This encounter between Jesus and these Jews who believe in Jesus comes right after the Pharisees
challenge Jesus on his teachings and who Jesus claims to be. John tells us that
many people didn’t understand what Jesus is getting at when he talks about who
he is and his relationship with God, his Father, so Jesus tells them, “When you have lifted up the Son of Man, then you will know
that I am he and that I do nothing on my own but speak just what the Father has
taught me. The one who sent me is with me; he has not left me alone, for I
always do what pleases him.” Even as he spoke, many believed in him.”
Yet it seems in this conversation that though many put
their faith in Jesus, there still
seems to be some question on what they’re really believing in about Jesus. Jesus
tells them, “If you hold to my teaching, you are really
my disciples. Then you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.”
As they respond, we can see that there’s a lot of misunderstanding between
Jesus and these Jews, “We are Abraham’s descendants and
have never been slaves of anyone. How can you say that we shall be set free?”
But to be fair to these Jews, would we have understood Jesus any better in that
time and place? Yet they also fail to remember their own history and the
reality of their present-day situation as they had been slaves to Egypt and
Babylon, among other nations at different times, and even now were under the Roman
yoke, even if they’re more of an occupied rather than enslaved nation. Yet
maybe they’re thinking along the lines of where Jesus is going and thinking of
being slaves in their thinking to the leaders of various sects or parties in
Israel at that time.
The reality is that many people, even many of us, fail to recognize the chains our sin has on our hearts
and souls. We too often fail to acknowledge the different masters we’ve allowed
to bind us up in their chains of slavery. Freedom is a huge issue; the reality is
that there are many kinds of slavery in the world, some even in Canada and our
own province and communities that we seldom think about. The prevalence of
human trafficking is an issue we don’t want to talk too much about, even though
it happens in our own communities. Then there are those immigrants that come
into Canada who are taken advantage of, some of them having arrived only semi-legally,
where they’re given work and then treated like slaves and told that if they
complain they’ll be deported. Then there’s family violence and dysfunction
where some family members are feeling trapped like slaves in their
relationships.
God does deal with slavery in the laws he gives Israel,
giving the people strict guidelines to masters on how
they are to treat their slaves with respect since everyone has value as we’re
all created in the image of God. Historically, people of faith have often been
in the forefront of the fight to eliminate slavery, such as William Wilberforce
in England, while in the USA, William Lloyd Garrison’s profound sense of Christian
morality led him to become an advocate for the abolitionist cause, while the
daughter of one of the wealthiest slave-owning families in Charleston, South
Carolina, Angelina Grimké was deeply religious; believing slavery was a sin,
and that God would punish those who owned and enslaved other human beings, joined
the fight for freedom for black slaves. There were many others who also fought
for freedom for slaves such as Harriet Beecher Stowe, author of Uncle Tom’s
Cabin, a story showing people the cruelties of slavery.
The writers of the Bible speak less about physical
slavery, though it’s never presented as part of God’s
creation plan; Jesus is more concerned about our hearts and souls becoming
slaves to the underestimated power of sin and Satan, who chain our hearts so
we’re kept from God, Jesus, and the freedom that the Holy Spirit can guide us
to; “Very truly I tell you, everyone who sins is a
slave to sin.” Sin’s power is rooted in idolatry. As N.T Wright
observes, “Idols, all the more powerful when not recognized as such, are
anything at all that humans place above and give their ultimate allegiance to
other than the One God himself…. Idols are addictive…. Offer more than it can
appropriately deliver…. You have to abandon part of your proper allegiance to
God… in order to fresh and inappropriate attention to the new idol, whatever it
is… associated not only with alcohol,
cannabis, and other drugs, but with our electronic systems: smartphones, social
media, Facebook, and so on.”
