“. . . the Lord’s free people”

Exod 3:1-14; Ps 137; Gal 5; John 8:31-6; 2 Cor 3:17

 

Introduction

Today is the 1st Sunday of Advent. “Advent” speaks to us of the “coming of God”. And when God comes, and if it is God who comes, “joy” is created and “freedom” happens.

With the Obama visit recently, we heard a lot about freedom. And some of the slogans – “prosperity without freedom is just another kind of poverty!” – were quite good I thought. But what is freedom? There are many freedoms! The question is: what is real freedom .

The Christmas story and also the baptist narrative are intrinsically inter-related with to the story of freedom. We believe in a God who hears the cries of his people, and who wants to set them free; a God who says to those who believe and obey him, as he said to Moses of old: “. . . come, I will send you to Pharaoh to bring my people, the Israelites, out of Egypt" (Exod 3:6-10).

The yearning for freedom seems to be part of the human condition. I remember one cold and wintry night in Bucharest, Romania. A friend of mine and I went to the Opera. It was during the dark days of communism. Nabucco was on the program. Nabucco was Giuseppe Verdi’s (1813-1901) first success. It was conceived and composed under very trying circumstances. Two years before its first performance in 1842, Verdi lost his young wife and his two young sons within a few months. Politically his beloved Italy was under Austrian domination. Yet, the yearning for freedom created the power to deal with the experience of sadness and oppression, and he composed this opera about Israel in Babylonian Exile under Nebuchadnezzar (whom he called Nabucco). This opera portrays the human yearning for freedom. There is in the opera the choir of prisoners dreaming of freedom and liberation. When the prisoners in the opera sang about their yearning for freedom, some people would rise from their seats and stand in silent protest against oppression, thereby tuning into the story of freedom - let us listen in to the Chorus of the exiles – a paraphrase of Psalm 137 - from Verdi’s opera Nabucco!

Only those who have experienced the chains of sin and oppression will hear and experience the soothing melody of joy and freedom!

“Fly, thoughts, on wings of gold;

go settle upon the slopes and the hills, . . .”

The apostle Paul proclaims the reality of freedom to Christians: “for freedom Christ has set us free” (Gal 5:1) and again: “where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom” (2 Cor 3:17); and in the Gospel of John, Jesus reminds his followers that they are not slaves of sin or servants of sloth, but through their relationship to him they are liberated to life abundantly (John 8:31-38):

“If you continue in my word, you are truly my disciples; and you will know the truth, and the truth will make you free. . . .  if the Son makes you free, you will be free indeed.”

 

A historical reminder

I would like to remind you of the beginnings of the Baptist movement. In 1602 a group of Christians under the leadership of the Anglican Clergyman John Smyth (1563?-1612) separated from the institutional church and formed an intentional Christian community. They called themselves “the Lord’s free people”. God’s coming to liberate the oppressed and Jesus’ story as the story of freedom has initiated and has shaped the Baptist tradition from the beginning.

Thomas Helwys (1550?-1616), who in 1612 formed the first Baptist church on British soil, was imprisoned and died for the right to claim that no king or earthly power has an ultimate claim on the human conscience. Helwys' book A Short Declaration of the Mistery of Iniquity (1612) has been heralded as "the first Protestant defence of religious freedom."[1] In it he asserts that the king – we would say, the government - is an earthly king who has no power over people's conscience. "Let them be heretikes, Turcks, Jewes, or whatsoever, it apperteynes not the earthly power to punish them in the least measure."[2]

A century earlier, 5.000 so-called Anabaptists were banned, excommunicated, tortured, burned at the stake and drowned for obeying the liberating joy-giving call of Christ to Christian discipleship. For them the joy and the freedom that God had spoken into their lives was more important than life itself.

William Knibb (1803-1845), to mention another hero of freedom from our tradition, a missionary to the Caribbean during the 19th century, fought for the abolition of slavery and for the end of the slave trade in Jamaica against the resistance of church and state.[3] In 1988, at the 150th anniversary of the abolition of slavery in the Caribbean,[4] the British Baptist Missionary William Knibb (1803-1845) was granted Jamaica's highest civil honour, The Order of Merit. Only one other non-Jamaican, and no white person, shared the honour at the time. The inscription reads:

For Knibb's work as liberator of the slaves.

For his work in laying the foundation of Nationhood.

For his support of black people and things indigenous. For his display of great courage against tremendous odds.

For being an inspiration then and now.

Knibb was only 42 when he died. But his name, like the names of William Wilberforce in England, Adoniram Judson in Myanmar, William Carey in India and Hudson Taylor in China is remembered with reverence and gratitude to the present day. For them, preaching the gospel of Christ and engaging in the struggle for religious liberty, for liberation from slavery and oppression, and helping people to shape their own cultural identity was one and the same thing.

We retrieve and tune into our heritage by asking whether their struggle, their commitment, their passion was worthwhile. Are we willing to own that part of our tradition? Do we have the courage to dissent, to denounce, to protest when we are confronted with injustice, greed, sloth and evil? Is there a truth that fascinates us so deeply that we are prepared to pay a price to maintain it, rather than deny it or forsake it?

Our roots are grounded in the story of freedom. The prophets of the Hebrew Bible are part of that story, Jesus of Nazareth is part of that story, and we are invited – ever again – to tune into that story.

 

God and Freedom

Now there have always been sceptics who question that God and freedom are a good fit.

If you listen to the old and new atheists – Karl Marx, Vladimir Lenin, Friedrich Nietzsche, Sigmund Freud and their more harmless followers today – if you listen to them, the assertion would not be “God and freedom” but “God or freedom”. God, Christ and religion stifle us, they say. They quench our creativity. We are urged by them, to say farewell to faith if we want to be free.

