The Waking Dreamer: Freedom

Showing posts with label Freedom. Show all posts

Thursday, July 09, 2026

Letting Go and Letting God

Romans 7:7-25, Matthew 11:16-30[1]

Many of you may know that “Let go and let God” is one of the slogans of the Twelve-Step movement. It’s based on the principle that many have learned to be true: when we try to control circumstances and people we wind up with a life that’s too much for us to handle. We feel overwhelmed, we feel frustrated or anxious or both at the same time, and we may feel defeated. All that comes from the “insanity” of thinking we can get the outcomes we want in life with enough effort. Some of us don’t think that’s “insane” at all; it’s simply stepping up and taking on our responsibilities. But even if we don’t feel the frustration and helplessness of trying to control other people, they most certainly do.

Last week we talked about how making our religion a matter of following rigid rules leads us to a way of life defined by whom we exclude. But the other side is what we do to ourselves when we take that path of religious perfectionism. When we think we can “do it all by ourselves” when it comes to following Jesus and honoring God, it’s a lot like thinking we can control our lives and the people in it. We wind up frustrating ourselves, or those around us, or both. More than that, we tend to express our religion by condemning people. On one side we see people who are more conservative than we are and we think that they’re too strict. On the other side we see people who are more progressive and we think they’re too lax. It seems like what we really want is to be in control of everyone around us.

That’s what’s going on in our Gospel lesson with the strange comment Jesus makes about people being like children who whine, “We played the flute for you, and you did not dance; we wailed, and you did not mourn” (Mt 11:17). John the Baptist lived simply and practiced a rigorous form of discipline. And because he wouldn’t “dance to the tune” they were playing, they wrote him off as demon-possessed (Mt 11:18).[2] On the other hand, Jesus came and lived life and laughed and welcomed all kinds of people, and, perhaps worst of all, shared meals with so-called “sinners.” Because of that, they wrote him off as a “glutton and a drunkard, a friend of tax collectors and sinners” (Mt 11:19).

Here’s the problem with making religion about following the rules: we always wind up making ourselves the measure of all things spiritual. Like the crowds responding to John and Jesus, we condemn those who are too conservative in our eyes, and then we turn around and condemn those who are too liberal. But the hard truth is that making yourself the measure of all things spiritual boils down to appointing ourselves as the official rule-makers. And in the process, we make religion into something oppressive. For ourselves, and for others. In contrast to all that, Jesus announced that he had come to set people free from their burdens. He came to free people who, no matter how hard they tried, could never live up to the religious rule-makers’ demands. But he also came to free the rule-makers, because what gets hidden beneath the façade of a “holier than thou” attitude is the lingering doubt about whether you can ever fulfill all the rules perfectly.

I think we see some of that burden in St. Paul’s anguish over his inability to keep the law. In our lesson from Romans for today, he talks about the freedom that comes from letting go the effort to control all things spiritual and letting those things rest in God’s hands, which is where they belong. I’ll be the first to say that Paul’s teaching about sin and the law in this chapter is another example of the challenge we face when we try to read Paul’s letters: it gets really confusing really fast! But I think the main point of what he’s trying to say is that any means we can come up with by which we try to attain a “righteousness” of our own making is doomed to fail!

The logic of Paul’s argument here is complicated, and it’s difficult to sort out. But I think it points to the truth that all our efforts to serve God in our own strength are flawed. All of it comes under the heading of “religion”, and religion can only remind us of how far we fall short.[3] It’s no wonder Paul is torn—not just about the fact that his own conscience is guilty, but because he recognizes that anything he could possibly do to gain eternal life by his own effort is ultimately futile. The only way to find freedom is to turn to Jesus Christ. That’s where Paul winds up: “I’ve tried everything and nothing helps. I’m at the end of my rope. Is there no one who can do anything for me? Isn’t that the real question? The answer, thank God, is that Jesus Christ can and does. He acted to set things right in this life of contradictions where I want to serve God with all my heart and mind, but am pulled by the influence of sin to do something totally different” (Rom 7:24-25, MSG). I think that sums it up pretty well.

The truth is that we will always struggle with “this life of contradictions” as Gene Peterson puts it in The Message translation. And all too often, we respond to the frustration of trying to practice our religion on our own by simply trying harder. When we do, it all becomes a burden that’s too heavy for any of us to bear. More than that, this approach to religion brings with it other burdens. There’s the fear that what we do may never be good enough. Sometimes we convert our frustration and fear into anger. And we take it out on those we think are a “threat” to us. The final burden is pride. When you put it all together, it’s all too heavy for any of us to bear.

At the end of the day, as Paul recognized, the only path to freedom from these burdens is through God’s love for us in Jesus Christ. That’s where the wisdom of “Let go and let God” comes in. When we try to control our lives, we take on a burden that will crush anyone who tries to carry it. The wisdom of the ages has taught us that the burdens that we carry only trap us in prisons of our own making. Jesus said come to me, lay down your burdens, and I will give you rest. Of course, that’s not something we do once, and call it good. Sometimes, it’s something we have to do every day: come to Jesus, lay down our burdens, and accept the rest he offers. Sometimes we may have do that multiple times a day. When we let go our own efforts to please God by ourselves, to make our lives turn out the way we want, we can lay down the frustration and fear and anger and pride that burden us. When we let God be the one on whom we depend for everything, not only salvation and eternity but also today and tomorrow, we can open our hearts to receive the joy, and love, and life, and rest that Jesus promises.

[2] Douglas Hare, Matthew 123-24.

[3] Karl Barth, The Epistle to the Romans, 252: when we undertake this effort on our own, “we do but display the catastrophe of human impotence in the things of God.”

Wednesday, July 01, 2026

Living in Freedom

Romans 6:12-23; Matthew 10:34-42[1]

Sometimes I think organized religion may be more of a hindrance to people who are looking for God’s love than a help. You may find that strange for someone who’s spent his whole career working in organized religion to say! Nevertheless, after spending almost five decades working in the church, I would say that religious organizations tend to get in the way. We create structures and rules to ensure that everyone winds up at the same place in their spiritual journey. But structures and rules always have to be tweaked. It might be tempting for us to point the finger at those “other” religions out there, for “straining a gnat and swallowing a camel” (Matt 23:24), as Jesus put it. But the reality is that all religions are human attempts to understand ultimate things like God and eternity. And because they’re created by flawed and fallible people like you and me, they all in one way or another tend to get in the way of those who are looking for God in this life.[2]

In the Hebrew Bible, we see an approach to God that essentially defines the spiritual quest in terms of carefully conducted rituals and equally careful observance of rules about staying “pure.” Holiness is defined by eating the right foods and having the “right kind” of relationship the “right kind” of person. That may have been a good place to start, but I would say that many very deeply religious people no longer believe that we please God by observing the right rituals, or eating only the right foods, or having the “right kind” of relationships with the “right kind” of people. And yet, even in our day there are still some who cling to those old rules. As if Jesus endorsed all of that! They may not believe that having a plate of oysters somehow makes us unclean in God’s sight. But there are still many Christians these days who believe that the essence of sin is having the “wrong kind” of relationship with the “wrong kind” of person. Many still believe that marrying a person outside your faith, or person of another race, or anyone who is somehow “tainted” by our human standards makes you “sinful” in God’s sight.

