Father John E. McGinn, Rector
Saint John’s Episcopal Church
Sandwich, Massachusetts 02563
July 1, 2007 Pentecost
5
This sermon is taken from the
Epistle Galatians, chapter 5, verse 1 and verses 13-25.
There’s a popular story going
around about a husband and wife who are discussing their living wills. The husband is adamant about his
desires: “Just so you know,” he says, “I
would never want to live in a vegetative state.
I would never want to be dependent on some machine and fluids from a
bottle. If I ever get to that state, I
just want you to pull the plug.” His
wife thought about this for a moment, got up, unplugged the television and
threw out all of his beer. Some of us
know somebody who is in that kind of vegetative state.
I want to talk today about
freedom. This week we celebrate on
Wednesday, our nation’s independence, as well we should. And what a precious gift! There is not greater gift under heaven than
freedom. We should never take our
freedom for granted; both our political freedom and our freedom in Christ
Jesus.
Freedom comes in many
forms. Radio commentator, Paul Harvey,
once told about a group of scientists who were determined to teach a chimpanzee
to write. For fourteen years the
scientists labored diligently and patiently with this chimpanzee, providing
things in its cage to enable it to form certain syllables. Finally the day arrived when it seemed that
the chimpanzee was actually going to construct a sentence from the syllables
that it had been learning. Word went out
and other scientists crowded into the room, and they gathered around the
cage. The scientists could hardly
contain themselves as they pressed around the cage to read the history-making
sentence, and here is what the chimpanzee had written: “Let me out.”
Let me out: no one wants to live
in a cage, no one wants to live hooked up to a
machine, even if that machine is a television set. We want to be free.
If I told you that beginning
today you could be freer than you have ever been before, would that spark your
interest? In today’s Epistle from
Galatians, St. Paul writes, “It is for freedom that Christ has set us free.” That is, freedom is God’s will for us;
freedom from tyranny; all kinds of tyranny.
God wants you to be free.
There are two kinds of
tyranny that Paul deals with in Galatians, chapter 5. The first is the tyranny of bad
religion. Paul is at odds with the
circumcision party, the so-called Judiizers. Some Jews who had become Christians wanted to
embrace the new faith, but they also wanted to preserve the traditions of their
fathers. They wanted to maintain the
ceremonial laws and rituals that had come down from Moses. Even more important, they wanted to force
their views on all other Christians.
They insisted on circumcision of all males as a requirement for being a
part of the church.
Now Paul wanted a clean break
from the past. This is the Paul who was
a devout Jew. He wanted people to know
that Christianity was a matter of the inner spirit, not the outer flesh. Paul knew that elevating tradition over
Christian love and acceptance was not what Jesus wanted from his people. And
that is a constant temptation, especially today, for church people: elevating tradition over Christian love and
acceptance.
I read about a Sunday service
at St. Bartholomew’s Episcopal Church in New York City. That’s one of the most famous Episcopal
churches in New York City. Just before
the service started, ushers noticed a man wearing a large hat, and he was
sitting in the front row. (I don’t want
our ushers to get excited today if anybody has a hat in the front row.) An usher moved to this man’s pew, and he
leaned in and discretely asked him to remove his hat. The man replied that he would not. The head usher was then summoned and made the
same request, and he received the same answer.
And about the same time, the president of the Episcopal church women of the parish arrived and was asked to
assist. She had the same dismal
result. And, finally, with only two
minutes remaining before the processional hymn, the senior warden of the parish
was summoned, and he tiptoed up beside the man and tried to seize the hat, but
the man nimbly dodged him, and there was no time for further attempts. As the processional hymn began, and the
procession entered the church, the man stood, and he removed his hat and did
not put it on again. At the conclusion
of the service, the four frustrated people waited for the man at the rear of
the church. The senior warden approach him, and said, “Sir, about the hat, perhaps
you do not understand; but in our church men do not wear hats at worship.” The man replied, “Oh, but I do
understand. I have been part of this
Episcopal Church all of my life. As a
matter of fact, I have been coming to this church regularly for two years, and
I have never met a soul. But this
morning, I have met an usher, the head usher, the president of the Episcopal church women, and the senior warden of the parish. Now the leaders of that parish were concerned
about a tradition: men do not wear hats
in worship. They were more concerned
about keeping that tradition, than they were about welcoming strangers into the
church family. Far fetched? I don’t think so.
Have you ever been at a
sporting event and heard the announcer say, “Gentlemen, remove your hats for
the singing of the national anthem.”
Have you noticed that young men wearing ball caps are everywhere? We can assume from this announcement that
some young people today may not even know that wearing a cap during a ceremony
might be showing a lack of respect. It
is not written anywhere. It’s a
tradition.
