Reformation Day, (Observed)
October 30th, anno + Domini 2022
Our Redeemer and Our Savior’s Lutheran Churches
Custer and Hill City, South
Dakota
True Freedom - John 8:31-36
So if the Son sets you free, you will be free indeed.
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they are free. They think they have always been free, and so they resent anyone, even this miracle worker Jesus, who dares suggest they are not free.
Freedom. How free are we? We are citizens of the United States of America, where freedom has been a central topic since the founding. And it still is. Many today worry that we are in danger of losing fundamental freedoms. Others warn that the excessive exercise of freedom is leading us down a path to chaos, chaos that could even lead us into fascist dictatorship.
The Supreme Court recently returned the question of abortion to the various states, to be determined by them. The justices could not find where the Constitution sets them free to determine for the whole nation this fraught question. Abortion rights advocates scream to high heaven that every woman’s fundamental freedom to govern her own body has been stolen. God the Author of Life is not listening to their cries, and Christians and others celebrate the opportunity to restore to unborn baby girls and boys the freedom to be born. But the battle is only beginning. The goal of changing hearts and minds so that abortion is unthinkable is a very long way off. One thing is certain: this fundamental struggle over values, life and the definition of freedom does not make anyone feel free.
Here in West River South Dakota, we cherish the freedom of self-sufficiency. Which can seem like a winning project, unless your self-sufficiency is tied to the stock market, and your retirement nest egg is suddenly much smaller than it was last year. But no worries, you gather, cut and split your own firewood, so at least you’re free to be warm. Unless a back injury ends your ability to wield a chain saw.
Freedom is tricky. We might even ask the question: “How free do we truly want to be? No one wants to be literally locked up and held in bondage. But to be truly free in all aspects, to be a self-made man or woman, responsible to make all your own decisions, judge situations and people based on your knowledge and wisdom, and be totally responsible for your own outcomes? This is actually quite frightening.
We used to
outsource a lot of this self-governance work to institutions and affinity
groups, tribes if you will. It used to
be that we said things like: I do
this job for a living because everyone in my family does this for a
living. I approach life this way because
my church tells me to do so. I think
this way about politics or act this way in society because I work in this
industry or sector, have this ethnic background, or am a member of this or that
organization. And that’s how my kind of
people think and act. Sure, those
old institutions made a few demands on me, pretty minor, usually. But I got a lot in return, including freedom
from having to make all those difficult judgments and choices on my own.
But these old institutions, such as the family, churches, unions, political parties, civic organizations and a hundred other traditional institutions have fallen on hard times. Today we are free to reject their guidance and influence. But we’re still tribal creatures, to be sure. And the new tribes that have risen up to replace the old tribes demand more. No matter whether you ascribe to “woke-ism,” “environmentalism,” “feminism,” “conservatism,” “liberalism,” or “Trump-ism,” these new tribes demand to influence every part of your life, and offer less freedom to think and act your own way. One-hundred percent tribe loyalty is the new expectation. Any deviation from the tribal stance is verboten. If the tribal stance on a person or an issue flips 180 degrees tomorrow, well, you better make an about face, without asking why. Because you can quickly become the ‘enemy’ and lose your status as a good tribe member. Nevertheless, many people sign up for a side, preferring to be a less-than-free insider, rather than a free outcast.
Many sign-up for these new tribes. And many others withdraw. The same electronic gadgets that make these new tribes seem real and powerful also provide a means of escape. To disconnect and lose oneself in another reality feels very freeing in the moment. But does this freedom last? Is this freedom real? As many do with a variety of chemical substances, legal and illegal, so also gaming, binge-watching, internet pornography and the hopefully never-to-be-fully-realized “meta-verse” offer illusions of freedom, the sensation of being commander of one’s own destiny, as long as you stay plugged in.
But if an internet porn addiction makes me incapable of healthy physical intimacy with my wife, who’s the slave now? If I can’t finish school or get a good job because I spend 10 hours every day trying to level up in my favorite game, who is the master of whom? And can I really boast of my personal autonomy and liberty when I look up from a mindless trail of YouTube videos and realize it’s 3:00 a.m., I have to be at work in a few hours, but I’m too wired too fall asleep?
If the Son sets
you free, you will be free indeed.
All of our fruitless efforts of finding freedom, or avoiding freedom while pretending to be free, all of these share some fundamental problems. All of these feature a human definition of freedom at their center. I may make my own definition of freedom, or I may choose to accept the definition of some cultural leader. Many of them sound quite beautiful. Life, liberty and property. From each according to his ability, to each according to his needs. The pursuit of happiness. Or, the greatest good for the greatest number. The unseen hand guiding the market economy. Freedom in collective equality. Power to the people. Long live the Queen! Some of these ideas may have better historical track records than others, but none of them can truly make you free.
