freedom

Get To It

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sunset-joy-1361253-crop

Today’s readings:
Psalms 98; 146, Isaiah 30:18-26, Acts 2:36-41 (42-47), John 14:15-31

The second chapter of Acts describes the Christian church in its earliest days:

All who believed were together and had all things in common; they would sell their possessions and goods and distribute the proceeds to all, as any had need. Day by day, as they spent much time together in the temple, they broke bread at home and ate their food with glad and generous hearts, praising God and having the goodwill of all the people.

These are a people who are delighted to be part of the same community. We can’t help but wonder if it presents a model the church in its current form needs to reclaim. But few of us are selling our possessions to help fellow believers or celebrating communion in our homes. We can rationalize why that’s impractical, but it wasn’t any more practical then.

So what happened?

Many things, but here’s a big one. These earliest church members emerged from a culture bogged down in rules. The rules themselves were not bad, but as people tend to do, the leaders had twisted them to maintain power and control. Loving one’s neighbor – and to some extent loving one’s God – had become secondary to technicalities. When Jesus freed them from the law, suddenly they were able to understand, “I don’t have to love my neighbor because it’s a rule complicated by yet more rules; I get to love my neighbor freely.” That spring of love was waiting to burst forth.

When it comes to loving our neighbors, enemies, or the outcast … do we feel like we have to or we get to? Today we often consider forgiveness a burden, but a people no longer bound to mandatory rejection found it freeing. Generosity, whether material or spiritual, is most exhilarating when it’s freely explored.

Let’s embrace that perspective. In a world that says to seek revenge, remember we get to forgive people. In a world that insists practicality is best, remember we get to love extravagantly.

We get to follow Christ. In a world that has largely forgotten, let us remember what a joy that is.

Comfort: You don’t have to. You get to.

Challenge: Pick something you feel like you have to do, such as go to work, clean the house, etc. Figure out a way to look at it as something you get to do.

Prayer: Thank you, God, for all the things I get to do in Christ. Amen.

Discussion: In what ways could you benefit from changing your perspective?

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Truth will set you free

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the-truth-shall-make-you-free-1201069

Today’s readings:
Psalms 27; 147:12-20, Jeremiah 10:11-24, Romans 5:12-21, John 8:21-32

Where do we find truth? Do we know it when we hear it?

We’d like to believe most people are truthful, but from earliest recorded history through up-to-the-minute reporting, deception runs rampant. Journalism has become propaganda. History has been revised and textbooks politicized. Facts are reduced to opinions then dismissed. Opinions and conjecture are elevated to facts and published as news. No ideology seems immune to these distortions. Information is more widely available than ever, yet it is notoriously faulty. If, as Jesus says in the Gospel of John, “the truth will make you free”… what is the state of our freedom?

In this age of moral relativism and political correctness, it is important to know what we believe and why. Our own memory and understanding are possibly the sources we rely on most for truth, and while for most of us they are thoroughly convincing, they can be surprisingly deceptive. We need reliable sources of truth, but they can seem few and far between.

Luckily – or perhaps providentially – some truths are eternal and immutable. Chief among them is God’s love for his creation. As we sift through the information overload that threatens to bury us, that love can be our barometer for evaluating many kinds of truth, such as matters of justice or compassion. Truth will move people toward freedom, love, and inclusion, not away from it.

Sometimes truth is not something that can be expressed directly. We may need poets and composers and other artists to point us toward it. Rationalism and materialism, while vital for revealing truths about the physical world, are not the only paths to truth. What is right and good may not make empirical sense. Sacrificing ourselves for others is quite counter-intuitive, yet the person who spoke the most important truths to us believed in it with all his being. The truth of the cross and resurrection exist somewhere beyond facts and historical accuracy, somewhere within our hearts. Truth is never manufactured, but unearthed by those with ears to hear and eyes to see. It makes us free when it is free.

Comfort: The truth is on your side.

Challenge: Be on the side of truth.

Prayer: God of truth and love, I seek you and your ways. Guide me to freedom. Amen.

Discussion: Has accepting a difficult truth ever set you free in some way?

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Justice Evolution

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heartofflesh

Today’s readings (click below to open in new tab/window):
Psalms 92; 149, Ezekiel 36:22-27, Ephesians 6:1-24, Matthew 9:18-26

“Slaves obey your earthly masters with fear and trembling.”

