This sermon was preached on Reformation Sunday, October 28, 2012, at Central Lutheran Church, Anchorage, Alaska. The gospel was John 8:31-36.
Mercy, grace and peace to you from our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. Amen.
This language about slavery and freedom in John's gospel sometimes
makes our eyes glaze over. Slavery? Didn't we abolish that? Freedom?
We're the land of the free and the home of the brave. Next topic,
please. The people Jesus was talking to basically did the same thing.
We're not slaves, never have been. We're descended from Abraham, very
freely, thank you very much. Next topic, please.
Maybe Jesus should have been a little more pointed, to them.
Weren't your ancestors slaves in Egypt? Weren't you forced into exile
and governed by Babylonians and Persians? Aren't you, as we speak,
ruled by and forced to pay taxes to Rome? Maybe that would have been
a little more clear.
Maybe Jesus should be a little more pointed, to us. Have you ever
felt stuck? Have you ever had a hard time getting yourself to do the
right thing? Have you ever struggled to apologize or ask for
forgiveness? Have you ever let yourself fly off the handle? Do you
ever feel like you don't have enough faith? Do you ever feel maybe
God wants you to try a little harder or get your act together?
If you or the people in Jesus' day could answer yes to any of
those questions, you have been and are enslaved. You've either been
enslaved literally (see: Egypt) or you are enslaved to sin, by which
I mean enslaved other people's expectations or enslaved to your
possessions and money or enslaved to your own pride or enslaved to
your hot temper or enslaved to being right at all costs or enslaved
to thinking you have to work your way into God's good graces.
I don't know about you but I don't actually enjoy being reminded
that I am a slave to sin. I do not like to be reminded of my
failures. I do not like to be reminded about my mistakes. I do not
like to be reminded about where I get stuck. I like to think that I
am basically a nice Lutheran person from the Midwest. I like to think
I basically have things under control and I am basically a good
person. I do not really want to come here and have anyone tell me
that I am a slave to sin or anything else.
Apparently, I'm not alone. The Pew Research Institute earlier this
month released a survey of Americans and their religious preferences,
or not. The report, entitled, “Nones on the Rise,” claims 1 in 5
Americans do not identify with any religion. In the last five years,
this group has moved from 15% of the US population to almost 20%. The
largest percentage of these “nones” isn’t agnostics. It isn’t
atheists. It’s those who claim no particular association.
Here's more. Researchers asked: Are you looking for a religion
that’s right for you? 88% said no. 10% said yes. Per reports that
one third of those under 30 have no religious affiliation (32%),
compared with just 9% of those age 65 years or older. Young adults
today are much more likely to be religiously unaffiliated as those of
past generations at similar stages in their lives.
Why are there so many nones? That's a complicated question and
beyond the scope of this sermon. However, other research, for example
from Barna Research Group, reports that many people, especially young
adults, believe that churches are judgmental and hypocritical. I
guess they don't want to come here and hear about how they are a
slave to sin, either.
But the truth is, we are slaves to sin. But the truth is, that's
only half the story.
When Jesus tells the disciples that they will know the truth and
the truth will set them free, he's talking about two fundamental
truths: the truth about humans and the truth about God.
Here's the truth about humans. Paul says it in Romans 3:23, “since
all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.” We're sinners.
We turn a way from God. We focus on our own needs first. We mess up.
We fail. We fall short. And the truth is there is NOTHING we can do
to save ourselves. It's like jumping to the moon. You cannot do it.
I had a friend in college who didn't go to church. When I asked
her about it, she said she didn't really think she was a sinner. When
you don't really think you're a sinner, you don't really need a
savior. The truth, the painful truth, is that we really are sinners,
but maybe we need to use different words. Maybe we need to talk about
brokenness. We could use words like stuck, questioning, disconnected,
feeling something missing, feeling like something isn't right. Let us
remind ourselves and then share the news with others that worship is
precisely the best place to go when you're feeling stuck, out of
sorts, disconnected, questioning or just not whole. You can go on a
hike or go fishing or go to yoga, but you will not here the truth
there about who you are and who God is.
Which brings me to the good news, which really is only good news
when you know how much you need it. Or as my seminary pastor used to
say, “Did Jesus need to die for you to preach this sermon? If not,
don't bother.”
Just after Paul tells us that all have sinned, he continues in
Romans 3:24, Paul writes: “they (referring to all) are
justified by his grace as a gift, though the redemption that is in
Christ Jesus.”
Let me break that down. All who have sinned (everyone) is
justified (made right with God) by grace (God's love that we didn't
earn) through the redemption (freeing something or someone held
hostage) that is in Christ Jesus (see: the cross). You can imagine
why Martin Luther, who we recognize on this Reformation Sunday, was
pretty darn excited when he discovered these verses. We are made
right with God as a gift, not by anything we say or earn or do or
buy.
Because that is the second truth for today, the truth about God.
The truth about God is that God loves us, loves you. God loves us so
much that God chooses to offer us liberation, freedom, not just in
the form of eternal life, but in the form of release from whatever
enslaves us right now. The Romans text for today even starts with
that word, “now.” Right now, the righteousness of God has been
disclosed. Right now, God desires to tell you the truth that you are
a beloved child of God, that you are accepted, and that you are
welcomed into the household with all of your failures, despite all
your flaws and even with your questions. You are part of God's
family. God doesn't want anyone to throw you out of that house,
including yourself.
So we do come here to worship, to this place, to hear the truth
about ourselves: We are broken. We sin. We can't do it alone. We come
here to hear the truth about God: We are loved. We are forgiven. We
are accepted. Our very identity is a liberated child of God. We need
to hear week after week that we are so liberated, so freed to love
and serve the neighbor, not because God needs those acts of mercy and
justice but because someone you know needs them very much. We need
these two truths because with them we find true freedom. We find the
freedom to enter into painful but necessary and healing
conversations. We find the freedom from our own cares through helping
someone in need. We find the freedom to joyfully release some of the
money or things we hoard.
What might it mean for us at Central Lutheran Church to live as a
community that faces up to those truths. Do we look at each other and
see the truth about ourselves and God? Do we admit our own mistakes
and ask for forgiveness? Do we find the courage to go someone in
private and tell them they have hurt us? Do we bear a grudge and
gossip? What is the truth about who we are as a family of God? And
yet, what is the truth about who God is? Does God love the person in
the next pew as much as God loves you? Does God accept the person in
the next pew just as he is? Does God have compassion for failures and
mistakes woman in the next pew as much as God has compassion for your
failures and mistakes?
After all, which is harder to accept? The truth that you are a
sinner or the truth that because of Christ you are a beloved son or
daughter? Jesus said, “You will know the truth, and the truth will
make you free.” Amen.
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