FREEDOM FOR?

SCRIPTURE READING: Galatians 5:1, 13-25

I find it interesting, to say the least, that on a Sunday preceding our July 4^th celebrations of independence and freedom, this text from Galatians shows up in the lectionary readings. Needless to say, Paul had no knowledge of what freedom would mean in 21^st century America. Nor is this letter to the churches in Galatia addressing the freedom we so cherish in this country. But at a time and place when we focus so on our freedom, and our rights as citizens, let us hear what Paul has to say to us about a different kind of freedom, the freedom we are given as citizens of God’s kingdom, yet one to be fully realized in this time and place. For freedom Christ has set us free. Stand firm therefore and do not submit again to a yoke of slavery….

A few weeks ago one of our members was surfing the Internet looking for biking routes in the Fox Valley. She ran a search for biking + Appleton. Her search brought up my name. When she told me this, I was stunned. It has been several years now since I bicycled halfway across the US. And that trip is hardly one of the first things I, or others, would associate with me. But isn’t it interesting what we learn about folks when we GOOGLE them online. And now, you can do more than simply read about folks, you can see them in video clips, often caught doing things that many would not want broadcast across cyberspace or made known in other public forums. Is how we are known publicly written by those digital entries in cyberspace and will those entries be our legacies?

This past week Thomas Friedman, op-ed columnist for the New York Times, wrote a piece entitled The Whole World Is Watching. He proposed that with the invention of Internet and websites such a My Space and You Tube, which allow anyone and everyone to be a publisher and a filmmaker, with just the click of a cell phone, everyone becomes a public figure. And, everyone can have their behavior subjected to public scrutiny and criticism without the benefit of context, reflection, or even verification, never mind asking permission to air such information.

Friedman then went onto propose that because of such inventions, and how they are used, we all live lives that are much more transparent. He claims that such transparency is literally shifting how we conduct our personal and corporate lives — making us think more about what we say or do, and how we say or do it, because, heaven forbid, we might be captured online and have our reputations compromised. In essence, his thought is that such transparency is the net holding in check personal and corporate behavior. On a positive note, he reported how one hospital in Michigan taught its doctors to apologize when they make mistakes and dramatically cut their malpractice claims. In Texas a large car dealership allowed every mechanic to spend freely whatever company money was necessary to do the job right and saw their costs actually decline.

This transparent nature of our culture is calling our society to “do the right thing,” lest we be publicly shamed and ridiculed for doing otherwise. This cyberspace culture, in essence, has become the “public square” of former societies in our history. And in the public square, one is subject to be elevated or demeaned in the public eye. How one behaves may create “a permanent digital fingerprint”, leaving little room for grace. I must say, I am sure glad the “sins of my youth” are not digitally recorded and stored anywhere and thank God they are not the standard by which I am judged today!

It makes me question what motivates human beings to behave in loving, just ways. Is it purely the result of having one’s actions made transparent to the world? Or, is it fear — fear of being found out for doing otherwise?

All of this has made me question whether or not we, as society, have really made any headway or difference than those generations who have gone before us. Do we respond to one another in any more responsible and loving ways or conduct ourselves as citizens any better as a result of freedom, rights, and liberties we are given in this country? Or, are we no more free than our ancestors, slaves to such boorish and self-serving behaviors, as Paul lists in his letter to the Galatians, if we are not held in check by the fear of yet another form of public shaming and shunning?

Public shaming and shunning has played a significant role in many cultures throughout time. In our faith history, especially among the Puritans, people were often and regularly shamed and shunned. But it did little to actually curb baser human behaviors, except in public settings. Shaming and shunning simply instilled fear into the hearts and minds of its citizens, lest they be convicted of a “sin against God” they may not have committed, but would nevertheless pay the price for, if accused by another who simply made the claim that they did so. And if there wasn’t the fear of being publicly ridiculed, then certainly there was the fear of divine retribution for one’s sins, which many preachers for centuries instilled with fire and brimstone. And some still do today. So, is fear the net that holds us in check and motivates us to live and behave in ways that are loving and just? Who’s to say? I’m not sure that human beings are motivated by any one factor or influence to live in ways that are more loving or just. Nor is there any one factor that causes us to be more or less civil to one another, in public or in private.

What I am certain of is that we, as Christians, as followers of Jesus Christ, are called and motivated to live differently. Our motivation to act, behave and live in loving and just ways is based on our relationship to God, Jesus Christ and the Holy Spirit. It is a response of gratitude for the love, grace, and freedom we have already received, not a fear of what may come. We have already been granted freedom to live, without fear of divine retribution, by grace. By God’s love and grace we are gifted with our inalienable rights as heirs of God’s kingdom — we are given the gift of life and freedom. It is these gifts of God’s love and grace that motivate us to respond in kind to others, so that indeed we may live with one another in community, as God intends us to live, loving one another as we do ourselves and as God has already loved us.

That, my friends, is the net, the tether which binds us to one another and to God in covenantal relationship — that we love as God has first loved us and that we love one another as we do ourselves.

It is interesting that Paul, in this text, juxtaposes freedom with slavery/servanthood. Out of a response of having been set free, we are then free to become servants of God, and servants to one another. “For you were called to freedom, brothers and sisters; only do not use your freedom as an opportunity for self-indulgence, but through love, become slaves to one another.” Yet, how few of us really consider ourselves to be servants/slaves to one other? Our American history is disreputably marked by slavery and the unconscionable behavior apparent of those times. So, many of us recoil at language that suggests to us slavery and servanthood as a model of how in our freedom we are to love one another. And yet, if we are not willing to put the needs of others before our own for the sake of the common good, then how can we be followers of the one named Jesus Christ who gave of himself completely out of love for us?

Tavis Smiley opened the presidential candidates debate with this poignant quote from Cornell West, who, if you don’t know, currently serves as Professor of Religion and African Studies at Princeton University. (If you want to know more, you can GOOGLE him.) He said this: “You can’t lead people if you don’t love people. And you can’t save people if you don’t serve people.” Brothers and sisters in Christ, we have been set free by God’s love and grace, therefore let us not take our freedom for granted, on a personal or community level. But, out of gratitude, let us love and serve one another freely in the spirit of the living God. In thanksgiving let us come to the table remembering how Christ has loved and served us as we offer to one another these simple gifts of bread and fruit of the vine.

Sermon preached by Reverend Jane B. Anderson at First Congregational United Church of Christ, Appleton, Wisconsin on July 1, 2007.