Giving Your Heart Away
By Lisa Rzepka, June 27, 2004
2 Kings
2:1-2, 6-14,
Galatians 5:1, 13-25
Each morning, I say a little prayer for God's word to come
to me in some form. Especially on Sundays I am expectant for
a Word from God. One Sunday in particular comes to mind when
God's humor took me by surprise. It was a Pentecost Sunday
a few years ago and I was speaking with the children of my
former church about the concept of the Holy Spirit during
a Children's Time. To start the conversation going I asked
them to think of something strong, powerful, and invisible.
I was ready to prompt them with the concept of wind or sound,
something they couldn't see, to lead into the idea of the
Holy Spirit. Well, these children didn't need any prompting.
In response to the question, "Name something strong, powerful,
and invisible…" one child said, "Love," another said, "Freedom,"
another said, "bacteria!"
It is interesting to note that the child who said "Love"
had a mother that graduated from Yale Divinity School, the
"freedom" answer came from a child whose Dad is a lawyer,
and the 'bacteria' answer came from a child whose Mom is a
physician. I don't remember off the top of my head how that
Children's sermon was supposed to end…but I do remember the
Spirit at work that morning and the Word of God coming through
very clearly in an unexpected moment.
The apostle Paul, who penned the letter to the Galatians,
would probably have a strong Amen to the children's answers
that morning. From what we read today, freedom is very much
on Paul's mind, as is love. Freedom and Love. Rhetorical question:
Is it providential that the lectionary committee has placed
a text on freedom to be read on the week before the Fourth
of July? Now, I admit that I was drawn to examine this text
at this time because of that particular timing element and
because I remember avoiding the passage during ordination
exams. The question read:
Galatians 5:1. For freedom Christ has set us free.
Stand firm, therefore, and do not submit again to a yoke of
slavery. Explain Christian freedom.
It's not an easy question to answer ~ how freedom is manifested
by not submitting to the yoke of slavery - and yet - we are
to become slaves to one another - as you heard this morning!
See, even though Paul just got done saying earlier in Galatians
that in Christ there is no longer Jew or Greek, slave or free,
male or female, and in this verse he says do not submit to
the yoke of slavery -he says "through love become slaves to
one another." I, for one, tend to avoid trick questions at
all costs.
Paul had a hard time getting through to me. Come on, I grew
up in a Western culture in the 70's! We were ready to reap
the freedoms fought for in the 60s - benefit from the civil
rights, feminist, and freedom from the establishment movements.
I think we were referred to as the "Me" generation. Now, before
any of you not in my generation get any prideful ideas - every
generation has its good and bad labels. What levels the playing
field for all of us gathered here may be the reference to
Western culture. Somehow I sense the freedom that Paul talks
about may not be the freedom we are used to thinking of in
our society. We probably all very early on developed a longing
for freedoms… remember as a youth, hoping for the day when
you could:
drive a car…live on your own…spend money any way you want…
not have to follow someone else's rules…read parents?
Then those days came ~~ and we found out about insurances
and accidents, electricity and heating bills, mortgages, rents,
working for a living, read responsibility. I don't know about
you, but my bubble burst. Hopefully early on, at a very personal
level, we learn about the responsibility of freedom. Freedom
is never really free ~~ there are costs and obligations.
How do we define freedom? Is it autonomous, independent,
sovereign freedom to "do as one pleases?"
In our society we place a very high level of importance on
autonomy ~ a word that comes from the Greek, meaning auto-
self and nomos- meaning law. Autonomy is self-law. Think about
self-law. It's a scary concept.
Recently, I read an article which stated that twenty years
ago, the average Chief Executive Officer of a company used
to make 40 times the average worker's salary. Currently, CEOs
make 400 times the average workers salary. Some would say,
"That's what happens in a free market economy." Others say,
"Business leaders got confused and their moral compasses stopped
working."¹ How do we live between rules and autonomy,
law and license?
We live in a sexually saturated society. Some say, "it's
freedom of speech, freedom of expression." Others ask, "Where
is my freedom not to be exposed to this expressiveness or
to let my children be exposed? How do we live between law
and license?
We approach this Independence Day holiday with war in many
parts of our world. It gives us pause to think about freedom
and liberty and self-law at another level and we wonder…how
do we get there? What are the costs of liberty?
This week the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church
(USA) gets underway, and at this 216th GA our denomination
tries to diligently discern the movement of the Spirit in
a church conflicted over standards of ordination, Biblical
authority, family values, abortion, and how to get along with
Jews and Muslims. Even Christians struggle mightily about
how to live between law and license. What freedoms do we have
and what rules, if any, do we follow?
