Freedom
Some of you know that I find it very difficult to appreciate the policies of our president, George Bush. But at least one of his core convictions does resonate at a deep place within me. I'm referring here to his understanding of freedom.
Freedom is a big word in our country's vocabulary. We say that we live ``in the land of the free.'' A prominent American narrative is that people from around the world have come to these shores in search of freedom. We say that ``freedom isn't free.'' In the Revolutionary War we fought for our freedom and independence from British rule. The Civil War, the narrative goes, was fought so that the African slaves could win their freedom.
President Bush speaks passionately about humankind's desire for freedom. He sees it as a profound longing of every human being, to be free, to be emancipated, to be able to chart one's own course, to seek one's own well-being and opportunity. The best argument for the wars we are now engaged in, both in Afghanistan and Iraq, has to do with freedom. The case is made that if these people are truly free, and can make their own independent choices, they will not only have a better chance of reaching their own dreams, but the world as a whole will be a safer place. The more people in the world are free, the argument goes, the better off and the safer we all are.
I'm cynical, of course, about the real reasons. Are we really, as a country, sincerely interested in everyone's freedom, or are we not more interested in the expansion of empire, of finding new economic lands of opportunity? Do we truly want a genuine freedom for all or just a modicum of freedom where people remain submissive and quiet under our thumb? And then there is the huge problem of how this freedom is obtained. It is determined that scores of people, and regrettably, even innocent people, must be killed for freedom to be won. This is a fundamental irony that any Christian who takes the words ``love your enemies'' seriously just can't easily sidestep.
But still, I'm attracted to the freedom argument, and it's because of my own experiences. It is in my blood but not in my bones. My own ancestors over a hundred years ago left a land that was growing overcast, the smell of a long siege in the wind, and so they took off, hoping for opportunity and, presumably, longing for freedom. Our administration's case espousing the profound human longing for freedom probably would ring true to my ancestors more than with me.
Then I lived in three different African countries none of which knew a freedom which could be compared to our own. When coups happened, and suddenly the political landscape changed, people who said one thing one day flip-flopped just like that. People did not have the freedom to hold to what they believed in any kind of a public way no matter what.
What is Romans about? The lectionary epistle reading plunges us into the book of Romans, one of the weightier, more theological books of the New Testament. Romans was written by Paul, the great early missionary, writer, theologian, and evangelist, who being transformed himself, devoted his life to spreading the gospel of Jesus Christ. Romans is not written in a vacuum, as though it is a theological treatise written to lay out the apostle's theology. Rather it is written to address a practical concern facing a series of Roman house churches. And that practical problem is this: how can these Gentiles who are coming to faith in Christ be included as full members of God's covenant people? Some of the house churches were arguing over how Jews and Gentiles might live together harmoniously. Paul was trying to figure this out.
Figuring it out got complicated when Paul considered this: namely, that if Gentiles through faith and trust can obtain the Spirit of God, then what is the point of the law? If the law isn't necessary for the Gentiles, then why did God give it in the first place? Paul was trying to put together his natural respect for the law with his understanding that faith and trust alone is enough to gain access to the Spirit of God.
Paul has traditionally been seen as a man struggling with his own conscience. He's like a Shakespearian character, wrestling with private demons of guilt, shame, and sin. But today, more scholars are saying that Paul actually was not so beleaguered, that he was actually rather robust in mind and soul. Paul would acknowledge that sin is, in fact, sin is a dynamic evil forceand not just a matter of personal transgression. But Paul reasons that in the resurrection Jesus proves himself no longer subject to the power of death and sin. This victory over death and sin leads to salvation for all who participate in the ongoing life of Jesus.
This is important for how we understand salvation. Salvation then is not just uttering the right words of belief and then, because we have said the right words or believed the precise statements, we are stamped as ``saved.'' Rather, salvation is more a matter of loyalties, of identifying with the resurrected Jesus, and having faith and trust in the life-giving Spirit of Jesus to help us to live lives of righteousness. Rather then live our lives chained to sin, we choose to live chained to righteousness.
