Sermon: Ordinary 15 on Romans 8

July 10, 2011
Psalm 119:105-112
Romans 8:1-11

Freedom From & Freedom For

Freedom: one simple word that connotes a number of images and perhaps emotions. Still getting used to Texas, I sometimes fantasize about freedom from this heat. This wasn’t the warm welcome I anticipated. But, I’m digressing.

Freedom was front and center on Monday. On Monday we celebrated Independence Day. Perhaps you marked it with a day off from work, taking time to enjoy the Lakewood neighborhood parade, have a family gathering, or watch fireworks. It wasn’t until I lived in Philadelphia that I really paused to reflect on what Independence Day truly signified. Walking around Liberty Mall past the liberty bell, Independence Hall, and the constitution center, you can’t help but feel and see the history that marked our nation’s beginning and formation.

On July 2, 1776 The Continental Congress formally adopted the Declaration of Independence, on July 4 they proclaimed their Declaration to the city of Philadelphia. As many of you know, the journey to that independence was not without challenge and the declaration of independence on July 4 not without consequence. Rejecting England and her authority was treason.

As our nation was birthed, freedom came to signify new governance: democracy resulting in shared authority by the people and for the people. Freedom…the power to speak, act, or think as one wants without hindrance or restraint. Freedom is woven into the frabric of our life and culture here in the United States.

Novelist, Jonathan Franzen reflects on this theme of freedom in his new bestselling novel, Freedom. Spoiler alert, Franzen is a realist, preferring to write about the broken and the beautiful through the lens of a dysfunctional family. Some might find his writing depressing.

Patty Berglund is the main character in Freedom. A Minnesota native, Patty is a star All-American basketball player who peaks in college and then slowly declines. Patty marries Walter Berglund, a do-good environmentalist lawyer. Together, Patty and Walter are urban pioneers. The Berglund’s renovate an old Victorian house in the gentrifying neighborhood of Ramsey Hill, St. Paul Minnesota. Patty is the affable neighbor who is prone to bringing you cookies, or watching your kids in a pinch. Walter bikes to work each day, and is noted in the neighborhood for his friendliness and care for the environment. Patty and Walter raise a daughter and son in a closely knit sphere. And then things slowly fall apart.

Freedom in the instance of the Berglund family is defined in part as freedom from.

Freedom from responsibility, freedom from what they think traps them…routine, urban sprawl, rules, morality… As each character explores the temtptations and burdens of freedeom each person in the family spirals downward. For the most part, their freedom is defined out of tormented self-interest.

Freedom takes a twist as the story unfolds. Freedom from another produces conflict and other serious consequences. Patty and Walter’s marriage falls apart as they become more independent. Each character, major and minor compromises their integrity.

Patty slips into depression. Walter goes off the deep end with a new job and finally breaks up their marriage. Each character’s individual freedom threatens the freedom of the other and the result is literally and metaphorically death.
Freedom twists and turns each character out of control, destroying them and their family. Freedom from another without boundaries turns out to be devastating.

Paul explores the theme of freedom throughout Romans. Remember, Paul wrote this letter to the new faith community in Rome. Rome was the seat of tremendous economic and political power, with leaders who were revered as gods. The Romans struggled with who they were in relationship to God, and they also struggled to be in relationship with one another.

Much like us, they were trying to figure out their life in relationship to following in the way of Christ. The culture and community was changing rapidly before their eyes. And in the midst, they were trying to figure out what their faith had to do with it. Sound familiar?

So, Paul writes them a letter taking into account cultural references and philosophies, specifically Greek philosophy Platonism and Stoicism. This letter is unique from some of Paul’s other letter in that the argument he’s making about God’s grace, ethics, and the Christian life is cumulative. (Ball of yarn analogy.)

Romans 8 comes immediately after Paul has described the human condition in chapter 7. He ends with a question: who will save us from our wretched captivity to the power of sin? The response is Paul’s understanding of grace.

But, Paul being Paul doesn’t tell a story to illuminate grace and its freedom, instead he continues with rhetoric, building his case, weaving in ideas he developed before. He begins with this thesis in verse 1: “There is no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has set you free from the law of sin and of death.”

Paul doesn’t stop there. Paul chooses to make this point about grace and freedom by setting up a dichotomy.

The dichotomy is this: the way of the flesh and the way of the Spirit. Think of the way of the flesh as shorthand for the way of the world apart from God. Let’s be clear, Paul cannot imagine any form of human life or community without the body. He’s not a Gnostic who wants us to ignore the body, or thinks we must disconnect from our humanity. Recall he talks about being the body of Christ later on in Romans 12.

