Freedom

John 8:31-36
Reformation Sunday

In this post-modern world of ours there are people who would claim that there is no universal truth. You know, with all the advances in science and technology, with the plethora of religious expression, with the emphasis on individuality in our society, there is nothing that humanity as a whole can hang onto and declare universally true. What is true is true for me and what is true is true for you. It really is an essential part of American culture, isn’t it? We all get to express our own realities. There are those who choose to live in a politically leftist, vegetarian, green world and there are others who choose to live politically to the right, toting their guns, and driving their humvees. We can follow the diet we want, we can buy the clothes we want, we can live in the neighborhood we want, we can spend time with people who are like minded.

We are free to do whatever we please and it’s a god-given right to be free in America.
So much so that we sing about it in many different songs-
I went to a concert this week and one of the stanzas in a song went like this:

Well open up your mind and think like me
Open up your plans and then your free
Look into your heart and you’ll find the sky is yours

Essentially, we are free to decide what we want to think, what we want to do, who we want to be. And we’re the luckiest as Americans, because we live in a democracy and we only need weed our way through the media and advertising to determine what is true and what to think. We simply need to look down into ourselves to discover what is true and to discover the freedom that lies within.

Well… there’s one tiny problem with all that I’ve just said.
As much as we’re American and living in a great democratic and capitalistic society, we’re also creatures who were created by someone a whole lot more powerful and divine than we could ever be.
You see we’re creatures who have been around for a few millennia and we’ve managed to screw a few things up in the time that we’ve been given. We’ve managed to kill a whole lot of people and ruin a lot of resources that we have received.

In the freedom that we pursue we’re really good at wielding death- we’re good at wielding death inadvertently- we’re good at wielding death intentionally- we’re good at wielding death systemically.

So, if you acknowledge this, you must acknowledge that there is no way in fact that we can be free using our own devices- right?
The clothes we buy leave someone else naked. The cars we drive pollute the air and use up a quickly depleting resource. The food we eat leaves someone else hungry. The money we spend leaves someone else poor. The houses we build leave someone else homeless. You see where I’m going with this…

And you might try to disagree with me. You might say that you earned the money that you have to buy what you need and to buy what you want. Perhaps…

The folks who were speaking with Jesus in today’s gospel reading forgot who they were, too. Jesus says simply, “If you continue to follow my teaching, you truly are my disciples and you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.”

It’s almost as if the only thing that the Jews who believed in him heard was the very last phrase, “and the truth will set you free.”
And they, like us, are kind of surprised that they need to be set free. They must already think they’re free. Why do they need to be set free? What do they need to be freed from?
The ironic thing is that the historical reality is that these Jews have experienced multiple levels of oppression. Their ancestors were slaves in Egypt before they were brought into Israel by Moses and Joshua. And within the context of John’s gospel all of Israel is under the rule of the Roman Empire after a history of exile and occupation by numerous other empires.

So, clearly the Jews in our Gospel reading aren’t free. But what about us? I could acknowledge that most of us in this room have never experienced political oppression in the ways that first century Jews did. Certainly we’re part of the empire that is the United States of America, but we’re citizens, not the colonized.

Well… what does Jesus say? He seems to make a clarification once the Jews ask him, ‘How can you say, “You will become free?”’

Jesus answered them, “Truly I tell you, everyone who commits sin is a slave to sin.”
Oh.
Here’s the kicker. Slavery isn’t reserved for politics and empires.
Slavery happens at the most basic level of interactions within ourselves and in relationships.
Sin.

Each time someone sins, he or she is a slave to that sin.
You serve that transgression. You are bound to your wrongdoing.
When you are a slave you have no say, right? Your life is not your own, your decisions are not your own. Who you are is determined by someone else. In this case, who you are is determined by your sin, by your brokenness, by your inability to do what is right.

The clothes we buy leave someone else naked. The cars we drive pollute the air and use up a quickly depleting resource. The food we eat leaves someone else hungry. The money we spend leaves someone else poor. The houses we build leave someone else homeless.

So, it may seem that we are free to do as we please- but what we do, because of our very human nature- ends up being broken and sinful. And so we aren’t free- I don’t think we realize what freedom really means- at least freedom in the sense that God would have us be free.

