Tag: Command

Free to Love

Psalm 13:5-6 5 But I put my trust in your mercy; my heart is joyful because of your saving help.  I will sing to God, for God has dealt with me richly; I will praise the Name of God Most High.

Introduction

Let’s review what’s transpired thus far in our journey through Romans:

In Romans 4 we learned that justification, according to Paul, is by faith alone apart from (any) work. Faith anchors into the promise of God (which was given before the law). According to Paul, Abraham trusted the promise of God, and this is what justifies Abraham. Faith in the promises of God justifies because believing God’s promises ascribes to God the honor due God: trustworthiness and worthy to be believed. From faith comes the doing of the law—remember, the law was given as means to assist God’s people in the world toward their neighbor, it was never meant to be worshipped. However, eventually the law eclipsed love in that it ceased to serve the people and the people began to serve the law—love was held in captivity to law. Thus, according to Paul, the law’s impact is known in its wrath, because we only feel the law when we break it—because the reward won’t come until the law is completed/fulfilled (thus, why we cannot be justified by our works because we need to do them all the time). However, Paul says, “[Jesus] was handed over on account of our trespasses and was raised up for the sake of our justification” (v.25). Thus, it is all by faith and trust; and in this way Abraham becomes (truly) the elder of many nations and through him they are blessed (no matter their culture and context, time and tense).

In Romans 5 we saw that, for Paul, being justified by faith yokes the believer to God’s peace. This peace comes with faith and is eternal because it is assured and secured by God and not by our actions and works. Thus, we can come close to God, be one with God, love God for God’s sake and not love God or use God as a means to an end. Also, God’s peace brings us peace with our neighbor whom we can love without a why or wherefore (without using them). And, finally, by faith and God’s peace we are given peace with ourselves because we are loved by a God who has demonstrated God’s deep solidarity with us in our worst plight: condemnation and death. When we should’ve received what we deserved because of our inability to judge rightly—the reason Jesus went to the cross—God loved us and demonstrated it through Jesus’s resurrection which secured for us the knowledge that God loves us no matter what and will not forsake us even when we do the worst! (I.e., try to kill God).

Now last week we looked at the first part of Romans 6, and we discussed our liberation from the condemnation of sin.[1] If Jesus was handed over on account of our trespasses, then for us to return to sin’s domination (whether by means of obeying to achieve something or by means of breaking it just because we can or by ignoring sin) is to deny Christ his work on the cross, it is to side-step the event of the cross and to tell God that God isn’t needed (this is the opposite of bringing God honor and glory, the antithesis of declaring God to be trustworthy). Also, in focusing on our sins, we forsake our justification by faith because we do not trust God that God has dealt with it. Thus, according to Paul, we are to be “dead” to sin… not that we do not sin—Christians sin until the end of time, says Luther—but that it does not exert control over us. And as we discussed last Sunday, there are two ways sin can re-exert control over us: by focusing on it by means of strict obedience (as if it is the only word) and by breaking it just ‘cuz. So, instead, Paul exhorts, just live, live as those liberated from sin and are imperfect, because otherwise we will return to being closed in on ourselves.

Now, this week…staying in Romans 6, Paul writes,

Romans 6:12-23

Therefore, let not sin reign over your mortal body (σώματι) in order to obey its inordinate desire, and do not present your limbs as weapons of injustice for sin, but present yourself to God as the living out of the dead and present your limbs as weapons of righteousness for God. For sin will not have authority over you; for you are not under the law but under grace. What therefore? May we sin because we are not under law but under grace? May it not come to be! [2]

Rom. 6:12-15

As Paul moves through chapter 6 of Romans, he brings the discussion of the law and sin down to a personal level: our own bodies. So, if you’re feeling a bit attacked, don’t worry… you’re being attacked. Once again, we are confronted with the problem of intention, but this time it’s bodily intention. Last week we were looking at the inner intention, and now we are looking at outer intention. What we do with our bodies matters, says Paul. Just as we are to be dead to sin—not letting it have control and condemnation over us—we are also not to actively let sin reign over our bodies causing us to obey sin’s inordinate desires. We are not to spend our intellectual/emotional/spiritual time consumed with sin—by being consumed with not sinning, intentionally sinning, or ignoring it completely as if one does not sin. And we’re not to submit our bodies to sin, either. So Paul exhorts us to allow our bodies to become not only a site of liberation (for ourselves) but also the site in which faith manifests itself in love in service to the neighbor which is glory to God.

