Monday,
May 30
Jesus' Church: Freedom
Here are two important propositions that might unsettle you at first: the Bible is not God, and you are not free. Paul's thoughts in 2 Corinthians 3 help us put the Bible in perspective. The Old Testament was the only Bible Paul knew; he would have been surprised to discover that his own letters would one day become part of the Bible! He was a great student of Old Testament law, which he regarded as fully God's Word.
But God's words, "carved in stone" (alluding to the commandments on Mt. Sinai), do not themselves give life. The law is God's perfect will, and we who are very imperfect people don't keep God's law perfectly, or even close. God's commandments invite us to probe deeply beneath the letter of the law and get to its spirit. "Don't work on the Sabbath" isn't a "don't," but an invitation to the joy and life of being quiet with God. "Don't covet" isn't to make you feel guilty about wanting some gadget, but the liberation that comes from realizing you have enough and can be content.
Paul speaks of God writing not just on Moses' tablets of stone, or even with the ink of Paul's letter. God's writing is on the heart. God isn't seeking slavish, external behavior. God longs for an inward, deep, heartfelt desire to be one with God. So you can know the Bible inside and out, and spout Bible verses to condemn others or prop up your biases - and you might follow its rules to a tee. But the Bible isn't God. The Bible is a window into the heart of God. The Bible reveals how lost we are without God. The Bible is how God burrows down inside us, hoping to create love for God and delight in God's presence.
This idea of God writing on the heart is liberating, free-ing. We Americans typically think we are free - and on days like Memorial Day we feel grateful for soldiers who lost their lives so we could be free. But it isn't that we are free agents who can choose God, or not choose God. The Bible exposes how un-free, how chained to habits and sin and self we are. You are a slave to your self, and to society, and to an earthly life that is not of God until Christ sets you free.
And this freedom God gives isn't so you can now go out and do as you wish. Christ sets us free so we can be totally dependent on him, so we will want nothing else than to do his bidding. Here and only here is true joy, and freedom: not living in America, and not doing my will, but melding my will entirely to God's will, being filled with the Spirit and growing into someone who desires nothing but God and the fulfillment of God's mission in my life and the life of the Church.
"Where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom" (2 Corinthians 3:17). The one death we can remember today that truly sets us free is that of Jesus on the cross. Regarding his death, every day is Memorial Day.
James
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