Prisoner #492867 had schemed and then worked on the plan for years. He had silently punched a hole in the cell block and then spent month after month digging a tunnel out of the prison and underneath the fences. When he had calculated he had gone as far as the little stand of trees outside the prison walls he turned his shovel upwards and after a few minutes had broken into the open air. A young girl was standing there looking none too surprised to see this man crawl out from the ground. “I’m free, I’m free,” he exclaimed. The young girl sniffed, “Well, I’m four.”
The idea of being free, of freedom, of liberty is woven into the DNA of the United States. The Declaration of Independence says that we have an inalienable right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. Patrick Henry proclaimed, Give me liberty or give me death. The Constitution of the United States declares that it was adopted to secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity. In the Gettysburg Address Abraham Lincoln insisted that our nation was conceived in liberty. FDR promoted the Four Freedoms as the motivation for fighting the Second World War. And many of us remember Dr. King in his “I Have a Dream” Speech seeing the culmination of his dream happening when all God’s children will join hands together and sing in the word of the old Negro spiritual: Free at last! Free at last! Thank God Almighty, I’m free at last! No one should be surprised, therefore, that freedom is the defining value evoked by every politician running for office in this country.
What might be a surprise even for good and regular church-going folk like us is that St. Paul believed that freedom is also a defining characteristic for Christians. “For freedom, Christ set us free.” We tend to think of the Christian life as one of following the commandments or obeying the teachings of Jesus. If someone would ask you what you get out of being a person of faith, my suspicion is that “freedom” would not be first thing that pops in your mind. But the Apostle is very clear – the point behind the saving mission of Jesus was that we would be free. What exactly is this thing called freedom? The dictionary defines freedom as “the power or right to act, speak, or think as one wants without hindrance or restraint.” That would sound correct to most modern people, I suspect. And with that definition the great danger to freedom is some external force, some agency keeping me from doing what I want. To preserve freedom the task becomes eliminating that external force. Once we get rid of the slave owner, the apartheid regime, the police state, the government bureaucrat – or if you are really out there, the black UN helicopters – then we’ll be free. There is something outside of us that is the danger to freedom.
Remember though, that St. Paul felt free even when he was chained and being hauled off to prison. In the Bible, and in St. Paul in particular, the danger to freedom is not something outside of us but something within us. He asked in his letter to the Romans, “How come I don’t do what I want to do and do what I don’t want to do?” He sees a force or a power within us that inhibits our ability to be free enough to do the right thing. Maybe the best analogy is to think of that force or power as something like addiction. When you are addicted you drink this or eat that or smoke the other even though you know it’s not good for you. The addiction keeps you from being free. What St. Paul calls the force limiting our freedom is “the flesh.” “You were called for freedom but do not use this freedom as the opportunity for the flesh.” So for the Apostle nothing external endangers our freedom, “the flesh” does.
Therefore, if St. Paul were providing a definition of freedom instead of the dictionary he would say something like: freedom is the power to act, speak, or think as one should. Doing what we want is not freedom for Paul, it is flesh, driven by impulses and cravings and compulsions and urges that in the end do not lead to life, love or happiness. Freedom, rather, is having the grace to act in ways that flow from and lead to our own best self, made in the image of God. Freedom isn’t about doing what we want but getting rid of all those things that inhibit our ability to do what we ought.
Happily the gospel account for today shows us examples of what gospel freedom looks like. In the scene described by St. Luke three different persons approach Jesus about becoming a follower. We can look at these meetings as job interviews: Jesus as the HR director for the kingdom of God. The credentials he is looking for are not college degrees or work experience. He is looking for freedom. The first applicant is enthusiastic. “I’ll follow you anywhere. Send me in, Coach. I can do it.” Jesus says, it’s not enough to have a wish bone. There is a cost to discipleship. There is no cheap grace. Are you realistic enough to pay the price whatever it may be? Or do you expect things to go well all the time? The second inquirer has pre-conditions before he comes on board. “Let me go first…” It’s kind of like going in for your job interview and asking to take some paid vacation before you actually start the job. Jesus says, it’s not enough to just have a jaw bone, to talk the talk. You also have to walk the walk. Are you free enough not to demand extra perqs but to take whatever God gives you? The third applicant lets Jesus know early on that this job was not going to be his highest priority. I’m glad for the opportunity to be a kingdom person, Jesus, but I’ve got responsibilities, I’ve got places to go, people to see, things to do. I’ll work in my following you around those other things, maybe three o’clock next Tuesday. Jesus says, you need a little back bone. Are you free enough to trust that what God gives you is exactly what you need? Are you free enough not to pine for the good old days?
Thinking that having a wish bone is enough, relying on your jaw bone, needing more back bone – all symptoms of a lack of freedom, of the inability to do what you need to do. We can avoid being a knucklebone by freeing ourselves of all those things that keep us from following Jesus in love and compassion and generosity and forgiveness this day and every day.