Richard Davenport
June 25, 2023 – Proper 7
Romans 6:12-23
At one point, after the Reformation was well underway, Luther wrote a treatise entitled, “The Freedom of a Christian.” He starts out by saying, “A Christian is a perfectly free lord of all, subject to none.” It’s a pretty bold statement, but one that we are familiar with in our country.
Freedom is kind of the motto for our country. Any of the patriotic symbolism you see, bald eagles, American flags, and so forth, are calling to mind some of the values that went into our nation’s founding. One of the chief values there is freedom. Some of our ongoing political debates show that we may not always agree with one another as to what that freedom means, how it works, and so forth. But we all generally agree that it is important and that it’s a major feature of this country.
So, when Luther says something like this, it fits well with our American sensibilities. Freedom is kind of what we’re all about. Though, again, we often disagree as to what freedom entails. Our Constitution and Bill of Rights list a number of different rights and freedoms we have as American citizens. We have the right to bear arms. We have the right to peaceful assembly. We have freedom of the press, freedom of religion.
Those all sound great, but they aren’t all that helpful until we know what they mean. Thankfully, we have a large body of established constitutional law and lawyers and judges to help interpret and apply it to the various circumstances that arise. Generally speaking though, it means the government can only restrict these things to a certain extent. Where that line gets drawn is what occupies those lawyers and judges, but they are all obligated to honor the laws as they stand. The laws and their application get clarified and restated from time to time, so we understand how to use them as new situations arise.
So what does Luther mean when he refers to freedom? Thankfully he explains it for us. He says a Christian is completely free from the obligations of the Law, more specifically, the Law’s demands that you prove your own righteousness. Non-Christians are buried under the Law’s constant demands that you live perfect, be perfect. Any time you fall short, you have to make it up somehow. You have to find some way to still prove you can be called righteous in God’s eyes and be worthy of being with him in a perfect paradise. God doesn’t tolerate imperfection. That’s what sin is and that’s what got us into all of this trouble in the first place. No, God isn’t going to allow that to happen a second time. Adam and Eve got us into this mess and once was enough.
Not to have the Law standing over you every minute of every day ensuring you are maintaining the standard of absolute perfection, that is a freedom only Christians know. The Law is a relentless taskmaster, always driving you to do more, always pointing out how you’re falling short. Those under the Law are truly slaves to the Law. They cannot escape. The only place to be is with God, and the only way to get there is by doing what the Law tells you. So you toil away, day after day after day, endlessly, hopelessly, because there’s no other path.
As Christians who have been freed from the Law’s demands for righteousness, we sometimes take that freedom for granted. We forget what it means to live under the Law and we get a little complacent with the gift we’ve been given. Christ died to save us. He died to release the Law’s hold on us. He died to ensure the Law could no longer dictate our lives.
That means your days are your own. They aren’t ruled by the Law. Righteousness isn’t something you have to struggle every day for. You already have it. That daily grind is no longer something hanging over you. There is no taskmaster driving you every minute to achieve a perfection that perpetually out of your grasp.
So now what? What do I do if I don’t have to be working at perfection every day? Well, whatever you want, I guess. Do you want to have fun and enjoy life? Then I guess that’s what you do. If you want to go off into the mountains, live off the land, and escape the cares and concerns of civilized life forever, well, why not? If you want to live your life on your own terms, do what you want, have what you want, be what you want, what’s stopping you? You’re free. So go live free.
Except that doesn’t work. I mean, you can go and do all of those things, but I wouldn’t recommend it if you think God will still be happy with your decisions. It’s one of the common problems we Christians have, especially in places like America. We tend to think of freedom in very specific ways. For us, freedom usually is a reference to the government. We are free from government oppression in these ways. The government is not allowed to prevent us from saying things, even if what we say is unpopular or offensive. The government is not allowed to prevent us from carrying guns. It isn’t allowed to control what our media says. The government can enact laws and regulate all sorts of things, but they never have total control There is a boundary to its power and that boundary is determined by the rights and freedoms its citizens have.
