Sermon for the Seventh Sunday After Easter - The Rev. Jeffrey W. Mello - May 29th, 2022
To view a video of the Rev. Jeffrey W. Mello’s sermon, click HERE.
Acts 16:16-34; Revelation 22:12-14, 16-17, 20; John 17:20-26
Why is freedom so very scary? Why is it all we cry out for, and yet hesitate to embrace? How can it be a central value of a country that, at the same time, seems so determined to prevent it from happening? On this Memorial Day weekend, how can we imagine honoring those whose lives were taken while carrying out their pursuit of freedom, when we won’t allow the freedom they fought to protect to rule?
Though the particulars change from generation to generation; though the weapons of fear get more sophisticated in carrying out their task, the truth remains that humanity has always had a love/hate relationship with freedom. Not the concept. Not the political idea. But the real, empty tomb, abundant life, Jesus Christ freedom he gave up his life that we might know.
It’s there in Hebrew Scripture, as the Israelites follow Moses out of slavery in Egypt and into the wilderness. They are free. And that freedom has placed them in a wilderness that scares them. It doesn’t take them long before they are longing for the familiar captivity of Egypt.
It’s there in the reading from Acts. There in the story of the birth of the church is a story about imprisonment, and the reluctance to embrace true freedom. The girl is a slave, and struggles with what we would most likely diagnose as a mental illness.
She is healed, freed - both in body and spirit, and her owners lash out. They cannot rejoice in her healing; they do not celebrate her freedom. They want the liberators punished.
Paul and Silas end up in jail - literal imprisonment. In prison their faith in God causes the very earth to shake, shackles to fall from the ground and the doors of their cells to crack open.
Yet, when the guard wakes, before he can carry out his own corporal punishment for their freedom, he hears Paul’s voice letting him know they are still there. Shackles on the ground. Jail cell doors wide open. Yet they did not claim the freedom given. They remain willing captives until they walk out, together, with their captor.
We know this paradox in our own lives, don’t we? When we are offered freedom but too afraid to embrace it? Or perhaps hearing the cry of those who wish to be freed but too afraid to offer it?
Real freedom is scary, when there is no one to guide you in your being free. Prison recidivism isn’t about bad people continuing to do bad things. It is about people who have been broken getting tossed into the wilderness of freedom without a Moses to guide them. All too soon, Egypt starts looking better and better. Or more and more inevitable.
Substance Abuse isn’t about a desire to remain in the prison of one’s addiction. It is about not knowing how to leave the cell, even if the shackles have been broken and the door is unlocked.
Our culture wars are really wars about freedom. They are about allowing others to claim the freedom God is offering them, but of which we have made ourselves as the arbitrators.
When we talk about sin, we too often reduce it to a list of behaviors. And, surprise, we have made ourselves the judge and jury of that list.
But sin is really about a state of relationship with God. It means, “missing the mark.” When we are in sin, we are in impaired relationship with God, and God calls us to repair that relationship.
We have done the same thing with freedom. We have reduced the abundant freedom God has given us into a list of rights we label freedoms, and about which we argue and disagree fiercely.
We spend more time talking about what behaviors are and aren’t a sin than we do actually seeking restoration of relationship with God, the main mission of the church. It is right there in the Book of Common Prayer, page 855, “The mission of the Church is to restore all people to unity with God and each other in Christ.”
We spend more time arguing about what is and isn’t a right than we do actually pursuing the freedom that is ours for the taking, and that God longs for us.
The events of the past two weeks - in Buffalo, NY and Uvalde, TX - tell us everything we need to know about whether we are a people seeking freedom for God’s people everywhere, or a people who refuse to let go of a power the world gives them even at the expense of the freedom God gives.
What is more free than a 10 year old?
What is more free than picking up some groceries for the family dinner?
What is more free than dancing in a nightclub in Orlando, going to a concert in Las Vegas, or attending a bible study at a church in Charlston, South Carolina.
What is more free than loving who God made you to love, or to be fully who God made you to be?
We are a country enslaved to a belief that our individual freedoms are inextricably dependent on another’s imprisonment.
We will see more laws passed to limit the rights of those who seek freedom until we embrace the truth that no one of us is truly free until each and every one of us is truly free. My freedom in Christ is dependent entirely on yours.
We will see more scenes like the one in Uvalde and in Buffalo until we escape the slavery of individual so-called rights having higher value than the freedom of all of God’s children.
We will do this dance over and over again. We will leave Egypt, until the wilderness gets too uncomfortable, and the promised land remains out of sight. Soon, Egypt will beckon us back with the siren calls of, “what can you do about it anyway?” or “I don’t want to discuss politics” and “your preaching to the choir.”
We will do this again and again. Our righteous anger and that of a few politicians will shake the earth and, for a moment, we will feel the doors of our cells open and shackles loosen and fall. We might even get a brief glimpse of the promised land, what life lived in freedom might actually look like.
But we will stay in our cells, waiting for the jailer to escort us before we will step into the daylight. And, while we wait, the shackles will tighten, and the doors to our cells will slowly swing shut until we are startled by the sound of them locking with us still inside.
In his farewell discourse, this part of John’s Gospel we heard this morning, Jesus is trying to let his followers know what he hopes will sustain him when he is no longer with them. These are the final words he has to offer, the words Jesus hopes will linger in the air after he is gone.
“That they all may be one.”
“That they may be one, as we are one.”
“That they may become completely one”
“So that the love with which you have loved me may be in them.”
Jesus’ dream for the world he was about to leave, his hope for the sacrifice of his life was that we would be as united with one another as God is with God’s very self. That we would know God’s love for us, as much love for us as God had for God’s Son, that we might share that kind of love for each other.
Imagine loving one another as much as God loved Jesus. As much as Jesus loved God. As much as Jesus loved us.
Imagine loving God enough to celebrate the freedom of another, whether or not we understand, approve of, or desire that freedom for ourselves.
Imagine loving God enough to put down our weapons, whatever they be, in order that beloved children of God might live the lives God gave them in real freedom.
We are in a wilderness time right now. The promised land seems out of sight and we don’t know where we are going.
We have an opportunity, though, this time, to keep going, in the wilderness, loving one another through it all until we get to the freedom God desperately wants us to claim.
Hiding behind individual privileges and calling them rights is easy. Real freedom, freedom that is dependent on the freedom of everyone around us is much, much harder.
Ignore the voices that will call you back to Egypt.
Celebrate the freedom of the one who had been enslaved and is now free.
Run as fast as you can out of the cell you are in before the shackles claim you once again.
Put down your weapons.
And let us love one another into the true freedom God intends for us.
Amen.