We can thank Saint Paul for that gem. Sure he also said “in Christ there is no slave or free” and instructed masters to be merciful to their slaves because they ultimately served the same master in heaven, but neither of those satisfactorily addresses the fact that at no time did Paul (or Jesus, for that matter) explicitly condemn slavery. For most of Christian history, slavery was taken for granted, and that verse has been used to justify it.

Once the idea of slavery became unacceptable to almost all mainstream Christians, we weren’t sure what to do with Jesus’s seeming acceptance of it. Some of us tried to differentiate the experience of Biblical slavery versus pre-Civil War slavery in the United States, but in the end all slavery boils down to owning human beings as property. Shouldn’t Jesus have a problem with that?

Of course that question implies Jesus is OK with the way most Christians do things now, and that can be a dangerous assumption. Every human system is flawed. America seems to all but worship capitalism, lumping it in with democracy and Christianity as a kind of US-bred holy trinity, but capitalism itself is amoral and by definition favors the rich above the poor. Not that communism has a fantastic human rights track record. Democracy is subject to mob rule and corruption, and monarchy to tremendous abuses of power. No earthly economic or government system has or can eradicate poverty, oppression, and injustice.

Christ’s message (and consequently Paul’s) transcends these human structures. As the church matures, each generation expands its concept of justice. The past does not invalidate the message, so much as prompt us to look at the present with a more critical eye. Christians led the fight against slavery. The church has evolved from feeding the hungry to tackling the systemic problems which starve them in the first place. What are the next steps in learning to love our neighbors as ourselves? Our job is not to perform theological contortions to explain away the inexcusable; it is to determine how we are to apply Christ’s message today.

Someone will always be waiting to be freed by the gospel.

Comfort: You don’t have to try to excuse the inexcusable things of the past…

Challenge: … but you can’t ignore the inexcusable things of the present.

Prayer: God of love, teach me to shine your light on injustice. Amen.

Discussion: What commonly accepted practices do you think future Christians will look back on in moral embarrassment?

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There is No Eye in Team Jesus

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1461355487367[1]Today’s readings (click below to open in new tab/window):
Psalms 96; 148, Exodus 34:18-35, 1 Thessalonians 3:1-13, Matthew 5:27-37

One of the challenges of being an original disciple of Christ might have been figuring out when Jesus wanted to be taken literally, and when he was exaggerating to make a point. The book of Acts and the letters of Paul don’t tell any stories of one-handed, one-eyed evangelists, so they seem to have assumed the latter when he said: “if your right hand causes you to sin, cut it off and throw it away” and “if your right eye causes you to sin, tear it out and throw it away.”

Jesus was not advocating self-mutilation.

He was telling us to remove from our lives anything that leads us toward sin and away from God. His choice of imagery tells us this process may be painful, and that we may be called to separate ourselves from things we hold dear. If “it is better for you to lose one of your members than for your whole body to go into hell,” surely we can examine our own lives for obstacles we need to remove.

Maybe we need to free ourselves from an addiction. Or maybe our words are wicked with gossip. Is there a relationship we prioritize above our faith? Do we love the sound of jingling coins too much to give them away? Tongues, loins, ears … Jesus could have used any body parts to make his point that no matter how painful it seems in the short term, we must give up things – no matter how treasured or vital they seem – that hold us back from entering fully into the life he offers.

Christ isn’t condemning us for every errant thought or desire, which would be impossible to eliminate; rather he is asking us to be accountable for our own intentions, which we are quite capable of examining and controlling. Every bad habit and unhealthy behavior we lop off makes room for a more abundant life. When our spirits are unburdened, our hands, feet, and eyes – all our parts – are unlikely to betray us. As backwards as it may seem, sometimes we must cut parts away to find wholeness.

Comfort: Jesus doesn’t ask us to do the impossible …

Challenge: … but sometimes he asks us to do the difficult and unpleasant.

Prayer: Lord, take from me what you must, so you may give me what I need. Amen. 

Discussion: What have you prioritized above your relationship with God?

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No Turning Back

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faithforsafety

Today’s readings (click below to open in new tab/window):
Psalms 93; 150, Exodus 14:5-22, 1 John 1:1-7, John 14:1-7

Pharaoh quickly regretted his decision to free Israel and sent his army to bring them back. When Israel saw the approaching army, the people were frightened and declared it was better to live in servitude than to die in the wilderness. Moses assured them the Lord would save them if they stood firm.The Lord parted the Red Sea so Israel could pass through it, then He closed it over the Egyptian army of soldiers and chariots.

