Monday of the Twenty-eighth Week in Ordinary Time

 Lectionary: 467

Therefore, brothers and sisters,
we are children not of the slave woman but of the freeborn woman.
For freedom Christ set us free; so stand firm and do not submit again to the yoke of slavery.

I find myself often reflecting on this mysterious word, freedom. Like God, Jesus, and the Gospel, freedom defies definition. And those who speak of it too freely, with a too-confident assurance of what it is and what it means, are often trapped in their own misconceptions.

I think of those wealthy families in the antebellum southern states who piously believed they were free and their slaves were happy. Anthony Genovese, in his book Roll, Jordan, Roll, documents their disappointment when the slaves fled as the Union armies arrived. They said in their letters to one another, "They were so happy with us. They didn't even say goodbye. How could they do this to us, after we treated them so well?"

These pious Christians, who had freely used savage violence to maintain their plantations, could not imagine the resentments they spawned. Only a few. like Thomas Jefferson, realized their false claims of ownership, though legal and socially approved, were also shackles in an enslaved society. How can one human being own another? But they could not release their "property;" and dared to whisper their unease to anyone. 

The New Testament describes freedom with a paradox, with the word obedience. Like slaves, we are obedient servants of God. Jesus demonstrated his willing obedience to his Father as he set out for Jerusalem and Calvary. In his Epistle to the Romans, Saint Paul freely spoke of his bondage to the gospel. He calls himself a "slave of Jesus Christ;" and his disciples in Rome are "slaves of righteousness."

I find the paradox reassuring. When our hardened definitions, built on the sand of words, are washed out to sea, we find hope as we pass through the narrow gate of paradox. Rather than the choice of freedom or bondage, the Gospel tells us there is freedom in bondage, and we willingly take up our crosses to follow the Lord. The freest man who ever lived was nailed to a cross. 

Theologians rightly point out that when the Church defines a doctrine, it mostly says what the teaching does not mean, and it uses the language of paradox. Jesus Christ is not either God or human; he is fully human and fully divine. A Virgin is the Mother of God. The Eucharist is a symbol which is not a symbol. We accept these doctrines not because we can explain them but because we know their true. 

Freedom invites us to believe in a man, the son of Mary, who lived and died a long time ago. Freedom says he has been raised from the dead. Even if we accept those teachings we're left with a question, "Is this man worthy of my worship?"

And that's when I go to prayer and ask the Mystery, "Should I do this?" And then I ask myself, "Do I want to?"