Reformation/Pen21 A: Freedom!

Posted by DJL on Oct 19, 2020 in Dear Partner | 0 comments

Matthew 22:34-46
John 8:31-36
Romans 3:19-28

Dear Partner in Preaching,

Depending on what day you choose to lift up this Sunday, you have a variety of passages from which to choose. If you’re preaching Sunday as the 21^st Sunday after Pentecost (A), you have Matthew’s story of Jesus’ famous declaration that “love the Lord your God” and “love your neighbor” are the chief commandments of Scripture (Mt 22). If you’re observing Reformation Sunday, you have Jesus connection between truth and freedom (Jn 8) and Paul’s lynch-pin discussion of righteousness (Rom 3).

So many interesting, intriguing, and at some points controversial texts to consider. Where’s an honest working preacher to begin? 🙂

Mindful both of the plethora of passages and our current situation of leading our congregations through pandemic, social unrest, and economic hardship, all viewed through the lens of intense political polarization (and two weeks before an election!), I’ll offer just one thematic observation, and an important caveat, that I hope will be minimally helpful at this particular time.

Observation: This Sunday is about Freedom!
Caveat: But Scripture doesn’t always define freedom quite the way we do.

“The truth will make you free!” Jesus declares in John (8:32), words which might have been the rallying cry of the Reformers, as the Reformation was rooted in the belief, to borrow Paul’s words, that we are “justified by God’s grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus” (Rom 3:24), a gift received and activated by faith. That is, we are freely given God’s grace, freely receiving all that is needful unto salvation, and freely sent forth to direct our energies not to earning God’s favor but instead to loving our neighbor.

It’s that last part that I sense runs contrary to many contemporary definitions of freedom. Often, we hear freedom as the ability “to do whatever [the hell] I want.” But that, according to Scripture, is not freedom, but rather simply another form of bondage, this time to the vain pursuit of actualization through self-assertion and self-gratification. And that understanding of freedom results not only in bondage but death. Why? Because we were not created to live as individual automatons, divorced from the needs of our neighbor in the pursuit of self-satisfaction, but rather to find our true nature, call, and purpose – our telos –  realized in and through – and only in and through – relationship with others. In this sense, Genesis’ words “it is not good that the one created from earth be alone” is not simply about Adam as an individual but rather captures and should be applied to the whole of the human species. We were made for each other.

This is where Jesus’ linking of two discreet commandments becomes so vital. In response to the question about the greatest commandment (singular), Jesus responds by citing two commandments (plural). But is his intention really to offer two options, or to name both the greatest and second-greatest commandment? I think it’s more that the second commandment modifies, interprets, and even defines the first.  On the face of it, “loving God” and “loving neighbor” does not, in fact, have to necessarily look or be similar (the Greek homoi employed here), and plenty of religious traditions focus on the former independent of the latter. But Jesus not only says the second is “like” the first, but goes on to link them by saying, “on these two commandments hang all the law and prophets.” I take that to mean that these two are inextricably linked.

The Apostle Paul says something similar later in his Letter to the Romans: “All the commandments” – that is, everything God wants us to do – “is summed up in one word: ‘you shall love your neighbor as yourself’” (Rom 13:9).  As does the author of the Johannine letters, “Those who say, ‘I love God’, and hate their brothers or sisters, are liars; for those who do not love a brother or sister whom they have seen, cannot love God whom they have not seen” (1 Jn 4:20). And in his account of the Sermon on the Mount, Matthew records Jesus linking this phrase – the law and prophets – to the “golden rule:” do unto others as you would have them do unto you (Mt 7:12).

In an immensely helpful essay on the Romans 3 passage from Jane Lancaster Patterson on WorkingPreacher.org, she makes the same link between God’s righteousness and our righteousness (or, to borrow from Luther, our being right-wised or made righteous):

Dikaiosyne, justice/righteousness; dikaioo, to justify; dikaios, just, righteous (Romans 3:21, 22, 24, 25, 26 two times). This word gives English translators fits, because they have to choose between righteousness (right relationship with God) and justice (right relationship with one’s neighbor). The Greek language expresses the two as a single reality, a fact that grounds Paul’s argument in Romans 3. There is no true relationship with God if there is no true relationship with one’s neighbor.

All of which is to say, Dear Partner in Preaching, that while Luther is often characterized as the great champion of freedom, while we hear Jesus’ words and promise to set us free by the truth, and while we cherish as citizens of this country the notion of freedom, our modern understanding of freedom as acts of self-assertion is deceptively, even dangerously far from the biblical and, for that matter, originally American understanding of freedom. Commenting on Jefferson’s enshrinement of our freedom to pursue happiness in the Declaration on Independence, historian John Meacham writes:

Scholars have long noted that for Aristotle and the Greeks, as well as for Jefferson and the Americans, happiness was not about yellow smiley faces, self-esteem or even feelings. According to historians of happiness and of Aristotle, it was an ultimate good, worth seeking for its own sake. Given the Aristotelian insight that man is a social creature whose life finds meaning in his relation to other human beings, Jeffersonian eudaimonia — the Greek word for happiness — evokes virtue, good conduct and generous citizenship.

All of this invites us lifting up the biblical conviction permeating all the various passages of the day that we discover true freedom, happiness, and self-actualization by living into our original purpose: to be joined to others in supportive relationships and caring community. Perhaps noting that this isn’t simply God’s intention and command, but also God’s promise and free gift, will offer us and our people a place to stand and from which to act and speak with confidence and, most necessary these days, hope.

Blessings on your proclamation and leadership, Dear Partner. The church and world has never needed your faithful witness more!

Yours in Christ,
David