And indeed, we would have to admit that also in the churches the slogan has often not been “God and freedom”, but “God or freedom”. Only now Christians were not suspicious of God, like the atheists are, but they were suspicious of freedom! My friends,

W  it took the churches 1800 years before they realised the Gospel imperative that slaves need to be freed.

W  To the present day there are churches that bind people’s conscience to rules and doctrines.

W  To the present day there are churches that have not understood that women are free and equal.

“God and Freedom” or “God or Freedom” – that alternative is presented to both, atheists and believers.

 

“For Freedom Christ has set us free!”

Now it is absolutely clear, and - at least in theory - it is not questioned, that the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, the God of Jesus and Paul, the God of our spiritual forebears, is the God who loves freedom. God is not a slave owner or a slave driver, God is not a patriarch keeping women in their place, God is not the validator of the status quo, whatever it may be.

The first commandment, which has become a formative classic in Western culture says that God is a God who loves freedom: “I am the lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery.”

The two towering symbols of the Jewish Christian tradition are symbols of freedom: in the Jewish tradition, the exodus from slavery, and in the Christian tradition, the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the fangs of death. Christians describe God as the One “who raised Jesus from the dead” and who places people in the “broad place” where they can breathe and live with open arms.

To know this God, to believe in this God, is to experience joy and freedom. So why are we so afraid of freedom? Why do we so often lack the courage to stand up and speak up for what we know to be true?

 

Sin as sloth

If faith means joy and freedom, then sin is sloth and sleepiness. The apostle Paul defines sin for us: “. . . whatever does not proceed from faith is sin” (Rom 14:23). And since joy and freedom proceed from faith, therefore the sloth and sleepiness that we so often experience is a withdrawal from the Lordship of Christ and a withdrawal from real freedom and true joy.

 

Liberating faith

Faith in Christ is much more than agreeing to Christian doctrines or affirming a certain morality. It is “for freedom” that Christ has set us free, and the apostle warns the Christians in Galatia and Christians through the ages: “stand firm . . . and do not submit again to a yoke of slavery” (Gal 5:1). Faith then, if it is faith in Christ, is always a liberating faith. To be liberating, it must be experienced.

Listen to this promise:

“. . . the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, he who raised Christ from the dead will give life to your mortal bodies also through his Spirit that dwells  in you” (Rom 8:11).

The same Spirit of God who creates and sustains the world, the same Spirit of God who raised Jesus from the dead, dwells in the believer and creates, not fear, but joy and freedom!

 

What kind of freedom does the Spirit create?

Some people today would be familiar with the slogan that was prominent in some of the early churches: "I can do what I like!" (1 Cor 6:12, 10:23). The "Western" understanding of freedom, shaped by the French and American revolutions, is a modification of this; "I can do what I like, as long as I don't hurt my neighbour."[5] The centre of this assertion is the self. And "freedom" becomes the validation for expanding the power of the self. In that kind of freedom you always have victims, underdogs. Oppressors and oppressed; rich and poor; Masters and slaves; Patriarchs and their women and children.

But is that really freedom? Of course, I can use my military or economic power to rule over others. Personally, I can take drugs, binge drink Friday nights, and be unfaithful to my wife. But is that really freedom?

Real freedom is different. Real freedom is the experience of acceptance, love and friendship where the “other” is no longer the limiter, but the intensifier of my freedom. We are created, not to be individualists, but to be friends. We become who we are in relationships. Real freedom is to live intentionally and creatively in the networks of relationships – with God in faith, with each other in friendship, and with the creation in creativity and work. The “other”, be it God or other people or nature, are not limiting our freedom. Real freedom is experienced together. It is a community experience.

On the day when President Obama was in town and sounded the trumpet of freedom, in the evening, when Mr. Obama had flown on to Darwin, we met at the Australian Christian Centre for the David Hunter Memorial lecture. The topic of discussion was related to Darwin and the Northern Territory. The speakers discussed the aftermath of the Northern Territory Intervention of 2007. They did not question the need for it. But they said that it did not work and will not work because it was not consultative.

The Aboriginal poet Lilla Watson says it this way:

If you have come to help

You are wasting your time.

But if you have come

Because your liberation

Is bound up with mine then

Let us work together.

 

Conclusion

The slave owner may think that he is free. But he is not! The patriarch may think that he is free. But he is not! The sinner may think that he or she is free. But they are only free to please themselves. Freedom is not in good hands with them because they think that they need no “other” to be free.

True freedom lives out of God and it joyously binds us to other people. It sets us in a “broad place”. Freedom is celebrated “together”. Our freedom is at stake in the way we look at the “other”. Only if and when we hear the cry of the wretched of the earth and engage ourselves for their liberation are we on the road of freedom.

The Advent season invites us, ever again, to tune into the story, the fascinating story of joy and  of freedom!

 

 

TL, Canberra, 1st Advent 2011.


[1]Joseph Lecler, S.J., Toleration and the Reformation, Vol. 2 (1960), p. 462.

[2]Thomas Helwys, The Mistery of Iniquity (1612) published for the Baptist Historical Society (London: Kingsgate Press, 1935), p. 69.

[3] Compare: Philip Wright, Knibb 'the Notorious'. Slaves' Missionary 1803-1845 (London: Sidgwick & Jackson, 1973).

[4] The slave trade in the British Empire was officially prohibited in 1807. Then again in 1833 slavery was officially abolished in the British colonies. But it took until 1838 when it was effectively implemented in the Caribbean.

[5] The French Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen (1789), § 4.