Sermon for Reformation Sunday
October 28, 2007
Jeremiah 31:31–34
Psalm 46
Romans 3:19–28
John 8:31–36
I.N.I. (In the name of Jesus)
Freedom is coming, freedom is coming, freedom is coming, oh yes, I know.
Oh freedom, oh freedom, oh freedom, oh freedom,
oh yes, I know, oh yes, I know, oh yes I know, oh yes, I know,
oh yes, I know, oh yes, I know, oh yes I know, oh yes I know.
This is a freedom song whose source is from those who bore the brunt of apartheid, under the power to the white minority in South Africa. Though they lived in squalor, though the means of torture was unspeakable, though white Afrikaners were loathe to give up land or power, those who sang freedom songs spoke of a deeper truth. It is this freedom that I wish to talk about today, this day where baptism is affirmed, where promises are given, where the Spirit is generously poured out, where faith is confirmed.
At Camp Calumet, away for our annual Confirmation Camp days, where many youth and a few adults together explore God’s creation as a real and genuine community. We have so much fun! Such stories we can tell you, about throwing a lighted Frisbee in the dark around a circle of campers….singing as our regular night prayer Be Still and Know that I am God, then teaching it to the rest of the campers at a campfire…. Paddling in canoes along on the Saco River, stopping to pick up gazillions of beer cans carelessly tossed away…. applying stain to outdoor structures at a shelter, never meeting anyone but doing it anyway (how did Kayleigh and Dan get stuck with the unpainted part at the top of the structure, anyway?)….singing “Waves of mercy, waves of grace, everywhere I look, I see your face” in an outdoor chapel….doing our highs and lows after hearing a story from a picture book, where the high is how wonderful our day has been, and the low is that we don’t have a low, which is really a high.
What is it about our time at Confirmation Camp, except that there is this sense of freedom? You can be free to be yourself, and not to put on an assumed identity, like putting on the armor of “I can’t trust you” or “Being Christian isn’t cool” or “nobody likes me.” And maybe, just maybe, in the giving over to that freedom, in giving and receiving love with those you know too well and with those you’ve never even met, as many youth and a few adults lower the shields that prevent both hurt and true encounter, in giving over to that freedom there is revealed an even deeper truth about freedom.
Ask youth about their most desired aspect of any event or any part of life, and invariably, inevitably they will say free time.
If you know youth who are edging into their sixteenth birthday, then you know that for many the rite of passage that is at the top of their minds is not confirmation but getting their drivers’ license, because after jumping through the hoops of at the wheel time with an adult, after enduring drivers’ ed., after finally passing the written test and road test, and the initiation period requiring you to be with another driver, once you can be on your own in the car, you have a new found sense of freedom, and that freedom resembles something even deeper, life as an unfettered adult.
Continue in my word if my disciples be, Alleluia, Alleluia! (South African song)
Jesus speaks these words to carve out his place in history. He lobs them across to those who are intrigued by him, like a tennis volley over a net (plunk). He speaks two more phrases, like sending two more balls with increasing zip on them, and you will know the truth, and the truth will make you free.
Free! Freedom! Free time. Free lives.
Suddenly, this troubles the hearers, who go on the defensive, because hearing that they will be made free makes them wonder just what it is that enslaves them. Never mind the Egyptians. Never mind the Babylonians, or even the Romans. As children of Abraham, their identity is as free people, not slaves. What in God’s name do we need to be freed from, anyway?
And here comes the slam dunk from Jesus, who is teacher, Messiah, Son of God, and freedom fighter all rolled up into one.Very truly, I tell you, which means “yo, listen up!” everyone who commits sin is a slave to sin. 35The slave does not have a permanent place in the household; the son has a place there forever.
We are all slaves. We are all walled up in the things we do wrong. We are all oppressed by the ways we oppress others. When we point out the speck in someone else’s eye, we ignore the two by four lodged in our own eye. We hide behind our bravado. We try to belong by the labels on our clothes. We yearn to be in the hip crowd. And yet, if you remove our loud talk, if you strip away our Hollister shirts, if you peel away to the very inside even of someone on the “A” list, you will find someone who really wants to be true to herself, who is afraid of being alone, who wonders if there might be more to life than grades, status, money, or the messed up world that will still be there after getting the drivers’ license and after getting through college.
And Jesus stands there, with the cross not far away but getting closer all the time. Jesus stands there, not scolding or demanding, but offering himself to take the brunt of our misdeeds, to take abuse and ridicule, to take the unyielding weight of sin, and to become himself a slave, a loser, within the walls of unspeakable torture and agonizing death.
For us that is the way of life and freedom. For us, as we give ourselves over to Jesus, the way of the cross, the way of life seen through God’s Word, life where truth is told, we discover freedom.
Martin Luther was not perfect. He said some pretty nasty things about Jews and Muslims. He said some nasty things about the Roman Catholic Church. But he was right on target with sin, and grace. He was puzzled that by his own striving for perfection he still was faced with failure and an angry God, until he recognized that by his own efforts to get to God he would only fall short, and only when really and truly drinking up God’s Word did he discover the truth that God comes to us in a broken and beaten Savior, Jesus. In Jesus on the cross Luther said God is hiding. In the suffering all around us, Jesus continues to offer forgiveness, grace, acceptance, new life, and yes, freedom.
Six friends of mine will say today that Jesus gives them freedom. Six friends of mine today will say that baptism makes a difference, that God’s Word makes a difference, that sharing the Lord’s Supper makes a difference, that the Good News of Christ in their lives makes them see and act differently.
Alex, Dan, Kayleigh, Ryan, Mel, and Joe will say that they will continue to lean into God’s ways, and strive for justice and peace in all the earth, and as they say it, we will know it to be true.
And together, as we listen and nod our heads, and wipe our moist eyes, we will know the deeper truth, that with them, together in Christ, we are all free!
Oh freedom, oh freedom, oh freedom, oh freedom,
oh yes, I know, oh yes, I know, oh yes I know, oh yes, I know,
oh yes, I know, oh yes, I know, oh yes I know, oh yes I know.
Freedom is coming, freedom is coming, freedom is coming, oh yes, I know.
I.N.I.
The Rev. Timothy J. Keyl, Pastor
Christ the King Lutheran Church
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