Monday of the Twenty-eighth Week in Ordinary Time

Lectionary: 467

For freedom Christ set us free; so stand firm and do not submit again to the yoke of slavery.

 

On Monday and Tuesday of this week, the Lectionary gives us Galatians 5:1 twice. It appears at the end of today’s text and at the beginning of tomorrow’s. Today it summarizes Saint Paul’s allegorical story about Hagar and Sarah; tomorrow it will open a consideration of the Jewish rite of circumcision.

The Latin word for freedom is gratia, as in grace, gracious, gratis, and gratitude. One who moves gracefully moves freely; one who gives freely gives graciously. Freedom is generous by its very nature. A person without generosity cannot be considered free, despite their legal claims of rights and privilege.

Freedom is an attribute of God. Made in God’s image, our freedom as human beings may be our closest resemblance to God. If we cannot fly like eagles, swim like fish, nor dig like moles, we nonetheless enjoy more freedom than any earthly creature. 

If nothing else, the climate crisis with its threat of annihilation demonstrates how much freedom we have been given. No other creature of this earth could have made such a mess, and we have done it not for bare survival but by our policies and choices. 

Likewise, the killing of the Son of God, as unthinkably horrible as it is, proves the extent of our freedom. The Father has permitted us that much liberty!

In the face of theses catastrophes, our freedom may feel more like a curse. Why has God punished the children of Adam and Eve with such promiscuous license?

More personally, many of us suffer the burden of freedom when we decide to repent and change our ways. Despite their best intentions and deep convictions, addicts will face both the urge to abuse heroin and its availability at every hour of every day for the rest of their lives. Cigarettes and alcohol will always be close at hand to those who have taken the pledge. The NRA has foisted upon Americans the ability to kill ourselves or one another without a moment’s pause.

There is no escaping our freedom to abuse, hurt, and destroy, and our best intentions sometimes wither in the face of seductive temptation. Very often we realize too late we have lost our freedom, squandered it like the Prodigal Son. Chronic alcoholics might suffer cirrhosis and pancreatitis for the rest of their lives. Some criminals will never see the stars at night, nor hear children playing in the park. The consequences of sin are the loss of freedom.

But Saint Paul insists, “For freedom, Christ set us free!” because we are the children “of the freeborn woman through a promise.”

Our freedom is as near as our fingertips but no more than a promise. It is now-and-not-yet. We receive it not in compliance to the law, however, but by willing, eager, intentional obedience in faith. Delighted, honored, humbled, we accept the gift from our gracious God and beg to know how we might be worthy of it.

It is more than simply “do good and avoid evil.” We cannot trust our good impulses for they are often tainted by concupiscence and the self. Rather, we beg God for the Holy Spirit to align our desires, to make us want what God wants and to see as God sees.

Our freedom is as precarious as our health, and as resilient as God’s gracious mercy. He calls us time and again to repent, especially as we unwittingly lapse into willful habits whose end is destruction. They might be misunderstandings, attitudes, schemes, convictions, or relationships. Whatever is ours is subject to God’s scrutiny. In the spirit of Psalm 139, we keep no secrets from God.

But a key to the mystery of freedom is simply in that Latin word, gratia. We are as free as our ability to give. By generosity we fulfill our potential to be God. We have seen the perfect image of liberty in the Crucified Christ. He was never so free as when he was nailed hand and foot to the cross, surrendering himself in love and confidence to the God who remained silent and unseen and, to all appearances, indifferent.