The juxtaposition of “under law” and “under grace” is important. Harkening back to what was discussed in chapter 4 of Romans, the believer is no longer under the law but under grace because the believer is justified by faith apart from works of the law. Thus, as we serve our neighbor it is done out of faith manifesting in love for the neighbor as the neighbor rather than as a means to fulfill the law—this would be putting primacy of place to the law.[3] So, Paul exhorts us to bring our body (the outer nature, corporate and personal) in line with our souls (inner nature, corporate and personal) in service to the neighbor for the neighbor’s sake which does, in fact, bring glory to God. As we know from Jesus, to love the neighbor is to love God and to love God is to love the neighbor, and not merely abstractly or confessionally but in practical reality, materially (orthopraxy born of orthodoxy). Thus we love as we have first been loved.

Once again, though, Paul reminds us about our intention: do we allow our limbs to be used as weapons of injustice just because we can? Should we use our limbs as weapons of injustice by focusing on ourselves and our adherence to the law at the expense of the neighbor? Should we just ignore our limbs, pretending they are useless considering we’re justified by faith? (This is another way to serve injustice through our inactivity toward justice.) Μὴ γένοιτο! For Paul, this intention leads to death; to serve the law for the law’s sake keeps one in the grip of sin, which is (bluntly) being turned in on the self. If you are trying to make yourself right or justified or good through obedience to the law, you are of no use to your neighbor because you cannot see them through the demand of the law and desire to make yourself right by your actions. Being concerned with only yourself is not freedom because you cannot be free when you are trying to serve the law for the law’s sake because you are held captive by the law and thus also by condemnation of sin; you are stuck (dead) in your trespasses. You might as well be dead man walking.[4]

However, says Paul, we were recreated in the event of justification by faith in God (trusting in God and believing God’s promises) through Jesus Christ by the power of the Holy Spirit. So, where we were once slaves to the law, sin, and (thus) death, we are now slaves to promise, righteousness, and life (Rom 6:17-18). However, this does not mean we are without the law (lawless, τὴν ἀνομίαν), rather the law is in our service, in service to love and not the other way around. We must use the law to guide our bodies, to bring them in alignment to our inner nature, and to spread God’s love, life and liberation to our neighbor,[5] especially those who are still held captive in unjust and death dealing structures, systems, institutions (visible and invisible), and ideologies. This is Christian sanctification: to love God and to love the neighbor in freedom and responsibility to the benefit of the cosmos.[6]

Conclusion

I will close with a quote from Gustavo Gutierrez’s text A Theology of Liberation,

…St. Paul asserts not only that Christ liberated us; he also tells us that he did it in order that we might be free. Free for what? Free to love. ‘In the language of the Bible,’ writes Bonhoeffer, ‘freedom is not something [one] has for [themself] but something [they have] for others….It is not a possession, a presence, an object,…but a relationship and nothing else. In truth, freedom is a relationship between two persons. Being free means ‘being free for the other,’ because the other has bound me to [them]. Only in relationship with the other am I free.’ The freedom to which we are called presupposes the going out of oneself, the breaking down of our selfishness and of all the structures that support our selfishness; the foundation of this freedom is openness to others. The fullness of liberation—a free gift from Christ—is communion with God and with other [people].[7]

Gutierrez, Theology of Liberation

[1] Remember that the word translated as “sin” can also mean “missing the mark”.

[2] Translation mine unless otherwise noted.

[3] LW 25, 316. “For those people understand the expression ‘to be under the Law’ as being the same as having a law according to which one must live. But the apostle understands the words ‘to be under the Law’ as equivalent to not fulfilling the Law, as being guilty of disobeying the Law, as being a debtor and a transgressor, in that the Law has the power of accusing and damning a person and lording it over him, but it does not have the power to enable him to satisfy the Law or overcome it. And thus as long as the Law rules, sin also has dominion and holds man captive.”