We often choose servitude when we should be trusting the Lord to lead us  through the wilderness. Maybe it’s the servitude of acceptance; we hide our true selves – the people God created us to be – when we fear the wilderness of judgment. Then there’s the servitude of success. Our culture tells us bigger (homes, cars, etc) equals better quality of life. How many of us would seriously consider scaling back our standard of living to find peace – or follow Christ? Servitude to safety is also common. Maybe we would die for our right to be Christians, but would we put ourselves in danger to actually follow the teachings of Christ?

Most of us are comfortable briefly venturing into the wilderness of hunger, poverty, and sickness like tourists being led on a soup-kitchen safari, but – citing common sense and a need for security – we let others do the dangerous work of exploring that terrain and creating safe outposts for us to visit. We can strike a balance; because Jesus knew he was dispatching the apostles into unfriendly territory, he sent them in pairs … but he still sent them.

Facing an uncertain future, Israel quickly began to look back on centuries of slavery as “the good old days.” When we pine for the “simplicity” of the past, we tend to gloss over the bad parts like slavery, genocide, racism, sexism, disease, violence, and lack of indoor plumbing. Perhaps that’s because we are in the servitude of denial that all these things are still problems today.

Faith calls us to the wilderness. Fear tells us to turn back. Only one of those directions leads to the promised land.

Comfort: The future may seem uncertain to you, but it is all in God’s hands.

Challenge: God not promise us lives of ease or comfort.

Prayer: God of justice, help me embrace your freedom even when it frightens me. Thank you for leading me through the wilderness. Amen.

Discussion: Where do you feel drawn, but afraid, to serve?

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My Own Worst Enemy

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Today’s readings (click below to open in new tab/window):
Psalms 22; 148, Exodus 2:1-22, 1 Corinthians 12:27-13:3, Mark 9:2-13

Identity is a funny thing. We think of it as an internally generated sense of self, but in large part it is externally imposed upon us. The world’s opinion of us does not change who we are, but it does change who we are allowed to be. Take Moses, for example. As a male Hebrew infant, he was considered a potential enemy and targeted for death by the king of Egypt. When the king’s daughter pulled him from the river where his mother had set him afloat in a basket, he became part of the royal household. Scripture doesn’t say how or when he learned he was Hebrew, but by adulthood he was sympathetic to the plight of his people. After he killed an Egyptian taskmaster for beating a Hebrew, his position in Pharaoh’s house no longer mattered, and the king wanted him dead again.

Moses fled to Midian, where he met his wife Zipporah. Upon their first meeting she assumed he was Egyptian. His accent and clothes told the world he was one thing. Inside he was another … but what exactly? Never a Hebrew slave under the Egyptian whip, never a fully privileged Egyptian, always conflicted. How long was it – if ever – before he felt like a Midianite? Moses had to do the hard work of being an authentic person with no real example to follow.

To some degree, outside expectations limit us all. Culture, economic status, and other forces categorize us without regard to our true selves and needs. It’s easy to internalize those expectations and never challenge them, but there’s more power in growing from the inside out. Able to see both Hebrew and Egyptian culture up close but with an outsider’s critical eye, Moses was uniquely qualified for the service God would soon call him to. Unable to conform to any labels, he was able to transcend all of them.

Your life experiences – especially those that don’t meet expectations – prepare you for a unique role. Moses was the key God turned to free the Hebrews. What blessings are locked behind a door only you can open?

Comfort: Your differences are a gift to the world.

Challenge: When you feel like an outsider, find a constructive way to use that perspective.

Prayer: God of creation, thank you for the good and bad times that have shaped me. Help me to understand my gifts so I may use them in service to your kingdom. Amen.

Discussion: Have you suppressed any of your natural traits and tendencies to fit in better with a group?

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The Devils You Know

/ JJS / 1 Comment

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Today’s readings (click below to open in new tab/window):
Psalms 43; 149, Genesis 43:16-34, 1 Corinthians 7:10-24, Mark 5:1-20

Gospel stories sometimes raise more questions than they answer. While in Gerasene country, Jesus encountered a man living among the tombs because he was possessed by two thousand demons calling themselves Legion. Jesus healed him by driving the demons into a herd of pigs … who then jumped over a cliff into the sea. Now that’s a story that raises an question or two. Was the man actually possessed? Why does no map of that area show a sea? Was anyone reimbursed for the loss of two thousand pigs and a livelihood?

Many people read this story as an allegory about Roman occupation. Its use of “legion” – also a division of two thousand Roman soldiers – and other phrases supports this interpretation.* Given that framework the questions may seem less important, but the story works on multiple levels.

