The text of the sermon is below the sermon audio. This is the first sermon preached for three months since my radical heart surgery at the beginning of April. I’m learning not only the bounty of being free from death (for a while at least) but also the mysterious task of learning what it is to be alive and free.
Sermon preached at Trinity Church, Newport Rhode Island.Sunday June 30th 2019
The Reverend Alan Neale“Let freedom Ring”
(A pre-sermon explanatory note. In Matthew’s Gospel 5 we read a famous sermon of Jesus that was preached on the mountain top and the people came to him – it has been famously named “The Sermon on the Mount”. In Luke 6 Jesus preaches a very similar sermon, but this was preached on level ground “where the disciples and the people were” – this, though not so famous, has been named “The Sermon on the Plain”.
Due to recent events in my life I have decided to preach for a few Sundays “on the plain… where the people are”. It’s not so much I fear climbing the steps to either of these grand pulpits behind me, it’s more than I am concerned whether I will get down.)
My text is a glorious verse from St. Paul, chapter 5:1 “For freedom, Christ has set us free. Stand fast therefore and do not submit again to a yoke of slavery”, or as it reads my cherished Message Bible “Christ has set us free to live a free life. So take your stand! Never again let anyone put a harness of slavery on you.”
I am reminded of those famous words from Jean-Jacques Rousseau “Man is born free, and everywhere he is in chains.”.
In this seminal text, so aligned to the Christian message and the Christian life, Paul describes freedom as a divine mission, as a sacred trust and as under constant attack.
Freedom – a divine mission. Simply put, the life, death, resurrection, and Ascension… the gift of the Holy Spirit is all for this purpose – that you and I should know growing freedom deep in our lives. Why did Jesus live, Why did Jesus die? Why did he give to us the dynamic of the Holy Spirit? All that we might be free. This is no simplistic freedom from law (despite how summer people drive in summer on Aquidneck Island), this is no naïve freedom from taxes; no, this is a profound, deep, psychic freedom that gives us liberty in what might appear the most constraining of situations. James 2:12 speaks of the “perfect law of liberty” consider the contrast. One of our ancient Prayer Book prayers leads us to pray: “In whose service is perfect liberty.” Consider that some of the greatest Pauline epistles were written while he was under tight house arrest in Rome waiting to die. Over these past few months I have begun to process, with all others who have suffered trauma, that God has not only set me free from death (for a while, seven times, at least!) but now comes the harder task of learning what it is… to be free to live. You and I ache to live in freedom and the good news is that this ache has been shared by our loving God forever!
Freedom – a sacred trust. The koine Greek word steko carries these meanings… persist, persevere, stand erect. I particularly like the final definition – I picture standing on Ocean Drive, at Sachuest Point with the wind gale force against me and I must do all I can to stand erect or be blown aside at best, blown over at worst. In our first reading 2 Kings 2, Elisha is offered a great prize but he must stand firm… resist distraction, refuse momentary comfort and then… all heaven breaks loose and he receives his gift. We stand firm in our freedom as we give time to pray, to read Scripture, to gather with the church… “Stand fast.”
And thirdly, our freedom is under constant attack. As St. Paul describes the works of the flesh some, with brave honesty, will admit that it doesn’t sound all bad! There can be an allure about that which will eventually do us harm… the vicious barb, the intentional ignoring, the acquiescence to evil in others. Paul begins Galatians 3 with some firm and vigorous words, he does this is demand the Galatian’s attention and in one translation the words are particularly stark. Imagine my delight then when… one night in our somber and austere Oxford college chapel I was designated to read, I began with this words… I let there be silence and then I began “You stupid people…”… pause… “who has bewitched from the truth.” We are, at the very least, if we allow ourselves to be lured from the path of freedom to the path of bondage. Those hard sayings of Jesus in today’s Gospel puzzle me as they probably puzzle you but, in part, using hyperbole (as he often does) I believe Jesus reminds us, warns us, that to follow him/to follow freedom we must not allow ourselves to be possessed by possessions, we must at some point set ourselves free from the past and we cannot allow the expectations to determine our lives… the Lord Jesus knows better, I promise you.
Friends I believe your heart and mine wishes to be set free from the hurts and damage in our past (self-afflicted or not),
Friends I believe your heart and mine wishes to be set free for life without crippling fear and enervating lack of expectations.
Free to forgive and be forgiven; free to love and to be loved.
And the good news what you want, at best, for you… God’s heart has ached longer and harder.
We live, undeniably, in a society, in a world where partisanship reigns; where people are not free to be themselves or express themselves; now, I know there must be constraints (checks and balances, consensus) but this has now become upended. The last place this should happen is the church… our church committees, our church communities must allow others freedom to be and to speak; and we must not allow our listening simply be a time when we are preparing to response.
It was said of dear, beloved Tony Simpson that he believed and lived in civility and in discourse; he refused to deal with absolutes (neither you must always or you must never). Tony for sure had core beliefs, nevertheless he let “freedom ring.”
I am about to finish a book by Fredrick Bachman entitled “A Man called Ove”(oooveh). It’s about a determined curmudgeon (I hope that’s not why I was given it!). But his wife Sonja loved with a power that made him free – “let freedom ring”.
5:1 “For freedom, Christ has set us free. Stand fast therefore and do not submit again to a yoke of slavery”.