The whole story of man has been the story of the search after freedom. I remember the first time I became deeply aware of this quest for freedom which pervades the human spirit

. I was watching the film "The Ten Commandments", Cecil B. DeMille Introduced the film by speaking of the Hebrew people and the story behind the Ten Commandments and how the quest of their whole,community,- was that of coming out of slavery, out of bondage and into the promised land

It was the movement Away from bondage, the quest for freedom that pervades the human spirit

Throughout ‘the pages of Scripture this theme is played again and again, so that when Jesus begins his ministry in the pages of theNew Testament we hear him standing, in the pulpit reading, from the book of Isaiah and saying "I have come to set at liberty those who are in bondage."

This was one of the things that he came to do - to set men free.

I remember seeing a cartoon that came out of the Civil War days, a strange kind of political cartoon formed in those days,

it was a picture of a slave running away from his master, and the caption underneath as he ran was "He is running away from security"

The quest of the human spirit to be free - the story of the.Magna Carta; a story of the people who forced ,Iohn of England to give them the freedom they deserved. The story of the Declaration of Independence; people who were taxed without representation; wanting, to be free from the yoke which bound them to England. All these and many other stories out of our history show that we as a people want to be free from the yoke which binds us in any way to any kind of slavery from the past.

. And so the movement of persons istoward freedom, whether it be in the political realm or whether it be religious or whether it be personal is away from being bound up -‘The desire for freedom runs deep in the human spiritYet in all kinds of things that we face today in the quest for freedom, there is a misnomer which has crept in:

A consciousness, which comes from Galatians where -Paul, writes, " You are called to Freedom, and Christ has set you free, but do not use your freedom as an excuse for license."

When persons just move away from their bondage and will not be committed, anarchy takes place. And when there is not stability in the society or the person or the community, there is no freedom, only anarchy and disorder. When all authority, all commitment all discipline leave, then life is not really free at all. ‘hen persons just move away from their bondage and will not be committed, anarchy takes place. And when there is not stability in the society or the person or the community, there is no freedom, only anarchy and disorder. When all authority, all commitment all discipline leave, then life is not really free at all. ‘

So it’s a strange kind of reality to discover that we are constantly moving away from bondage toward freedom, and into freedom, but to be free does not only mean to move away, it also means to move toward something. We have within us the need to be committed to something, and there is a sense in which we are always enslaved, and we are only free to choose that to which we will be enslaved

When a dream enslaves a man, he is not then in bondage in the sense that he has been overpowered and is no longer his own self. But rather, he is most free as he discovers the possibilities of taking his life and using it creatively in whatever manner he sees fit. The capacity to choose what you will be slave to. If you choose to be a slave to nothing, then you have chosen that as your form of slavery.

Harvey Cox wrote a profoundly simple little line: "Not to decide is to decide" For when you fail to make a decision about yourself or your life, you have made a decision and that indecision becomes a kind of decision out of which a person has to live his life.. And no one can flit through their whole lifetime and never really make a decision about who they are or never really be committed to anything and fail to find their life at all. We are only free to choose that to which we will be enslaved.

But as we make that commitment we discover the true freedom of really giving our lives to that in which we believe "the dream which enslaves a man". There is a sense in which to be a Christian at all it is to make this kind of commitment, to make this kind of a decision about your life.

The story of the 23^rd Psalm is a picture about a person who has chosen the Lord. Out of the Joshua style "Choose this dayWhom you will serve. As for me and my house it be the Lord."

.And we must recognize that we are never forced into being a Christian we always have the capacity to decide who we will be and what we will be. Perhaps it is for this reason that even with the power of grace and the graciousness of God, we are still left with that choice -whether or -not .we will serve God There are no coercive Christians

The 23^rd Psalm briefly gives us a picture of the way in which you can see the Christian life. It starts out "’the Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want; he maketh me to lie down in green pastures, he leadeth. me beside the still waters and so forth.

It starts out as a very impersonal, a very high, a very sophisticated, a very formal relationship but it doesn’t remain that. It doesn’t talk about God out there very long, it moves very quickly into what Buber calls "an "I /thou" relationship" where the intimacy is so direct that the words are whatyou do. "Thv rodthy staff’, they comfort me; thou preparest a table before me in the presence of enemies. Thou anointest my head with oil my cup runneth over. There is a real shift in that psalm, as the person recognizes that something happens between Himself and God which has made a commitment between them. And they are committed to each other, and. in that commitment he discovers the Fullness of Fullness of life. It isn’t just a formal thing and it certainly isn’t a far away thing. It is a very close, intimate relationship where one feels ‘That closeness in all that he does.