However we understand this story, the reaction of the local people is telling. After Jesus exorcised the man (and drove up the local price of bacon), they reported it to the authorities and “began to beg Jesus to leave their neighborhood.” They treated him more as threat than savior. Despite his demonstration of power over the spiritual realm, fear of their occupiers was greater than their desire to be free. In retrospect we may call them foolish, but human nature often compels us to endure the hardship we know rather than risk the strange, however promising.

Freedom – from demons, from authority, from law – is a scary thing. Like Jesus, it can be wild and unpredictable and ask more of us than we realize we are prepared to give. It can bring down the wrath of those who feel threatened by our freedom, both political and religious. Does that sound overwhelming? When Jesus has presented us with difficult choices between the status quo and the unknown, have we ever asked him to leave the neighborhood? Do we prefer flying under the radar even if it means contributing to our own oppression? Those are the real questions.

Once we are truly free, like the Gerasene demoniac, we can’t imagine going back to life among the dead.

Comfort: It’s OK to be a little intimidated by Jesus. He’ll love you through it.

Challenge: When you feel like ditching Jesus for security, pray for strength.

Prayer: God of freedom, thank you for not leaving me to waste away in the tomb of security, but for breathing fresh, exciting life into me through Jesus. Amen.

Discussion: What unwanted forces “occupy” your spiritual life?

*For more about this topic, see this entry in Father Ted’s Blog, which points to some additional references.

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A Responsible Sabbath

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Today’s readings (click below to open in new tab/window):
Psalms 43; 149, Genesis 41:1-13, 1 Corinthians 4:1-7, Mark 2:23-3:6

When Jesus picked and ate a handful of grain on the Sabbath, the pharisees accused him of violating the law. He replied: “The Sabbath was made for humankind, not humankind for the Sabbath” and reminded them a starving King David once ate the bread in the temple. This is only one of many time Jesus taught them God’s foremost priority is the people, not the law. Picking a handful of grain for the moment’s enjoyment is qualitatively different than working a day in the field, but the Pharisees made no such distinction between the letter and spirit of the law.

On the other hand, as Jesus tried to put the law into perspective, he at no time dismissed it wholesale. He never claimed the Sabbath was made for humankind… to ignore. We are eager to hear the message we are not slaves to the law. Are we just as eager to receive Christ’s words about our responsibilities to justice and mercy? American culture is all about establishing rights, but how would we react to any proposed Bill of Responsibilities? Freedom is only one side of the coin. Jesus clearly has expectations we are to use our freedom to make the right choices: feed the hungry, clothe the naked, and visit the sick and imprisoned. Instead of a simple checklist, we have an obligation to love our neighbor. Freedom can be a wild creature; fortunately God gave each of us a brain we can use to rein in our freedom toward his service.

Like the Sabbath or the law, Jesus’ teachings were tools given to humankind. We depend on them to do our job as Christians. As with any good tools, we must learn to use them properly. To master them, not only do we have to read the manual, we have to apply them in the real world, and gain experience to know how they handle in action. A plumber isn’t a slave to his wrenches, but he isn’t much of a plumber without them.

Freedom from the law is a gift, but it is a gift we must use responsibly.

Comfort: You don’t need to win God’s love through good deeds.

Challenge: Review the past week. If you find you have squandered your freedom, make a commitment to using it more responsibly next week.

Prayer: Loving God, thank you for freeing me from sin and fear. Use my time and talents toward your great purpose, that may love for my neighbor may be even the palest reflection of your great love for humankind. Amen.

Discussion: How do you use your freedom? What sense of responsibility do you have toward your neighbor?

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The Journey Home

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Today’s readings (click below to open in new tab/window):
Psalms 57; 145, Ezra 7:27-28, 8:21-36, Revelation 20:7-15, Matthew 17:1-13

Do we recognize the distinction between technical freedom and equality and practical freedom and equality?

After King Artaxerxes decreed any Jewish people who wished to return to Jerusalem were free to do so – and to take with them an abundance of gold, silver, holy vessels and urns, livestock for offerings, and other supplies – the prophet Ezra led them home. Ezra did not ask for military protection because he’d boldly proclaimed the Lord would protect them from harm.

Over the next four months and nine hundred miles, the Jews did indeed manage to avoid enemies and ambushes and return to the city, where they began to rebuild.

