Chris Taylor’s Sermon – 7/4/10
Called To Freedom
Galations 5:1; 13-25
A few months ago Bonnie and I enrolled our dog Roxy in a socialization class over at the kennel. Roxy, this husky that actually belongs to our son, doesn’t get along with other dogs. She is always friendly and eager when we approach, but give her the space to actually connect to another dog and it always ends up in a fight.
There are two fears for me: I’m afraid that she will hurt another dog; and I’m afraid that one day as she lunges she will catch me off balance and pull me over. So we’ve been going to this kennel where Roxy gets to hang out with other big, unfriendly dogs in a small, enclosed space for a couple of hours. Those two hours are the longest of my week.
Now the trainer tells us that when a dog feels tension or pressure in the leash her instinct is to pull away from it. It is the Catch-22 of dog walking. The dog pulls and you hold her back so then she pulls even harder to try and get away. The harder she pulls the greater the pressure on the leash. That, in turn, makes her even more frantic to get away.
There must be something deeply instinctive here because we humans aren’t a whole lot different. We don’t like being told what to do. It doesn’t matter what the task is, or how much we might otherwise have enjoyed it. As soon as we are told we have to do something there is no joy in it anymore.
Consider, as one example, how you might feel buying a beautiful gift for someone as an expression of your love. There is great joy in getting that gift, and particularly in seeing the delight on their face in receiving it. But now imagine being told the gift is expected – that you better buy this gift or there is going to be trouble. Same gift. Same person. But the experience is entirely different. When you have to give it, there is no joy in the giving.
“Have to” is like a tug on the leash. It is coming from outside of us instead of from within – instead of being something we want to do. And that tug can come at all kinds of different levels. When we are choosing a car, for example, or choosing which clothes to wear, the moment we wonder “what will this communicate or what will others think” it is another tug. It is not us but those others who are shaping the choice.
The more we feel those pressures, the more we are driven by those tugs of “I should do this, or I ought to do that” the more heavy and oppressive our lives are going to feel. We aren’t being true to ourselves. What we are being true to is the person that others think we ought to be. And that’s the very definition of a leash, or a collar.
So here is Paul in our text announcing “For freedom Christ has set us free.” Freedom from what? Freedom from those expectations; freedom from all those “shoulds and oughts” that can suck all the joy out of this life. Jesus came to break that leash. He came to set us free from all those outward standards.
In Jesus we discover how much God loves us. We see the evidence that God loves us exactly where we are. God never says “change and then I’ll love you.” No, in Jesus God is saying “I love you right there.” Nothing we do or don’t do is going to change God’s opinion.
What that means is that we’ve got nothing to prove. Our choices aren’t about trying to show how worthy or how righteous we are anymore. There are no more tugs on the leash. We are free; free instead to become those uniquely gifted individuals that God created us to be.
But then Paul adds this caveat, v. 13, “only do not use your freedom as an opportunity for self indulgence.” And then he adds this list (vss. 19ff) of all these things we shouldn’t do, “fornication, impurity, licentiousness, idolatry…” The list goes on and on. And at the very end he offers this warning, “those who do such things will not inherit the kingdom of God.”
That sure sounds like judgment. It sounds like Paul is simply substituting one standard for another and tying that leash of the law right back on us (“you better do this, you better do that if you want to be acceptable in God’s sight”).
But Paul isn’t talking about God’s love here. He isn’t suggesting that if we somehow get it wrong that God is going to reach down and punish us. All he is saying is that when we make a choice there are going to be consequences. That is part of being free. If I choose to eat those cookies, it is going to have an impact on my waistline.
We don’t have to do anything – we are free to make whatever choices we want. But if what we are looking for is a certain kind of experience of this life – the kingdom kind of experience which is full of such qualities as love and joy and peace – then there are certain choices that will open our lives to that kind of experience. And there are other choices that will push the Kingdom further and further away.
What Paul is saying is that if we put ourselves first, if we put our wants and desires of ahead of everything else (what he calls here “the desires of the flesh”), then we are going to find ourselves far from the Kingdom of God. Make the choice, however, to follow the Spirit that speaks to us from deep within, and what we will find is a quality of life more beautiful and more meaningful than anything we ever could have imagined.
We don’t choose God’s guidance, in other words, because we have to. We choose it because that guidance shows us the way into the kind of lives for which we long.
Picture an alcoholic who craves the next drink; craves it so much she can almost taste it. Well, at one level she is free to take it. That’s her choice. God isn’t going to stop loving her if she ends up on another binge. Just the opposite. The heart of God in that moment would be filled instead with a sense of sorrow and great compassion.
But right in the midst of that craving she will also hear another voice. She will feel the gentle prodding of God’s own Spirit saying, “Don’t take it. That’s not what you are looking for, that’s not the person you want to be.”
Who is speaking the real desire of her heart here? Isn’t it the Spirit? Isn’t it the Spirit who is at work to break those bonds that will truly set her free? Taking the drink or not taking it isn’t about the law. It has nothing to do with meeting some outward standard and showing how good or righteous or acceptable she is. It has everything to do with helping her become the free and joyous person that God created her to be. It is the freedom to become who she most truly is.
Jesus Christ has severed the leash. The walk with him is not about conforming to some outward standard. With him there are no tugs on the collar. There is only this quiet voice of God’s own Spirit speaking to us from the pages of Scripture, speaking to us through the community of our sisters and brother, speaking to us from deep within and inviting us into the lives that we’ve always wanted.
Whether we listen to that voice or not isn’t going to change God’s opinion of us. What will change is the experience of our few brief years upon this earth. It is not a question of “have to or ought to.” It is a question of what we truly desire.