Free Servants
Scriptures: Psalm 102:12-22, I Peter 2:11-17
Today and next week I’m doing a kind of two-sermon arc that deals with the twin concepts of leadership and service as we prepare for our Leadership Sunday today and our Annual Congregational meeting next week. Now, on first blush these two ideas may look like they are (or ought to be) contrasted with one another. A leader provides direction and guidance (one synonym for it in my dictionary is even “control”), while service is all about meekness and being controlled by someone else. But, as those of you who have been around for awhile now certainly know, here is a paradox, and I dearly love paradoxes. In fact, paradox is my primary theological paradigm. Just think about how our Christian faith is full of them. We seriously proclaim to the world that God is at the same time both transcendent (greater and more powerful than anything we can possible know) and immanent (right here next to me…an intimate, personal friend). We seriously proclaim to the world that Jesus the Christ is at the same time both wholly human and wholly divine – spirit and flesh all mixed up in one. We seriously proclaim to the world that the basic criteria for being human are to love and be loving, even though the basic characteristics of the world are evil and suffering. We say that those who lose themselves will be found and those who find their lives will lose them; that the breath of the Spirit blows on the just and the unjust; that God is all-powerful in creation and yet totally powerless in the crucifixion. Whew! It’s no wonder that in the face of such illogical and inconsistent absurdities (and that’s what a paradox is) many reasoned thinkers have dismissed the Christian world view. Try explaining to an agnostic or an atheist that we are both a people who are constantly failing to live up to the best that is in us and yet who constantly receive God’s forgiveness. Think about the blank stares you get if you affirm that grace is completely unmerited and yet we have to continually work at it.
Human beings are full of paradoxes, too. Which of us, if we’ve ever been parents, hasn’t known the feeling of both loving and hating our child – sometimes at the same time? Which of us, if we’re honest with ourselves, hasn’t acted on the basis of a feeling even when our head was telling us to do something different? Which of us doesn’t do something like cheat on our income tax even while proclaiming the importance of ethical behavior? We are a mass of contradictions – you and I – contradictions which flow from our being irrational, animal-like creatures…and yet also children of God. The Psalmist, in wondering awe before God, sums it up: “what are human beings that you are mindful of them…. Yet you have made them a little lower than God, and crowned them with glory and honor.” (8:4-5)
So, as Christians we live with a world-view that is filled with paradoxes. And the title of this sermon is one of the most important of them. We are free. We are servants. Martin Luther put this paradox most succinctly (in fact we could almost end the sermon here with these words…but I’m not going to): “The Christian is a perfectly free lord of all, subject to none. The Christian is a perfectly dutiful servant of all, subject to all.”
Now, we know something of what this means. In our own country’s history, little more than 150 years ago, there was slavery, and thus the kind of servanthood that is connected to involuntary servitude. When Martin Luther King, Jr. and others could shout out, “Free at last; free at last, thank God Almighty I’m free at last,” that is an expression of freedom that comes out of a deep sense of being held down until the bonds are finally broken. There is no paradox here; freedom means freedom from an oppressive slavery that kills the human spirit. A black man or woman if asked shortly after the Civil War would have no trouble giving a definition of “freedom” and “servanthood” that would be quite different from one another.
Most of us, for that matter, like to think that we live as free people, but none of us is completely free. We have responsibilities; we have psychological hang-ups; we have ties that keep us in one place. Yet, if we were also asked to define what it means to be free and what it means to be a servant, I rather imagine that we would likewise come up with disparate definitions – definitions that could not apply to the same person at the same time.
But now along comes Peter who boldly proclaims to the early church, “As servants of God, live as free people…..” (Actually, this is even clearer in the Revised Standard Version where the sentence says, “Live as free people…but live as servants of God.” What a strange – what a paradoxical thing to say!
Peter was concerned with a particular problem in this passage – the relationship between the Christian and the governing authorities – and in trying to resolve this concern he has given us a basic understanding of the way a Christian ought to function in society. Now, it may be hard for us to appreciate the shock value of what Peter was saying, since we live in a democratic tradition. But at the time Peter was writing this letter the emperor of Rome was…Nero – one of the most tyrannical of kings! Both things that Peter was saying to these Christians must have seemed audacious in the extreme – even to the point of being laughable – for he was saying that we should “accept the authority…of the emperor as supreme.” Accept the authority of this ego-maniac who is chiefly remembered for his violin virtuosity during some Roman pyrotechnics? This statement in and of itself would be difficult for Christians to swallow, since they believed that Christ was greater than any emperor. But Peter goes a step further. He affirms that in spite of Nero’s dictatorial powers we are free…and should live as such. For the early Christians, many of whom were still literally slaves, such a claim would be laughable on the face of it. It almost makes us wonder how this first letter of Peter found its way into our Bible rather than being torn up or discarded by those Christians who found this kind of reasoning ridiculous.
But these words are a part of our scripture precisely because those same early Christians realized that they were pointing to a truth about Christian faith that was true to the intention of the Christ. This truth Peter spread before them in a three-fold way, showing the paradoxical nature of Christian living, but then moving beyond paradox to the fundamental reality of faith.
First, Peter is saying, Christian living has to do with obedience to the state as a structure for society’s well-being, even when it was corrupt. Although Peter could say, “Honor the emperor”, the context makes it clear that he was not so much thinking of this particular political personality as he was of the office of emperor, which stood for social stability. Now, this gets tricky. If we substitute Hitler for Nero and the so-called “good Germans” who supported him or even the clash between political parties of our own day which leads to a do-nothing mentality and stalemate, are we not in a state of social instability when it comes to our elected leaders?
