John Rogers—Year C Proper 8 in Ordinary Time
Anthony: Our final pericope of the month is Galatians 5:1, 13–25. It is a Revised Common Lectionary passage for Proper 8, in ordinary time, which is June 29.
For freedom Christ has set us free. Stand firm, therefore, and do not submit again to a yoke of slavery. 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 enslaved to one another. 14 For the whole law is summed up in a single commandment, “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.” 15 If, however, you bite and devour one another, take care that you are not consumed by one another. 16 Live by the Spirit, I say, and do not gratify the desires of the flesh. 17 For what the flesh desires is opposed to the Spirit, and what the Spirit desires is opposed to the flesh, for these are opposed to each other, to prevent you from doing what you want. 18 But if you are led by the Spirit, you are not subject to the law. 19 Now the works of the flesh are obvious: sexual immorality, impurity, debauchery, 20 idolatry, sorcery, enmities, strife, jealousy, anger, quarrels, dissensions, factions, 21 envy, drunkenness, carousing, and things like these. I am warning you, as I warned you before: those who do such things will not inherit the kingdom of God. 22 By contrast, the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, 23 gentleness, and self-control. There is no law against such things. 24 And those who belong to Christ have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires. 25 If we live by the Spirit, let us also be guided by the Spirit.
John, for me, freedom is one of those kinds of tricky words, because the definition …. Many attached to that word don’t look like freedom that we see in the Bible. Freedom does not mean we can do whatever we want, as the Scriptures testify, and yet Christ has truly set us free. So, what should Christians make of this Christological freedom?
John: Yeah, I think when we often think of the word freedom, we feel like we’ve been loosed. We’ve been set free from something that bound us in some way. And the irony here is this Christological understanding of freedom, as I understand it, is still bound, right, but appropriately bound to finding our greatest freedom in tying ourself to our Savior Jesus. And I think we confuse and we kind of have these conversations around agency and around wanting to make sure that my opinions are being heard, that I feel like that that I matter in this world, that I’m not being crushed by someone else’s definition of me or having a stereotype of me, and I want to feel free. I feel like that is like a wonderful place to be. We even think of it within the context of our American history about what freedom means. But when we say we’re followers of Jesus, and we’re talking about freedom, what I hear here from Paul is, and it’s one of the biggest topics for Paul, bar none, right?
Anthony: Yes. Right.
John: And you, and I feel like you got to get it right. Be very careful to not lose yourself so much, to not tie yourself being obedient to the person of Jesus, not the one who will restrict you from who you are meant and created to be. But it is only in him where you will be free. Right?
Anthony: Yes.
John: And I feel like I’m, as I’m saying this, and I’m sitting here in the middle of it as we’re recording it, and I’m imagining when this is going to be. People are trying to figure out what to preach on this summer, like in the heat of summer, where a lot of people aren’t even showing up to church. They’re on vacation; they’re all over the place. It’s what are, how are, we fooling ourselves to think the bill of goods that we’ve bought is something that makes me think that the freedom, total freedom is a good thing, when …
Anthony, I think as a parent of some young kids, I think total freedom can be crushing. And so, I think having a good understanding here of … we need to clarify what are we being freed from … the law, right? Freed from the impact of the first century culture, which would define me within a Greco-Roman context. Free me from the Judaizer controversy that is telling me I needed these other things. I need to be freed from that.
Like freedom does not pull me away from taking Jesus as I need him, but saying I want to be freed from these other things that are like barnacles, right?
Anthony: Yeah.
John: That are like these things under the boat. And I’ve cleaned them from my father-in-law’s boat before. And it stinks. It absolutely stinks, and you don’t want to have to do it, but you’re sitting there with a spackle knife chipping it all away to get to free the boat for it to be able to be used the way it’s intended to be used. It’s like I think about that image of what needs to be cut away for me to be the one who is designed by my God to be freed, to be in that kind of relationship with God in the first place.
Anthony: Yeah. And under the inspiration of the Spirit. Paul understood the things that you think are free, these desires you have, they actually bring about bondage. And so, this freedom is real freedom. It’s freedom from death and sin, but it’s freedom for God and his good purposes for your life that will ultimately set you free and free indeed. It’s such a big topic. Anything else you’d want to say about it before we move on?
John: Yeah. I think — and you may be going to another question here, but I may beat you to it — is when I hear this text of this freedom in Christ, this sort of relationship that I get that actually gives birth to a better way of living, like we think about the praxis of our faith. And I love … that’s one of the things that Eugene Peterson said a lot. He actually said, “I think this is livable. I actually think following Jesus is livable. You can do this stuff.”
