A Fourth Church Sermon by Calum I. MacLeod

June 27, 2004 | 9:30 and 11:00 a.m.

Freedom Songs

Calum I. MacLeod
Associate Pastor, Fourth Presbyterian Church

Psalm 103
Galatians 5:1, 13–25
Luke 9:51–62

God gave you a great gift that terrible night, Tony dear.
He gave you a vision of Hell. Not that silly fire and brimstone stuff.
True Hell.
Being alone with yourself for all eternity.
Only your own self to hope in, only your own self to love. . . .
As you said, a prison with no door.
I don’t think that vision will ever come to you again.
You must never forget it.

Dom Joseph Warrilow,
in Father Joe by Tony Hendra

Two monks were on their travels. One of them practiced the spirituality of acquisition; the other believed in renunciation. All day long they discussed their respective spiritualities, till toward evening they came to the bank of a river. Now the believer in renunciation had no money with him. He said, “We cannot pay the boatman to take us across, but why bother about the body. We shall spend a night here chanting God’s praises, and tomorrow we’re sure to find some kind soul who will pay our passage.” The other said, “There’s no village on this side of the river, no hamlet, no hut, no shelter. We shall be devoured by wild beasts or bitten by snakes or killed by the cold. On the other side of the river we shall be able to spend the night in safety and comfort. I have the money to pay the boatman.” Once they were safely on the other bank, he remonstrated with his companion, “Do you see the value of keeping money? I was able to save your life and mine. What would have happened to us if I had been a man of renunciation like you?” The other replied, “It was your renunciation that brought us across to safety. For you did part with your money to pay the boatman, didn’t you? Moreover, I had no money in my pocket, but your pocket became mine.”

This story, like all true wisdom stories, has many layers of meaning that can be meditated on and extracted. I want to use the story this morning to frame our thoughts on one particular theme, the theme of freedom. This is a concept central to Christian spirituality, one which suffuses scripture, both the scriptures that we share with our Jewish cousins—what we know as the Old Testament, with that central story of the Exodus, the liberation of the children of Israel from slavery in Egypt—and then woven throughout the New Testament. Particularly strongly in Paul’s writings, the letters he sent to the early churches, this theme of “freedom” comes through. The question before us then might be put in the following way: What makes us free? Some of the biblical scholars among you will be itching to raise your hands and shout out, “Read John in chapter 8: ‘The truth will make you free.’” That perhaps begs the question: What is truth? Back to our opening story. Is it acquisition or renunciation that brings freedom in that situation?

Freedom is a big concept; we encounter it daily. It seems that it is an easy word to bandy about in the political talk shows and on radio. Freedom, I think, is one of those elastic words that can be used to justify particular stances and, indeed, stances that are often opposed to each other. In the realms of politics, ethics, psychology, economics and so many aspects of the human endeavor, the concept of freedom plays a part.

One aspect of the discourse is what we might call defining the locus of freedom. For some, it’s about “freedom to” act in a certain way. So we might have someone from the NRA talking about the freedom to bear arms or libertarians form the political right talking about freedom to live in a particular way without the influence of government or the state. From left and right, advocates of free speech would talk about the freedom to express oneself in the way one wants. In opposition to that, perhaps, would be those who argue about “freedom from”: freedom from gun violence, freedom from the effects of illegal drugs on our society, freedom from racist taunts or neo-Nazi marches.

This talk of freedom is perhaps striking a chord for some of you, hearing echoes of that famous speech of Franklin D. Roosevelt to Congress in January 1941, when he laid out the Four Freedoms:

Freedom of speech and expression
Freedom to worship God as one wants
Freedom from want
Freedom from fear.

These statements implicitly hold that tension of “freedom from” and “freedom to.”

In political economics, it gets perhaps only more complex where you can choose anywhere on the spectrum. From the left, for example, Marx and Engels in the Communist Manifesto: “Workers of the world unite. You have nothing to lose but your chains.” And the more conservative voice of the late, and for some unlamented, economist Friedrich von Hayek, the inspiration behind Margaret Thatcher’s infamous quote that “there is no such thing as society.” For Hayek, and I quote, “Nothing has done so much to destroy the safeguards of individual freedom as the striving after the mirage of social justice.” For Hayek, private property guarantees freedom.

Freedom is a complex idea with lots of complex theories and propositions. This my be why some of the baby boomers out there might just be thinking that Kris Kristofferson was right and that “freedom’s just another word for nothing left to lose.”

The question for us this morning is, “How as pilgrims together in faith, do we navigate this concept?” We can, of course, go to scripture. Paul, as I noted earlier, has much to say about freedom. To the church in Corinth he writes, in Second Corinthians, “For where the spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom.” From our reading this morning to the church in Galatia: “For freedom Christ has set us free. Stand firm therefore and do not submit again to the yoke of slavery.”

