True Freedom
Dear church,
I wanna be free/ Like a bird in a tree/ I want to be free… That’s the line of an old Elvis song from 1957, expressing a core human desire. In fact, there are countless songs about the human longing for freedom. You can probably come up with a few songs about freedom yourself. “I want to break free” comes to my mind, a song from Queen, written in 1984 by their bassist John Deacon. It became an anthem for various movements against oppression. And how can we forget on this weekend? There is that famous line about life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, the desire for freedom ensconced in the Declaration of Independence, baked into the DNA of our nation!
So, freedom is our theme for today. But we are not there yet. We are not free, otherwise we wouldn’t express the desire to be free so frequently in song, poetry and words. We all carry pressures and burdens that constrict us, making life appear less than free. It may be the burden of worrying about a family member or an issue that goes way back in time and is still bothering you. Our country is carrying burdens, much as we sometimes try to ignore them. There are things we haven’t fully reckoned with. We aren’t as free as we pretend to be. And it’s easy for us to create our own mental prisons, isn’t it? We are good at creating mental prisons. Kids get worked up over their choice of college. Adults deal with stress at work. And so many of us, no matter how old or young are tempted to compare ourselves with people who seem happier, more successful or whatever.
A key challenge toward experiencing freedom is how we deal with the pressures in our lives, the self-made ones and the external ones. The readings for this Sunday offer a few important cues. I will select one cue from each of the three readings.
Reading number one from the prophet Zechariah brings us a surprising gift: unbridled joy and hope, felt in the midst of difficult times. “Rejoice greatly, daughter Zion,” Zechariah proclaimed at a time when his people were trapped in Exile and had very little freedom and no independence. It may seem like an escape from reality. To tell you the truth, and some people will disagree with me on this one… I think the Bible encourages people to escape from time to time and find a source of joy and happiness, despite all that’s going on in the world. People sometimes feel bad about escapism. I say, everybody needs a little escape or retreat or change of scenery or hopeful imagination from time to time in order to meet and master all the problems and challenges that life always throws at us. What did the lady in North Carolina say the other week, whose house was filled with 300 tons of mud from the flood? “You have to have hope to get up in the morning.” So, indulge in joy or something that makes you truly happy from time to time. It can give you a very strong foundation of inner freedom.
In the second reading the Apostle Paul is struggling with a mental prison that he had designed and occupied over many years. Maybe some of you can relate. It’s when you feel that you’re never good enough. The internal judge demands perfection. Paul suffered from the disease of perfection. Martin Luther suffered from it, many people in our secular society suffer from it: never good enough. Paul tried to think himself out of his dilemma; Luther tried to pray himself out of this dilemma; a lot contemporary people try to therapy themselves out of the same dilemma. The Apostle Paul finally gave up and gave us a cue. In Romans 7, the reading we heard earlier, he says in so many words, “The hell with the law!” “The hell with the internal judge!” “Thanks be to God, who delivers me through Jesus Christ our Lord!” It was a form of surrender to Christ, the same type of surrender that has helped countless people in AA programs. I don’t have the power to defeat my addiction by my own strength, but I surrender to the one who has that power! It’s the beginning of freedom.
Finally, the gospel text. Jesus says, “Give me your problems, give me your pressures, give me your burdens. I will exchange it for grace.” Almost, you know, like Lady Liberty, “Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses trying to breathe free…” In the words of Matthew 11:
“Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.”
It’s funny how people over the course of time have turned Christianity into a heavy burden, a set of rules, when Jesus says so clearly that it is meant to be light and easy and freeing. Not that the problems we are dealing with are light and easy but the grace which we are gifted enables us to handle whatever comes our way. They key is to connect with Christ in us and allow him to deal with it. True freedom is not an achievement; it’s a spiritual mindset. It’s certainly not about the absence of problems; it’s about accepting them and learning to feel free with them. Christ in us, source of true freedom, source of joy, source of hope and everlasting life.
Amen.