As Jesus pointed out in many ways, the main problem with this approach to religion is that it becomes about what we avoid and whom we exclude. Last week I talked about one aspect of what makes it difficult to read Paul’s letters. I think another challenge we face is that Paul’s letters still reflect some of this kind of thinking. I see it when we read our lesson from Romans for today. While we are clearly indebted to the great Apostle for many of the building blocks of our faith, I think his views on sin may have some problems. In a very real sense, I would say Paul has a very “First-Century Jewish” notion of sin. Of course we don’t want to be “slaves of sin” but “servants of righteousness,” as Paul urges us to be in our lesson for today. But the problem comes when you ask how Paul defines “sin.” It sounds very much like it’s about what we avoid and whom we exclude.

But I would say that while Paul may have hung on to some of those notions, he was a follower of Jesus. And that meant ultimately he was much more concerned with putting faith into practice by treating other people as Jesus did. I think that should give us some sense of focus when we talk about how “the wages of sin is death” (Rom 6:23). I want to ask where you see sin leading to death in our world. Well, I see power-hungry dictators unleashing drones and missiles against innocent people. And the result of that sin is death. I see impoverished people living in ramshackle slums that are swept away completely—men, women, and children—whenever an earthquake or a flood or a hurricane comes through. And the result is death. I see the death that results from the sin of the wealthy hoarding all the resources so that the weakest and poorest of their people literally starve. I realize that Paul was talking about a “spiritual” kind of death. But I think it would do us well to ask ourselves where we see sin leading to death in this world. I would have to say, in all honesty, that I don’t much “death” resulting from failing to exclude the “wrong kind” of person.

I’d have to say that this is one area where some of the most “religious” people of our day still “miss the point.” I would go further and say that whenever we make the essence of our relationship with God a matter of following religious rules, not about the love we have received from God through Jesus Christ, we continue to miss the point. But more importantly, our manmade and rigid religious rules always become obstacles to loving other people. Jesus called them “burdens too heavy to lift” (Mt 23:4) and points the finger at religious perfectionists of all stripes for ignoring their own sins and focusing on the mistakes of others (Mt 7:3-5). It all becomes just an elaborate way of justifying oneself by condemning others. But at the end of the day, even religious perfectionists can’t bear the burdens they create for others. And so, as Jesus said, they condemn themselves when they condemn others! That’s not only because they fail to live up to the expectations they demand of others. It’s also because making our devotion to God about what we avoid and whom we exclude inevitably turns into hostility toward them, whoever “they” may be. You can’t love your neighbor if you really hate them down deep inside!

Jesus had a way of cutting through all this religious hypocrisy. He said that true holiness is about loving God and loving others (Mt 22:37-40). He said that true spirituality is about embracing a child (Mt 18:1-5). True religion is about not only having empathy for the weak and outcast, but also about taking steps to care for them (Mt 25:34-40).[3] It’s about feeding a hungry person, visiting the sick, and being a companion to those who are in prison. For Jesus, a truly spiritual way of living is about being willing to give someone a cup of cold water on a hot day (Mt 10:42). It’s really no more complicated than that. No elaborate systems, no obsessions with keeping tedious rules. At the end of the day, it’s not about what we avoid or whom we exclude, but rather it’s about having a heart that’s willing to give to others the same mercy that we have received.

That doesn’t mean it’s “easy.” In our Gospel lesson for today, Jesus describes this kind of life as “losing your life for my sake” (Mt 10:39). But he also said that was the way to truly “find” your life. I think that’s the lesson we can take away from Paul talking the freedom to live for God. Through the love we encounter in Jesus Christ, we’re set free from all the habits and attitudes that bring “death” not only to ourselves but also to those around us. Through the love from God that we encounter in Jesus Christ, we’re set free from all the habits and attitudes that harm not only others but also ourselves. That’s how I would define “freedom from sin.” It’s the freedom to stop draining the life out of ourselves and others by our actions and attitudes. And in the process, we’re set free to live for God, to live a life of love and mercy, which is the life we were always meant to live.

[2] Cf. Karl Barth, The Epistle to the Romans, 1933, 242: “Religion compels us to the perception that God is not to be found in religion.”

[3] Cf. Jürgen Moltmann, The Church in the Power of the Spirit, 126-9, where he says in effect that those who truly follow Christ are to be serving where Christ awaits us, “amid the downtrodden, the sick, and the captives.”

Monday, July 21, 2025

Free Enough to Serve

Galatians 5:1, 13-26[1]

I recently spoke about one of the reasons some people give for not being involved in organized religion. It’s because they see the church as “full of hypocrites.” And I suggested in that sermon that one reason for that criticism is that they hear us saying one thing while they see us doing something very different. I think another reason why people avoid religion is because, truth be told, we can come across like very selfish and self-centered people. Especially when it comes to salvation. When we make salvation all about “me, my, and mine,” what other people may hear is that we really don’t care about anyone else.

I think that’s a sad state of affairs. The Gospel is about Jesus Christ making the ultimate sacrifice, giving his life away selflessly so that we could all live together in the freedom, peace, and joy of God’s love. And somehow, someway, too many of us who profess faith in him do so in a way that strikes the people around us as so utterly selfish and self-centered that it turns them away from the community of those who claim to follow Jesus. To some extent, I can understand that. Too many in the church have focused on their own salvation to such an extent that it can come across as if they have no concern for anyone else’s salvation. Surely those of us who follow Jesus must share his concern for the whole human family!

I think part of the problem is that we can get caught up in our own “stuff” so much that it’s hard for us to look past it and really care about those around us. It’s a natural thing. And it’s true for all of us. It’s part of being human. Our life experiences are what are most real to us. But we can get so bent out of shape about our malfunctioning cell phones (just for example) that we lose all sight of the fact that there are many people in the world who have to walk miles for clean water! Now, I don’t want to suggest that what preoccupies us is always as trivial as a malfunctioning cell phone. We have much bigger concerns that, very naturally, occupy our attention. But the “optics” of that mindset don’t make for a favorable portrait of the church and those of us who are devoted to it.

