"It is for Freedom" | The Rev. Heidi Thorsen | February 7, 2021
“It is for Freedom,” sermon by the Rev. Heidi Thorsen
Epiphany 5b - February 7, 2021
Isaiah 40:21-31 | 1 Corinthians 9:16-23 | Mark 1:29-39 | Psalm 147:1-12, 21c
Set us free, O God, from the bondage of our sins, and give us the liberty of that abundant life which you have made known to us in your Son our Savior Jesus Christ; who lives and reigns with you, in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen.
If I were to ask anyone at Trinity, anyone on this Zoom call, anyone who considers themself a Christian who walks in the way of Jesus - if I were to ask anyone of these people “what is the virtue that Christian life is based on” I think the answer would be pretty much the same. I think the answer would be: love. We read about it all the time in Scripture. Love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your mind, and with all your strength. Love your neighbor as yourself. God is love. These three things abide: faith, hope, and love. And the greatest of these is love. Love, love, love. Love is all we need! And love indeed is our compass. Love is our guide for everyday living. Love is the way through the wilderness of Lent that is coming. Love is our saving grace through this pandemic.
And yet, on this particular Sunday, I can’t help but think of another virtue - another value that is ubiquitous in our Christian faith, though we don’t talk about it as often. This morning, I want to talk about freedom. Freedom. Freedom is key throughout Scripture - throughout the story of God’s love for us. It is so much a precondition of love, that we often don’t even recognize it. And yet freedom is there, present at the heart of it all. Freedom is the reason God let Adam and Eve choose to eat from the tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil. Freedom is the reason that God leads the People of Israel out of bondage in Egypt. Freedom lingers throughout the Israelites’ experience of exile in the Hebrew Scriptures, and the prophetic longing for the messiah. Freedom is present in the ministry of Jesus Christ. As Paul writes in the letter to the Galatians: it is for freedom that Christ has set us free (Galatians 5:1).
Why am I thinking of freedom today? Perhaps it is because I am recently recovered from COVID-19. Having spent ten days in quarantine, during the period in which I was potentially contagious to others, and having spent a similar amount of days coping with chills, exhaustion, and other symptoms of the disease - I can say that freedom sounds so good when you are sick. Freedom sounds like health, and energy, and a breath of fresh air. Freedom sounds like being able to smell and taste again.
I want to say, first of all, that I was so moved by the prayers, the notes of concern, and yes the care packages of soup and cookies that were dropped at my door. My experience of being sick is truly a testament to how our community at Trinity is knit together by love and mutual concern. If you are brave enough to share what weighs on your bodies and souls, I know that there is someone in this community that will care for you.
Freedom is on my mind this morning - and not just because I have been sick, but also because of our lectionary readings for this week. If you take a close look you will notice that many of our readings for today reflect the importance of freedom in our spiritual lives.
First, in the reading from Isaiah 40 - which we did not read due to keeping things short for online worship, but which I highly recommend nevertheless - the prophet Isaiah describes how powerful, how wonderful our creator God is. Towards the end of the passage Isaiah talks about how it is God who gives power to the faint; it is God who strengthens the powerless. The passage concludes with these words of pure poetry: “those who wait for the LORD shall renew their strength, they shall mount up with wings like eagles, they shall run and not be weary, they shall walk and not faint.” What a beautiful image. Imagine yourself mounting up with wings like eagles. Surely that is what freedom feels like. And God wishes that kind of freedom on each one of us.
Next, consider our reading from the first letter of Paul to the Corinthians. Paul describes a very nuanced kind of freedom when he writes: “For though I am free with respect to all, I have made myself a slave to all, so that I might win more of them. To the Jews I became as a Jew, in order to win Jews. To those under the law I became as one under the law (though I myself am not under the law) so that I might win those under the law…. I have become all things to all people, that I might by all means save some. I do it for the sake of the gospel, so that I may share in its blessings.” This, too, is a kind of freedom. While it might not be as glorious as the freedom of an eagle hovering on the wind, the kind of freedom Paul talks about is still a deep, deep kind of freedom. It is the freedom to commit. The freedom to choose what we bind ourselves to. The reality is this: complete and utter freedom is basically meaningless. If we were free to do whatever we liked, but have no sense of what is worthwhile, then what is the point? Instead, we have freedom in Christ - and it is a kind of freedom to choose what we commit to. And what Paul chooses to commit to is people - Paul chooses to commit to meeting people where they are at, much as Jesus meets us where we are at. I know that, for me, Jesus is the anchor that I choose, the tether that I choose, with the freedom God has given me. It is the example of Jesus - in particular the love of God, shown in the person of Jesus - that gives me a sense of purpose and meaning. Once again, love and freedom go hand in hand. Though we might think of love first when we think of the Gospel, freedom is right there too; right alongside it.
