It led into a sermon about freedom and identity. It reminded me that D.H Lawrence intuited something about humankind's soul when he wrote:
Men are less free than they imagine; ah, far less free. The freest are perhaps least free.Men are free when they are in a living homeland, not when they are straying and breaking away. Men are free when they are obeying some deep, inward voice of religious belief. Obeying from within. Men are free when they belong to a living, Organic, believing community, active in fulfilling some unfulfilled, perhaps unrealized purpose. Not when they are escaping to some wild west. The most unfree souls go west, and shout of freedom. Men are freest when they are most unconscious of freedom. The shout is a rattling of chains, always was.
Men are not free when they are doing just what they like. The moment you can do just what you like, there is nothing you care about doing. Men are only free when they are doing what the deepest self likes.
And there is getting down to the deepest self! It takes some diving.
Because the deepest self is way down, and the conscious self is an obstinate monkey. But of one thing we may be sure. If one wants to be free, one has to give up the illusion of doing what one likes, and seek what IT wishes done.
I believe what Jesus said is echoed in Lawrence's words here. Martin Luther picked up on our dual nature of freedom as well In 1520. On the Freedom of the Christian was published in Wittenberg. The tract begins with two seemingly contradictory propositions:
A Christian is an utterly free man, lord of all, subject to none.
A Christian is an utterly dutiful man, servant of all, subject to all.
Pastor Ray's sermon touched on this duality as well, What is called freedom? Does it mean that we can do whatever we want?
Christian freedom is freedom from precisely the need to justify and establish ourselves on our own. At the same time, Christian freedom is freedom for life in relationship with God and each other because we believe we have been created for just such relationships and cannot be either whole or free apart from them.
It may seem a long road from freedom with seductive self-reliance and independence to a freedom as life-giving mutual dependence, but that is the road we are set upon, the road that began back at Jerusalem, led through Wittenberg (since we are talking today about the Reformation), and now runs right along side the congregations we serve. We keep walking, knowing that Jesus himself trod this way and bids us still to follow, promising yet again, "if the Son makes you free, you will be free indeed."
It is hard to accept these words of Jesus in today's Gospel. We are like his audience, who label themselves descendants of Abraham, and answer Jesus, "We have never been slaves to anyone. What do you mean by saying, "You will be made free'?" It is hard for us to even understand and accept how captive we are to sin. We think to ourselves that we know how to behave and be law-abiding. Our traditions have taught us how to live. It is hard for us to see how we are captive to our own past and the traditions and thoughts that have come before us even when they stifle life and growth.
On Reformation Day we always sing A Mighty Fortress is Our God like we did today. Pastor Ray called it the closest thing to a fight song that Lutherans know. And this anniversary of the day invites us to understand that the church is continuing to reform from the earliest days to now, even as we try to remain faithful to an inspiring past. I also think back to our past Bishop Dave's observation at a Bishop's Convocation, "Anyone who is not grieving about today's world is not paying attention." We need to embrace this grief and learn for it.
How we learn life lessons is important. We must be careful how we live our lives because we may be the only gospel people will ever see.
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