For the Christians who burned – literally as well as figuratively – under Nero’s dictatorship, and for those of us who realize especially today that the state can be as human and corrupt as any other institution, Peter’s words may seem like a sell-out to an authority which is considerably less than divine. So, it was then and is now extremely important to hear the second part of Peter’s formula – to live as free people. Elmer G. Homrighausen, commenting on this passage, says, “For the Lord’s sake we are to honor the state for what God intended it to be; Christians may continue loyal to a state authority, even while in higher loyalty they resist those in office who assume divine prerogatives or deliberately seek to use the state for ends that are contrary to the God who provides for the state. The Christian is first a Christian, and in the light of that absolute loyalty a responsible patriot who seeks to conform the state to its divine purpose.” So, out of such a loyalty to the divine, civil disobedience can be both an appropriate and a meaningful way to be what Homrighausen calls a “responsible patriot” – as Martin Luther King, Jr. clearly understood
When Peter or Paul or Martin Luther or Martin Luther King Jr. or you or I affirm that Christ has set us free, that we are “free at last”, we are able to do so because we have been freed from those things that bind us: from the fears of others’ opinions, from the insecurities of job and home, from the limitations of belonging to a certain race or class. But freedom in Christ is not only freedom from but also freedom to: freedom to witness to a world-encompassing love that does not draw boundary-lines at nationalities, freedom to be of service to people even who claim to be our enemies, freedom to love God and then do what we will (as Augustine discovered). This is the kind of freedom for which the Psalmist was searching, as we heard earlier this morning: “…from heaven the Lord looked at the earth, to hear the groans of the prisoners, to set free those who were doomed to die…..” We who have been imprisoned by our limitations, we who would be simply doomed to die out of our ignorance and fear (Albert Camus, in his play Caligula has this to say about the absurdity of this kind of existence: “Men die; and they are not happy.”), we now have been given the liberating word of God, which comes to us in a person.
Peter understood the idea of freedom to as well as freedom from, and he was wanting to apply it to the Christian’s relationship to the state. He addresses his readers as “aliens and exiles” because our ultimate allegiance goes beyond our allegiance to a country, even though we live in this particular country. But Peter’s point is that as aliens, as ultimately subjects of God and only penultimately subjects of king or congress, in other words as Christians, we have a responsibility to and for the state to help it become the best instrument of God’s will that it can. Sincere Christians may differ on the particulars of an issue, but whether you are for abortion rights, say, or the repeal of Roe v. Wade, the actions you take in this regard need to be based on the kind of principle that Peter has identified when he says, “As servants of God, live as free people, yet do not use your freedom as a pretext for evil.” To love both truth and our country, both justice and our homeland, is not always easy – indeed, this gets us back into the territory of paradox. But even though such things are not easy, they can be resolved through the freedom we have been given in Christ.
This freedom finds its final fruition in the third of Peter’s stages. Loyalty to the state and freedom in Christ come together in service to God. Here is both the way our freedom can be most fully expressed and the check upon our freedom. The basic question to ask about any action we take is: is this a way for me to serve God? God is not served by irresponsible actions or by those which proceed from blind loyalty to a particular state. That little phrase in our text, “yet do not use your freedom as a pretext for evil,” offers a basis for our service. Or, to use yet another paradoxical phrase, we are given and we are to practice “responsible freedom”.
The Christian, in a nutshell, is free to be God’s servant. We are back to Martin Luther’s dictum: “The Christian is a perfectly free lord of all, subject to none. The Christian is a perfectly dutiful servant of all, subject to all.”
(I told you we could stop right there, since that sums up all that I’m talking about here…but then you wouldn’t have gotten the chance to hear all the rest of this exposition.) Paul, along with Peter, found the key when he exclaimed to the church at Corinth: “Am I not free? Am I not an apostle?…. 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.” (I Corinthians 9:1, 19) This freedom in Christ, to be a true freedom, cannot be used as though there were no one to be responsible for but myself (despite the writings of Ayn Rand). Once we have understood how it is that Christ has set us free we will be able to accept our role as God’s servants in service to humanity. A paradox? Perhaps. But if we are to be true to the One who has come to save us, this is the way we are to live: as free people; yet as servants of God.
Amen.
Dave Pomeroy
First Congregational Church/United Church of Christ Las Vegas, NV January 15, 2012
Free Servants (Psalm 102:12-22, 1 Peter 2:11-17)
Psalm 102:12-22
12 But you, O Lord, are enthroned forever;
you are remembered throughout all generations.
13 You will arise and have pity on Zion;
it is the time to favor her;
the appointed time has come.
14 For your servants hold her stones dear
and have pity on her dust.
15 Nations will fear the name of the Lord,
and all the kings of the earth will fear your glory.
16 For the Lord builds up Zion;
he appears in his glory;
17 he regards the prayer of the destitute
and does not despise their prayer.
18 Let this be recorded for a generation to come,
so that a people yet to be created may praise the Lord:
19 that he looked down from his holy height;
from heaven the Lord looked at the earth,
20 to hear the groans of the prisoners,
to set free those who were doomed to die,
21 that they may declare in Zion the name of the Lord,
and in Jerusalem his praise,
22 when peoples gather together,
and kingdoms, to worship the Lord. (ESV)
1 Peter 2:11-17
11 Beloved, I urge you as sojourners and exiles to abstain from the passions of the flesh, which wage war against your soul. 12 Keep your conduct among the Gentiles honorable, so that when they speak against you as evildoers, they may see your good deeds and glorify God on the day of visitation.
13 Be subject for the Lord's sake to every human institution, whether it be to the emperor as supreme, 14 or to governors as sent by him to punish those who do evil and to praise those who do good. 15 For this is the will of God, that by doing good you should put to silence the ignorance of foolish people. 16 Live as people who are free, not using your freedom as a cover-up for evil, but living as servants of God. 17 Honor everyone. Love the brotherhood. Fear God. Honor the emperor. (ESV)