Finally, we turn to our gospel passage for today - an account of Jesus healing and casting out demons early on in his ministry in the Gospel of Mark. Although the word “freedom” is never mentioned explicitly, the longing for freedom is still woven throughout this passage. I have already talked at length about how sickness reminds me so much of the importance of freedom - and at the very beginning of this passage, Jesus heals. Jesus reaches out to Simon’s mother-in-law, who has been in bed with a fever for God knows how long, and he lifts her up and heals her. Along with this healing, Simon’s mother in law is free to act - and so, she immediately begins to serve them. While it chafes, briefly, on my modern sensibilities to read about the woman of the house getting up so quickly to serve others - I have to remember that this is how freedom works. Freedom empowers us to want to do things; to commit ourselves to actions with meaning and purpose. Much like Paul in the first letter to the Corinthians, freedom for Simon’s mother-in-law involves commitment - choosing to serve others. And yet, in this gospel passage, there is also a slight hint about how freedom can sometimes mean going against the rules - as Jesus clearly re-evaluates the rules of Jewish faith to heal Simon’s mother-in-law on the sabbath.
Further on in the passage, we see Jesus continuing his ministry of healing and casting out demons. Jesus is particularly fond of casting out demons in the gospel of Mark - and we might talk at length about what exactly demons are, and what that ministry means. However, to keep it simple today, it strikes me that casting out demons is also an image of freedom. People are set free from the spirits that bind them. And these spirits are set free from whatever binds them to these people. Jesus heals, and Jesus casts out demons, because Jesus wants people to be free. It is for freedom Christ has set us free.
Finally, towards the end of this gospel passage, we see how important freedom is to Jesus’ own spiritual well-being. After healing many people, Jesus goes away to a deserted place to pray. The disciples follow after him - in this particular translation, it says they hunted for him. This seems like a particularly apt translation of the original Greek word, διώκω which can mean “to pursue” or “to seek after,” but can also mean “to drive away” or “to persecute.” With this verb, we get the distinct sense that the needs of the people are crushing in around Jesus. “Everyone is searching for you” - the disciples say. We can feel the exhaustion in this passage. The claustrophobic press of people’s longing for Jesus’ teaching; for Jesus’ healing.
And then - Jesus does a surprising thing. He doesn’t return to the crowds, who are eagerly searching for him. Instead, he decides to move on. “Let us go on to the neighboring towns, so that I may proclaim the message there also;” Jesus says, “for that is what I came out to do.”
In this moment, Jesus’ very ministry is set free. The message that Jesus brings cannot be restricted to any single group of people, no matter their need. The message that Jesus brings must travel onward, into the neighboring towns and beyond. For while the disciples may have been thinking of the community they were leaving, when they said, “Everyone is searching for you,” they were unwittingly revealing a bigger truth than they realized - that everyone is searching for Jesus. Not just in that town, at that time - but across great distances, and across generations, even up to this time and this place where we find ourselves searching for Jesus today. And while it might seem callous that Jesus left that particular group of people behind, we might reflect on the greater gift that Jesus gave in leaving them. Jesus was committing to a ministry that was not bound to a particular time, or place, or person. Rather Jesus continued on his journey, a journey that leads him all the way to Jerusalem, to death on a cross - in order that Jesus might reveal to us a plan for salvation that is unbound by time and place. A plan for salvation that applies not just to people in Galilee in the first century, but to us today. A plan for salvation that is love set free.
Is is for freedom that Christ has set us free. Yes, freedom. That value that we have too often associated with our national life, as Americans, making it into a kind of idol. Freedom, the value that we don’t talk about enough in terms of our Christian faith. And yet we would not experience the love of God without freedom. Freedom to make our own choices. Freedom to repent from our sins. Freedom to commit to the things that really matter - things like caring for one another, caring for this world that God has given us, and ensuring that everyone in this world has an equal chance to experience the freedom that God intends for us.
It might be a little bit heartbreaking to talk about freedom these days - in this year of lockdowns, and quarantines, and mask mandates, and sickness. And yet it is important to remember that sometimes the greatest form of freedom is an expression of commitment - a commitment to love and care for one another. Even in the slightly narrowed framework of our lives these days, there are opportunities for freedom. There are corners of our hearts that are locked away, that might be set free by a deep conversation with a friend - or a deep conversation with God. There are aspects of all of our lives where we feel like we are constantly hitting against a wall - and we need wisdom, serenity, and courage to free our minds from the patterns of hopelessness that bind us. I pray that God would meet each one of us in those locked up, walled up places. I pray that God would unlock our expectation of who we ought to be, and free us to be true to ourselves and one another. And I pray that our faith would inspire us to seek liberation - not our for ourselves, but for all people. For all of creation.
As you move through the coming week, remember the words of our collect for the day - words that I prayed at the beginning of this sermon, and words that we will pray again, before our service is over:
Set us free, O God, from the bondage of our sins, and give us the liberty of that abundant life which you have made known to us in your Son our Savior Jesus Christ; who lives and reigns with you, in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen.