Reformation Sunday
John 8:31- 36
"Freedom"
31 ¶ Jesus then said to the Jews who had believed in him, "If you continue in my word, you are truly my disciples,
32 and you will know the truth, and the truth will make you free."
33 They answered him, "We are descendants of Abraham, and have never been in bondage to any one. How is it that you say, ’You will be made free’?"
34 Jesus answered them, "Truly, truly, I say to you, every one who commits sin is a slave to sin.
35 The slave does not continue in the house for ever; the son continues for ever.
36 So if the Son makes you free, you will be free indeed.
37 I know that you are descendants of Abraham; yet you seek to kill me, because my word finds no place in you.
38 ¶ I speak of what I have seen with my Father, and you do what you have heard from your father."RSV
Since this is reformation Sunday, the Sunday we celebrate the reforms of the church and honor the life of Martin Luther, I think it is appropriate and right that I begin my sermon this morning with a quote from Luther.
Luther says in his little book, "Christian Liberty" the following: "A Christian is a perfectly free lord of all, subject to none. A Christian is a perfectly dutiful servant of all, subject to all."
Luther is saying we are free and at the same time we are slaves. How can that be???
Maybe the following stories might help shed some light on this confusing subject..
" A man who didn’t believe in God was giving a lecture telling of his reasons why he thought Christians were weak people who were dependent on God and used him as a crutch in life. The man went on and on about how he didn’t need anyone but himself and he was making a pretty good living doing just that relying on himself. After his speech, he asked anyone who had questions to come up front to the platform.
After a short while, a man who had been well known as the town drunk came forward. He had just had a conversion experience and had completely changed his life. He came forward, reached into his pocket and pulled out an orange and coolly and slowly began to peel it.
The lecturer became impatient with this man, and asked him to ask the question he came forward to ask. But without saying anything, the former town drunk finished peeling the orange and began to eat it right there in front of everyone. When he had eaten the last of the orange, he turned to the lecturer and asked him, "Was the orange I ate sweet or sour?’’
Angrily, the lecturer shouted, " Idiot, how can I know whether it was sweet or sour when I never tasted it?’’
To this the former drunk replied, "And how can you know anything about Christ if you have not tried Him?"
Or, there was a pastor who was riding with a coachman one day. He turned to the coachman and asked, "Friend, if your team were running away with you, after you had done your best to stop them what would you do if you suddenly learned that a person sitting beside you knew exactly how to control your team and save you from disaster!. "
The coachman reified, "I’d instantly hand over the reins to him!!"
Then replied the pastor’ "Why haven’t you handed over the reins of your life to Christ, since he is the one who can save you’ from eternal disaster."
Do you see what Luther is trying to say. Yes, we are free because of the freedom we have in Christ, but at the same time we are slaves, slaves to Christ and to the people we serve in Christ’s name.
In our gospel lesson this morning Jesus is talking about this same subject. He says we are slaves to sin, but at the same time he is telling us we can he free in and through him.
Luther’s famous saying that we are saint and sinner at the same time comes to mind here. We are saints, believers in Christ because of Christ’s action in our lives through Baptism, but at the same time we are sinners, never having fully arrived at our sainthood until we come into the glorious presence of Christ at the gates of heaven.
Our lives are an ongoing process of becoming what Christ wants us to he. He is constantly molding, shaping, forming, developing, guiding us so that we can be free in Him to serve Him and our neighbor.
So there is a paradox to the Christian life. I am tree in Christ to become what God truly created me for in His image, but at the same time I am a slave to sin, because that nature is always with me until through Christ at the gates of heaven it is finally removed.
Paul says in Romans. 7:19 "For I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I do. Now if I do what I do not want, it is no longer I that do it, but sin which dwells within me."
But he goes on to says in Romans. 8:1,2 1 " There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. 2 For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has set me free from the law of sin and death.
Maybe the following story will help us to understand this paradox to Christian living.
