Sermon from June 28, 1998

Sermon "How Free IS Free?""
Rev. Dr. Steven A. Peay
Sunday, June 28, 1998

"How Free IS Free?"

"We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness."

What a strong and beautiful statement! Those words from the Declaration of Independence are simple, direct, eloquent and speak to the essence of what it means to be a free person, an American. Yet, one has to ask: how free is free?

Recently I saw "The Truman Show," a film which both disturbed and touched me deeply. It's a movie with a great amount of pathos and, I think, large amounts of theological and social symbolism. It's premise is simple (and I won't give away how it turns out); what would it be like to observe someone's entire life on television without the individual knowing that, literally, everything in his life is make-believe?

Truman has a whole world made for him -- he's a new Adam figure , sweet, guileless and innocent, to the, somewhat aptly named, producer Christof's god. He has all the stuff of a perfect life -- family, education, lovely wife, job, friends, but he isn't actually free. His world is circumscribed and controlled by others. He has nothing to strive for and nothing more to achieve. The sole purpose of his existence is to make other people feel comfortable; you can almost feel the television viewers in the film thinking, "at least someone knows bliss -- even if he doesn't know it's made up!"

The "Truman Show" would not strike a chord if it didn't reflect on our culture. Like Truman, we think ourselves free, but how free are we? Not long ago The Wilson Quarterly devoted the better part of an issue to the "rise and fall of civility in America." One of the writers, James Morris, makes some excellent observations about the "culture of whatever."

In this age of "whatever," Americans are becoming slaves to the new tyranny of nonchalance. "Whatever." The word draws you in like a plumped pillow and folds round your brain; the progress of its syllable is a movement toward surrender and effacement, toward a universal shrug. It's all capitulation. No one wants to make a judgment, to impose a standard, to act from authority call conduct unacceptable....The "says who"/ "who are you to say"/ "this is a free country"/ "that's just your opinion" line of thought runs like a fault through the society. Rather than rush to judgment of social behavior, as was once all too common, we rush from judgment, disposed to justify or overlook the most appalling lapses."

Morris' words recall those of the playwrite Philip Wylie whose Night Unto Night character Shawn Mullcup exclaims:

Once, freedom was positive. A man wanted to be free to be himself. But now he wants to be free from having to be himself. . . . He now wants to be free to be a big nobody doing nothing valuable to anybody but his body. I think we are going to strive en masse, for perhaps several thousand more years to decerebrate ourselves. We are going to try to make the human psyche a mechanical specialist. It isn't. It is intended to perceive the cosmos, adjust to it, struggle in it, and achieve there an individuation of itself. But our materialism has slain man's good opinion of himself, stripped government of philosophy, taught the common people not to desire personal excellence but to barter in droves for the right to mediocrity!"

"Whatever" -- the attitudes which are now prevalent in our culture can make us think we're free when we're not. What we're confronting is a basic misunderstanding of the concept of freedom. The mind of the founding fathers was set on the idea that a free people would strive for excellence and part of that excellence was concern for the common good. Americans are, always have been, hardy invidualists. Yet, as Alexis de Tocqueville pointed out in Democracy in America, we were also a people given to public service and exuberant voluntarism, with the churches at the center of the good work. We are the "nation with the soul of a church." To bring it down to basics: we're talking about the difference between freedom from and freedom to.

The understanding of freedom to is certainly what is brought forth by Paul in the letter to the Galatians. While there is the element of freedom from, we must understand that the freedom of the Christian is broader and deeper than any kind of political or social liberation. Freedom from the pressure to look for meaning, freedom from anxiety about oneself, these are the freedoms from which are inherent in Christian life. Ultimately, these freedoms give us the greatest freedom -- the freedom to.

The Christian, one who has "put on Christ," is a truly free person and is then free to love. Because Christians are free from radical anxiety about themselves and from the domination of the purely human, they can all the more unreservedly surrender themselves for others and for the good of human society. This is why Paul counterposes the fifteen "works of the flesh," even the odd number is indicative of the chaotic state these things bring, against the nine, and thus ordered/harmonious, "works of the Spirit." There is an indissoluble link between the radical freedom and unreseved love in Christian life and behavior. Where the freedom to live a life of service is present there is harmony and order -- within if not without. When we accept the life of freedom God offers us in relationship with Him through Jesus, we begin to show forth the fruit of the Spirit in our everyday attitude and behavior: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. These gifts are more than "whatever," more than the self-centered individualism which so often confronts us.

The early Congregationalists understood and lived toward manifesting the fruit of the Spirit in their lives. If there was one clear focus they had, it was on being "godly." They sought a radical freedom to believe. They wanted to have a faith that went beyond the limits and restraints of the societal norms, which at that time were "be not righteous overmuch." If you ever wonder why I bristle when I hear, "Oh Congregationalists. You can believe anything you want," it's because of the example of the Puritans. Their understanding of freedom of conscience wasn't to allow themselves to believe less, but to believe more; more fervently, more ardently, more devoutly. They wanted nothing more than to live spiritual lives grounded in the Scriptures and the experience of the early church. John Owen spoke of returning Christianity to "its primitive liberty" and restoring "the old, glorious, beautiful face of Christianity." Richard Sibbes said, "We seek the Old Way, and the best way." Their sense of the Congregational Way of freedom was a freedom to, not a freedom from.

While we cannot underestimate the influence of the Enlightenment on the Founders, neither can we underestimate the influence of the Puritan ideal, either. The notion of being a federal, a covenant, republic came from those who had owned the foedus, the covenant. Life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness are rights which come not from a state, but from the Creator. When God's free people live by the Spirit, wherever they are, freedom is there.

Paul tells the Galatians, "For you were called to freedom, brothers and sisters; only do not use your freedom as an opportunity for self-indulgence, but through love become slaves to one another. For the whole law is summed up in a single commandment, 'You shall love your neighbor as yourself.'" This is the idea of freedom we must work to recover - the freedom to. We know that freedom has a price, for the Lord's free people it is both a sense of responsibility and care for others. We are free to be directed toward, to live to others. So that when I go forth to live as God has called me I do not do it because I have to in order to fulfill some grim moral duty. To love others is not an oppressive duty which I have to grit my teeth in order to fulfill, especially so I won't lose my opportunity for salvation. Our behaving well towards others is not "fire insurance." Rather, it is a committing of all of my abilities, my whole self, freely to others precisely because I don't need them for myself since God himself is looking after me and has made me free. Anything else, I think, seems a perversion of the Christian's freedom.

Elisha freely followed after Elijah and in his turn took up the service of God's people. Jesus set his face toward Jerusalem and went - in freedom - to the cross to serve others. These are not examples of freedom from, but freedom to. Just as we sing in celebration of those who "more than self their country loved and mercy more than life."

This freedom to, is not self-evident. It is born of the relationship of freedom found in God through Jesus Christ. If the culture of "whatever," of false freedom is to be transformed it will not be accomplished through legislation, it must come from hearts made free and then caught as the example is lived out. The task of the Lord's free people is to show forth the fruit of the Spirit, the fruit of freedom. How free is free? It is free enough to know how to live to God and to others. It is free enough to know when it is has ceased being free and merely become an excuse for . . . . "whatever."

God, make us free! Amen!

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