Anthony: Yeah.
John: And we fool ourselves. And this … I don’t want to say the “we” is other people — I’m included in that. What is it about the works of the flesh, whether we call it impurity, debauchery, or any of the others — like even the good things that I turn into ultimate things, like when we think about Tim Keller and his counterfeit gods is like, why do I keep feeding myself these other things when they don’t satisfy me? When, if I live in communion with my Savior in a way that’s available to me, it produces something that is so dang gratifying.
Anthony: Yeah.
John: And it produces the fruits of the Spirit. Who doesn’t like love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. Maybe one there you could do without. I don’t know. But, it’s like, I think these fruits of the Spirit — this is a better way to live, that it’s not driven. And Anthony, I think, as a parent, what is it about the marketing of the things of the world that is fooling my children and others to believe that it will satisfy them?
And I see it all the time. I see it in people in my neighborhood when they’re trying to do any number of things to fix themselves, to heal themselves. And I’m just thinking to myself, there is only one thing that’s going to set you free from, and not just set you free to feel confident about your sort of salvific future, but really set you free to bear fruit in the world in these qualities of the Spirit that is so attractive.
That I just I think that comment of Eugene’s of, “Live this out a while, and you’ll find that it is far more satisfying than the temporary pleasure that any of those other things will give you. What will it take, for you to come over here to live by the Spirit?”
Anthony: Yeah. And this is why just being converted is so important to have biblical literacy, because when I look at the fruit of the Spirit contained in verse 22, John, that stands in opposition to the world.
John: Yeah.
Anthony: Stands in opposition to a lot of voices clamoring for our attention, for your children’s attention. And this is why we have to keep coming back to Scripture time and time again to be fed by truth. Because the world doesn’t tell us to love your neighbor as yourself. Get yours. Yeah. And if that oppresses your neighbor, so be it. And we dress it up as accomplishment and winning sometimes. So, it’s, man, this is so important that we keep coming back to what Paul is communicating here, that this is what true freedom looks like.
John: Yeah. With without a doubt. And Anthony, at the very end, it’s not just live by the Spirit. I love that it says, be guided by the Spirit.
Anthony: The Spirit is with us. Lead us. Lead us, Lord. And it makes me think, and I wanted to get this in as we come to conclusion here, we’ve talked a lot about Eugene Peterson and he wrote a book called The Jesus Way. And I want to share a quote with you. It says, “The way of Jesus cannot be imposed or mapped. It requires an active participation in following Jesus as he leads us,” going back to what you just said, “as he leads us through sometimes strange and unfamiliar territory in circumstances that become clear only in the hesitations and questionings, in the pauses and reflections, when we engage in prayerful conversation with one another and with him, this is what the life is. This is the Christ life.”
John, I want to thank you for being with us.
John: My pleasure.
Anthony: Thank God for you. Thank God for your active participation in his ministry. I also want to thank our team just an outstanding podcast team, Michelle Hartman, Elizabeth Mullins, Reuel Enerio for the work that they do to make this possible. And to all of you as our listening audience.
John, thank you so much, and as is our tradition here on Gospel Reverb, we end with prayer. So, we’d love for you to pray for us.
John: Lord, we’re grateful for who you are. So much of this message that inspires us in the gospel, Lord, it seems wild. It seems foolish. It seems crazy. It seems upside down.
And for those that are listening to this podcast who are invited either to find creative ways to teach it in the classroom, or to speak and be inspired by the Scripture from the pulpit, Lord, I pray that your Spirit would bless each of the listeners here. Those that are seeking a good word, Lord, that they would hear where you are guiding them by the power of your Holy Spirit to speak words confidently to those who are listening to them that are giving them their attention.
But Lord, I pray that has been true in my own life and I have been thankful for your character in the way that you have done this time and time again. But I pray that the listeners, those that you have entrusted to be those who are proclaiming your good news and doing their best to set the captives free to, to give them a new story to hold onto that really will set them free, that you will begin that freedom, Lord. And the one who is wrestling with Scripture in the first place, in the first step, to even get it to the next step of communicating it to someone else, Lord, would you stir in their hearts, would you remind them of the seeds that you have planted in them, the investment, the covenant, the invitation, Lord, the maranatha that we say, “Come, Lord Jesus,” be with them. Lord, we are confident that you will do far more than we ask or imagine. We pray this in the name of our Savior Jesus. Amen.