I can see a young man wear a
baseball cap into worship, if he had, this morning. And maybe this is the first time this young
man has been in worship, and he doesn’t know our traditions. I can see an insensitive saint say something
cruel to this young man about his cap; perhaps making it the last time this
young man comes into our house of worship, or maybe any house of worship. That, to me, is bad religion: elevating tradition over sensitivity to
people. Jesus wants to set us free of
the tyranny of such religion. And even
worse than the tyranny of bad religion, however, is the tyranny of sin.
Paul writes: “You, my brothers and sisters, were called to
be free, but do not use your freedom to indulge the sinful nature. Rather, serve one another in love. The entire law is summed up in a single
command: Love your neighbor as
yourself. If you keep on biting and
devouring each other, watch out, or you will be destroyed by each other. So I say, live by the spirit, and you will
not gratify the desires of the sinful nature, for the sinful nature desires
what is contrary to the spirit, and the spirit, what is contrary to the sinful
nature. They are in conflict with each
other, so that you do not do what you want.”
Now some of the believers had
been pagans before they began following Jesus.
They also wanted to hold on to some of their traditions after their
baptism, but their traditions included sinful habits not conducive to the
lifestyle of a follower of Jesus. And
Paul rightly saw that there is no slavery more odious than the slavery of
sin. Ask someone who has been addicted
to drugs or alcohol or any other destructive habit. Many of them will go to desperate measures
for a fix. The monkey on my back is what
heroin addicts call their addiction; a habit which grows to point where it
nearly squeezes the life out of them.
Jesus wants us to be free.
An Army chaplain tells the
story of reaching a young man just before he died on a battlefield in Viet
Nam. It was evident that as he held the
boy’s hand that the young soldier had been mortally wounded. These were the last moments of his life. So the chaplain tried to console him the best
that he knew how. “Son,” he said, “is
there anything I can do for you?” “No,” the young soldier
replied as the memories of his past life passed before his eyes. “Sir, what I need now is someone who can undo
some things for me.” And how sad it is when we look back over our lives that we
see so many things we would like to undo.
One of my favorite
theologians, Mae West, once said, “I used to be Snow White, but I drifted.” Maybe too you have drifted. There are some things in your life that you
regret. We can be slaves to bad
religion; we can be slaves to sin, but it need not be. Jesus has come to set us free.
What is freedom really to St.
Paul? It is a life lived in the spirit
of Jesus. Paul writes, “But the fruit of
the spirit is love and joy and peace and patience and kindness and goodness and
faithfulness and gentleness and self control.
Against such things, there is no law.
Those who belong to Jesus have crucified the sinful nature with its
passions and desires. Since we live by
the spirit, let us keep in step with the spirit.” Paul, in Galatians, is inviting his readers
to a new way of living. He is inviting
them and us to experience a newness of life that the world cannot know.
I have another funny story
for you is morning. It is about a
minister who is visiting in the home of one of his former students after
graduation. After dinner the young parents excused
themselves and hustled the kids off to bed, leaving the minister in the living
room with the family pet: a large, sleek
greyhound. Early in the evening, the
minister had watched the kids roll on the floor playing with the family dog,
this huge dog. “That’s a full-blooded
greyhound there,” the father of the kids had told the minister. “He once raced professionally down in Florida;
then we got him - a great dog with the kids, that greyhound.” While sitting there with the dog, the
minister, with tongue planted firmly in his cheeks, swears this is true: The dog turned to him and asked, “Is this
your first visit to Connecticut?” Undaunted
by the talking dog, the minister answered, “No, I went to school here a long
time ago.” “Well, I guess you heard I
came up here from Miami,” said the greyhound.”
“Oh yeah, you retired,” the minister replied. “No, is that what they
told you?” replied the greyhound. “No,
no, I didn’t retire. I tell you I spent
ten years as a professional racing greyhound.
That means ten years of running around the track day after day, seven
days a week, with others chasing that foolish rabbit. Well, one day, I got up close. I got a good look at that rabbit; it was fake. I had spent my
whole life chasing a fake rabbit. Hey, I
didn’t retire, I quit.”
Is that how you feel about
your life? That you’ve
been chasing a fake rabbit. Isn’t
it time you gave yourself to something new, something more.
There are millions of people
in our land who will tell you that they are bored to tears with their
life. That poor guy at the beginning of
my sermon whose wife pulled the plug on him, what do you imagine is his greatest
complaint as he sits there watching television night after night: There’s nothing on. Well, maybe except for
the Red Sox, there’s nothing on.
One-hundred channels but there’s nothing worth watching. And yet, we continue to watch. Surely, this isn’t the meaning of life.
Let me tell you what I think
is the meaning of life. Love God, serve
God faithfully, love your neighbor, fine meaningful
avenues of service to others. That’s
it! That’s what I think is the meaning
of life. It’s a simple formula, but
adopted as the driving philosophy of your life, you will enrich your life
immeasurably. Perhaps for the first time
in your life you will discover true freedom.
Amen