How would we describe that time between the decree and the arrival in Jerusalem? The people were technically free, but they certainly weren’t yet an autonomous nation. They were surrounded by enemies and far from home. Almost certainly a few of them died before reaching the city. The joy of no longer being prisoners must at times have been muted or eclipsed by the dangers of freedom without security.

There’s a significant lag between the time people are legally decreed to be free or equal and the time it becomes a practical reality they can take for granted. The history of the United States is full of slow, jerky progress for many kinds of people. Slavery was outlawed over 150 years ago, but racial inequity persists to this day. Women are legally equal to men, but a long history (and present) of federal court cases are evidence the culture hasn’t caught up with the law. People with disabilities have legal protections, but struggle daily to be seen, heard, and accepted. One of our oldest guaranteed freedoms is freedom of religion, but people of all religions face discrimination to greater or lesser degrees. Undoubtedly you can think of numerous additional examples. That four-month, nine-hundred-mile journey seems short in comparison.

Just because someone has been declared free … doesn’t mean they are home free.

When someone who belongs to a group that has been oppressed or marginalized tells us they aren’t home free yet, instead of dismissing them with “you have equal rights” let’s be willing to listen to what is still wrong. Let’s listen to what enemies lie in wait to ambush them.

Artaxerxes was wise enough to understand he needed to make restitution to restore the possibility of opportunity to the Jews. Just as Ezra did not ask Artaxerxes to rebuild or even protect the Jews in their new freedom, communities still seeking full freedom and equality today only want what has been taken or withheld from them and the opportunity to build themselves up. The least we can do is figure out how to get out of their way.

Comfort: God desires justice for everyone.

Challenge: Make a point of listening to the experiences of people who differ from you, particularly people who have been historically oppressed in ways you have not.

Prayer: The Lord is gracious and merciful, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love. The Lord is good to all, and his compassion is over all that he has made. (Psalm 145:8-9)

Discussion: How diverse is your church? Your employer? Your dinner table?

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Doubly Free

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Today’s readings (click below to open in new tab/window):
Psalms 65; 147:1-11, 2 Samuel 3:22-39, Acts 16:16-24, Mark 6:47-56

Slaves were common throughout the Roman empire, but one day Paul and company encountered an extraordinary slave girl: she was possessed by a demon who told the future, which made her owners a lot of money. For days she followed the disciples, declaring “These men are slaves of the Most High God, who proclaim to you a way of salvation.” When an annoyed Paul cast out the spirit in the name of Christ, her owners – furious about the loss of their treasure – accused the disciples of unlawful practices. Silas and Barnabas were beaten and jailed.

We don’t know the fate of the slave girl, but she is a potent symbol of what it means to find freedom in Christ. At the most basic level she was freed from the spirit which possessed her, much like we find freedom from our old lives through the miracle of grace.

She was also freed from that which made her exploitable. When we embrace what it means to be forgiven and loved by God, we release those things which the world can use to take advantage of us. The world is always ready to exploit our guilt, fear, anger, and weaknesses.  When instead we offer it repentance, a love which casts out fear, forgiveness, and a strength derived from Christ, the world no longer knows what to do with us. If it can’t use us for ill-gotten gains of power and wealth – and if it suspects we are spreading the good news that no one else has to be enslaved by greed and violence either – it will do its best to discredit and silence us.

When we don’t fear what the world fears, the world fears us.

Like the slave girl, we are doubly free … but that doesn’t guarantee our physical safety or freedom. To the contrary it may put both in danger. Yet Paul and the disciples who knew Christ couldn’t imagine choosing anything but that dangerous freedom.

Can we?

When we can’t be exploited, and we love too much to exploit others, we are living in the Kingdom and confounding the world.

Additional Reading:
Read about today’s scripture from Mark in Riding Out The Storms.

Comfort: In Christ we find true freedom.

Challenge: We’ve done this challenge before, but human trafficking is a huge problem that needs more awareness. Find out if there are an resources in your community to combat human trafficking. You may want to start at traffickingresourcecenter.org .

Prayer: Do good, O LORD, to those who are good, and to those who are upright in their hearts. (Psalm 125:4)

Discussion: Which of your fears or weaknesses do you feel are particularly vulnerable to exploitation by the media, advertisers, or people seeking power?

Join the discussion! If you enjoyed this post, feel free to join an extended discussion as part of the C+C Facebook group. You’ll be notified of new posts through FB, and have the opportunity to share your thoughts with some lovely people. Or feel free to comment here on WordPress, or even re-blog – the more the merrier!