Usually, we hear this gospel passage on Reformation Sunday, but it came to mind when I was preparing to preach on Paul’s letter to the Romans where he writes about slaves of sin becoming slaves to righteousness.
In the gospel, Jesus is addressing a group of Jews who have believed in him, and they say, “We have never been slaves to anyone.” (John 8:33)
Apparently, they had forgotten that two thousand years before this, their ancestors had been enslaved in Egypt under Pharaoh. And because they didn’t see themselves as enslaved, they struggled to see the meaning of the freedom that Jesus offered.
In our American context “slavery” recalls the chattel slavery that began in 1619 and continued through the mid-nineteenth century. And similar to those first-century Christians, most of us who are white and descended from western European ancestors, would probably insist, “We [too] have never been slaves to anyone.”
But Jesus and Paul have something to say to us about that: We don’t know what we don’t know.
We think we’ve been free but we have been deceived. In verse 20 Paul addresses the illusory perception of freedom, writing that we were once free from righteousness, but that wasn’t because we were free. It was because we were still bound by sin.
The only freedom we know is under grace freely given by God in God’s mercy.
Our freedom is given to us by God through Jesus Christ. As Martin Luther wrote in his essay “The Freedom of a Christian”, “faith alone, without works, justifies, frees, and saves.”[i]
And there is no freedom apart from Jesus Christ. Everyone serves a master of one kind or another.[ii] So, we are either slaves of sin or we are slaves to righteousness. We are either slaves to human passions and addictions, or we are slaves to God and the things of God. There is no third way here.
Remember when Jesus said, “For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.”? (Matthew 6:21; Luke 12:34) We’ve become so conditioned to living in slavery to sin we don’t even recognize the freedom we’ve been given. When we put our gifts of time and our resources, our energy and effort into things of this world, we continue in our enslavement to the things of this world and our treasure is not in God and our hearts are not in God. But when we claim the freedom we already have in Christ, and we treasure God and the ways of God, our hearts follow.
And in Christ our eyes are opened to see that the freedom we are given is not only for ourselves. We are not free simply to exercise and protect our individual rights or freedoms; we are freed that we may love and serve others. Luther writes in that same essay:
A Christian is perfectly free lord of all, subject to none. A Christian is a perfectly dutiful servant of all, subject to all.[iii]
He continues with Paul’s own words from later in this letter: Christians “owe no one anything, except to love one another….” (Romans 13:8)
As Christians, this righteousness becomes the organizing center of our lives, a place of commitment and belonging.[iv] The center is not our country, our vocation or even our families, but God and the things of God. As one New Testament professor wrote, “Righteousness leads to increased spirituality and holiness both of heart and with each other.”[v]
Paul says here that “you, having once been slaves of sin, have become obedient from the heart to the form of teaching to which you were entrusted.” (Romans 6:17) The form of teaching — the very shape of discipleship — is the cross, where Jesus emptied himself, taking on all that is ours and gave up his life for us. Obedient from the heart, we become servants to the cross and to Jesus Christ who commands us to love one another.
This is heart-work that demands a high price. It demands that we let go of all that we grasp so tightly, that we might receive what God offers to us. It demands that we open ourselves to be changed from the inside out. It demands risking ourselves and trusting God is there, and that is hard!
But Paul concludes that while the wages of sin —when we stay enslaved in that world where we only think we are free from the devil and the powers that defy God — is death, the benefit of this difficult transformative work is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord: life where we know God’s abundant love and mercy for us and God’s power to heal what is withered, restore what is broken and renew what is dying.
Let us pray.
Holy and life-giving God,
Thank you for your Son Jesus who frees us from bondage even when we cannot see our shackles.
Thank you for your free gift of grace and the freedom we know in your love and mercy that renews us and gives us new life each day.
Show us how to love one another and live under the dominion of righteousness and Your ways.
We pray in the name of Your Son, our Lord and Savior, Jesus the Christ.
Amen.
[i] Martin Luther. “The Freedom of a Christian.” Three Treatises. 282.
[ii] John B. Cobb, Jr. David J. Lull. Romans. 100.
[iii] Luther, 277.
[iv] Cobb and Lull, 100.
[v] Israel Kamudzandu. “Working Preacher.” Luther Seminary. https://www.workingpreacher.org/preaching.aspx?commentary_id=4497, Accessed 6/25/2020.
No comments:
Post a Comment