A Sermon Preached on June 29, the Third Sunday
after Pentecost, at St. Augustine's, Wiesbaden
Jeremiah 28:5-9, Romans 6:11-23, Matthew 10:40-42, Psalm 89:1-4,
15-18
Hands up anyone
who knows who David Hasselhoff is? I apologize for making you date yourselves:
Mr. Hasselhoff, his catch phrase is “don’t hassle the Hoff,” was well known as
an actor in the 80s and 90s, in series such as Knight Rider and Baywatch, and
he even had a couple of hit singles. While not known as a theologian, he still
manages to make a theological point in his 1989 hit: “Looking for Freedom.”
Here’s the refrain:
I’ve been
looking for freedom
I’ve been
looking for so long
I’ve been
looking for freedom
Still the search
goes on
I’ve been
looking for freedom
Since I left my
home town
I’ve been
looking for freedom
Still it can’t
be found
Interestingly, when you read the whole song text, it looks quite like a paraphrase of the Parable of the Prodigal Son….. but that’s for another sermon.
Freedom
is one theme of today’s reading from Paul’s letter to the Romans, but it seems
to be a strange sort of freedom: “Freed from sin and enslaved to God.” (6:22)
But how can we be a slave and free? Martin Luther struggled with this same seeming
paradox in his 1520 work: “Von der Freiheit eines Christenmenschen - On the
Freedom of a Christian.” One purpose of his thirty theses was to justify his
freedom from obedience to the Pope and to the Papal Church, as well as to
liberate Christians from priestly dominance (I’m not sure I like that
bit).
But
he also analyses the contradiction he finds in Paul’s letters, both in Romans
and Corinthians, that a Christian is on the one hand “free and with no master,”
and yet also God’s and “everyone’s servant.” (1 Cor. 9:19) How do these two fit
together, how can we be free and a servant at the same time? Or focusing on the
extract from Romans, if becoming a Christian is simply a change of Lord or Master,
how can that be freedom? For if we are free from the law, surely we can do whatever
we want?
For Paul, sin is
more than just bad behavior. It is a personified, active and evil force. This
Sin (with a capital S) acts as a Lord or Master and, unless we choose
otherwise, exercises “dominion over our mortal bodies.” Absolute freedom is for
Paul an illusion. We always serve a master, a point Jesus makes in Matthew:
(6:24) “No one can serve two masters …. You cannot serve God and Money”
(mammon). Or to quote our theologian David Hasselhoff again: “I had everything
that money could buy, but freedom I had none.” What God offers, Paul says, is
freedom from the slavery to sin and to the law, in exchange for our slavery to
God and our subjection to God’s grace. While “slaves to sin” we are only
deluded into believing that we are free and have free choices. Instead we are obeying
another master, even if that master is some ideal of “self.” In this sense our
freedom is the choice we make, our free choice to serve Christ as our Lord.
But Paul promises
not only freedom from sin, but also from “law.” In his day He came in for a lot
of flak for this argument, and was often accused of encouraging or even
allowing sin. “Should we sin because we are not under law but under grace?” (Ro
6:15) he asks, rhetorically, using his opponents’ argument. No of course not he
answers. Freedom from law, that is freedom from the idea that salvation can
and must be earned by following a strict code of conduct, is not a license
to sin, nor is it meant to introduce some kind of moral vacuum.
New freedoms
bring new frameworks. Look at our secular freedoms like freedom of speech, of
religion, of assembly, they are defined and regulated in our laws and
constitutions, such as the Bill of Rights that contains the first amendments to
the US constitution or in the European Declaration of Human Rights. And freedoms
have to be limited, because one person’s freedom can impinge another’s. Free
speech is not unlimited: lies, exaggerations, or personal defamation are not
allowed. And I am glad to live in a country that strictly limits the right to
bear arms, especially firearms, as the freedom of the person bearing arms too
often proves to be fatal for those who don’t.
Paul too
introduces a new framework, when he refers to Christians having become obedient
to the “form of teaching to which you were entrusted.” (6:17) By this he
probably means the, at that time still oral, accounts of Jesus’ life and
teaching, the practice of the Eucharist, and a code of practice of virtuous
behavior. Presenting our members, our bodies and intellect, to God for “as
instruments of righteousness” (6:13) means using them for righteous purposes,
serving our fellow humans beings out of our love for Jesus, or as we heard in Matthew’s
Gospel today, being welcoming and hospitable not just to prophets and righteous
persons but to any “little one.”
The difference
between this “form of teaching” and law is the motivation. We are obedient from
the heart – that is because we choose to be and because we are being
transformed from within until this sort of behavior becomes part of our nature.
Our Christian freedom is in this choice. On the one hand we can choose to live
by behavior which is, at least in the long term both destructive to us and to
those around us. Excessive drinking for example does eventually have
consequences for our health and severely impacts how we relate to others. When
Paul refers to death as the wages of sin, (6:23) he is not threatening a
punishment, but simply describing the consequence of “sinful” behavior.
Eternal life on
the other hand is not earned; it is a free gift of God. Our new master is not the
tyrant he is often claimed to be, and to be honest the one too many Christians
make God out to be with lots of new rules and prohibitions. God’s character, as
demonstrated in Jesus’ life and work, is grace and generosity. Living according
to the “form of teaching” is not about earning salvation, but about living saved
lives now, beginning our resurrection life in the present time, and living in
this world as one dedicated to God. That
is what Paul means by us getting sanctification at the end of which is eternal
life in Christ Jesus.
That was also
Martin Luther’s conclusion in his final, 30th thesis of “On
the Freedom of a Christian.” Christians, he says, does not live in or for themselves,
but in Christ and in their neighbor. They live in Christ by faith and in their neighbor
by love. Christian freedom frees the heart from all sin, law and commands he
concludes.
So we are free
to choose good or bad, free to choose which Lord or Master we serve. Christian
Liberty is service, the service of Christ motivated by love. This freedom can
be found; we don’t have to look far for it. This (the cross) is the symbol of Christian freedom. It stands for Christ’s
free choice to serve us, even unto death, and it stands for his offer of the
free choice of serving God through him and in one another. This is what one of the
Collects in our Prayer Book calls perfect freedom:
“O God, the
author of peace and lover of concord, to know you is eternal life and to serve
you is perfect freedom.”[1]
Amen
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