This morning we’re going to take another little detour from our study of Romans so that we can take time to pause and consider the upcoming holiday we will be celebrating on Wednesday, July 4, when we commemorate America’s Independence from Britain. The first thing most people think about and look forward to when we think about the 4th of July is that it is a day when we can take time off from work and enjoy our beautiful summer weather. Added to this are a number of special activities like fireworks and picnics and patriotic parades; the whole point of it is to celebrate freedom. This freedom means different things to us than it did to those who signed the Declaration of Independence, and it means different things to each of us personally than it does to others of our fellow citizens.
The political crisis that led to the Declaration of Independence was rooted in economics. The British Parliament had enacted financial policies that benefited England but at the same time caused financial harm to Americans. As a history professor I am astonished to know that most college freshmen don’t know that one of the rallying cries of the American Revolution was “Taxation without representation is tyranny!” signifying the economic basis for American discontent. It was only later in the Revolutionary War that the meaning of the struggle came to be signified by what we today think of as liberty. For the original revolutionaries liberty meant the right to hold on to your property, by the end of the revolution it had come to mean personal freedoms like the right to participate in government, the right to dissent without fear of reprisal, the right to worship God freely without government interference, and all of the freedoms specified in the Bill of Rights that we take for granted today, but that we will be celebrating on Wednesday.
When the Constitution was created a few years after the end of the American Revolution the founders of the nation sought to establish a form of government that would institutionalize the freedoms won in the revolution, which at the time were thought of as incredibly radical. And I don’t think that there’s any doubt that their work inspired a movement toward personal freedom from political oppression that still resonates today, as we can see most recently in places like Syria and Libya. But at the same time the founders perpetuated the institution of slavery that marred the ideals of liberty they were trying to enact, and accommodated a system of brutality that would only end after the devastating bloodshed of the Civil War, and which unfortunately also still resonates today.
Now I don’t want to use this opportunity to disparage the founders of the country for accommodating slavery. Slavery was a reality then that it is not today. It had both economic and cultural roots and the idea of ending slavery was thought to be much more radical then than the idea of keeping it. It was largely due to the efforts of Christian abolitionists, first in England and then in the United States, that slavery came to be regarded as evil. If you are interested in this history I can recommend to you a fairly recent movie “Amazing Grace” about English politician William Wilberforce and the end of slavery in the British Empire.
At any rate even though our nation was founded on the loftiest principles of freedom and liberty, it was marred from its birth by the stain of slavery. In the first few decades of the nation’s existence this issue came to dominate national political life. The passions of both the advocates of the perpetuation of slavery on the one hand and abolitionists on the other drove the country inevitably toward armed conflict and eventually resulted in the Civil War.
One incident in the 1830s involved a man named Elijah P. Lovejoy. Lovejoy was a Presbyterian minister in Alton, Illinois and a prominent abolitionist. He operated a press and spoke out forcefully for the abolition of slavery. On November 7, 1837, Lovejoy was brutally murdered by a mob of pro-slavery advocates seeking to destroy his press and silence him. As a result, another minister, Prof. Laurens P. Hickok, rallied the people of the region against the murderers and stated in a meeting he had organized, "The crisis has come. The question now before the American citizens is no longer alone, 'Can the slaves be made free?' but, 'Are we free?” “Are we free?” Hickok recognized the paradox of America, a nation founded on the principles of liberty that tolerated and even supported the institution of slavery, and realized that as long as this injustice prevailed no one in America could really claim to be free.
Now I wanted to bring all of this up not because I thought it would be a good idea on this Sunday morning to give a lecture on US history but because I want to call attention to the fact that I think we still live a paradox in terms of our understanding of freedom, both on a national and a personal level. As Americans we all believe, instinctively, I think, that we are free and that we are blessed with freedom, and there is a lot of truth in that belief. Americans enjoy greater freedoms than almost anywhere else on earth. But at the same time I think some of what we think of as freedom is an illusion. It leaves us to wonder what it really means to be free.
