This past week was quite a week to be driving around Waynesboro. Traveling on Lew Dewitt Blvd., I came to a stoplight, and a pick-up truck pulled into the turn lane next to me. On the back of the pick-up was a bumper sticker with a drawing of a rifle stood on its end so it looked like an “f”, and another rifle also pictured vertically and arranged so it looked like a “k”. In between these two arranged guns were two additional letters, “u”, and “c” in regular type, and below that surprising word were the words “gun control.” You can put the three words together. A few days earlier I had come to a different stop light on U.S. 250, and pulled up behind another vehicle with a different bumper sticker. It spelled out two words. The first word spelled the same first word as the example above, but had a space where the “u” was. The second word spelled out our current President’s name, but again with a space where the “u” was supposed to be. And in smaller letters, was a reference to the TV show Wheel of Fortune as it said “I’d like to buy a vowel, Pat.” Any look at our history as a nation, the United States of America reveals we have had disagreements. We know all too well from Virginia and Shenandoah Valley history the battles on this land, and the blood, and the lives that were spent on some of those disagreements. From our nation’s history, we describe these battles and the offering of life as a struggle for Freedom. Freedom is an important word for our nation. Many would argue strenuously and strongly for the right to freedom of speech, and others for the right to bear arms, two freedoms that are enshrined in the Bill of Rights, and the first two amendments to the U.S. Constitution. In a way the examples above are clear examples of the exercise of freedom. At the same time those of us who are followers of Jesus Christ know that the word Freedom is an important word for other reasons. “For Freedom Christ has set us free,” Paul says in his letter to the Galatians (5:1). It is the conclusion to a section of the letter where Paul writes that we are not enslaved to the sinfulness of the world, but we are made free for other reasons. “For you were called to freedom, brothers and sisters; only do not use your freedom as an opportunity for self-indulgence, but through love become servants to one another. For the whole law is summed up in a single commandment, ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ If, however, you bite and devour one another, take care that you are not consumed by one another.” (5:13-15) The amazing freedom we have in our nation many say is God-given. So if it IS God-given, then the freedom we have is FOR something. It’s not simply for each of us individually, it is a freedom that regards our neighbor, even, or perhaps especially, in our disagreements. There is the biblical caution that if we use our freedom to “bite and devour one another,” it may consume us. The apostle Paul follows these descriptions of Freedom with two lists of what to avoid, and what to live by. I invite you to look at those lists (Galatians 5:16-26) in their entirety, but want to highlight one word that Paul uses under the list of things to avoid: “licentiousness.” The word, you might see from its first few letters, has the same root as our word “license,” like when we talk about getting a driver’s license. It’s a permit, or a freedom. “Licentiousness” literally means “unrestrained freedom:” something the Bible tells us to avoid. If you read the letters of Paul regularly enough, you will find out quickly that Paul’s urging of love of neighbor, and avoiding unrestrained freedom doesn’t come from some Pollyanna or goody-goody sense. Paul was often writing to communities of faith that disagreed over fundamentally important issues and were in danger of tearing apart. It’s as simple as asking a question I ask as a parent: what good do we do, what example do we set for our children, or how do we serve our disagreements, to voice our deeply held beliefs or fears or disagreements in such an unrestrained way on our car bumpers? And it’s as complex as asking a deeper question: how do we move forward in this time and place of deep disagreement as a community, and as a Commonwealth, and as a nation (and as Christians)? The answer, God says is in the exercise of Freedom; one in which we have our neighbor in mind even when we disagree. It’s worth spelling that out.
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AuthorPastor Paul came to Grace to serve as our Pastor in October 2012. After a first career in product and graphic design, he was ordained in 1993, and has served as a parish pastor in Virginia and South Carolina. He is married to Jill and they have two daughters, one at Roanoke College and one at James Madison University. Archives
December 2021
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