The
As the story goes Jesus comes out of the desert, enters the synagogue of his hometown announces to the community with special reference to the poor that his time has come and that his time is a time for liberation. Captives are to be released from their prisons. The blind are to be liberated from their darkness. The oppressed are to be set free. No matter how one interprets these words there is a common thread and that common thread is freedom. In Luke's account of things this is the beginning of Jesus' actual ministry and it sets the basis for all that is to come from him and from the church that will carry his name. Jesus is all about freedom. The mission of the Church is to liberate the world and its people (including ourselves). So how are we doing? I it's big, very big. Freedom is a big subject as well as a calling. who is really free? Yet how can anyone rest until all are free?
But what does it mean to us to be called to this mission? Obviously the liberation of people is played out at many levels from the psychological to the political to the spiritual. It is a task that is so big we are tempted to look away from the big picture to some more reasonable attainable smaller task. It is quite possible that this is what we must do if we are to do anything. In fact the big picture is approached in small steps and the crucial point becomes what small steps we take and how we take them.
Some of you will remember the small steps that Edward Bear (akaWinnie-the-Pooh) took one day in the forest after some snow had fallen. One fine winter's day when Piglet was brushing away the snow in front of his house, he happened to look up, and there was Winnie-the-Pooh. Pooh was walking round and round in a circle, thinking of something else, and when Piglet called to him, he just went right on walking. When Piglet finally got Pooh's attention he asked him what he was doing and Pooh said that he was hunting. It seems that he was following the tracks in the snow though he didn't know who had made them or what he was hunting. It was Piglet who suggested out of the blue that maybe they were Woozle tracks and Pooh's response was to say, It may be. Sometimes it is, and sometimes it isn't. You know the rest. They followed their own tracks around and around a few more times and discovered that there was a new set of tracks, quite possibly a Wizzle, which everyone knows could be dangerous. As they went about following their own tracks and the more they followed their won tracks, the more significant they became increasing the anxiety of our two little friends until Christopher Robin came along and pointed out to them what they were really doing, that is following their own tracks round and round. As Pooh is heard to say at this point, I see now, I have been a Foolish and Deluded... Capital F, Capital D.
I share this story again because it illustrates so well what the church can become if we are not careful about where we focus our attention. I don't think it is a revelation to anyone here that churches can get caught up in following their own tracks round and round in a circle going nowhere while at the same time assuming that the trip is more and more significant and becoming more and more anxious in the going precisely because we don't know where we are going or why. When this happens we tend to overvalue the insignificant and overlook the significant. We can call this the Woozle factor. When Pooh was pressed to explain what he was doing (when in fact he was thinking about something else and until Piglet came along had no idea that he doing anything at all) it was very helpful to have a name for what he was doing even if he would never admit that he had no idea exactly what a woozle might be. It is the same principle that we use when we value looking busy over actually doing anything. God has not called us together just to keep us busy. We are here on a mission.
Our mission is to set people free. What does that mean? Well I suspect that it means many things. I suspect that it means something different every time and with each and every person and situation we encounter. This does not make it easier but more difficult. There are no hard and fast, simple procedures to follow for liberating people and the world we live in but there is something and that something is that at the heart of God's will for humankind is freedom, freedom in love, for love, responsible freedom. In fact there is no other kind of freedom. Freedom requires a response. Sometimes we make the wrong response. That is why at the heart of God there is also grace. That is why when our Foolishness and Delusions are revealed to us it is also revealed to us that we are not yet hopeless but have something else to offer and that life goes on just as CR revealed to Pooh at his confession when he said (with some hyperbole perhaps) You're the best Bear in All the World. This was enough for Pooh to remember that it was nearly Luncheon Time (capital L and capital T) and life does indeed go on and with some hope that, foolish or not, we can still do some good if not this time well then next time.
The point is that no matter what we do next or how we approach the next thing on our way we are guided by the principle of freedom and responsibility and grace which is also another way of describing love. In my view freedom and love are two sides of the same coin for authentic love is not possible without authentic freedom to choose love. I believe this is why God gave us freedom as created beings from the very beginning - so that we will choose to love, to love God just as God's love is a real choice, the choice itself rendering the love meaningful. (This also explains the ancient dilemma that many have agonized over regarding the seeming contradiction between God being all-powerful and the presence of suffering in God's world. Freedom supposes suffering because in our freedom we make mistakes which can cause suffering. (This is not to imply that suffering is only caused by wrong choices.) Neither can one love without suffering. In other words we could theoretically have a world without suffering but it would also be a world without freedom, without love, and without meaning.) Anyway that's what I think.
As a congregation we have a shared mission. It will have many faces but in every case it is our business to address how love is served in each case, are we liberating or not? We will each of us have something to bring to the mission. We will need all of us to accomplish it. In order to liberate anybody we will need to be liberated ourselves, free of fear, free of all the things that keep us from being free for love. Ironically freedom does not mean just doing what we want because if we are free to do what we want and everyone is free to do what they want and if everybody just does what they want without a thought for each other we will have nothing but chaos. If my freedom to do what I want oppresses another persons' freedom to do what they want or vice versa; if in my freedom I cause harm to another or vice versa; then we are back in the snow going round and round only now are circles are not harmless but vicious circles and we are Foolish and Deluded for the truth is that no one is free unless everyone is free and freedom can exist only in love because love understands that only by liberating others are we liberated ourselves.
When Jesus sat down and announced his intentions by reading
from the ancient texts you would think that the words at least would be
familiar. After all this was an ancient text, the word of the prophets, the
word on which supposedly people of faith stand and in which they live out their
lives but these words would have been at least as shocking then as they are
now. Imagine opening the prisons, opening the eyes of the blind, letting the
oppressed go free. What, is he crazy? We will learn next week what their
response was but for now let us simply reflect on our own feelings to such an
announcement as this. Anyone who is paying even a little attention to the world
we live in today will realize what an outrageous statement this is. Our first
response might very well be, "we can't do this." Upon reflection we
might think, "We can't not do this." In fact it is not about what we can or cannot
do. It is about what God is doing and about how much we are willing to struggle
with such things as love and freedom and with what God wants us to do. Finally,
no matter what we do or don't do, it is clear from today's word if nothing else
that following Jesus means a making a commitment to building communities of
peace and justice, where love and freedom abound. This is the mission: the
healing and liberation of the world. Is this our mission? As Pooh says, Sometimes it is and
sometimes it isn't. By the grace of God, may we be faithful to the One who
calls us and to who we are called to be 'til every heart is free.
