Freedom for What?

Freedom for What?

Galatians 5:13-15

So, let’s pick up where we left off…We are all intensely aware these days of how little control we have over things and of how insecure life can feel.  Life has been disrupted!  Things we thought we could rely on have disappeared.  Understandings that we took for granted have been challenged to the core.  We’re being asked to do things that make our discomfort grow: to wear a mask; to make choices that are not just about what we want but are about what’s best for the community; to listen to those whose experience is different than our own and entertain the possibility that they might see things that we don’t see.

It is tempting to find someone to blame for all this disruption:  China, the President, public health officials, people from whatever party is not my party of choice or, when all else fails, my neighbor who made a different choice than I would have made and I saw them make it! The bottom line is that I am not getting to do what I want to do.  I am not getting to feel the way that I want to feel.  My plans are being changed.  Trust me…someone is going to pay.  

It is tempting to imagine how this time would be playing out if things were fair.  People would at least know when they have the virus.  (They don’t.)  People would be able to see some symptoms—a runny nose, a cough, a pervasive neon blue rash that would signal that this other person is sick.  (I particularly like the idea of the neon blue rash!)  If you got sick, you would get sick right away.  (There’s enough lag time that we have probably forgotten what we were doing or who we were with when we caught it.)  People would all be affected the same way by the virus.  (We’re not.)  There would be a definite time frame for how long we would be sick. (There isn’t.) We would understand the long term fallout of the virus.  (We don’t.)  We would know for sure how long the pandemic is going to go on.  (We don’t.)  We would at least get to be with our family and friends and with our church family in the familiar ways that comfort us.  (Unless we are awash in denial, for the most part, this just isn’t possible.)  

Here’s the thing, though:  viruses aren’t fair.  They are simply viruses, doing their best to make their way from organism to organism.  As far as the virus is concerned, there’s nothing personal at stake if you happen to be the next organism.  You can argue with the virus if you want.  However, when you do, don’t think of yourself as standing in some metaphorical courtroom making your case.  Instead, think of yourself standing outside and facing down a thunderstorm, telling a tornado why it has no right to hit your house.  Honestly, you’d be better off in the basement, doing your best to duck and cover.

So, we can argue until we are blue in the face about how unfair it is that our lives have been disrupted.  We are free to do that.  However, sooner or later, we really should come to see what a waste of energy that is.  We have already faced real challenges.  I have a hunch that there are some very serious challenges left to face.  I’m not sure that we have energy to waste.  We need to harness that energy to make ourselves as resilient as we can.  We need to get down to the brass tacks of figuring out how to accept where we are and what’s happening and do what we can to adapt to these circumstances and support one another in making things better rather than worse.  We need to realize that our choices do and will continue to matter.  We need to act responsibly.

Of course, we are perfectly free to not do this.  You can go to the concert or the party.  You can “take a night off” and cut loose from all these challenges and, for one night, just feel really good again.  You can do one of the things that human beings do best: practice denial!  You can declare, “To heck with the truth.  I’m not wearing a mask.  I’m not social distancing.  I’m done with that.  I have important stuff to do.”

This was the story that was out this week of the wedding in San Francisco.  All the couple wanted to do was get married.  The priest didn’t want to disappoint them.  The hundred or so guests mostly wore masks and mostly distanced, most of the time.  However, they all did sneak in to the church through a basement door because at some level they knew they had something to hide.  And, it turns out, mostly being safe, “most of the time,” wasn’t enough to keep the virus at bay.

This was also the story at a church in Alabama, where they had quite a multi-day revival.  They had guest speakers.  Everyone was encouraged to do whatever they felt comfortable doing as far as social distancing goes.  Some people shook hands and hugged.  Some people chose not to.  In an interview, though, the pastor said that nearly everyone in his congregation now either had the virus or was trying to care for someone who does.  

There’s nothing wrong with wanting to get married.  There’s nothing wrong with having a revival at a church.  There’s nothing wrong with wanting to gather with family and friends and wanting to cozy up to one another and feed that hunger that we all feel for genuine connection.  Not only is there nothing wrong with such things, not everyone who tries to make them happen will end up sick.  All of us could tell the story of times when we made really questionable decisions and got away with those choices.  However, these days, the risks are very real and potentially disastrous.  And so often, the people exposed to the consequences of my disastrous choices are the people I love the most.