Human ideas about freedom see enemies out there, in bad-faith actors that threaten us from all sides. And they see the key to freedom inside us, in the heart of each individual, if we can just choose the right method, or the right leader, and commit ourselves fully to the cause.
Jesus’ truth about freedom and slavery flips this perspective upside down: “Truly, truly, I say to you, everyone who commits sin is a slave to sin.” Your lack of freedom is not imposed by some evil master – you are the problem. You are the problem, unless of course, you don’t sin?
But, lest we then simplistically suppose that the solution to slavery is self-reformation, that is, just stop sinning, please notice: this is not how Jesus completes His thought. “Truly, truly, I say to you, everyone who commits sin is a slave to sin. The slave does not remain in the house forever; the son remains forever. So if the Son sets you free, you will be free indeed.” Your lack of freedom is a sin problem. But the solution is not you overcoming sin. You can’t; you are its slave. No, the only solution is the Son, coming to set you free.
The Jews who had believed in Jesus do not like being called “slaves.” Even though the history of Israel is filled with periods of the literal enslavement of God’s people, to Egyptians, Assyrians, Babylonians and more, and even though at the moment of this conversation with Jesus, the Jews lived without freedom under the harsh rule of the Roman Empire, still they protest: “We have never been slaves of anyone!”
To these self-deluded Jews, Jesus gives His unexpected and unpopular definition of slavery, and of freedom: “Truly, truly, I say to you, everyone who commits sin is a slave to sin. The slave does not remain in the house forever; the son remains forever. So if the Son sets you free, you will be free indeed.”
Much like some of you may have been offended when I mentioned your favorite self-chosen pursuit of freedom, these Jews who had believed in Jesus were upset by His words. Most of them would soon abandon Jesus, as He spoke in every greater detail about His project to set sin-slaves free. The pure Gospel is strange and offensive precisely because Christ declares that true freedom is only found in complete dependence on Him.
The Jews in our Gospel and many people today don’t want Jesus’ kind of freedom. In fact, He offends them. So be it, Jesus is not concerned with avoiding offense. He is concerned with winning our freedom.
Too often we foolish humans are tempted to think we can find freedom in death, that is, in our own deaths. In this we are sadly and dangerously mistaken. But in the death of Jesus, we do find freedom, Because the death of Jesus solved our problem with sin, by forgiving us. Only Jesus’ death is a good death, because only His death leads to new life. New life, revealed by Jesus in His Resurrection, and shared with all who die and rise with Him through Baptismal faith.
Martin Luther and the other Reformers regularly risked imprisonment and death, because they dared to freely proclaim their rejections of the lies of the false tribe that the Roman Church had become. The Church had fallen into decay, she no longer was about setting sinners free in Christ. Rather her pastors and bishops sought to control sinners with false laws, for earthly gain. The true freedom of the Gospel was denied. The institution of the Church of Rome had become a slave master.
Luther and many others dared to rebel against their tyranny. And because Christ and His free forgiveness were in the center of their message, because the Holy Spirit went before and behind their efforts, the truth of the pure Gospel rang out again, changing the course of history, and setting millions of sinners free.
Will the voice of true freedom continue to sound forth in our day? I pray that it will. To help us along that path, there are a few key points we should all remember and live by.
The Church is not called to earthly greatness, nor to wealth or prestige or power. We are called to proclaim freedom, through the blood-bought forgiveness of sins that the Son of God has won for all people. To proclaim freedom, we must, as Jesus did, speak the truth about human sin. And then, when the truth of the Law has done it’s work, we are to proclaim freedom. Freedom from guilt. Freedom from fear. Freedom from the slavery of seeking identity and meaning in some other tribe.
You may belong to many, or just a few earthly groups, and that’s fine, as long as these groups don’t pull your from your real tribe. For all who trust in the Christ who claimed them in baptism are members of the only in-group that matters – the mysterious Body of Christ, His Bride, the Church, the whole tribe of believers from every time and place, who rest in the freedom that Jesus has won for us.
The Son has set you free. By His atoning blood, you are free from guilt, free from sin, free from fear of God’s wrath. You are even free from the fear of the scorn and persecution of mankind. And so you are also free to speak, to sing the praises of the One who died to set you free. Free to love, as you have been loved.
Rejoice, for you are truly free in Jesus Christ, your crucified, risen and truly present Lord and Savior. Amen
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