No, real freedom for us is the freedom we find in Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ who is the son- the one who is not enslaved and therefore the one has the power to grant freedom. And if we know that, then we know the truth.

If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us. We are in bondage to sin and cannot free ourselves. But if we confess our sins, God who is faithful and just, will forgive us our sins and cleanses us from all unrighteousness. It is Christ who gives the power to become children of God and bestows on us the Holy Spirit.

This is something that we remember on this Reformation Sunday, something that was not original to Martin Luther, but something that was renewed through his study and preaching and teaching.

There is absolutely nothing that we can do to save ourselves. There is absolutely nothing we can do to free ourselves from the death wielding world, from the death wielding relationships, from the death wielding bodies that we inhabit.

Instead, Jesus comes and inhabits our world and relationships and bodies and speaks to us a universal truth. God the father and creator of the heavens and the earth sent his only begotten son into the world to save the world through him.
This truth, this Jesus Christ, put on our flesh to take on our brokenness, to take on our enslavement to our worldly pursuit of freedom- to a pursuit that only leads to a dead end. We live in a world of limited good- if I have something, that means that someone else doesn’t.
So, instead, Christ comes to us, face to face with us- the truth encounters us and breaks open the shackles that have bound us.
Freedom in Christ leads not to death but to everlasting life. A life that has no fear of death, for Jesus has over come it through his death on the cross and his resurrection.

We sin, and we are bound to our sin. But Christ frees us, frees us to be the human beings that God created us to be. Freed to live a life in complete service to Christ for the sake of the world. God sent his only son, not to condemn the world, but to save the world. If we are freed in and through Christ than we have become his body in and for sake of the world.

The clothes we buy leave someone else naked and so we give them away and clothe the naked. The food we eat leaves someone else hungry and so we stock food pantries and work in soup kitchens. The money we spend leaves someone else poor and so we save some of it and give a portion of it away. The houses we build leave someone else homeless and so we provide shelters and we build homes for those who cannot afford to build their own.

True freedom is the freedom of living without the fear of death, that Christ is in, with, and under you always, never forsaking, always leading you ever closer to him, ever closer to freedom, ever closer to abundant life.

The Parable of the Landowner, the tenants, the vineyard, and the son

It's been awhile...


Matthew 21.33-46

The classic reading on today’s gospel reading is that of an allegory for the passion of Jesus. Every character, and even the vineyard represent something:
The landowner represents God.
The tenants represent the chief priests and the elders – those folks whom Jesus is talking with as he tells the parable in the gospel of Matthew.
The slaves of the landowner are the Old Testament prophets.
The son of the landowner is Jesus.
And the vineyard is Israel or the larger creation.

When read this way, it’s easy to point out who the good guys are- landowner, slaves, and son – God, prophets, and Jesus
and who the bad guys are- the tenants who rent the land and end up killing the son.

But, the lovely thing- and sometimes confusing thing- about parables, is that they can twist easily out of our grasp and take on a whole new definition if we consider them in another light.

Certainly this is the meaning of the parable- God sent his only son into the world to reconcile it to himself, and the world rejected the son and killed him.

But perhaps also this-
What happens if you, or anyone who might have heard this parable, considered himself or herself as each character in the story?
What if you are the landowner? How does that open up the parable- what does it reveal to us about the kingdom of God?
Frankly, I’m not sure I could be as patient and trusting as the landowner in the story. Over and over again, he sends his slaves to try to redeem what is rightfully his, and he fails- he doesn’t get what belongs to him- instead he just gets dead slaves.
This landowner has great faith in the folks who have been hired to work the land. As a landlord he won’t make a prophet- so he probably doesn’t have the best business strategy- but he does show a lot of mercy, he gives his tenants second, third, unending chances to show their respect and give back what rightfully belongs to the landowner.
And maybe this reveals something about God, and maybe this suggests a way we should be with other people.

And what if you are the vineyard? What do we learn about the kingdom of God from this perspective?
The vineyard is built by the landowner, it is outfitted with everything it needs to protect it and make it successful- a fence, a winepress, a watchtower -and the vineyard is given tenants to till it and to keep it. There’s no reason for an unsuccessful harvest.
So what- we are a part of the created order, the vineyard- in fact we’re given tools and protection in the form of families and gifts and abilities to be fruitful and successful and to become a bountiful harvest for the landowner. Perhaps an important thing to remember is that the vineyard belongs to the landowner, the one who has created it, not the ones who sustain it in the meantime and hope to exploit it in the end.