The people of Jesus’ time were a lot like us in this respect. The Jews thought of themselves as exceptional, chosen by God for his special blessing. I don’t think you have to look very hard to find this attitude among Americans today, especially at this time of the year. There are many who claim and truly believe that God has chosen America as his special nation, to be the beacon of light to the rest of the world. In our way of thinking that light is what we call freedom or liberty. Some people are especially arrogant about this, and if you have paid any attention at all to the ongoing political debate about immigration this arrogance can at times be ugly and racist.
The Jews of Jesus time were just like that. They felt themselves to be so superior to anyone who wasn’t Jewish, the Gentiles, that they thought eating with them or even being touched by them would make them dirty. They were so thoroughly intolerant of foreigners that when they went on a journey outside the Jewish homeland they would make a point of shaking Gentile dust off their feet when they returned.
In the incident we are going to look at today Jesus confronts this attitude on the part of the Jews. He makes a statement about himself to Jewish believers, which were essentially all believers at the time, that turns out to be offensive to them. Let’s hear it:
31 So Jesus said to the Jews who had believed him, “If you abide in my word, you are truly my disciples, 32 and you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.” 33 They answered him, “We are offspring of Abraham and have never been enslaved to anyone. How is it that you say, ‘You will become free’?”
34 Jesus answered them, “Truly, truly, I say to you, everyone who practices sin is a slave to sin. 35 The slave does not remain in the house forever; the son remains forever. 36 So if the Son sets you free, you will be free indeed. 37 I know that you are offspring 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.” (John 8:31-38 ESV)
What’s going on here? Jesus tells his listeners how to obtain freedom. From our point of view that might sound pretty good but his audience was offended. They thought they were already free. You can imagine the general indignation of the crowd. “What do you mean we will be free? We are the children of Abraham! We have never been slaves to anyone!” I think it would be a lot like somebody busting into a Fourth of July celebration and announcing to the crowd of patriotic Americans that they need to learn about freedom. As good Americans we might say, “Who are you to talk to us about freedom?”
Here is the wrong idea that the Jews had. They believed they were free because God had made covenants with their ancestors Abraham and Moses. God had given Abraham the covenant of circumcision, and Moses the covenant of the Law. A covenant is a deal. Generally it is thought of as exchanging something for something. In the case of the covenant of circumcision, the deal was that Abraham and all of his descendants were to be circumcised as a sign that they were the inheritors of God’s promise to lead them to the Promised Land and to bless all nations through them. In the case of the covenant of the Law, the deal was that if the Hebrews followed the Law God give them prosperity in the Promised Land and again would bless all nations through them.
The Jews of Jesus’ time were very aware of their inherited chosen-ness, but they seemed to have forgotten the bigger picture. God did not choose Abraham and his descendants just for the heck of it. They were chosen to be light. We read about it in Deuteronomy chapter 7 where God tells the Hebrews in the desert that he chose them only because he loved them, and in Isaiah chapter 49 verse 6, where he tells the Israelites, “I will make you as a light for the nations, that my salvation may reach to the end of the earth.” (Is. 49:6 ESV) In other words, the blessing of Israel was intended to be both a blessing and a calling. But while God had intended the choosing of Israel to be a blessing that would extend to all people, the Jews of Jesus’ time had turned it into a mark of exclusion and arrogance, accompanied by a false sense of superiority.
When Jesus confronts them with this reality, they are indignant. Can you blame them? Do we not feel indignant when our cherished values are criticized? Are we likely to take a close look at ourselves to see if the criticism is true, or to react angrily? This is what we see happening in this exchange between Jesus and the Jews.
Let’s look a little closer. How does this little confrontation start? Jesus tells those who believe in him, “If you abide in my word, you are truly my disciples, and you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.” You may have noticed that when I read this this morning and I put it on the PowerPoint I used the English Standard translation rather than the NIV that we usually use.