" A man named John Elliott was caught in a blizzard high in the Rocky mountains. He became lost, and finally he saw a cabin and crawling to the door with his last ounce of strength, he found it to be unlocked and he crawled in. But being dazed and near exhaustion, he didn’t light a fire or take off his wet clothing. He laid on the floor sinking into oblivion, paralyzed by the pleasure of the storm’s icy caress. Suddenly, his St. Bernard dog came into the cabin, for he too had become loss from his master. He saw his master lying on the floor, and became to arouse John from his near comatose state. The ranger said later, that the dog saved his life.
John said,"When you’re freezing to death you actually feel warm all over, and don’t wake up because it feels too good. "
Some people are like that in their spiritual lives. They actually don’t realize the state of sin they are in, because everything seems so good. They don’t see their need for Christ because they feel they are really handling their salvation pretty good by themselves. But as Paul says, it is only through Christ Jesus that we can be free from sin death and the power of the devil.
As Luther says not my work but the work of Christ in me that sets me free.
Or as Jesus says in our gospel lesson, ’ So if the Son makes you free, you will be free indeed."
As we continue to surrender our sinful selves to Christ, we will become free in Him to live the kind of life he has called us to live. There is that daily surrender, that daily drowning of my sinful self in the waters of my baptism and then letting Christ raise me as a new and cleansed person.
There is for us a conscious decision of asking for Christ to drown my sins daily and letting raise up a new me. You and I can and should participate in this figurative daily baptism.
I can and am born again each day in Christ. I have an active part to play in that process. I need’ to bring to Christ, I need to surrender to Christ those sins, those things that separate me from Him and from those around me.
But it seems to me we Lutheran have not taken as seriously this part of our understanding of Baptism. We don’t see the daily consequence of Baptism for our pilgrimage on this earth. It is not an act with no consequence for the future, yes it is an act that happens once, but we live in the consequence of it each day.
Each day I surrender my sinful to Christ, he grabs me, pushed me down into the water of my Baptism, cleanses me, and raises me to a new life so that I might serve Him and my neighbor. I must surrender to Him daily. I must acknowledge my sinful self daily
But I think a lot of us like to straddle the fence on this one. We don’t really see that daily we need to do this, or we don’t like to admit to ourselves that we are really sinners in daily need of Christ’s forgiveness.
So we are like a little boy who wanted to ride a horse’ but seeing that the horse was bigger close up than he thought , he decided to proceed cautiously. He climbed a wooden fence where the horse was standing and mounted him from there. With one foot on the left side of the top fence rail, he threw the other leg over the horse who was on the right side..
Immediately the horse began to walk slowly away from the fence. The boy hadn’t planned on that and he needed to make a hasty decision. He wanted to both ride the horse and to hold on to the security of the fence. Needless to say, after his legs had stretched as far as they would go, he fell face down on the ground."
We like to straddle the fence of admitting to ourselves that daily we need to return to the waters of our Baptism and drown our sinful self and allow Christ to raise up a new me.
Yes, there is freedom in Christ, but at the same time, a struggle to remain captive by Christ. True freedom in life only comes when we are captive by Christ, when we are as Luther says, "A Christians a perfectly dutiful servant of all, subject to all."
Subject to all, subject to Christ and subject to our neighbor. There is freedom and life in our willingness to be captive by Christ and in being captive by Christ, we have a freedom to live, a freedom to risk, a freedom to be and use all the potential God created in us.
We are like the butterfly in the following story.
A woman was awakened one morning by a strange sound. She went to the window and saw a butterfly flying inside the window pane in great fright; outside a sparrow was pecking at the pane and trying to reach the butterfly. The butterfly did not see the glass pane and expected every minute to be caught, the sparrow did not see the glass and expected every minute to catch the butterfly. All the while the butterfly was safe because the glass was between it and the sparrow. While the butterfly was being captive by the glass it was safe.
As you and I are captive by Christ, he protects, saves and gives us life. Yes, make me a captive Lord, so then I will be free to live.
Amen
Written by Pastor Tim Zingale October 21, 2002