We really are free to do pretty much whatever we feel like doing.  It’s easy to believe that the people who are most vulnerable to making really short-sighted choices are children who have such a hard time imagining future consequences or are young adults who are so in touch with the power and thrill of acting impulsively but are famously bad at realizing that we have to live with our impulsive actions forever.  “Those crazy kids!” we think to ourselves, as we put ourselves on a pedestal of “maturity.”

However, if we are really honest with ourselves, squandering our freedom is something that we are all vulnerable to our whole lives long.  This is particularly true if we find ourselves caught in circumstances which cut us off from the “mature” outlets that let us harness those impulses.  If there are no sports to watch and no excuse for yelling at the t.v., how long will it take for me to find something or someone else to yell at?  If I can’t maintain my usual illusion of control in life because life has other plans, how long will it take for me to find something to do that’s slightly out of control on my own terms.  (Have you seen how fast people are driving these days on the expressways?)  How long can I hold my breath and hold off on doing the things I really want to do until I convince myself that breaking the rules is okay this time because I earned this? I’ve been good!  All you have to do is disrupt a mature person’s routines for a little while and you will have a not-so-mature person doing some not-so-mature things pretty quickly.  That’s just people, a group which will include, sooner or later, every one of us.

In our text from Galatians, Paul is in the midst of telling us two things.  First of all, we really are free.  In and through Christ’s life and death and resurrection, we are made this way.  Our salvation doesn’t rest in following all the rules and making ourselves perfectly lovable.  Thanks to Christ, we’re in.  (In my opinion, we’re all in, which makes me a heretic in some people’s eyes.)  So, the point of this life is not to prove something about ourselves or to earn some eternal rewards.  Rather, the point of this life is to live in a way that embodies the gratitude that we feel to God.  At their best, our lives are one giant thank you note for the freedom and the life we’ve been given.

In Paul’s perspective, we are free to do whatever we would like (wear a mask or don’t; practice social distancing or don’t, the possibilities are endless.)  However, not all the decisions that we could make are grateful choices.  Not all the decisions that we could make would be helpful.  Not all the decisions that we could make would be expressions of our love of God and our neighbors and ourselves.  We have to look long and hard at our choices.  We are free to do whatever we would like to do but some choices are better and some are worse, some make things better and some make things worse.

This leads us to the sentence that I want us to focus on this morning.  Paul says, “Do not use your freedom as an opportunity for self-indulgence.”  This is the great human vulnerability.  We are perfectly free to make ourselves the center of the universe and to make our pleasure the goal of whatever we do.  I can decide that I am going to do whatever feels good—right now.  Or, I can decide that I’m going to do whatever I think is in my own interests and convince myself that not only will that feel good in the long run but it will feel good right now because I’m deferring just a bit to wait for that good to happen.  Doesn’t that make me mature?  The problem, of course, is that even a five year plan can be self-indulgent if it is really just one more way to make everything about my wants and needs.  This truth is revealed when the seemingly mature person throws some public tantrum when their self-indulgent impulses are thwarted.  They look like a raging two-year-old!

Paul makes the case that the best thing that we can do with our freedom is to make ourselves the servants of those around us.  In other words, the opposite of self-indulgence is the kind of self-restraint that allows me to focus on someone else’s wants and needs.  Maybe you discover the power of this kind of a focus when you form a deep friendship or when you fall in love or when you become a parent.  These others matter so much to you that you find so much more joy in helping to create joy for them than you would in creating joy for yourself.  Maybe you discover the power of this kind of focus when you are led by someone or something to care for a stranger.  You see the terrible situation someone is in.  You hear the story of an injustice against a whole group.  Somehow, you are moved to action and your goal is not personal recognition or praise but just relief for those others from their terrible suffering.  You care and that care generates the concrete fulfillment that is always there when you genuinely love your neighbor.  You know you could do anything but it dawns on you that what you really want to do more than anything is to help.  You want to make things better rather than worse.

It’s one thing to want to make things better for others when things are fine for us.  It’s quite another thing to want to make things better for others when we are struggling, ourselves.  When life is disrupted, we find out who we really are and what really matters.  We are free in the midst of insecure and uncomfortable times to not sink into self-indulgence.  We are free even when we are anxious and frustrated to listen for Christ’s higher calling.  We are free to face whatever we have to face together.  We are free to tirelessly care for one another.  We are free to make it plain that not even a global pandemic can separate us from the love of God.