Let me remark briefly about Bible translations. There are literally dozens of English translations of the Bible and there is no “right” one. Translations range on a spectrum between what is called formal and functional. The formal translations provide a translation that is closer to the original language, in this case Greek, and are sometimes referred to as literal translations, while the functional translations try to render the original meaning of the text in language that is easier to understand for modern readers. The English Standard Version is closer to the formal or more literal end of the spectrum; the New Living Translation would be an example of one that is more easily understandable. The NIV or New International Version that we usually use is in the middle; I think that’s why we use it. I generally will prefer to use the NIV translation and if that’s what you have that’s fine, but in this case I thought the ESV translation came closer to the meaning of the text. The NIV has Jesus saying “If you hold to my teaching…” rather than “if you abide in my word.”
The actual Greek verb in this case doesn’t really translate exactly either as hold to or abide but is better translated “remain” or “continue to exist.” In another place in the New Testament the same verb is used to refer to people remaining in a place until something else happens. This may seem to be a subtle and unimportant difference but it really is important because the NIV suggests that knowing the truth has to do with believing in Jesus’ teachings and the ESV places the emphasis more on living in Jesus’ “word.” Jesus’ word is his teachings but actually encompasses more than just doctrine, Jesus’s teaching also included the way he walked in the world. In the beginning of John’s gospel account we learn that Jesus himself is the word who was from the beginning and through whom all things were created. (John 1:1-5)
The ESV “abide” is closer to the intended meaning, I think, because Jesus wasn’t presenting a philosophical program. Instead he was offering life. I think we sometimes confuse what it means to be followers of Jesus by thinking it means intellectual assent to certain philosophical propositions, like maybe reciting the Apostles’ Creed, when in fact it means, as the author of this gospel John will later write in one of his letters, “walking in the light.” (1 John 1:7) How do you walk in the light? Jesus himself says that he is the light, so walking in the light means surrendering our lives to Jesus and letting him live his life through us. So then Jesus is telling his listeners here that if they walk in the light they will know the truth and the truth will set them free.
Well, free from what? Jesus’ listeners didn’t think they needed to be freed. They thought they were already free. Even though they were under the yoke of Roman oppression, they were pretty much free to go about their business and to practice their religion as long as they kept the peace and paid their taxes. But Jesus was talking about a different kind of slavery, and he tells us explicitly in verse 34 “everyone who practices sin is a slave to sin.” I think here we would have seen another point of contention between Jesus and his listeners because Jews of that time believed that if the meticulously kept the Law they were free from sin. And if they did sin they could make sacrifices at the temple to atone for their sins. So they would not have thought of themselves as slaves to sin.
So what does Jesus mean here? Jesus is looking at the bigger picture, the one we have been considering in our study of Romans, and that is that because of the fall, because of the sin of Adam and Eve, the world is corrupted; we all sin, and we are all slaves to sin. No one is exempt. So when Jesus talks about freedom he doesn’t mean political freedom or even religious freedom. Instead he means freedom from everything that keeps us from an intimate love relationship with the Father. He means freedom to live and love in a complete way without the stain of sin, guilt, and corruption. And he says that the way to obtain that freedom is to “abide in his word,” to “walk in the light.”
Jesus uses an example from the social life of that era. In those days it was common for wealthier families to employ household slaves. Because of our history when we think of slaves we usually think in terms of the brutality of the Transatlantic Slave Trade and Southern plantation slavery but the institution of slavery was very different in the ancient world. It wasn’t better it was just different. Desperate poor people would often attach themselves to households in order to receive food and lodging, and it was quite common for slaves to be able to earn or buy their freedom. But the point Jesus is making here is that a slave was not a full member of the household. Slaves’ rights were restricted, and there was no possibility of a slave ever inheriting either wealth or privilege.
So when Jesus says, “if the son sets you free, you will be free indeed,” in the larger context of this story his listeners would have understood that he was saying he was the one who inherited the promise from the head of the household and that meant that he held the power to truly set the slaves free. He was offering himself as the way to true freedom from everything that separates us from an intimate love relationship with the Father. This is the central fact of the gospel. In their blindness, Jesus’ listeners thought they were doing just fine. In regards to this, there is an interesting quote I like from C.S. Lewis,
When a man is getting better he understands more and more clearly the evil that is still left in him. When a man is getting worse, he understands his own badness less and less. A moderately bad man knows he is not very good: a thoroughly bad man thinks he is all right. This is common sense, really. You understand sleep when you are awake, not while you are sleeping.