So it’s only natural that when we hear Luther talk this way it leads to think the same way. The Law no longer binds us. Its control has firm boundaries. Because it can’t control us, we are free to do what we want. That would stand to reason, but Luther isn’t done. Luther says, “A Christian is a perfectly free lord of all, subject to none. A Christian is a perfectly dutiful servant of all, subject to all,” and he says both of these things are true at the same time. Yes, a Christian is free from the Law. He is free from the Law’s demands. He is free from the need to achieve his own righteousness. He is free from all of that. But this freedom isn’t just freedom from, as we typically find, it’s also a freedom to. It’s a freedom to be the person you were created to be, freedom to live according to the righteousness you’ve been given. You are free to serve God. None of these were things you were capable of doing before. God sets you free from the chains of sin, free from serving the cause of death and Satan. He sets you free to serve him, free to use the gifts and talents he has given you in the manner they were intended to be used.
The freedom God gives us is one we often balk at. We’d rather just be free from all constraints and restrictions, with no master but ourselves. We want to be free from sin and all of its demands, all of the consequences that go with it, but we also want to be free from everything else.
St. Paul tells us that isn’t possible. There is no life where you live entirely for yourself. A desire to live that way is really a desire to return to service under your old master, sin. Sin tempts you with all of the things you think you want, but then either never gives them to you or gives them to you only to watch how they wreak havoc in your life and bring you further misery and pain. Sure, you had no need to live a righteous life under sin. Sin doesn’t care about such things. But the only conclusion that comes from service to sin is death.
The alternative is service to God. Where sin cares nothing for those who serve it, God loves and cherishes all of his people. He cares for them and provides for them. He loves them so much he came into the world, willingly becoming subject to sin and suffered the death that comes from all who sin, despite the fact that he never sinned himself. He entered into the stronghold of sin so that he could set free all who were in chains there. He set them free so they could return to their original master, the one who had created them out of love, who died for them out of love. The master who loved them so much he wanted them to live with him in a paradise made just for them.
This is what Luther explains again in the second article of the Apostles’ Creed: “I believe that Jesus Christ, true God, begotten of the Father from eternity, and also true man, born of the Virgin Mary, is my Lord, who has redeemed me, a lost and condemned person, purchased and won me from all sins, from death, and from the power of the devil; not with gold or silver, but with His holy, precious blood and with His innocent suffering and death, that I may be His own and live under Him in His kingdom and serve Him in everlasting righteousness, innocence, and blessedness, just as He is risen from the dead, lives and reigns to all eternity.”
Being free from sin means living in righteousness. You don’t earn that righteousness, as sin drove you to do. God gives it to you freely on account of Christ’s sacrifice that set you free from sin. Now that that righteousness is yours, now that you are free to live as God intended, life works very differently. St. Paul says we should rejoice in who God created us to be and live like it. Living in service to God means living in service to the one who set you free from death and who gives eternal life. Living in service to God means knowing the love he has for you and getting the privilege of sharing that love with others. It means getting to see the smiling faces of those who in need you have helped. It means being able to comfort those whose loved one died in the faith, and reminding them of God’s promise of eternal life. It means not having to worry about the daily needs of life, because God has promised to care for you. It means not worrying about disasters that threaten, because whether you die or whether you live another day, your eternity is assured.
St. Paul warns that our lives should look different because they are different. You are a different person than who you were before God set you free. Sin is no longer your master. Don’t go back to it. Don’t put yourself back in those chains. You are free because God died to set you free. Your life is with him, it belongs with him. Don’t return to your old master, who was only interested in inflicting misery on you every day until you died. Stay here, with the Lord who loves you, who died for you, who offers life to you, who offers you peace and joy to you, not just here and now, but forever in the world he created just for you.