The way of the flesh could be Pauline shorthand for living a life independent, or separate from God. The way of the flesh is primarily self-interested, consumed with worshipping and idolizing things that are not God.

Paul contrasts this way of the flesh with the way of the Spirit, the way of God. And as for sin, Paul doesn’t mean individual moral failings, but something larger and more pervasive. According to his argument earlier, sin is a power that resides in the world and in us and brings estrangement from God, from others, and from God’s creation.

Let’s focus again on verse 1 of chapter 8. “There is therefore no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.” Through the self-giving love of Jesus God decisively bridges the chasm or separation between us and God.

Eugene Peterson’s translation of Romans 8:5-8 from The Message clarifies this point:
5-8Those who think they can do it on their own end up obsessed with measuring their own moral muscle but never get around to exercising it in real life. Those who trust God's action in them find that God's Spirit is in them—living and breathing God! Obsession with self in these matters is a dead end; attention to God leads us out into the open, into a spacious, free life. Focusing on the self is the opposite of focusing on God. Anyone completely absorbed in self ignores God, ends up thinking more about self than God. That person ignores who God is and what God is doing. And God isn't pleased at being ignored.
.
The good news is that there is freedom not only from the sin that binds us, but also freedom for service to God, to others, and to creation. God sent Jesus Christ to all of creation and we are free. This freedom is grace…a free gift that comes first before we can even ask for it.

We are free from the power of sin, and we’re free to live for God. We are free for a life in the Spirit, a life following the living and moving God. We are free for a life of serving God and others.

This freedom is the antithesis to the one described in Jonathan Franzen’s novel. It is not merely freedom from sin, but freedom for following God into the world.
But, I have the sneaking suspicion that we doubt Paul’s claim. We don’t embrace this freedom fully, which is why the disintegration of Peggy and Warren and their self-interested freedom isn’t pure fiction, it’s reality. We just confessed the reality of separation from God during our prayer of confession. You see, while we are free for living in the way of God, the way of the world is appealing. We’d prefer to call our own shots, thank you very much.

You see, I think you and I are insecure about this freedom… I’m sure you can name to yourself one thing that binds you. You and I have at least one regret that we wear like a snail shell. You might feel inadequate, unworthy…You hold onto it tightly…not quite ready to be free from it, and as a result we live timidly in response to the Spirit.

Henry David Thoreau was on to this aspect of our human condition when he wrote, “Most people* lead lives of quiet desperation and go to the grave with the song still in them.”

Writer Anne Lamott recounts a season in her life when she was living in quiet desperation in her memoir, Traveling Mercies. Struggling with alcoholism, pregnant out of wedlock, homeless, but living with a friend. Anne carried around with her regrets like a snailshell, bound to them.

Each Sunday Anne likes to wander through the flea market looking at art work, junk, and ethnic food. If she happened to be there around 11am she could hear music coming from a church right across the street, St. Andrews Presbyterian Church.
The music was so pretty that Anne began stopping to listen. She knew a lot of the hymns from her childhood. She began standing in the doorway, and then sat in the back of church. She always left right before the sermon. But,she was welcomed just as she was.

She writes, “somehow the singing wore down all the boundaries and distinctions that kept me so isolated. Sitting there, standing with them tossing, I felt bigger than myself, like I was being taken care of…” Slowly Anne experienced freedom from what bound her and found freedom for, dependence on God, something other than herself.

She continues,“ When I was at the end of my rope, the people at St. Andrew tied a knot in it for me and helped me hold on… The people at St. Andrew’s Presbyterian church are people in community who pray or practice their faith. They follow a brighter light than the glimmer of their own candle; they are part of something beautiful.”

With time, Anne discovered grace was already at work in her life, and she was free for dependence on God, on the body of Christ.

To be in Christ is to be free from sin and free for connection to God’s grace and power. To be in Christ is to be free to do so much more than we could on our own. This freedom is an invitation to live fully for others, carrying God’s love into this world.


Sometime this week take out 2 pieces of paper. Write down what are you free from? What regret, what sin, what inadequacy, what old grudge binds you? Fold it up and throw it away.

And, on the second piece of paper write what you are free for. What deed might you dare to do? What challenge will you accept? Who will you love? What act of courage and generosity will you embark on knowing that you are free from the power of sin and death and free for life in the Spirit?

Hold onto it. Come back to it. Pray about it.

We are in the midst of summer. Summer, a season that signifies freedom from routine, freedom from school. Summer, a season that contains freedom for rest and renewal. Mary Oliver wrote a poem called The Summer Day. In it she asks, “Tell me, what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?”

I ask you, “What will you do with your one wild and precious life now that there is no condemnation?”

In the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.