Freedom...It's a Matter of Focus.
My dear friend, mentor, and colleague Weldon Bares told me over 20 years ago that one of the keys to the life of a preacher is to do long-term planning when it comes to sermon prep. By looking ahead, it helps form your thinking and preaching as you start looking at life through those lenses, and it helps you be more comfortable in the pulpit. In the intervening years, I have also come to appreciate it because the pressure is not on each week.
I bring this up because in light of all the disruptions of life since mid-March, as I announced to our congregation via email yesterday, our planned series for this summer is being scrapped for some more timely subjects. For example, July of this year will feature a series called Freedom: It involves far more than meets the eye. Our society at large is having to wrestle with this concept of freedom in light of not only the various stay-at-home orders but also guidelines and regulations in place as our public health officials work to provide us helpful guidance on these matters.
Good men and women of the Christian faith have been passionate about freedom in these conversations, and I think it is a good thing - for ours is a land in which baked into our constitution is freedom of religion.
Scripture speaks in more than a couple of places about freedom in the life of the believer, and it is a little confusion in the eyes of one of Christ’s followers that I want to reflect on briefly today.
Hear these words from the gospel of John, chapter 8, verses thirty-one through thirty-six:
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.
Time constraints do not allow me to dive very deeply into the context of this passage, but allow me to note these words come after Jesus foretells his death and talks about how he is not doing things on his own, but in concert with his father.
This matters because he then pivots to the role of the disciple in Jesus’ ministry. Just as Jesus talks about being with the father, he talks about our necessity to continue in Jesus’ word, for it is THEN we are disciples.
Many times, the next part of this saying is ripped way out of context - “You will know the truth, and the truth will make you free.” Understanding that ALL of scripture is to be read in context, we must remember Jesus’ self-description - “I am they way, the truth, and the life.”
As was often the case when Jesus had an audience, he got some pushback. Thinking in political terms, like many good men and women of the Christian faith in the United States, they say to him, “We have NEVER been slaves to anyone…what do you mean by being made free?” In a land where we have a death grip on the idea of freedom in a political sense, we, too, could quite easily be forgiven for making such a claim.
Yet, as usual, Jesus is playing on a whole different level than those with whom he is talking. He directs them to an understanding of slavery through the lens of sin. He’s getting to the point where he turns the situation around and has them looking introspectively to see what has control over them. He’s getting to the age-old question of motivation - what motivates our thoughts, words, and deeds?
In other words, can it be said that we are in the midst of living in response to God’s grace or in reaction to living a life focused anywhere else? I’ve long believed that one can examine their checkbook and their calendar to find their priorities…
Listen, above all else, remember that it’s not about where you have been or where you might be now - freedom is about trusting in Christ to lead you wherever you may find yourself. Especially during crucial times like ours.