For many people, even followers of Jesus, freedom is all about being able to do whatever they
want, even if there are rules or laws against it. Most of our ideas about
freedom are inherently selfish, it’s all about me and what I want. Doug Bratt writes,
“Jesus Christ graciously freed his adopted siblings from having to earn our
salvation by obeying God’s law. Yet that leaves the question of how Christians
use our freedom in Christ. How, quite simply, do God’s beloved children live in
obedient gratitude for God’s gracious gift of salvation? So those who assume 1 Corinthians 6’s
proclaimers will just talk about spiritual things may be disappointed. Paul,
after all, calls God’s people to also consider physical things. He reminds his
letter’s recipients that while God gives God’s adopted children much freedom to
responsibly respond to God’s grace, not everything we do is “beneficial.” Some things Christians have the freedom
to do aren’t helpful to either the people around us or to us.”
Freedom comes through Jesus who sets us free from sin through his sacrifice on the cross,
something we call substitutionary atonement, where Jesus takes the punishment
for our sin on himself. This is a gift given to us, a gift we need to accept in
order for it to make us free. This is why we’re told numerous times to believe
in Jesus, to repent, and turn our lives over to Jesus, and walk his way instead
of our own way.
Robert
B. Kruschwitz warns us, “In an awkward but memorable phrase, the Apostle Paul
declares: “It is for freedom that Christ has set us
free.” The story of Jesus Christ, as it comes to life in his followers,
is a story of freedom, to be sure, but a freedom constrained by the Cross and
deeply at odds with individualistic notions of liberty…. Today many people
often think of freedom “as the maximum ability to choose whatever life I want
to live with a minimum of external attachments.” Paul’s strange
claim that “It is for freedom that Christ has set us
free,” in Galatians 5 is explained by this relationship between
salvation and ethics. “Christ has set us free” relates
to the salvation of Jesus’ followers, while ‘for
freedom’ relates to the ethical lifestyle that Jesus’ followers are
called to live.
Slavery
separates us from a close relationship with God, as Jesus says, “A slave has no permanent place in the family.” Just
because they’re Jewish, just because you show up in church most Sundays, this
doesn’t save you or set you free. Jesus goes on, “but a
son belongs to it forever.” Jesus is the one who brings us into the
family of God, freedom comes through Jesus. Being a child of God gives you a
solid identity, a strong foundation for life, and hope for right now, a reason
for living, and a place to belong. Paul, in his letter to the Galatians writes,
“You, my brothers and sisters, were called to
be free. But do not use your freedom to indulge the flesh; rather, serve one
another humbly in love.” Our freedom is
limited by our relationship with Jesus and who he’s calling us to be as his
followers.
Freedom
is important, yet we seldom stop to think about what our freedom is actually
for, why it’s so important, how it points us to God. Paul talks about this in
Romans 6, “Don’t you know that when you
offer yourselves to someone as obedient slaves, you are slaves of the one you
obey—whether you are slaves to sin, which leads to death, or to obedience,
which leads to righteousness? But thanks be to God that, though you used to be
slaves to sin, you have come to obey from your heart the pattern of teaching
that has now claimed your allegiance. You have been set free from sin and have
become slaves to righteousness.”
Bruce
Hartung encourages us to remember that “Christ has freed us from the burden of
our sin, from our earning God’s love, from our pulling ourselves up by our own
bootstraps to approach God. With all that energy, no longer needed to earn a
new and healthy relationship with God, what do I do with it? What do you do
with it?” Freedom looks like following Jesus, looks like serving each other
in love as we find in Galatians 5, “You, my brothers and sisters, were called to be free. But do
not use your freedom to indulge the flesh; rather, serve one another humbly in
love. For the entire law is fulfilled in keeping this one command: “Love your
neighbor as yourself.” Paul goes on to call us to use our freedom to
grow in the fruit of the Spirit, in “love, joy,
peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control”
and to “keep in step with the Spirit.”
What
does that look like for us today? Paul in Romans 6 and Peter in 1 Peter 2
call us to be slaves to God, loving God, serving our neighbor. Be generous to
the poor. Listen closely to those with whom we disagree, so closely that we can
really understand why their position is so important to them. Take some time to
find out about the person who sits beside you. Pray for others. Invite your
neighbors over for food and talk. Talk with the people you work with and go to
school with, about Jesus who sets us free. Isaiah calls us to proclaim freedom
and set the oppressed free by calling people to place their trust in Jesus and
repent and believe so they too can be set free from their sin. Be free and
become a slave to Jesus!
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