And what if we’re the son? What window do we gain on the kingdom of God?
The son is the rightful heir to the vineyard. The son is the one who will gain all that the landowner and the tenants have worked for. The son receives the inheritance not because he has earned it, but simply because he is the son- inheritance could be by birth or by adoption- it is at the landowner’s discretion. The parable makes clear that the son will receive the inheritance- in effect, he will be gifted the vineyard- and gift is the same as grace in Greek. It is be the landowner’s, by God’s grace that the son receives the inheritance.

We have been baptized into this community of faith. We have been promised that we have received the gift and seal of the holy spirit, the cross of Christ on our foreheads- that we have become children of God and that we will inherit, we will be given the kingdom of God and eternal life.

Of course, that’s not the end of the story of the son. The son is also taken by the tenants, beaten, thrown out of the vineyard and killed. It’s hard not to think of this part as only Jesus’ part. And maybe that’s one gift of looking at the parable through multiple lenses. Jesus is God’s only begotten son, the one whom God sent so that the rest of us would not suffer the same fate. We will not have to die to receive our inheritance, instead there was one who died for us.

But still, it does not mean that children of God won’t struggle to receive the inheritance, to remember who we belong to, to whom the harvest truly belongs. We are heirs of the kingdom of God and of eternal life, but we are not kings and queens.

So far it hasn’t been too bad, has it? There is the risk of being killed by the tenants, but other than that the kingdom of God is looking pretty good, no?

So- what if we’re the tenants? What if we’re the ones appointed by the landowner to take care of the vineyard and then at the harvest to give over the portion that rightfully belongs to the landlord?

This perspective is probably just as easy as looking at the parable as an allegory of the passion narrative. Here we are, chosen by the landowner, trusted by the landowner to work the vineyard, make it successful. And being a tenant doesn’t mean that we have to give the whole harvest over to the landowner. We certainly would get to keep our portion and then give a part to the landowner as well. But, we tenants, we decide that we should get the whole kit and caboodle. I mean- gee we’ve worked really hard and where has the landowner been? He hasn’t shown up at all, he only sends his slaves and his son- he obviously doesn’t have that much invested in this vineyard- we can keep the harvest for ourselves.
And looking at ourselves as the tenants of course can load us down with guilt. Certainly we’ve exploited what God has created and tried to keep for ourselves what should be given to God. We’ve made most natural resources a commodity- we’ve put price tags on gifts from God. And we keep the money. Finders, keepers, right?

And as tenants we are guilty of the son’s death. It is for our sin that Christ died, it was for us that he was handed over to the chief priests and elders and condemned to death and crucified.

And we’re the guilty ones. And we are deserving of death- for as created beings who have exploited God’s creation and God’s gifts, death is what we will inherit.

But at the same time, the son came to take on our guilt. God knows that we are broken and that we cannot save ourselves. We cannot fix what we have done to ourselves, to one another and to the world. And so the son comes and accepts us and our brokenness. He holds out his arms to embrace us all, even as we have nailed him on the cross.

The stone the builders rejected has become the chief cornerstone. This is from the Lord, and it is marvelous in our eyes.

Yes, we are responsible for the tilling and the keeping of God’s creation. We are responsible for giving back- be that tithing or giving of our time and our talents to the work of God in the world. We are responsible for caring for one another for protecting others from exploitation and injustices.
And oftentimes we succeed at these things. And oftentimes we fail.
God holds us responsible.
God also saves us.

The son is nailed to the cross. But it is his death that brings life.
We rejected him, him who is the cornerstone, the chief cornerstone on which all lives stand and are sustained.
Perhaps its capricious, perhaps its unimagined grace that abounds beyond our wildest dreams.
But as landowner, vineyard, son, or tenants, we belong to God, whatever we harvest belongs to God, and we give thanks for that and we act and give out of that knowledge. We act and give out of his mercy and grace and love that knows no end.

Thanks be to God who gave his only son that we might have life, and have it abundantly. AMEN