There has been a great deal of talk in our country lately about personal rights and individual freedom. And, I do believe this intent focus on personal rights, personal independence, and personal freedom over and against what is important for the greater common good is causing considerable harm in our culture. We are seeing this played out in multiple ways. Just one example is the mask wearing controversy as some people choose not to wear a mask, citing their personal understanding of freedom and liberty, thereby making individual freedom more important than the common good and care and love of neighbor. Rooted in hard-core, toxic, malignant individualism, this concept and perspective of personal independence and perceived personal freedom has become an idol. In fact, one could say the great idol of our present age is personal independence. However, the truth of the matter is that any time we worship an idol, any idol, we are enslaved to that idol and we are not free. We are anything but free! So, I find it fascinating that on this day we hear the words of St. Paul in his letter to the Romans, words that are both offensive and necessary.
It is true that, when Paul uses the word “slavery,” his understanding of this word was considerably different than ours. He lived in an age when the relationship between slave and master needed no explanation. The Greco-Roman world assumed a slave economy in which most people served those placed above them. While that does not make it right, slavery at that time was understood and accepted by all. In our day, the word “slavery” recalls hundreds of years of a despicable social evil, and the continued inequality and oppression the African American people still face because of this sin. We hear the word “slavery” and we are reminded of a sinful practice that has not only adversely shaped our nation but created a rupture so great it continues to shape us as we face the many aspects of the sins of systemic racism, bigotry and white supremacy, all of which we find present in contemporary culture. So, as we look at Paul’s message on this day, we first need to get beyond our understanding of the word “slavery” to understand Paul is talking about the idea of ultimate allegiance, loyalty, obedience, and service.
When Paul uses the metaphor of slavery, it is important to understand he is talking about what it means to surrender your life to the control of another. And, understanding slavery in this way, we find that we are all slaves of one sort or another. While we are a people who are heavily invested in the illusion that we think for ourselves, choose for ourselves, and do for ourselves, the reality is there are so many things that control our lives. Money, personal wealth, Wall Street, success, fashion, sports, physical fitness, family, keeping up with the Jones’ (whomever they may be), politics, the way we spend our leisure time, addictions of all kinds, even our sense of freedom and patriotism – the list goes on and on and on. All we need do is pay attention to what occupies our thoughts and how we spend our time and money and we will discover that which truly enslaves us. Not only are we enslaved to many of these things and aspects of life, we have built large cathedrals and shrines where we can worship these idols – note our big sports facilities and the shopping malls one can find in virtually any community. We are all serving something or someone, and today’s words from St. Paul invite us to ask the question, “Whom or what do you serve? Whom or what do I serve?”
The apostle Paul sees only two possible answers, two possible masters: righteousness or everything else. Paul says the only two possible masters are God or sin. Quite honestly, Paul sees nothing wrong in having a master because he knows everyone has one, but who or what is that master? It is whom you serve that makes all the difference. And, that difference comes when we place our ultimate allegiance, loyalty, obedience, and service in and to God. Quite frankly, our loyalties to anything other than God enslave us in sin. And, it is only by turning around, repenting, letting go of the many idols in life, and placing our loyalty in God alone that we begin to understand what true freedom really is all about. Only then are we liberated to truly live.
We are all under sin's domination. But for those baptized into Christ's life, death and resurrection, the power of sin has been destroyed. We have been freed from sin's power. And the greater power that has broken sin's shackles from our lives is God's grace. Through God's unmitigated, unmerited, and unrelenting grace, we have been set free from the power of sin. This is not a grace that simply enables us to feel better about ourselves. This is not a grace that simply enables us to live a life after death. No! This is a grace that follows us like a hound dog and pursues us with God's love. This is a grace that invades our lives and showers us with God's mercy. This is a grace that changes us and transforms us and declares us righteous before God. This is a grace that opens for us the way that leads to a new way of being – the way of God's life, the way of eternal life, the way of life that truly matters right here and right now.
It is grace alone that breaks the chains of sin and then safely holds us in the shackles of God's righteousness. Freed from the bonds of sin, we are now bound irrevocably to God. Paul exclaims, "Thanks be to God that you, having once been slaves of sin, have become obedient from the heart...having been set free from sin, [you] have become slaves of righteousness." And, bound to God, we are called to be engaged in the mission of God in the world. Having been freed from sin we are freed for living into God's mission which begins now! God's mission is here! And, God's mission is all about the healing of the world, bringing wholeness to humanity, living in ways that show care and love of neighbor, and living into the renewal of creation. Having been set free, we all get to join that mission, because we have been drafted and enrolled by God's grace.
Friends and followers of Jesus, we have been captured by grace and bound or shackled to God's righteousness! Paul tells us we are now living under grace and not under the law. This grace is what makes us truly free. And, when we live into God’s grace, we find our deepest freedom rests not in our own personal freedom to do what we want to do, but rather in our freedom to become who God wills us to be. We can make choices and decisions to intentionally live God’s grace because we have been freed from the entanglements of the world, the entanglements of our very selves, the entanglements of culture, the entanglements of anything that would hold us captive. However, the freedom from all these idols, from the prison of our own illusions, from all the that would hold us captive only leads to flourishing life if it is linked with freedom for a higher, heartfelt commitment – one that is always about love of God and love of neighbor. Living into the freedom we have been given means living a cross-shaped life. It means living our lives knowing we are bathed in the love of God that holds us, but also always, always, always living our lives in such a way that we embody that love by caring for and loving our neighbor! And, as today’s gospel reading tells us, when we do this, we welcome God’s very self, the Risen Christ’s presence among us. Friends, we have been freed to serve, to love and care for our neighbor, not because we must, but because we can, because love flows into love and grace begets grace.
Having been baptized into Christ our ultimate allegiance, loyalty, obedience, and service are all now found in God who has made us truly free! That is the freedom we are joyfully called to celebrate every day. That is the freedom we are called to live into as we engage in God’s mission in this world.