Throughout the Scriptures there is that constant tugging of the Lord saying, to the people of Israel, to the Christian, "I am your God! I am a jealous God will have -no other Gods before me." This kind of relationship we have is one where there are no alternatives in terms of allegiance. You are either with me Or you are against me

A marriage relationship is not just a way in which people satisfy their own needs. It is not a casual relationship. Rather, it is a commitment where one Enters with all they are and all they have with one another.. In that relationship they literally enslave themselves. The word "husband" comes form an old English word meaning "housebound". Perhaps one of the reasons we are having difficulties with marriage is we don’t want to make that kind of commitment "for better or for worse. For richer, for poorer, in sickness and in health, to love and to cherish unti1death us do part " Those are old words which come out of the archaic language of the 15^th and 16^th centuries. That really say a lot. "They demand a great dealof you. It’s a commitment to a person. And yet it’s a strange thing, this commitment, that when it is made and it is lived out of in spite of the tensions, the crises, and ‘the conflicts in all the rest that come into the relationship, something is discovered; that he who has one woman has all women. He has all that woman can offer. He who has all women has no woman. It is only as a commitment is made that one discovers the fullness of the possibilities that are there

Then a dream grabs hold of’ a man and enslaves him.

You can talk about how nice it would be to be a certain kind of person. For example how nice it would be to be a physician or how nice it would be to be a school teacher, or how nice it would be to be a psychiatrist, or how nice it would be to be a lawyer or how nice to be something, else There’s only one way that one can be any of these:It is to commit totally to the task of becoming . So you go to school and you commit yourself to the books and to the sessions and you commit yourself to every thing else that goes with it. Being a nothing ,for so long and finally the time comes when the skills are developed and certi.fica,tion comes. The support of the community is there and all kinds of freedom because they have become enslaved by a dream. And it is out of that commitment, that slavery, that freedom comes. "Nobody ever finds life worth living. You have to make it that way!"

And so the first choice is commitment. Beyond that there is obedience. I can be committed to be a parent or I can be committed to be a husband but unless I live out of that commitment in faithfulness, in obedience, it amounts to absolutely nothing.

I am impressed with how many people say, "the Church is very important. I wouldn’t want to be without it." Yet, obedience in terms of faithfulness in worship, in commitment and obedience to stewardship and obedience in life itself is often quite lax or even missing. The obedience of loving the neighbor as oneself, or even more, the loving of the enemy is even more difficult.

The entire New Testament is filled with active verbs which imply that when one makes a commitment to Christ, immediately life is filled with a sense of mission where one moves out into the world and does something with life. Prayer, yes, but also work. That one goes and sees and tells and listens and changes – That one is an agent of reconciliation, exemplifying in all that is done the Christ of hope.

Then, there is obedience. When Paul speaks of "wives being obedient to their husbands." Is that not a mutual command? To be obedient to each other is to work at making the marriage a viable one, of making your life together have as its goal the fulfillment of all the potential that you have as a couple. That you work at the tasks of listening, understanding, and caring. It doesn’t just happen. We make it that way.

One of the mistakes we sometimes make is that we assume that just because we have a feeling and we live out of impulses, and if we feel good about, we will stay with it and if we don’t "feel good" we will drop it.

Now, this does not mean we do not change. It doesn’t mean for a moment that we don’t make different decisions. I doesn’t mean that we don’t come to impasses that the have to work through. It doesn’t mean that we live without crises or conflict. Not at all. It means that we are committed to re-solving the issues of life, and fulfilling the potential of life together.

Finally, there are rewards. The psalmist wrote, "Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life, and I shall dwell in the house of the Lord forever." A good life is rewarding. But rewards come to us not because they are there, and that’s what we are working for. But rather, rewards are almost a concomitance, the accidental, the leftover goods which come out of the commitment and the obedience.

We speak of our Country as being the place where there is life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. The odd thing about it is that the hedonist discover that when you seek happiness as a goal in itself, when you "try to be happy" it is that very act you suddenly are most bored or the most disappointed. But there can be great pleasure in commitment and obedience to which we commit ourselves as persons, we are, as C.S. Lewis put it, "surprised by joy." The rewards are not something you can buy into from the beginning: they happen along the way. Read the 23^rd Psalm as it says "yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil,." Believe that in going through that experience, through the tough times, it’s your commitment , not knowing what lies on the other side, that you find the joy of emerging at the end of the path –"surprised by joy!"

And so, the task is a human one. It’s aa very much a part of our history as human persons, whether it be here or it be the Hebrews of old, or people anywhere else in the world. Freedom is what we want. But freedom is not just going into conflict or fighting battles. Freedom is committing ourselves to the task and loving, even as Christ loved us. Freedom isn’t just a feeling. It is based on a style of life which is working toward the task of caring and being responsible for, and bringing into being the fulfillment of the potential over every single person. Amen.

	Ministry -Sermons in Time

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