[4] LW 25, 317. “Sin is the sting or power of death, through which death is powerful and holds dominion, as above in chapter 5:12 ff.: ‘death through sin’ etc. But the Law is the power or strength of sin, through which sin remains and holds dominion. And from this dominion of the Law and sin no one can be liberated except through Christ…”

[5] LW 25, 317. “For the wisdom of the flesh is opposed to the Word of God, but the Word of God is immutable and insuperable. Therefore God, but the Word of God is immutable and insuperable. Therefore it is necessary that the wisdom of the flesh be changed and that it give up its form and take on the form of the Word. This takes place when through faith it takes itself captive and strips off its own crown, conforms itself to the word, and believes the word to be true and itself to be false.”

[6] LW 25, 321. “For through the terms ‘sanctification’ and ‘cleanness’ he is trying to convey the same concept, namely, that the body should be pure, but not with jut any find of purity, but with that which comes from within, form the spirit of sanctifying faith.”

[7] Gustavo Gutierrez, A Theology of Liberation: History, Politics and Salvation. Trans Sister Caridad Inda and john Eagleson. Maryknoll, NY: Orbis, 1973. Ed 5th. Original: Teologia de la liberacion, Perspectivas Lima: CEP, 1971. (p. 36

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Are You Free?

Sermon on 1 Cor 8:1-13

Psalm 111:1-3 Hallelujah! I will give thanks to the Lord with my whole heart, in the assembly of the upright, in the congregation. Great are the deeds of the Lord! they are studied by all who delight in them. His work is full of majesty and splendor, and his righteousness endures for ever.

Introduction

I was taken with the idea that love never participated with law. I was deeply invested in pursuing what seemed a clear and eternal divergence between divine command and promise, following closely to a specific reading of Martin Luther’s theology—the distinction between law and gospel. In this scheme, to be in a loving relationship with someone else means never making any demands on them. Here, Love is about creating space for that person to be as they are wherever they are whenever they are; this was the liberty of God’s grace, the freedom in Christ: true rest from the demands to “perform” and “people please” and “earn righteousness through work” and thus “true life”. While some of these ideas find some grounding (albeit with intentional nuancing), the underbelly of this theology wasn’t rest, freedom, and life but increased suffering, burden, and death. Well, it was rest for one group and toil for everyone else not in that group.

Then one day as I stood in a large church auditorium like sanctuary, watching a video of people talking about the liberative experience of this specific interpretation of God’s love and grace, I saw it. It was the last video. A married couple was sharing their story. The husband spoke about how wonderful this conception of grace was because now he comes home from work and there is no expectation on him to help with the kids or other events, he can rest if he wants to—fall back on the couch, kick shoes off, grab a beer, and watch some tv. Then the camera turned to the wife. “Yeah…,” she said half-heartedly. “It’s great because now when he helps, he wants to.” While her words affirmed her husband’s experience, her face and her eyes told me everything I needed to know. She was not free. She was not rested. She was exhausted, burdened, and suffering by being stripped of any ability to ask for help and to confess pain and discomfort because it would be “law” to him and thus “condemnation.” She was dead. When you see death, you can never unsee death.

That image—her face, her desperate eyes—fuels my academic and pastoral pursuits now as I’ve walked away from that destructive theology.[1] Liberty and freedom in Christ brings liberty and freedom to all and not at the expense of another’s body, mind, soul, and spirit. A relationship is only loving and free where both people in the relationship are mutually engaged in each other’s thriving not in turning a blind eye to things. Where both step into the exposing light of love calling a thing what it is and are willing to do self-reckoning work.

1 Corinthians 8:8-13

Now, “food of any kind will not prove us to God.” Neither if we do not eat are we lacking, nor if we eat are we over and above. But discern carefully this power to act of yours does not become a stumbling block for the weak.

1 Corinthians 8:8-9, translation mine

Paul proclaimed that the believer is justified by faith in Christ (ευαγελλιον) apart from works of the law. She need only faith in Christ, and this becomes the sole foundation of her justification and righteousness with God—there are no works of the law that can justify or make righteous as completely as faith does. Thus, the believer is liberated from the threat of condemnation and death that leads to death and is now free to love God and neighbor. There is nothing that can or will separate her from the love (presence) of God—not even hell. This is the freedom Paul proclaims to his fledgling churches: freedom inherent in the event of encounter with God in faith liberating into life and living. God in Christ comes to the believer, calls her, and rescues her from death into new life in the Spirit. This is grace.