I think our lesson from the book of Galatians for today addresses this question. Paul emphasizes the freedom we have in Christ. A big part of that freedom is that through his faithful obedience to God even to the point of death on a cross, and by placing our faith in him as our savior and lord, we’re set free from all the guilt and fear and all the other “stuff” that might plague us. For Paul, the cross means that God has “justified” us. That’s the language of the Bible. It’s a theological word for the idea that God accepts us and loves us just as we are. Unconditionally and irrevocably. Paul was insistent that we don’t have to do anything to earn that love and acceptance. In fact, he made it clear that if the believers of his day thought they could do anything to earn it, it would cancel out the message of the gospel!

We can read a passage like this and think that freedom is simple: you don’t “do the works of the flesh” and you “do the works of the Spirit.” But in reality, true freedom is something that’s really quite complicated. For one thing, if you look at the vice lists in the New Testament and think that any one of those behaviors excludes us from God’s love and acceptance, then we’re all in that boat because we’ve all fallen short in some way. And if you look at the “fruit of the Spirit” and ask whether we consistently embody those characteristics in our daily living, the answer is “sometimes we do and sometimes we don’t.” It’s a tough list to live up to. Freedom is something that’s quite complicated.

Many in our society think freedom means “I can do whatever I want, whenever I want to.” But that’s not freedom. It’s just “license.” As in taking liberties that aren’t necessarily thoughtful, kind, or caring to others or to ourselves. License differs from freedom in that in that it means doing whatever we please without thinking about how it may affect anyone.[2] It’s a matter of indulging ourselves however and wherever we want. License means choosing to ignore that there are always consequences to our actions and choices. And such blatant self-indulgence never results in real freedom. We can do whatever we please whenever we want as much as we can get away with, and never feel truly loved, or accepted, or valued as a person. And when we lack that basic foundation in our lives, we are never truly free. Freedom is complicated.

I think that’s one reason why Paul insists that the gospel of salvation through Jesus is a free gift. It makes a difference in how we not only look at ourselves, but also how we treat others. Recognizing that the only “justification” that really means anything comes to us through Jesus and the unconditional acceptance God extends to us through him frees us from all that would bind us in this world. That also frees us from all the ways we might think we have to bolster ourselves by putting down others. Trusting the gift of God’s unconditional acceptance frees us to serve one another, all others, in love![3] The only way to truly find freedom is to give yourself away in love, and the only way to truly give yourself away in love is when you find freedom from all that can bind us in this world.[4]

If we truly find that freedom to love, we’re naturally going to extend that love to everyone. We’re naturally going to be concerned with the salvation of the whole human family, not just ourselves. We will be motivated to serve others in a way that truly brings “liberty and justice” to all, in a way that recognizes the dignity of every person, regardless of race, gender, ability, or class. Serving others in love starts with recognizing the dignity of every person. Now, I will be the first to admit that it’s incredibly difficult to live out this level of love and freedom all the time. We all have a variety of influences within us that get in the way of giving ourselves away to others in love. What St. Paul wanted the people of his day and ours to know is that what God has done for us in Jesus sets us free to explore what it means to share love in a community of people, like this one, who are committed to sharing God’s love with the whole world.

[2] John Paul II, in “The Gospel of Life,” 19.3, said that we have “a notion of freedom which exalts the isolated individual in an absolute way, and gives no place to solidarity, to openness to others and service of them.” See J. Michael Miller, C. S. B., The Encyclicals of John Paul II, 808.

[3] Cf. Jürgen Moltmann, The Church in the Power of the Spirit, 188. He says that the church is the “fellowship of the justified, who no longer have to justify themselves” He goes on to insist that this freedom sets us free to serve others in love. As I have suggested before, I believe this is idea of freedom to love is a central theme in Moltmann’s understanding of the Christian life. It runs throughout his discussion of the church’s identity and calling; he begins the idea that Jesus establishes the freedom of God’s kingdom by sacrificing himself for others (117), by breaking the powers of oppression through the resurrection (98-99), and by assuring us that we are accepted by God, and therefore enabling us to accept others (188-89); therefore Moltmann understands the freedom of God’s kingdom as that which enables us to serve one another in the effort to bring freedom to others (84, 195, 278, 283-84, 292); he construes this life under the concept of “friendship” which Jesus models and we are called to emulate those who are “open for others” and who “love in freedom” (121, 316).

[4] St. Augustine said it this way: “love, and do what you will”; cf. Augustine, Homily 7 on the First Epistle of John; http://www.newadvent.org/fathers/170207.htm.; See John Caputo, On Religion, 3-7, 24-28, 109-116, 134-36, 139; cf. similarly, John Calvin and W. Pringle, Commentaries on the Epistles of Paul to the Galatians and Ephesians, 160 (Bellingham, WA: Logos Research Systems, Inc): “He who loves will render to every man his right, will do injury or harm to no man, will do good, as far as lies in his power, to all.” See further, Karl Barth, Church Dogmatics, 4.2:732-33.

Tuesday, March 11, 2025

Truly Free

2 Corinthians 3:7-4:7[1]

I would say that our notions of freedom in this country are defined more by our secular values than they are by our faith. We believe, as the Declaration of Independence so eloquently puts it, that we are all “endowed” by our Creator “with certain unalienable Rights,” including “Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.” That was a truly revolutionary idea about freedom in that day. It was based, however, not on biblical teaching, but on the best political philosophy of the time. And while I agree with it, I would also point out that in 1776, that statement only applied to men who owned a certain amount of property. It wasn’t really a statement about how all people equally deserve to be free. It was a response to the tyranny of the day, but we’re still trying to work out what that means for all people.

For most of the history of the world, “common people” have lived in fear of “powers that be,” whether secular or spiritual. Kings ruled absolutely. What they said was the law of the land. Whether or not it was true or right didn’t really matter. Tyranny was simply the way things were. People have also lived in fear of spiritual powers they don’t understand and can’t control. In ancient times, the “gods” were no better than the rulers. They could be just as fickle and cruel. I think some of mythology was just projecting the unpredictability of life onto spiritual powers. At least that way people could make sense of their hardships. The “gods” or the “demons” were responsible. In response most people turned to various means from astrology to magic to try to fend off the troubles of life. It was, at best, a feeble attempt.

Many people through the ages have feared death above all else. Without the light that dawned on that first Easter morning, people live in fear of death. They’ve had all kinds of beliefs about death throughout history. Some saw death as a kind of shadowy place, where you were only a “ghost” of your former self. Some saw death as the doorway to hell, where everybody would spend the afterlife being punished for everything you did wrong in this life. Even those who worshipped the one true and living God feared death, because they saw the grave as a place where they would not only be cut off from the joys of life but also cut off from God.

