The problem is, we freedom lovers were not the only ones watching this televised uprising. So were the Chinese leadership. As they tapped into our free press satellite feeds, the party hacks in Beijing took notes about which students did what. When the smoke cleared, the regime used our freedom to settle accounts with those young students. Some of them are languishing in prison even now. It is awful, but true -- evil can turn even our freedom to its advantage. Free choices give evil opportunities to work. Sad truth is, evil can use our freedom as its tool.
But listen up! Freedom in the Spirit produces something different -- transformation. The Spirit's liberty is for bearing new fruit! The Holy Spirit uses freedom to yield something new in us! Have you ever heard of Alcoholics Anonymous? Once a week recovering alcoholics gather to support one another in their struggle with the bottle. If you ask an AA member, they will tell you that they were slaves to the bottle, slaves! Now thanks to their higher power they have been freed, transformed. Alcoholics don't so much need freedom to choose. Hardly! Apart from their higher power, they will choose the bottle every time. Rather alcoholics need to be freed to change. How much more is that true of the freedom the Spirit gives. No wonder Paul lists the fruit of the Spirit the way he does: "Love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control." Freedom, therefore, comes from a Spirit whose fruit begins with love and ends with self-control. Freedom, Paul says, is the product of the Spirit whose work in us transforms our very selves. The Holy Spirit doesn't so much give us the freedom to choose, as the freedom to be changed! Perhaps now, therefore, we can do away with the pernicious myth that God is only interested in giving us advice for living the lives we have already chosen. How does the new bumper sticker go? "If God is your co-pilot, it's time to switch seats." True enough! For the Spirit's freedom is not about the power to choose, but being empowered to change. The Spirit's liberty is about bearing new Fruit. In the Spirit, freedom is for transformation.
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So where does this transformed freedom lead? With Christ, right back to our neighbors. Freedom in Christ is for the sake of others. We aren't just freed to choose; we are freed to love neighbors. Of course, we should have seen it coming. Didn't Christ show us the way already? Christ did not shoulder the cross for money, not for glory -- and certainly not for prestige. He took it up for our sakes -- and for the whole world. He did not exercise His freedom by picking and choosing desirable outcomes -- or even the objects of His concern. Christ exercised His freedom by being crucified for the whole world. Christ's freedom was cruciform -- His arms opened wide on the cross for a whole world of neighbors. His freedom was for the sake of others.
Perhaps some of you have seen the old movie,
Guess Who's Coming to Dinner. It is a 1960s era film starring Spencer Tracy and Sidney Poitier. In the movie two families are forced to wrestle with the fact that their children are marrying cross-racially. Their parents are upset with their choice of fiance. Why? Well, he is not exactly the one her parents would have chosen to break bread with. She is not the one his folks would have picked to sit at the family table either.
Listen brothers and sisters in Christ. Real freedom is not exercising the power to choose who our dinner companions will be. Christian freedom is the power to love. To live freely amid the petty slaveries of our world -- to love with abandon across our pitiful human barriers. That is freedom! That is Christian freedom! Why do you suppose we gather at the communion table this morning? Certainly not because we have carefully chosen our dinner partners. Hardly! But because at the table we already show forth what God intends for the whole world in Christ: a transformed humanity where all are welcome in Christ's name.
How does the old saying go?: "You can't choose your relatives." True enough. Yet we who call ourselves by Christ's name also cannot choose the objects of our love. For Christ frees us not to choose, but to love. In Christ we are freed for our neighbors' sake. Christian freedom is not the power to choose, but the power to love.
So imagine that! Freedom is more than my right to decide. Freedom in Christ is God's gift for neighbor love. Now that changes everything After all, our desperate world needs us to share Christ's freedom to love in our homes, at city hall and in the marketplace. So what do you say? This Fourth of July let Christian freedom ring. Let it ring!
