Past Sermon

Sermon Title: "Freedom in Christ"
Date: July 1, 2007
Minister: Rev. Charles E. Ensley, Jr.

Lesson:  Galatians 5:1, 13-25

When I selected this sermon title and scripture text some three weeks ago, I had no idea of how my trip to Massachusetts and Connecticut would inform the topic.  Here’s a brief overview, not in the order of our travels, but in chronological order of history.

We spent several days in Plymouth, Massachusetts where the Congregational forebears of our denomination arrived on the Mayflower in 1620.  We visited the recreated Plimoth Plantation, where docents in costume speak only as they did in that generation.  We toured Mayflower II, which is marking its 50th anniversary this year, same as the United Church of Christ.

A History channel movie, Dangerous Crossing, depicts the plight of the early 17th century Separatists as they broke away from the Church of England to worship in a plainer fashion, and less like the state religion which seemed to them too close to the Roman Catholic Church.  They fled to Leyden, Holland first, but were persecuted there, before the returned to England.  Desiring the freedom to worship God as they deemed fit, 102 of them set sail for the New World aboard that little ship.  You probably know half of the group died that first harsh winter.  And the first Thanksgiving as we picture it was nothing like that.  It was rather a harvest festival, with 90 native people showing up not so much by invitation, but to demonstrate their numbers versus the decimated Pilgrim survivors.

Our Congregational forebears would likely not sanction our style of worship today, thinking it too much like what they fled in England.  In their worship practices, they recognized only the Sabbath, thanksgiving for harvest, and calls to repentance.  No Christmas Eve candlelight services or Easter celebrations.  Truth be told, they were not as tolerant of others as they had wished others in England had been to them.

Over the past two Sundays, we worshipped at two historic United Churches of Christ that date back to the 1600s.  Last Sunday, we worshipped at the First Church of Christ in Hartford, Connecticut, founded in 1632 by Thomas Hooker, just 12 years after the Pilgrims arrived.  That congregation is celebrating their 375th anniversary this year; and we think we have history at 82 years old!

The previous Sunday we worshipped at Old South Church at Copley Square in Boston, gathered in 1669.  Did you know it was some of our Congregational forebears who were responsible for dumping the tea in the Boston Harbor, a prelude to the Revolutionary War?  Again, these were people looking for freedom to worship and to govern their own land as they deemed appropriate.

In Hartford, the Old State House was the site of the first Amistad trial in 1839, in which Congregationalists organized to free captive slaves.  Former president John Quincy Adams, a Congregationalist, later in 1841 successfully argued before the U.S. Supreme Court to free the kidnapped slaves brought over from Africa.

Finally, we toured the Hartford home of author Harriet Beecher Stowe.  She was the daughter of the famous firebrand 18th century Congregational preacher Lyman Beecher.  One of eleven children, all seven of her brothers became Congregational ministers.  Her father said he would give $100 if Harriet could have been a male so she could be a minister, something denied to women at that time.  (Our denomination was later the first to ordain a woman in 1853.)  Yet Harriet probably did more good than all her minister brothers combined when she wrote Uncle Tom’s Cabin, whose overwhelming success contributed to the abolitionist movement in the United States and the eventual end of slavery. 

In was in the midst of this historical religious and cultural milieu that we found ourselves in the past two weeks as we joined with 9,000 other members of the United Church of Christ to celebrate the 50th anniversary of this denomination which, with its Congregational roots and influence in this country, obviously goes back nearly four centuries to the Pilgrims.  And underscoring all of this, at least in my mind, was the freedom of people to worship Christ as they deemed fit.

The Apostle Paul addressed much this same issue nineteen centuries ago in his letter to the Galatians, a progressive argument against a strong group of Jewish officials who felt the early Christians were obligated to follow the Mosaic Law dictated by Moses.  Chapter five begins with Paul declaring that the Galatians should not be forced to submit to circumcision—in other words, become a Jew before becoming a Christian.  The Jewish insistence that this ritual be observed, Paul contends, flies in the face of Christian freedom.  Paul declares that Christ’s gift to all his disciples is true freedom.  Paul affirms that this freedom in Christ is a deliverance from the “yoke of slavery.”

Does this mean a Christian is free to do anything and everything he or she wishes?  I’m afraid not.  “For what the flesh desires is opposed to the Spirit…to prevent you from doing what you want,” Paul writes. (5:17)  Then he catalogs a whole list of vices, among them “impurity, licentiousness, idolatry, sorcery…”, where one satisfies oneself, often at the expense of another.  He reminds them of the one law above all they should follow:  “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.”

He then tells them the virtues by which they should live, the fruit of the Spirit, conveniently listed in that middle window:  love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control.  “There’s no law against such things,” says Paul.  There’s absolutely no regulation against having too much joy, being far too patient, showing excessive generosity.  When was the last time someone came up to you and said, “Would you please stop being so loving, joyful, peaceful and patient”?  We don’t have this problem because we’re timid about using the freedom we have been given. 

Unlimited freedom to be followers of Christ—that’s the amazing gift we are given when Jesus sets us free from everything that we give way to that makes us a slave to sin.  Sadly, this unlimited freedom is a gift that some are unwilling to use.

This week of the Fourth of July it’s time to show our independence and unleash some good works on the world around us.  Time to focus on “the fruit of the Spirit” instead of “the desires of the flesh.”  Time to uncork some love, joy, peace, patience, kindness and generosity.

Bernie Siegel, the author of several books including Peace, Love and Healing, recommends that we ask ourselves “How would I behave if I were a loving person?” and then act that way.  Identify a role model, and then imitate that person.

“I follow Don Quixote,” says Siegel.  “I view the world with love.  I tell people to experiment with this.  Judge no one you meet for the next 24 hours.  Love everyone you meet and see.  It’s incredible how that changes your relationship with people .…  When you judge everybody — he’s lazy, he’s no good, he only wants money, he doesn’t care about me — you project that, and you affect those people.  When I walk around being loving, it’s incredible how people respond.”

Love.  Joy.  Peace.  Patience.  Kindness.  Generosity.  All these are gifts that can be unleashed on the world, because we have been given unlimited freedom to go crazy with good works!  This may not sound much like our puritanical Pilgrim forebears, but it’s what we as Christians want to be about in the world today.