As we’ve been discussing the last few weeks, St. Paul insists that Jesus’ death and resurrection sets us free from all that. As we’ve seen, Paul proclaimed that Jesus’ death on the cross has broken the power of all that threatens the meaningfulness of our lives. That’s because he willingly submitted himself to the “powers” of evil, and when they did their worst to him, they effectively “spent” their power. But Paul goes beyond that. He says that Jesus also broke the power of sin and death when God raised him from the dead. As we heard in our lesson from last week, Paul declared that “Just as everyone dies because [of] Adam, [because of] Christ everyone will be given new life (1 Cor 15:22, NLT).

That first Easter morning revealed a power at work in this world greater than sin or death. Jesus’ resurrection pointed to the power of God’s life-giving Word, the same Word he spoke over the darkness in the beginning, “let there be light!”, creating all life out of the vast nothingness. And in Jesus, God revealed that his Word still has the power to bring life out of death. As we discussed last week, Paul was ultimately pointing us to the hope that we will all live in God’s (re)new(ed) creation after Jesus has returned to “make all things new.” But more than that, St. Paul was convinced that through Jesus’ resurrection, God began the process of making a whole new creation right here and right now in the midst of this world.[2] The life that God effectively “injected” into this world by raising Jesus from the dead is like a transfusion spreading through all things and everyone.

That’s why St. Paul could say in our lesson for this week that we’re all in the process of being transformed to become “more and more like him as we are changed into his glorious image” (2 Cor 3:18, NLT). Because we have all seen the light of the “glory of God … in the face of Jesus Christ” and we now “have this light shining in our hearts” (2 Cor 4:6-7), it’s as if God’s new work of creation is already working in our lives. So it is that Paul could say later in 2 Corinthians that “if anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come: The old has gone, the new is here!” (2 Cor 5:17, NIV).[3]

What does all that Paul has to say about Jesus’ death and resurrection mean for us on this day? I may be wrong about this, but we don’t seem to fear sin or death all that much. That’s one reason why the traditional gospel tends to fall on deaf ears in our world. But I would say that sin still brings its own sting. We just have a way of denying it, or avoiding it, or rationalizing it away. I would also say that while we might no longer subscribe to ancient superstitions, death is still a very real enemy. We can see that power at work every time anyone anywhere abuses their power to harm or even kill innocent people. It happens all the time in our world. We just choose not to look. I would say that we still need freedom from sin and death, we just don’t see it that way.

So how then do we in the 21^st Century frame the good news that in Jesus Christ we are truly free? The biblical view of freedom is first and foremost that we are free to live in the way that God intended for us when he created everything very good (Gen 1:31). Paul says it this way in our lesson for today: “For the Lord is the Spirit, and wherever the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom. (2 Cor 3:17, NLT). And in his mind, the Spirit of the Lord is at work throughout God’s creation, especially wher there is faith in Jesus Christ. The way we see that freedom is in the Spirit enabling us to become more like Jesus, aligning our lives with God’s purposes and ways.[4] Through Jesus and through the Spirit, God is setting us free to let go our selfish and self-centered efforts at justifying the meaning of our lives, by having the right title, or living in the right neighborhood, or knowing all the right people. That way of trying to find meaning in life still brings its own “sting.”[5]

Jesus sets us free to obey God, following his example of what it means to be fully human by surrendering fully to God’s will (1 Pet 2:16). That means we’re free to give without any thought of what we may get in return, which is the essence of how Jesus lived, and the essence of how Jesus taught those who would follow him to live (Lk 6:35). Because of Jesus, we’re free to serve others, sharing food with the hungry, compassion with the outcasts, and shelter with the refugees (Mt 25:35). You may see where I’m going with this: living in a way that’s truly free means loving without constraints.[6] We’re truly free when we love God with all our hearts, tearing down the shrines to false gods that we’ve all built. And we’re truly free when we love our neighbors as ourselves. All our neighbors. True freedom, from the perspective of our faith, is not found in rights or resources, not in privileges or buying power, not in influence or success or wealth. Regardless of who the powers that provoke our fear may be in our day and time, the promise of the Gospel is that true freedom is found in a life defined by love (Gal 5:13). Love for God and love for others. When our lives are defined by love for God and love for others, then we are truly free.

[1] © Alan Brehm 2025. A sermon delivered by Rev. Alan Brehm PhD on 3/2/2025 for Hickman Presbyterian Church, Hickman, NE.

[2] Cf. Viktor Paul Furnish, Theology and Ethics in Paul, 126: “while the salvation which God effects is first of all an object of hope, God’s power is nevertheless already effective for men [sic] in Christ. … Salvation, then, is not unambiguously ‘future,’ and it is not only a ‘hope.’ Even in the present age the ‘first fruits’ of salvation may be savored and the authenticity of hope confirmed.”

[3] Cf. Karl Barth, Church Dogmatics 4.1:311, where he connects 2 Cor 5:17 with the complete “alteration” of the “human situation,” of “our whole existence,” through Jesus’ death and resurrection. This not only means the reconciliation of those who are “in Christ” with God, it also means “the reconciliation of the world with God”! Barth speaks of this “alteration” throughout the Dogmatics, but especially so in volume four, where he relates it not only to those who are in Christ, but to all humanity. Cf. also Jürgen Moltmann, Ethics of Hope, 55, where he says that in the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ “the eschatological turn of the world begins, from transience to non-transience, from the night of the world to the morning of God’s new day and to the new creation of all things” (emphasis original

[4] Cf. Jürgen Moltmann, The Spirit of Life: A Universal Affirmation, 271, where he argues that since in the Bible (not just the New Testament!) “‘Lord’ is the name for the experience of liberation and for free life, then the name is misunderstood and brought into disrepute if it is interpreted in terms of masculine notions of rule.” He also insists that “living freedom and free life can endure only in justice and righteousness. In justice, human freedom ministers to life—the life shared by all living beings. In justice, human life struggles for the freedom of everything that lives, and resists oppression.”

[5] Cf. A. C. Thiselton, The First Epistle to the Corinthians: a commentary on the Greek text, 1301: “it is sin, the human turning away from God to become centered upon the self, that has turned death into such deadly poison, so that it hurts and kills like a sting.”

[6] I would suggest that this idea of freedom to love is a central theme in Jürgen Moltmann’s understanding of the Christian life in his works. See for example, The Church in the Power of the Spirit: he begins with the idea that Jesus establishes the freedom of God’s kingdom by sacrificing himself for others (117), by breaking the powers of oppression through the resurrection (98-99), and by assuring us that we are accepted by God, and therefore enabling us to accept others (188-89). On this basis Moltmann understands the freedom of God’s kingdom as that which enables us to serve one another in the effort to bring freedom to others (84, 195, 278, 283-84, 292). He construes the Christian life under the concept of “friendship” which Jesus models and we are called to emulate as those who are “open for others” and who “love in freedom” (121, 316).

Monday, November 29, 2021

Freedom is Near!

Luke 21:25-36[1]

It doesn’t take any great insight to observe that we are living in a time when things are not as we expected them to be. While some scientists warned us that a global pandemic was on the horizon, most of us didn’t pay much attention. I surely didn’t! The problem is that when life doesn’t go the way we expect, it can feel like chaos. There are a few personality types who actually thrive on chaos, but for most of us it causes stress and fear. And some of us may find ourselves “shutting down,” so to speak. We may find it difficult to keep doing our normal everyday tasks. Trying to get through the day may feel like we’re wading hip-deep in molasses!

There are a lot of reasons why different people react to uncertainty in different ways. But there are some things that are true for all of us. For one thing, our brains are hard-wired to respond to anything we perceive to be a threat. Fear can creep up on us when we least expect it, and once it gets hold of us, we can have a hard time thinking straight—literally! Another factor is that most of us have a lot of expectations about the way life is “supposed” to be. They can be so deeply ingrained in us that they become like “scripts” for life. And when life doesn’t “follow the script,” our expectations can be like chains that bind us. Unfortunately, I’d have to say that these uncertain days have revealed that we are all less “free” than we would like to think.

Jesus addressed the uncertainty of his times in our Gospel lesson for today. As we’ve mentioned before, the situation in Judea was unstable and even chaotic. Although the Romans appeared to be firmly in control, there was a constant undercurrent of resentment and even rebellion among the Jewish people. There actually was an underground group who made it their goal to assassinate Romans and Jewish leaders who were perceived to be traitors to their people. All of this would boil over into an all-out war within a few decades, and the result would be Jerusalem destroyed. Eventually, the Jewish people would be expelled from their land and prohibited from living there.

I think Jesus’ disciples must have been aware of what was going on. While they may have hoped that Jesus might be the one to lead them to overthrow their Roman oppressors, the fact that they couldn’t predict the outcome of any of this led them to ask Jesus for reassurance. They asked him to tell them the “signs” as a way of making the stress and uncertainty more “manageable.” After all, we’re not so afraid of what we can predict. But Jesus didn’t give them any signs. Instead, he told them that the world in which they lived would continue to be as uncertain and unpredictable as ever. If they wanted reassurance, they would have to look beyond their expectations and their fears.

As we saw a couple of weeks ago, Jesus answered his disciples’ desire for reassurance in an unexpected way. He told them there would be “distress among nations” due to their “confusion” (Lk 21:25). He said that people would “faint” from “fear” and dread of “what is coming upon the world” (Lk 21:26). But he urged them not to give in to fear and dread. Rather, he said, “Now when these things begin to take place, stand up and raise your heads, because your redemption is drawing near” (Lk 21:28). “Redemption” is a word that might not use every day. But Jesus was talking about freedom—from the Romans, from their fears, from everything that kept them from living fully.

It may seem like a strange response on Jesus’ part. But I think Jesus was pointing them to something beyond the everyday affairs of life that they could “manage.” He pointed them to the day when he, the “Son of Man” would come “with power and great glory” (Lk 21:27). And as our lesson from Jeremiah reminds us, the promise is that he would come to do “what is right and just” so that the people would live in safety (Jer. 33:15-16). That’s the kind of “redemption” or “salvation” Jesus promised: that one day he would come with God’s power and authority and would set right all the wrongs and set free all those who live under oppression of any kind. And he reminded them that this promise would be kept, saying, “Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will not pass away” (Lk 21:33).

It may seem odd to be talking about these things in Advent. The coming of Christ to set right all the wrongs may seem like dreaming of what lies on a distant horizon. We might wonder how this helps us find freedom in the midst of the uncertainty of our times. While it’s always helpful to be aware of our fears and expectations and the way they affect us, we don’t have to let them define our lives. I find that when I shift my focus away from my expectations and my fears to faith in the God who has promised not only to send us a savior but also to be our savior, I feel much less troubled by the surprising ways life can twist and turn. That kind of freedom is always available to us.

More than that, however, this is the season to celebrate the birth of the one who made the very promises we have based our lives on. I think the scripture readings for this season point us forward for a reason. Just as certainly as Jesus came to be “God-with-us” in the manger so many years ago, so he will come with God’s power and authority to fulfill every promise. When our fears overwhelm us because of the chaos of our days, we need a way to help us feel more grounded. One of the ways we can do that is to put our trust in the promise Jesus made, that our freedom is near. And when we doubt that we can remember that his words remain true forever!

Sunday, January 31, 2021

Released

Mark 1:21-28[1]

We all carry some kind of chains with us throughout life. Whether it is something we have done to ourselves or something others have done to us, whether it is a physical limitation or a psychological disability, whether it is a wound that others can see or is hidden deep in our souls, we all know what it is to be bound. Some of us may find a measure of freedom from the chains that bind us, while others may carry those chains with them to the end. Many of us struggle against what binds us, only to know the disappointment of defeat and the hopelessness of despair. We long to be released from all that prevents us from knowing the freedom, joy, and peace of the life God intends for us.

As we look at our Gospel lesson for today, we may miss the fact that it is essentially a story about how Jesus has the power and authority to break the chains that bind us in this life. That’s because it’s a story about the encounter between Jesus and a man “with an unclean spirit” at the synagogue in Capernaum. For some of us, the mention of an “unclean spirit” sends us cowering into the corner of the safest place we can find. They conjure up images that have been created by our own culture: images of a supernatural enemy who is out to get us all. And in the face of that enemy, it can leave you feeling powerless and helpless.

Others may respond differently. They don’t believe in “demons,” and so they find the whole story hard to swallow. Those who look at the passage in this way may believe that we make our own destiny, and anything “evil” we may experience in life comes from our own doing. They may also insist that whatever good comes in this life comes from our own doing. They don’t fear “the Devil,” and they don’t believe in God. And they don’t like the idea of Jesus having any power or authority over their lives in any way. They believe they are the masters of their own fate!

While we dare not discount the reality of evil in our world, we need not take the biblical language that describes that evil literally. It is clear that language was influenced by the prevailing views of the culture in that day. I don’t think we have to endorse the personification of evil as “Satan” or “demons”, any more than we would endorse the idea that the world is flat or that the earth is at the center of the universe. In fact, I would say that many in the church give too much credit to “Satan” and “demons.” While there may have been a time when that was an adequate explanation for the evil in our world, the “Devil made me do it” just does not suffice today.

Now that’s not to say we can simply dismiss evil by attributing it to physical or psychological disorders, or to human rebellion against God, or to oppressive social structures. It is all of that at once and more: the Bible depicts the powers of evil in terms of what is contrary to God’s will for us: the domination, violence, destruction, and death at work in our world. Where ever greed, fear, desire, or hatred take over human life, there is evil and its impact is greater than the harm that our selfish impulses alone can inflict. We should and must take evil seriously.

At the same time, I would insist that focusing too much on the “power of evil” is just as much a mistake as trying to ignore it. This passage is not about the idea that there are “demons” who are lurking to overtake us at every turn. This passage is about the truth of the gospel: Jesus is the one appointed by God to bring the justice, peace, and freedom of the kingdom into this world. And that means that he has the power and authority to banish—simply by saying the word—anything that would prevent us from fully experiencing that new life. No “demon,” no “Satan,” can stand in the way of the power of Jesus to bring new life to us all.

In this story Jesus confirms the truth of the message he preached: “the kingdom of God has come near” (Mk. 1:15). He does this by “enacting” the kingdom of God. Here that means setting a man free from whatever was afflicting him. As we follow the gospel story, wherever Jesus is present, there is the presence of God’s kingdom dispelling all the powers of oppression, destruction, and death. The amazing things Jesus did serve as concrete examples of the message Jesus preached: where the presence of God’s kingdom is, there is healing, there is freedom, there is life, there is joy!

We must acknowledge the complicated and mysterious reality of evil in this life. And some of us bear the burdens inflicted on us by those oppressive powers all our lives. But from the perspective of the theological tradition of our Reformed heritage as Presbyterians, the primary truth about these things is that there is no contest between the power of God’s redeeming love and the power of evil.[2] The power of God’s love forces all the powers of domination and death to flee. Whether in this life or when “the kingdom of the world has become the kingdom of our Lord and of his Christ” (Rev. 11:15) everything we fear, everything that creates despair, everything that leaves us feeling powerless will be banished and we will be released from everything that now binds us.

[2] Cf. Shirley C. Guthrie, Christian Doctrine, rev. ed., 166-191 for an excellent overview of evil and God’s response to evil from a Reformed theological perspective.

Wednesday, May 13, 2020

Faith in Community

1 Peter 1:17-23; Luke 24:13-35[1]

I think many of us are discovering how important community is in this strange time. It’s wonderful to be able to stay connected through technology. But it’s not the same as gathering together with families and friends. And this is true as well for families of faith. We miss seeing faces, shaking hands, giving and receiving hugs. And it is stressful to us all when we have to do without those person-to-person contacts that we were so used to.

While we all have probably heard someone say “I can worship God better on my own than at church,” the fact of the matter is that our faith thrives in community, because we thrive in community. We experience the wholeness of the new life through our community of faith. Something about the way we’re put together as human beings makes it so that we just cannot grasp the high and holy truths of our faith unless someone is there to show us the grace and mercy and love of God in action. We need our community to enable faith to truly live in our hearts.

Unfortunately, I think our present crisis has exposed to us how “futile” our way of life has become. We have closed in ourselves as a society, isolating ourselves by engaging in a reality that is “virtual” as we stare at one kind of screen or another. While the “futile ways” that Peter mentions in our lesson for today were very different from ours, I think the message applies to us as well. We have given ourselves over to a way of life that is draining, hopeless, and empty. And yet, the good news of Easter is that we have the freedom to change, the freedom not to stay stuck in the same old ruts, the freedom to find new life in our Lord and Savior Jesus the Christ.

Part of the reason for this is, as Peter says, we have been “ransomed” from those “futile ways.” Because of Jesus’ death on the cross, we are now free to make the change from a way of life that essentially drains the life out us to a way of living that is whole and truly alive. We have been set free from everything that would keep us stuck in a rut that leaves us feeling drained and empty instead of fulfilled, joyful and whole. This transformation happens best in a community.

The simple truth is that faith has always been a community endeavor. From the very beginning, we find Christians gathering together to share with each other the experiences they have had with the risen Christ. As our Gospel lesson illustrates, when the disciples discovered that Jesus was alive they immediately went back to the rest of the group to tell them what had happened. It’s one thing for them to race from Golgotha to the upper room in Jerusalem. It’s another thing altogether for the disciples on the road to Emmaus to run 7 miles back to share the good news with the others! The cumulative effect is that in the sharing they were supporting and encouraging and strengthening each other’s faith! As one contemporary prophet puts it, “The resurrection is not a fact to be believed, but an experience to be shared.”[2]

I think this is true for all of us. Faith simply does not flourish in a context where we think we can be spiritual “lone rangers.” Faith flourishes in a community. I like the way Henri Nouwen puts it:

“Christian community is the place where we keep the flame of hope alive among us … . That is how we dare to say that God is a God of love when we see death and destruction and agony all around us. We say it together. We affirm it in each other.”[3]

It takes a community for us to make the journey of faith if for no other reason than we need human flesh and blood, skin and bones to translate the truths of our faith into new life. We need the experience of living out our faith in a community where we “love one another deeply from the heart” (1 Pet. 1:22) if we’re going to thrive. Especially in this challenging time, we need a community to hold on to the faith that God is working to bring grace and peace and mercy and love and life to every life in the midst of all the suffering and heartbreak that are going on right now. That doesn’t happen well when we try to go it alone. Faith is something that thrives and grows when we share it with a community.

[2] Walter Wink, “Resonating With God’s Song,” The Christian Century (March 23, 1994).

[3] Henri Nouwen, Finding My Way Home, 105.

Saturday, February 08, 2020

Deep Darkness

Isaiah 9:1-7; Matthew 4:12-23[1]

Most of us who have any experience with life know that hardship comes to us all. We all have our share of suffering. It may appear that some are spared that common lot of humanity, but the reality is that everyone carries some kind of burden. But there is one kind of suffering many of us have never known: systemic injustice. That’s what people experience when they don’t have opportunities, or they aren’t treated fairly, or their rights as human beings are denied them. And it happens not because of anything they have done wrong, but simply because of who they are: their gender, their race, their ethnic background, their faith. I think it may be difficult, if not impossible, for many of us even to imagine what that’s like. I know it is for me.

But make no mistake about it: there is oppression all around us. Working people who simply don’t make enough money live in their cars with their families, or in worse conditions out of sight of most of us. Young women are abducted and made into slaves by human traffickers. Students whose whole lives are ahead of them become convinced that they have nothing to live for, in part because of the constant pressure. And people who don’t happen to be of European descent are judged to be suspicious and even dangerous by those of us who are, simply because of the color of their skin or the country of their origin, not based on the quality of their character. We live in a land of deep darkness!

The prophet Isaiah spoke of Judea as a “land of deep darkness.” His people faced threats all around them—most immediately from the northern kingdom of Israel and their allies in Syria. But more significantly at home their leaders—kings and priests and prophets alike—ignored God’s justice and ruled the people based on their own self-interest. And the end result was that the people lived under the yoke of oppression. They lived in a world where might made right. The wealthy and powerful were the ones who called the shots. On a whim they could have anyone thrown into prison without any kind of fair trial. Rather than looking forward to their “day in court,” the most likely outcome was that would simply be forgotten, left to rot and die. They lived in a land of deep darkness.

But Isaiah did not face this darkness with the resignation of despair. He saw a light on the horizon. He knew that God is above all faithful to his people. He also believed that God had promised to send one who would lift the burden of oppression and the yoke of bondage from his people, just as God had once before done for the Jewish people enslaved in Egypt. Unfortunately, in our day we have missed the point of this promise. Like many Christians before us, we cannot read this passage without thinking of Christmas, and the birth of Jesus. Now I will be among the first to agree that Isaiah’s beautiful poetry is a fitting description of Jesus and his ministry. But speaking 700 years before Jesus was born, it’s unlikely that Isaiah was thinking in the first place about Jesus. He had in mind someone who would deliver the Jewish people from the oppression they suffered in his day. He was looking for light that would help those living in darkness at that time.

While we may not be able to know whom Isaiah had in mind when he first spoke these words, we can certainly know what he had in mind. The “light” that Isaiah saw shining in his land of deep darkness was the coming true peace and true justice to his people. They would be delivered from their oppressors and set free from their chains. And the end result would be that they could live and thrive and rejoice like people gathering an abundant harvest. They would live without the fear of violence or the fear of injustice or the fear of the heartless cruelty that could at any moment strip them of all they held dear. They would be free. And the hope of that freedom was a light shining for them in the midst of the deep darkness they had endured.

Again, I have to say that many of us cannot even begin to imagine living in this situation. And yet, right now, right here in this community, there are people who live in that kind of darkness. As hard as it is to admit it, a part of the story of the founding of our society is about violence and systematic injustice that persists to this day. [2] Many believed they had a God-given right to take the land from the nations who were here before us. They justified that blatant injustice with an ideology that they were “savages.” And that ideology was applied to Africans who were enslaved against their will. And to people of other ethnic backgrounds who came to this land seeking freedom. And in our time we see it in the way we can still assume that those who are different from us are suspicious and possibly dangerous. Whether we see it or not, whether we want to admit it or not, we still live in a land of deep darkness

What does our faith offer us in the face of such overwhelming suffering? The light of hope. We have the hope that one day God’s name will be hallowed on earth as it is in heaven and God’s kingdom will come on earth as it is in heaven and God’s “fair, merciful, and loving” purpose will be done on earth as it is in heaven! And that means a day when all cruelty is undone and all violence is banished and all injustice is removed. In the face of the darkness that can be very deep indeed for many in our world today, we have the hope that “the zeal of the Lord of hosts” will continue to bring light into our world, until there is no more darkness. But in order for us to experience God’s freedom and light, we have to first acknowledge the darkness that still affects those whose voices we have long ignored.

[2] Among other sources, these thoughts are in part based on an interview of Brian Stevenson by Terry Gross on “Fresh Air,” January 20, 2020.

Wednesday, July 31, 2019

Truth Springs Up

“Truth Springs Up”

Psalm 85[1]

When we observe the prevailing views expressed by the people of our nation, it’s hard not to join the lament from Isaiah that “Justice is driven away, and right cannot come near. Truth stumbles in the public square, and honesty finds no place there” (Isa. 59:14, TEV). If you’re tempted to read this as an endorsement of one segment or party of our society over another, don’t. In my view, the disintegration of the norms of civility, justice, and truth runs across the board. It’s hard to even listen to the news because this failure of justice, rightness, truth, and honesty is so pervasive. We’re confronted with it almost everywhere we turn. It can be deeply discouraging.

But this sermon is not about despair. It’s about the hope that the Scriptures hold out to us: that God is a God of mercy, mercy that extends to all, regardless of whether they are rich or poor; white, black, brown, or golden; tall or short; thin or overweight; nearsighted and losing one’s hair, or young and fit. God’s mercy does not discriminate based on gender, age, disability, or political affiliation. Our great hope is not that somehow we will finally have a leader who will set us back on the right path, but rather that God in his mercy will set things right. It might not happen quickly, or even in our lifetimes; but the promise is that ultimately God’s truth will prevail, and right all the wrongs.

That is the message of our lesson from the Psalms for today. At the outset, it might seem a bit confusing. The Psalmist praises the “God of our salvation” for “restoring their fortunes.” But then he goes on to ask God to “restore us again,” to let go his anger, and to “revive” his people. It would seem that the Psalm comes out of a situation in which the people have experienced God’s salvation, but it has not fully transformed their lives the way they may have expected that. There’s a sense of discouragement in the questions, “Will you be angry with us forever? Will you prolong your anger to all generations?” (Ps. 85:5). There is a longing for God’s truth to prevail.

It’s hard to know for sure the exact setting of many of the Psalms, but it would seem that Psalm 85 describes the situation of the people of Israel immediately following their years of exile in Babylon. After decades of anticipation, their release from exile failed to live up to their hopes. The temple lay in ruins. The city of Jerusalem had no walls to protect them. Instead of returning to a “land flowing with milk and honey,” they returned to a land that had been devastated by war and left a wasteland. They were weak, poor, and disorganized. That their commitment to God was failing can be seen from the prophets of that day. Their lives were harder than ever, and it seemed that God’s truth was nowhere to be found.

And yet, in the midst of that discouragement, the Psalmist held out to his people the hope that God would speak “peace” to them, and that his salvation would be fulfilled. However, that salvation may have been different from what they were looking for. They were looking for God to “restore their fortunes” by allowing them to prosper again. Instead, the salvation promised by the Psalmist was that “Steadfast love and faithfulness will meet; righteousness and peace will kiss each other. Faithfulness will spring up from the ground, and righteousness will look down from the sky” (Ps. 85:10-11). The promise was that justice and rightness would be restored, that truth and honesty would once again prevail.