In chapter 8 of 1 Corinthians, Paul pumps the freedom brakes. He details guidelines for the Corinthian believers finding themselves in a conundrum. Some believers are fine eating meat “associated with offerings to pagan deities.”[2] They are whom Paul refers to as “the strong”—a phrase referring to both those confident in their faith and who were wealthy and had access the occasions to eat such meat.[3] Paul writes, while it is true that neither eating nor abstaining from this meat has an impact on their presence before God, it may have an impact on those “weaker” brothers and sisters—those who were both insecure in their faith (unsure about what is okay and not okay) and lower in social status.

Paul challenges the knowledge (γνωσις) of “the strong” resulting in their liberty to eat what they want and do what they please. Paul declares that knowledge (alone) puffs up and inflates and lures toward being an imposter; but paired with love it builds up authentically edifying both the beloved and the lover (vv. 1-2).[4] In other words, “the strong” should keep γνωσις yoked to αγαπη (love): even if they are free to eat, they should care more for their “weak” brother or sister who didn’t have the same access to such food and security in the liberty of their actions.[5]

Paul makes it clear that this love isn’t self-generated but imparted in the encounter with God in the event of faith (v.3). To love God is to be loved by God and known by God; this becomes the foundation for the love fractal. As we are loved by God, we love that which and those whom God loves seeing and knowing those whom God loves by seeing and knowing them, too.[6]

Paul’s point isn’t to side with the “strong” Corinthians or the “weak”, but to say: the composition of the conscience (secure or insecure) can lean toward a miscalculation about what is right to do and what is wrong.[7] Operating out of fear is as problematic as operating out of abundance of confidence. Paul warns “the strong” that their supposed liberty isn’t a reason for autonomous activity without considering the effect on others. [8] It’s not strictly about intent for Paul, these Christians may truly believe they’re free. Impact must also factor in here. For Paul, this is done with freedom wedded to love. Just because you can, says Paul, doesn’t mean you should because it may cause others to be polluted by being tripped up by your actions. [9] For Paul, a future forward ethic keeping in mind the potential impact of one’s actions/words on other brothers and sisters is the definition of freedom

Conclusion

For those who have followed Jesus out of the Jordan and for those who have ears pricked and heads turned hearing Christ call them by name, what is freedom for you? To follow Jesus as disciples means that freedom is going to take on an orientation toward the other. A cruciform freedom puts “weak” brothers and sisters before us. This is not to the loss of our freedom as if we lose ourselves, but in that we have received ourselves in the love of God in the encounter with God in faith, we enter into the plight with our brothers and sisters. True freedom for me is actualized only in freedom for you; if you are not free, am I free? [10] It becomes about mutuality. Mujerista theologian Ada Maria Isasi-Diaz explains,

“Commitment to mutuality is not a light or easy matter. It involves all aspects of one’s life and demands a lifelong permanency. The way in which the commitment is lived out may change. From time to time one maybe less passionate about carrying out the implications of mutuality, but somehow to go back and place oneself in a position of control and domination over others is to betray others and oneself. Such a betrayal, which most of the time occurs by failing to engage in liberative praxis rather than by formal denunciation, results in the ‘friends’ becoming oppressors once again and in the oppressed losing their vision of liberation.”[11]

Ada Maria Isasi-Diaz Mujerista Theology p. 100

If I in my strength cannot tame my liberty and walk with you so you can have your liberty, then I’m not free. If I cannot deem the liberties and freedoms of others as important as mine, then I have not freedom but bondage. If I am threatened by you having as much liberty and freedom as I do, I’m not free. If my autonomy must eclipse and ignore your need; I’m not free but captive.[12]

To be free, to be truly free isn’t to claim your rights as absolutes and acting on them no matter what. To be free, to be truly free is to say with Christ: into this I can enter with you. (This is solidarity.) Freedom can both break the law and obey it because it knows when to do which. If we’re free, then we are free–free to share in the burden of existence while trying to alleviate the yoke of suffering without losing our freedom. If stepping into the anxiety, fears, and concerns of our neighbor means we’ve lost our freedom then we didn’t have freedom to begin with. If we are unable to hear the cries of the weak, to listen to their stories of suffering, and affirm their lived experience, we’re not strong. So, beloved of God, you who are sought and called and loved by God: Are you strong? Are you free?