Does Paul have something to say to us in this letter? In
a culture that values autonomy, we aren't accustomed to getting
letters full of moral exhortations ~ exhortations which give
urgent or strong advice. Paul didn't write to communicate
the weather or to pass along innocuous information. He wrote
to urge fellow Christians onward in their pursuit of the Christian
life - especially when they were being influenced by things
that took their focus from God.
This letter is strange to us, but the whole idea of autonomy
would be inconceivable to Paul. In the ancient world you were
a part of a community; be it Pharisaic, Essene, Samaritan,
Zealot, Sadducee, or pagan…you committed yourself to something.
You did not live autonomously because to do so was to live
as an outcast and suffer and die. And so, an integral aspect
of the freedom Paul speaks of can only exist in community.
Paul was also aware that everyone worships something. Paul
knew that. It's similar to John Calvin's thesis, founder of
our tradition, who wrote that there are not truly any atheists
- just people who have fallen deeply into idolatry. Their
focus has turned from God and they've given their hearts to
someone or something else. The question then becomes to what
do you give your heart? It's a choice.
Paul's exhortation, urgently stresses that our freedom involves
a choice. Being a Christian isn't a label, it's a chosen way
of life. Unlike our gender, our race, our birthday, things
we don't get to choose, responding to God's love by serving
Christ is a choice. Everyone is welcome on the journey, but
it is intentional, and there are obligations.
Paul reminds us that all human beings are free in some sense
and enslaved in some sense. Paul had a healthy regard for
the doctrine of sin, that which enslaves us. He knew from
the fourth chapter of Genesis that it is so easy and seductive
to succumb to the sin that crouches at the door waiting for
us (Genesis 4). Along with Paul, Presbyterians know that we
are not immune to sins of the flesh and the self-righteousness
that causes us to do things we think we would NEVER do. In
a world with 9/11 and Abu Ghraib, greed and poverty, and walls
that continue to divide us, Paul tells us, "To love our neighbor
as ourselves" and follows with a warning, "If, however, you
bite and devour one another, take care that you are not consumed
by one another." (5:14-15) Paul knew full well our human condition.
Only through intentionality will we find the freedom we are
called to in Christ. We are not called to "your own individual"
freedom - we - you are called to freedom in Christ. The God
who created you - in Christ stretched out arms in self-emptying
love on a cross. The Holy One embraces you with those outstretched
arms for freedom from all that would enslave you. It's that
self-emptying love that Paul is talking about when he tells
us to be slaves to one another just as Christ emptied himself
for us. When we embrace one another in the communion of Christ
we glimpse the New Creation - the eternal reality we hope
and pray for, true freedom to love.
The eternal reality will be one of unity and peace. Can you
imagine a world of unity and peace at work in our world? Unity
and peace is at the forefront of our denomination's meeting
this week and it reminds me of something Mark Twain once wrote.
He said that as an experiment he put a dog and a cat in a
cage together to see if they could get along. To his surprise,
they did! So he added a bird, a pig, and a goat. Soon, after
making a few adjustments among themselves, they all got along
just fine. But then, Twain said, he put in a Baptist, a Presbyterian,
and a Catholic. Soon there was not a living thing left in
the cage!²
That is a humorous twist on our fallen human condition. Paul's
message is that we need God to make what is wrong with humanity
right. We can't do it alone - it's an intentional everyday
walk with the Spirit. Living in the Spirit is from the Hebraic
sense to walk with God in everything we do.
Paul reminds us that when we've lost our focus that we are
not autonomous beings left to the mercy of ourselves. God's
promise is that by walking with the true Spirit we will not
carry out the desires of the flesh.
It's a promise for freedom and abundant life. So in this
coming week pray for your freedom; pray for freedom for all
humanity; celebrate the Spirit and make your walk ever more
intentional for there is life eternal.
Let us pray,
Living Spirit,
Your message is our strength. Fill our hearts and help us
to offer them with the self-emptying love of Christ and bring
us to your fresh sense of freedom. Amen
¹McDonough, William J. "Overcompensation."
The Christian Century, 15 June 2004, p. 8.
²LectionAid: Year C. Vol. 12, Number 3, June 2004-August
2004, p. 13
© Copyright, 2004, Lisa Rzepka
All Rights Reserved.
Providence Presbyterian Church
Fairfax, Virginia
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