received an allotment of land that was supposed to
remain with that family forever.
This allotment of land represented
their inheritance and their resources as children of God, as the people of God.
It stood for their relationship with the God of freedom who set them free from
centuries of slavery in Egypt.
Sometimes a family would get into so
much debt that they had to sell part of their land, or all of their land. It
would be bought by a more fortunate neighbor. But there was supposed to be a
year of jubilee, every fiftieth year, when every family that had lost their
inheritance, as the people of God, would have it completely restored to them.
To be among the people of the land
was to be free, and to have your land restored to you was like receiving your
long-lost self, the dignity of the children of God who had their rightful and
equal place among all the rest of God’s people. But there is no record,
anywhere in the Bible, of this law ever being kept.
Even though it was never kept, it
was never forgotten. It was a symbol of the freedom promised by God all through
the Bible.
The year of Jubilee is a symbol for
Jesus, who restores to us the life of the image of God for which we were
created. Jesus is the Jubilee. Jesus is our freedom.
But Jesus also lives in us in order
to live through us. You can’t understand the good news of Jesus unless you
understand the old law that the people of Israel never kept.
The people of God were expected to
form a freedom-giving environment, not just for themselves but for everyone.
Land, in the Old Testament, gave you
freedom. Land was the means to be your full self. In a sense land gave you
dignity, and resources, and abilities: and these came from God, the real owner
of the land. (Leviticus 25:23) And this helps us understand the meaning of
freedom.
Our full self was designed by God to
have the resources (and the means) of focusing outward. Our real self was
designed to have the ability of caring for others beside ourselves. Our full
self was created to love God; and to love our neighbor as ourselves. Perfect love
is freedom.
The truth is that this full,
many-sided love can only be given by you to others when you, yourself, are
restored to your long-lost land, or to your long-lost self. In Christ you are
given the dignity, and resources, and abilities that you need to live the full
life of love, and you are able to help those who have not been restored to
their long-lost life, and freedom, and dignity.
Now we have to remember that, in the
Old Testament, freedom and dignity were things that were lost and restored,
over and over again, in times of famine, and in times when Israel was occupied
and ruled by its enemies. The freedom of
each slave came in the seventh year, and the restoration of the land was
supposed to come every fiftieth year.
If these laws were followed they
would have involved everyone in the practice of planning and preparing for
freedom, for themselves and for others. Setting people free, and restoring them
to their landed dignity would have become a way of life. It would have formed
the very spirit of their community and their nation.
God’s people were supposed to form a
community where the freedom and dignity of others was the natural concern of
everybody. As a body they would know that the gift of freedom was being given
to someone every day. Everyone would be
counting the years and the days for someone’s freedom.
The church is called to be nothing
less than that. Are we working for the freedom of others? Are we giving others
the opportunities they need? Are we giving others the encouragement and the
patience they need to find the freedom of Jesus?
Now, in the Old Testament, this
freedom was not only a matter of words. It was very practical. It involved
labor, and money, and land, and the will to do something with it.
In the New Testament, the people of
God, the people of the church were concerned about very practical issues. They
were concerned about slaves and masters, workers and employers. They were
concerned about the role of marriage and family. They were concerned about the
poor. They were concerned about victims of disasters, and so they raised funds
for hunger relief in the Holy Land. They visited the sick. They visited people
in prison.
They were concerned with how to play
a part in their society. They thought about how to live with the laws of the
land and how to relate to the emperor and his government. They were concerned
about laws, and rights, and justice. Paul was concerned about his right to be
properly tried when he was arrested and jailed. (Acts 25-26)
His friends and their churches cared
about this too. They all cared about these things because their freedom and the
freedom of others were at the heart of the matter: because, through Jesus
Christ, they knew the God of freedom.
In the United States of America, we
have a tradition of freedom that owes a great debt to the founding generations
of our nation. Those founders were raised and educated in communities, and in
an environment, that were deeply rooted in the Bible.
In the events that led up to our
Declaration of Independence, and our war for independence, and the writing of
the constitution, they were very worried and serious about what kind of nation
they were creating. They wanted to design a nation of freedom; a national
community that nurtured freedom and dignity for everyone.
They knew that we would not survive
as a nation of freedom if our citizens only cared about being the enjoyers of
freedom. They knew that our laws and our customs would have to allow freedom,
and to teach freedom, and (as much as possible) to require our citizens to make
the effort of acting and living like freedom-minded people, and to be loving freedom-givers.
They knew that Americans would have
to be people who spent time, and energy, and resources (and even their lives)
helping people into freedom. In one tiny way, Benjamin Franklin helped
establish a free, public lending library to educate the people of Philadelphia,
because he knew from personal experience that education was essential for
freedom.
One of my great-great grandfathers
came to America from Great Britain around 1850. He came here with practically
nothing. It took him a while to get settled. His family back in the British
Isles had a number of different trades. One of them was candy-making.
On first arriving, my great-great
grandfather worked as canal digger. Then he worked in a starch factory, which
was much better than digging canals. Eventually he started a business as a
candy-maker, but he also worked as a part-time missionary, teaching in a Methodist
Sunday school. In those days Sunday schools were established to teach the
factory children who weren’t able to go to the regular schools during the week.
There were no child labor laws. Many
children worked six days a week (just as most grown-ups did) and they had only
Sundays free. Some of these children wanted to learn how to read, and write,
and do arithmetic, so they went to a Sunday school where my great-great
grandfather, and others, taught them.
Doing this would set them free. It
would open up whole new chances for freedom in their lives. My great-great
grandpa also taught them how to live well, and he taught them about Jesus who
would give them the strength and the will to find that better life; the life of
freedom.
He taught them about Jesus who would
lead them to an even greater freedom, an everlasting freedom: the freedom of
the gospel, the good news of God. In that freedom, those children would learn,
like my great-great grandfather, to use their time, and their money, and their
energy to be givers of freedom, and the nurturers of the freedom of others.
If we know Jesus, then we will be
lovers of freedom, and we will work to make this freedom real for others. If we
know Jesus very well, then we will want our communities and our nation to
enable and nurture true freedom for everyone.
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