This sounds very different from what most of us envision as “salvation.” It is concrete; it concerns what happens in this world, not the next. In this text, “salvation” is what happens when God’s “unfailing love,” when God’s faithfulness, when God’s righteousness, and God’s peace define the way his people live. Each of these words is loaded with meaning, but I think you get the idea: salvation happens when God’s will is done “on earth as it is in heaven.” It is a way of life that is spelled out quite specifically in the Psalms. God’s salvation means that the hungry are fed, the prisoners are set free, those who are bowed down are lifted up, the “strangers” or resident immigrants have someone to watch over them, and the widows and orphans are supported. God’s truth prevails when the last and the least and the left out are able to thrive along with everyone else.

Unfortunately, we still live in a situation like that of those Israelites returning from exile. We have experienced a taste of what salvation means through our faith in Jesus Christ, but we live in a world where God’s justice, peace, and freedom are not fully realized. We experience God’s salvation in the midst of the brokenness of our world and the injustices perpetrated continually against those who live on the margins of society. It can be discouraging to us to see this as well, but the promise of the Scriptures is that God will one day right all the wrongs.

The hard truth is that our society has never been as just or as upright or as civil as we’d like to believe. Beneath the veneer of morality, there’s always been a dark side to our culture. The church in our culture has always had to deal with the specific ways in which our nation has failed to practice God’s will. At the same time, we in the church have failed to stand with those who are in need and against those who selfishly seek their own interests. Our hope in this situation is not that we will pull ourselves up from this morass. Rather, it is that God will come to right all the wrongs, to establish the justice that enables all people to thrive, and to bring the peace that makes us all whole together. And yet, if this truly is our hope, then it will define the way we live our lives today. As we look forward to the day when God’s Kingdom prevails and God’s truth springs up and restores us all, let us renew our commitment to put into practice God’s justice, peace, and freedom.

[1] © Alan Brehm 2019. A sermon delivered by Rev. Dr. Alan Brehm on 7/28/2019 at Hickman Presbyterian Church, Hickman, NE.

Tuesday, March 05, 2019

Freedom

2 Corinthians 3:12-4:2[1]

We as a people are proud of our “freedoms.” Most of us are familiar with Lee Greenwood’s song, “God Bless the USA.”^{^[2]} The first line of the refrain says, “I’m proud to be an American, where at least I know I’m free.” We’ve been raised on the ideal of American freedom. It’s as ingrained in our culture as Norman Rockwell’s depictions of the “four freedoms”: freedom of speech, freedom of religion, freedom from want, and freedom from fear.^{^[3]} His inspiration for these iconic portraits was President Roosevelt’s 1941 State of the Union speech, in which he articulated these freedoms as basic human rights for all nations. Many believe he did so to awaken this country to enter World War II.

Freedom has a long tradition in this country. But I'm not sure we've ever been as free as we'd like to think we are. Especially not from fear and want! There is an equally iconic image from Life magazine in 1937 of a mural boasting of the “American Way” as having the “highest standard of living” with people in front of it standing in line for assistance in Louisville, KY after the Ohio River flooded.^{^[4]} To be fair, it was taken during the Great Depression. But these were people who were not free from want and fear. I think true freedom is much more complicated than the sentiments expressed in Mr. Greenwood’s song.

I would say that St. Paul knew that freedom is complicated. In our lesson for today, he deals with one of the central problems regarding freedom in his day: how does a Gospel message that offers freedom to Gentiles apply to Jewish people who are bound by the Torah of Moses? This problem plagued most of the Christian communities Paul served in the First Century. To Jewish people, even Christians, a Gospel that offers salvation to Gentiles represented a casting aside of all their most cherished traditions. It simply did not compute to them, and this caused tension in the churches, most of which combined Jewish and Gentile members.

Paul’s response to this issue was to argue that God in Jesus Christ has set all people free through the Spirit. His logic in this chapter of 2 Corinthians is difficult to follow because he’s interpreting a portion of Exodus chapter 34. One of the central points Paul seems to be trying to make here is to say that the same Lord who set the people of Israel free from slavery in Egypt is the one who in Jesus has set them free from sin and death, from guilt and fear. And this same Lord is the one who in the Spirit makes freedom in Christ a reality in their lives: “Now the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom” (2 Cor. 3:17).^{^[5]}

The foundation for this line of thinking is found in Paul’s understanding of the resurrection of Jesus and what that means in our lives. As the Apostle makes clear elsewhere, the effect of Jesus’ resurrection is that while “in Adam all die,” “in Christ shall all be made alive” (1 Corinthians 15:22). Jesus’ resurrection imparts new life to all of us. And so St. Paul can say that through the resurrection, the gift of freedom and new life in Christ come to us through the “Spirit of the Lord.” In other words, “freedom is present where Christ is experienced through the Spirit.”^{^[6]}

This way of approaching freedom as a gift from the Lord God of all creation, extended to us by the risen Lord Jesus, and made real in our lives by the Spirit of the Lord is very different from our understanding of freedom. In the first place, we seem to think of freedom as a “right” that we deserve, not as gift. But perhaps more importantly, in this culture we insist that freedom is something that belongs to us by virtue of the fact that we exist. In our world, every person is by definition free. We don’t need anyone, not even Jesus Christ, to give us something that we already have.

By contrast, I would say that many of the people I meet don’t seem to be free. Some are bound by fear—fear of dying, fear of illness, fear of becoming financially destitute, fear of being alone. Some are bound by pain—the pain of some disease, or the pain of trauma. Some are bound by addictions—to alcohol, drugs, pornography, and even electronic games, among many others. Some are bound to a past that they simply cannot seem to shake. Others are bound by the ever-increasing cost of living and by debts that may be more than they can handle. And if you asked them were freedom is to be found, I’m afraid not many people have a very good answer.

But the Gospel insists that freedom is found in Christ through the Spirit who is constantly working in our lives. The assurance that Christ can truly give us this promised freedom is that God raised him from the dead. In raising Jesus from death to new life, God demonstrated for all time that it was his purpose for the human family to give them that new life by the Spirit.^{^[7]} As we respond to this amazing gift in faith, hope, and love, we find the truth and the reality of this promise becoming real in our growing experience of the freedom to truly live.

[2] Lee Greenwood, “God Bless the U.S.A,” You’ve Got a Good Love Comin’, MCA Records, May 17, 1984.

[3] Published as covers of The Saturday Evening Post, February 20, February 27, March 6, and March 13, 1943. See https://www.nrm.org/2012/10/collections-four-freedoms/ .

[4] Margaret Bourke-White, “World's Highest Standard of Living,” Life, February 1937. https://www.artic.edu/articles/467/worlds-highest-standard-of-living .

[5] Cf. Jürgen Moltmann, The Spirit of Life: A Universal Affirmation, 120-22.

[6] Ibid., 121.

[7] Cf. Karl Barth, Church Dogmatics, 4.1:308-9.

The Waking Dreamer