“Freedom”

Exodus 12:1-14, Romans 3:21-26

What does the Lord require of you but to do justice and to love kindness and to walk humbly with your God? Micah 6:8b

This year we have been exploring the fundamental human need of freedom. We have celebrated and examined America’s quest for freedom 250 years ago and our hope to live into our founding values, such as the equality of all people, more fully.  But we have much to learn from history at 250 years though it seems long to us is mere blink of an eye compared to history’s most paradigmatic story of freedom over 3,000 years ago.

The Passover marked a great day in the history of the Hebrew people. Passover is the time when each Jew embarks on a personal journey from slavery to freedom. According to one Jewish interpreter,

"Passover is the freedom holiday. Of our myriad drives and desires, yearnings and inclinations, few are as passionate and compelling as the drive for freedom. Freedom is a state of mind. Even more, it is a state of being so essential to human existence that without it the fabric of our lives is bereft of quality, color, and texture."

The event remains the central defining act of God's steadfast love toward the Israelite people. On that day God's angel reached down with the fiery sword of justice to smite the Egyptian taskmasters, thus initiating the release of the Hebrews from the house of bondage, from the house of slavery. In fact, the faithful today recite the liturgy of the Passover as if it happened to them. They say, "God struck down the Egyptians but spared our houses... God delivered us!" And from that day onward they lived happily ever after... Well, not exactly.

It soon became apparent that the Hebrews had more problems than simply Pharaoh. In fact, their entire history is a recounting of one crisis to the next. After they left Pharaoh, lack of faith proved to be a problem, as they came to prefer the Egyptian whip — because of the food that went along with it — rather than the manna and pigeons God fed them in the wilderness. Once they entered the Promised Land, their tendency to worship other gods proved deadly many times. Also, because Israel was located in a key geographic position, surrounding empires perpetually sought to annex their land and deport their peoples. In the midst of these empires, they sought to gain strength, so they replaced their divine ruler with a human king. Very quickly the Israelite kings became almost as large a problem as Pharaoh!

Evidently, ridding themselves of Pharaoh was no panacea.  That truth rings true today for our country.  Twenty-five years after 9/11, we can look back, as the Israelites did to Egypt, and realize a great evil was done to us. Yet, as we look back, we see other self-inflicted problems plague this nation. Much of this country's ills stem not from terrorists but our own indifference to our neighbor, failure to worship God and rampant immorality,

Twenty-five years ago, Harper's Magazine commented on the insidious problem the Enron's of this world: "Bound by law to no purpose other than its own profit, untroubled by the nuisance of a conscience, and its sphere of moral reference reduced to that of a flatworm or a fern, the corporation — feels not the sting of envy, the pang of hunger, the fear of death."

Harper's suggested that our nation had lost its way, and sadly we haven’t come very far along since then.

Just as the Hebrews, who upon receiving freedom and the Promised Land soon entered into the worship of other gods, so too have we worshipped gods of our own making.  

William Greider, in his book One World Ready or Not, believes the root of our financial problems are spiritual: "The utopian vision of the marketplace offers, after all, an enthralling religion... Many intelligent people have come to worship these market principles, like a spiritual code that will resolve all the larger questions for us, social and moral and otherwise... Many who think of themselves as rational and urbane have put their faith in this idea … as piously as others put their trust in God."

Greider recognizes what Presbyterians have always understood to be the root problem of humanity — idolatry, replacing the one true God.

However, through the grace of God, adversity always gives us the chance to make our way back. Just as each political crisis that Israel suffered became an opportunity to return to God and a life based on love of neighbor, so too do our nations challenges offer us the chance to return to a life more deeply rooted in God. The resolution to the Hebrews' ills will prove to be our cure as well.

Over time the prophets of old came to see a recurring pattern in the Hebrews' problems. They went through a continual cycle recognized by some theologians through the acronym S.A.I.D.R.R. (Success, Apostasy, Invasion, Defeat, Repentance, Reinstatement). Every time God freed them and life became better, they returned to their former ways.

This brutal roller coaster made it clear that as long as the fate of humanity rested in our ways of dealing with need, we are fated to an eternal cycle of disaster as the entire history of humankind has clearly demonstrated. Because of this vicious, inextricable cycle, a new hope sprung into the minds of the prophets. Jeremiah called it a new law. Isaiah called it the suffering servant and Immanuel. Ezekiel called it a New Jerusalem. This new vision was a fundamental shift from the old way.

In the Passover, God used slaughtered lambs and slaughtered firstborns to redeem a people, but it didn't last. The old ways of money, military, and morality have never been able to bring lasting life. So God ordained a new freedom based on an indestructible force that could not be earned in a bank account; it could not be swindled through greed; it could not be destroyed through war or hate. This freedom would not come to one peopleand not another. No innocents would be sacrificed for it. As Paul wrote, "Since all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God, they are now justified by his grace as a gift." God gave all of us life as a gift, though we did not deserve it. God forgave and gave all to us.

This gift of freedom comes at a price. We must share this life with others as it has been given to us — freely and generously. We must forgive as we have been forgiven. We pray that every week.

In our country, our knee-jerk response is to redeem ourselves through boosting economic indicators, stronger defense, and eliminating our enemies. In Christ, God began a new way of dealing with evil. In Christ, God redeemed not through destroying enemies but in dying to revenge. Christ's power rested in a new way of defeating enemies — love. To love our enemies is to recognize that Christ came for us all.

History has taught us there is nothing we can create that cannot be destroyed, either through enemies beyond our shores or through the enemies of our own moral weakness. In Christ we have a chance to be part of a new kingdom. God challenges all Christian peoples in this country to forgo the fearful ways of the world and to embrace the courageous, loving ways of Christ.  Christ's kingdom thrives through the boundless economy of community and generosity. Christ's power rested not in self-preservation but in self-giving.

Freedom has come in Jesus Christ and given us everlasting life. Let us resolve, all of us, to live this life in those permanent values of love, forgiveness, grace — the grace that has been given to us all. Amen.