In the Romans 6 passage Paul speaks to this question of loyalty, only he uses the imagery of slavery. He's thinking about the law and its place, and wonders, since the Gentiles don't seem to need the law, do we then have permission to sin all we want because we are covered by grace? ``Of course not!'' He emphatically retorts. He says we are like slaves. We can be slaves to sin. We can put our loyalty there. Or you can be slaves to God, slaves to righteousness. And we shouldn't think too hard about what righteousness means. We can say simply this, that righteousness is merely doing what we know we ought to do. It is just doing the right thing. That's it. So this is pretty simple. We can be slaves to doing the bad thing, sin. Or we can be slaves to doing the right thing, which is practicing righteousness. Or to put it in terms of loyalty. We can be loyal, we can express our allegiance to things that are fundamentally harmful to us, sin. Or we can be loyal, we can express our allegiance, to things that are good, just, and right, practicing righteousness.
What does this have to do with freedom? The Eugene PetersonThe Message
version of this passage titles this section ``what is true freedom?'' We can understand Paul this way, that the truest freedom comes when we live pledging our loyalty to God, striving to live righteously in God's ways.
Paul is writing to young churches trying to find their way in the midst of Roman rule. Everything in life (family, military, economic, philosophical, cultural) submitted itself to Caesar as lord of all. When Paul argues for people to become slaves to righteousness he's sounding a call to resistance to the Pax Romana. Don't fall for those idolatries. Rather, become slaves to righteousness. This is a particular kind of freedom (it is not deciding to be free not to choose any story, for this is enslaving in its own way), and becoming slaves to righteousness can have a huge cost, as Christians (and martyrs in particular) have found out throughout the centuries. We can choose whom we will serve. The Christian case is that serving the Lord is the path to the most authentic and satisfying freedom.
Living as free people
So what does it mean to live as truly free people, as people amazingly enslaved to righteousness? Are we transformed suddenly into these extraordinary people doing unusually spectacular things? I'd suggest that being slaves to righteousness actually means doing pretty simple things, just kind of putting one foot in front of another, letting it add up to one pretty good day, and then trying again the next day. Nothing too fancy.
Anne Lamott tells about her family's efforts to care for their mother who had Alzheimer's. As all of us are, they were confused in front of the disease. They just tried to do what seemed best in the moment. She describes seeing a crazy decal that says ``The law of the American jungle: Remain calm, share your bananas.'' And that was about it, they tried to maintain their poise, and they shared what they had.
I was talking to Ted Loewen on Thursday about these things. He mentioned that there is the expression ``the banality of evil.'' Maybe, he conjectured, we could think about the ``banality of righteousness.'' The simplicity of just doing one more right thing.
All of our lives have a routine to them. We get up in the morning and embark on our morning rituals. We find ourselves at our workplace, or around our home, or with some friends. This is where we spend a good part of our time. As night falls we eat some food and in due season we go to bed, only to start all over again the next morning. The hours and days past, turning into months and years, and eventually decades, and finally a lifetime.
We can look back and wonder what we have done.
We think about how doing small things, the right things, and wonder if they really matter. But do them over and over again, and it all adds up to a lot.
You go to someone's small room, or to their hospital bed, and there you see the postcards pinned to the wall, or cards standing on the end table, reminding you that someone took the time to find a card, to write a few words, to buy a stamp, and go to the post office.
Or look what has happened right at our church. John and Wilma brought a few people to church for Bible studies in Spanish. Brian did some teaching. Melinda and Georgia sat through committee meetings to talk about these things. And look where we are today. Children singing ``he is with you all the time'' and waving little streamers in the sanctuary at Vacation Bible School. Women working in the kitchen making tacos and then scrubbing the pans afterwards. Youth looking forward to going to the Mennonite Youth Convention in Charlotte. Just doing the right thing over and over again adds up to something.
Or think of Herb and Elsie showing up at Sierra View and finding some friends to bring over to the worship service. They do it over and over again. Elsie spends years finding people to come and sing and speak. Herb pushes people around in their wheelchairs, leads some singing, and remembers birthdays. You do the right thing for awhile and pretty soon 35 years have gone by.
This is what it means to be a slave to righteousness. Our lives are centered around our loyalty to God. This becomes truly liberating and freeing. We are pointed towards Christ and are free to live and behave in Christ-like ways. That's more our concern than a consuming worry about what we should or shouldn't do. We are free to do one righteous deed, one righteous act, after another, creating, in the end, something beautiful for God.