The tragedy here is that standing in the presence of their creator and savior Jesus’ audience didn’t even realize they needed saving. How are we doing?
Well we started off this morning talking about the Fourth of July and the paradox of America’s commitment to freedom while tolerating slavery. If you asked Americans before the Civil War, North or South, what America stood for, I’m pretty sure that the most common answer then would have been “liberty,” just like today. Americans then were sure they were free because of the promises of freedom arising as a result of the Revolution. And yet tens of thousands of human beings were held against their will in cruel bondage, and everyone knew this. A few people, mostly Christian abolitionists who were looked upon as radicals and trouble makers, recognized the paradox and sought to bring America’s life into alignment with its principles.
We found a Biblical precedent for this when we heard a story about Jesus telling his Jewish listeners how to be free when they thought they already were free. They were sure they were free because they thought of themselves as the inheritors of God’s promises to Abraham and Moses. But a major theme of Jesus’ life on earth was to show those people who thought they were accepted by God because they were religious that religion wasn’t enough; that they could only be accepted by “walking in the light,” and that he himself was that light.
So what about us? As Prof. Hickok asked the Americans of his time, “Are we free?” Or are we deceived like pre-Civil War Americans or the Jewish people of Jesus’ time into thinking that because we inherit the promise of liberty made by our ancestors we are automatically free?
But let us consider. Do we allow ourselves to be captivated by the temptations of this world? Do we fall for wrong ideas about love and possessions and power? Are we more concerned about what people think of us than what God thinks of us? Do we think mostly about our own comfort and gain and our own interests while we know people within our reach who are worse off that we are who could use our help? Do we fail to recognize Jesus in our brothers and sisters – in those who are close to us and in those who are less fortunate among us? In those who annoy us and scare us and may even mean us harm? Do we turn our attention away from the unrighteousness and injustice that surrounds us and pretend it doesn’t exist? If we can admit to any of these or a thousand other things that we do to grieve the Spirit, can we claim to be free?
When Jesus told his listeners in this story to abide in his word, I don’t think he was trying to start a new religion. Jesus was a Jew and steeped in the Jewish worldview and he knew better than anyone what it truly meant to be God’s chosen one. Abiding in God’s word – walking in God’s light -- meant living out the covenant obligations of the chosen people. We Christians have inherited the blessing of being among God’s chosen but we have also inherited the covenant obligations. Let me just tell you right now that the covenant obligations of the people of God can be summarized in three words: righteousness, justice, and love. That was true in the time of Abraham and Moses, in the time of Jesus, and it is also true for God’s people now.
Jesus is the embodiment of this truth. Jesus fulfilled the covenant obligations the people of God before and since have been unable to accomplish. And thus he regained freedom from sin for all who are in him. Because of his work, the answer is yes, we can be free indeed. It is not a political freedom to do as we please; it is the freedom to be liberated from the bondage of sin so that we can abide in the light, allowing his light to shine through us, and restoring the creation by building his kingdom.
As we go out into the world this week to celebrate America’s independence, let us enjoy the picnics and the fireworks and all of the other fun activities and give thanks for all of the freedoms we have been blessed with. Let us really appreciate how fortunate we are to inherit the promises of liberty, both political freedom and freedom from slavery to sin. But let us also recall that the liberties we enjoy represent not just a blessing but a calling. We are not free just to be free, so that we can be self-absorbed consumers, but we are called to be light, to be active coworkers with God in building his Kingdom on earth. As Christians we are called to reflect in our own lives and work to establish in the world Jesus’ Kingdom of righteousness, justice, and love. And when that has finally been accomplished, when, as the prophet Amos says, we “let justice roll down like waters, and righteousness like an ever-flowing stream” (Amos 5:24 ESV), which the Bible promises will happen, we will be able to sing along with the Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr., “Thank God Almighty we are free at last!”
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