It is important for us to realize some of the context for Paul’s understanding of freedom. Paul in Galatians is writing to a church that has come under the influence of some Christians with whom Paul disagrees because they believe that a person needs to be part of the original covenant between God and the Children of Israel before they can then become a part of the new covenant in Christ. In other words, they need to be circumcised (if they are male) into the Jewish tradition. Paul argues vehemently against this and comes to the conclusion that freedom is deeply rooted with the relationship between the law in the Old Testament and grace under Jesus Christ. Adrian Hastings, a British theologian, points out that Paul is talking about freedom from the need for circumcision. Hastings even goes as far as to suggest, and I quote, “It [Paul’s stance] has no obvious or immediate political consequences.” For example, he points out that nowhere does Paul denounce the institution of slavery.

One might take issue with Hastings and point out that Paul talks about new kinds of relationships, particularly in the letter to Philemon when he sends back the slave Onesimus to his master and describes a new relationship that could happen.

Still we may find it more useful to explore the gospel that we heard earlier from Luke. Jürgen Moltmann, in the preface to his fine work of theology The Crucified God, makes the claim that “only the crucified Christ can bring the freedom which changes the world.” For Moltmann then, there is a direct correlation between the events of Good Friday and a call to God’s people to work for change in the world. The gospel begins with a very familiar experience for Jesus in his life in ministry: rejection. Rejection by the Samaritans and the village. Rejection that will lead to the loneliness of the events in Jerusalem that Jesus has resolved to undertake by setting his face towards Jerusalem.

There is a fine modern hymn that often comes into my mind when thinking about that idea of the loneliness and rejection that Jesus experiences. Written by Brian Wren, the opening line is, “Here hangs a man discarded, a scarecrow hoisted high.”

What a powerful image for that picture of Christ on the cross: a scarecrow, an object of foolishness gathered together from things that have been discarded. So we have rejection and loneliness. But underneath this all is Jesus’ resolve. And that’s partly perhaps why what happens next in this story seems kind of harsh to us.

“I’ll follow you but let me first go and bury my father,” says one. And Jesus says, “Let the dead bury the dead.” “Let me say farewell to my family before I join you,” says another. And Jesus uses that cutting and incisive image about not looking back when your hand is on the plow. I think what Jesus is challenging the hearers—that includes us—to do is to think about freedom in a particular way. Freedom from the self—more precisely from that aspect of the self that holds us back from being who we are called to be. I have been reading a very thoughtful book that has helped me to understand something of this. It’s a recent publication, a spiritual memoir called Father Joe: The Man Who Saved My Life, written by an English guy, who has lived for many years in the United States, called Tony Hendra. Tony Hendra is a satirist. He was the editor of National Lampoon magazine and will be known to some you out there as the character Ian Faith in the band Spinal Tap in the spoof This Is Spinal Tap.

Hendra writes in the book Father Joe about his relationship with a Benedictine monk who lives on the Isle of Wight, off the south coast of England. He relates how through their friendship he comes to an understanding of meaning in his life. In one of their conversations, they discuss something of this. They talk initially about love. Father Joe says, “We perform [a] work not to feel wonderful but to know and love the other. It’s the same in romantic love. You may not feel your love but God is still your loved one, your other.”

Hendra writes, “ I began to sense that there might be possibilities I could never have known.

Father Joe continues, “The other day Father Prior was telling me about a French writer Jean Paul Sartre, an existentialist. I’m sure a brain like you has come across him. One phrase particularly struck me, ‘Hell is other people.’ Do you think he meant that as a joke, Tony?”

Tony replies, “I don’t think humor’s a strong point with existentialists.”

Father Joe says, “I think it’s poppycock. How can hell be others? God is manifested in others. God is the Other. That’s why the self must lose itself and love for the other. It’s the self we must leave behind. Better to say ‘Hell is the Self.’”

I think that’s something of what is behind Jesus’ hard and challenging teaching here. Let’s be clear that this is not about us working out our own salvation but about freedom from self through the grace of Jesus Christ. The promise is to be brought to a place where we can be freed of those aspects of self that hold us back from being fully ourselves.

Then we have the offer of being given the freedom “to go and proclaim the kingdom,” as Jesus says. In doing this, we should remember Francis of Assisi’s dictum, “Preach the gospel always. Use words only when necessary.”

And throughout all these reflections, I keep hearing in my mind Bob Marley’s great plaintive anthem of the experience of slavery, “Redemption Songs,” in which he challenges the hearer of the song, “Won’t you help to sing these songs of freedom?”

To know freedom in our own lives and thus to bring freedom in our world is the ultimate outcome. St. Augustine put it this way: “Help us O Lord, so to know you that may truly love you and so to love you that we may fully serve you; whom to serve is perfect freedom.” Or in the words of our hymn by George Matheson, the fine Scottish hymn writer of the Victorian era, “Make me a captive, Lord, and then I shall be free.”

Thanks be to God.

Amen.