[1] I give credit for the start of this journey to two colleagues: Dr. Dan Siedell and Dr. W. Travis McMaken.

[2] Anthony Thiselton The First Epistle to the Corinthians TNIGTC 620

[3] Thiselton “ε`ιδωλο’θυτα And the Scope of the Corinthian Catchprhases” 617  “…if Theissen and the majority of specialist writers are correct in their sociological analysis of the identities of ‘the strong’ and ‘the weak,’ the issue of eating meat, together with its scarcity for the poor and the variety of social occasions for the rich, has a decisive bearing on Paul’s discussion.”

[4] Thiselton 622 In re γνωσις Gardner “[compares] the contrast between ‘knowledge’ and love in this verse with the parallel contrast between 13:1-1 and the two chapters on ‘spiritual gifts’ which provide its frame. He sis that γνωσις is practical; but its nature and its relation to love can profoundly determine what kind of practical effects it set in motion.” And, “Love, by contrast, builds solidly, and does not pretend to be what it is not. If it gives stature to a person or to community, that enlargement remains solid and genuine.” “knowledge inflates” “φυσιοω suggests the self-importance of the frog in Aesop’s Fables, or something pretentiously enlarged by virtue of being pumped full of air or wind.”

[5] Thiselton 622-3 “Rather than seeking to demonstrate some individualist assertion of freedom or even victory, love seeks the welfare of the other. Hence if ‘the strong’ express love, they will show active concern that ‘the weak’ are not precipitated into situations of bad conscience, remorse, unease, or stumbling. Rather, the one who loves the other will consider the effect of his or her own attitudes and actions upon ‘weaker’ brothers and sisters.”

[6] Thiselton 626  “The kind of ‘knowledge which ‘the strong’ use manipulatively to assert their ‘rights’ about meat associated idols differs form an unauthentic Christian process of knowing which is inextricably bound up with loving.” And, “…it is part of the concept of authentic Christian knowing and being known that love constitutes a dimension of this process.”

[7] Thiselton 640, “Paul sides neither entirely with ‘the weak’ nor entirely with ‘the strong’ in all respects and in relation to every context or occasion. For the self-awareness or conscience of specific persons (συνεδησις αυτων) does not constitute an infallible guide to moral conduct in Pauls’ view….someone’s self-awareness or conscience may be insufficiently sensitive to register negative judgment or appropriate discomfort in some context…and oversensitive to the point of causing mistaken judgment or unnecessary discomfort in others.”

[8] Thiselton 644, “Paul is not advocating the kind of ‘autonomy’ mistakenly regarded widely today as ‘liberty of conscience.’ Rather, he is arguing for the reverse. Freedom and ‘rights’….must be restrained by self-discipline for the sake of love for the insecure or the vulnerable, for whom ‘my freedom’ might be ‘their ruin.’ This ‘freedom’ may become ‘sin against Christ (8:12).”

[9] Thiselton 654 “By projecting the ‘weak’ into this ‘medium” of γνωσις, the ‘strong’ bring such a person face-to-face with utter destruction. What a way to ‘build’ them!”

[10] Thiselton 650-1, “For in the first case, ‘the weak’ or less secure are tripped up and damaged by the self-assertive behavior of the overconfident; while in the second place it is putting the other before the self, manifest in the transformative effect of the cross, which causes the self-sufficient to turn away….True ‘wisdom’ is seen in Christ’s concern for the ‘weak” and the less secure, to the point of renouncing his own rights, even to he death of the cross.”

[11] Ada Maria Isasi-Diaz Mujerista Theology: A Theology for the Twenty-First Century Maryknoll, NY: Orbis, 1996. 100.

[12] Thiselton 657-8, “Chrysostom comments, ‘It is foolish in the extreme that we should esteem as so entirely beneath our notice those that Christ so greatly cared for that he should have even chosen to die for them, as not even to abstain from meat on their account.’ This comment captures very well the key contrast through this chapter between asserting one’s own ‘right to choose’ and reflecting with the motivation of love for the other what consequences might be entailed for fellow Christians if self-centered ‘autonomy’ rules patters of Christian attitudes and conduct. It has little or nothing to do with whether actions ’offend’ other Christians in the modern sense of causing psychological irritation annoyance, or displeasure at a purely subjective level. It has everything to do with whether such attitudes and actions cause damage, or whether they genuinely build not just ‘knowledge’ but Christian character and Christian community.”

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Love Wins

2 Corinthians 1:3-7 (Homily)

When my eldest was in first grade, I received an email from his teacher one after-noon. The email from his first-grade teacher informed me that my son–the ever obedient, rubric hitting, perfectionism of epic first born status—had dropped the f-bomb in class. The email didn’t entail many details, but that the teacher wanted me to know so that I could address it at home. I spent a couple of minutes pondering the email. I had a few thoughts, as any parent would. I messaged his dad and let him know what had happened. Since I was the stay-at-home parent, I knew it was my duty to handle this situation. When my husband asked me what I was going to do, I told him I had it handled.

When Quinn came home, we sat on the couch and he did what he did every afternoon after school: he told me about his day. I waited, hoping he would tell me of his own volition about his rather bold and colorful vocabulary word used earlier that day. Nothing. “Anything else happen today worth noting…making mention of…sharing…” I tried leading him to tell me. Still nothing. Silence. Then I looked at him, and said, “I got an email from your teacher today…” I didn’t even finish the sentence before my son was a mess on the couch, weeping and apologizing and explaining what had happened. I held the sobbing heap of little boy while he told me the story. When he was finished and a bit more collected, I told him that I loved him. Then I said to him, let’s have a treat; how about a root beer float…

What caused that particular response from me? This: knowing my son well enough, I knew he had already suffered his consequence. The consequence had already been given, all I had to do was do what I love: comfort him. I didn’t need to bring more “command” and “demand” to his life, he didn’t need a follow up consequence. It was clear to me, in the way he was acting about the situation, that his error was known and felt. To add more consequence would be me adding an extra layer of condemnation to the situation that already (clearly) had condemnation. Adding more condemnation is adding threat where threat is already felt, and this leads to death.

Russian author, Dostoevsky, beautifully articulates the result of heaping threat upon threat, and condemnation upon condemnation in his brilliant novel Crime and Punishment. A horse, yoked to a buggy, is commanded by its owner to pull said buggy packed with a lot of people. So many people that the buggy can’t move, no matter how hard the horse pulls. In the story, the master of the horse commands the horse to move. But the horse can’t. Then the whips come out. Nothing. The horse can’t move even though it is desperately trying. Then, in what appears to be a fit of maniacal rage, the master starts beating the horse with pipe and stick demanding and commanding it to move. The horse, after many noble attempts to obey and move the buggy, collapses, dead, under the blows.

More harshness, more cruelty, more demand, more threat, more fear never, ever, produces the thing that is desired. Being increasingly harsh and cruel, threatening and demanding with others and with ourselves will never ever get us the very thing desired. Threatening someone into compliance will only result in temporary surface obedience with eventual and corresponding, resentment running very deep. Hating yourself will only result in self-destruction: you can’t shame yourself into confidence.

I’ve said it before: it’s hard being human; why do we make it harder for others and ourselves? Our lives are fragile and fleeting…doesn’t life offer enough suffering of its own? Do we have to add unnecessary and additional pain and torment? Here’s a powerful secret: Love–(love love) love that goes to the depths with us in our worst–will always generate the very thing desired because it creates comfort and freedom for the beloved. Love doesn’t seek to gain obedience from the beloved, but love can’t help generating more love.

This love-love is the “comfort” Paul speaks of in our passage. And here’s the foundational truth to why I responded to my son the way I did: I’ve been radically loved to such an extent that my life is a 180 degree turn from what it was when I was encountered by God in the event of faith. At my worst, I was loved…as is…by God through Christ by the power of the Holy Spirit. And over the years, as that love has worked its way into my very being, I’ve grown more and more into the woman I am in Christ—faults and all.

Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of compassion and the God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our troubles, so that we can comfort those in any trouble with the comfort we ourselves receive from God. (2 Cor 1:3-4)

At the end of the day love wins because Jesus the Christ, back on Calvary’s mountain, died, descended into hell and liberated into comfort and freedom those trapped under the weight of condemnation and threat—a liberation that is true from age to age to age.

Love wins because Love won.

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