The Freedom of a Christian

1 Corinthians 9:16-23
For if I preach the good news, it doesn't give me the right to boast, for a compulsion is placed upon me. Woe is me if I do not preach the good news!

If I do this of my own free will, I have wages, but if not of my own will, I am entrusted with a responsibility. So then what are my wages? That in my proclamation I may make the gospel free of charge, so as not to make full use of my rights in the gospel. For though I am free with respect to all, I have made myself a slave to all, so that I might win more of them.
To the Jews I became as a Jew, in order to win Jews. To those under the law I became as one under the law (though I myself am not under the law) so that I might win those under the law. To those outside the law I became as one outside the law (though I am not free from God's law but am under Christ's law) so that I might win those outside the law. To the weak I became weak, so that I might win the weak.

I have become all things to all people, that I might by all means save some. I do it all for the sake of the gospel, so that I may share in its blessings.

You know it’s going to be a good sermon when it starts with a parrot joke. So here goes. The story is told of a burglar who broke into a house in the dead of night when he thought nobody was home. So he’s collecting some valuables and putting them in a bag when he here’s a voice say, “Jesus is watching you.” He stops for a second but then thinks it must only be his conscience speaking so he returns to his work. But he hears it again. “Jesus is watching you.”

Well, now he’s really getting scared so he flicks on the light and there in the corner of the room is a parrot in a cage and a huge Doberman pinscher dog. The burglar says to be bird, “Is that the only thing you can say? ‘Jesus is watching you’?”

At that the bird turns to the dog and says, “Sick ‘em Jesus.”

I’m here this morning to correct some misperceptions and to spread some ‘yes’ perceptions about what it means to be free in Christ. I want to say just this today. If you get it the first time around you can sleep through the rest of the sermon if you dare. But what I want to say is very simple: Jesus sets us free so that we can be servants. Jesus sets us truly free so that we can be servants of God.

Now that doesn’t sound like such a radical idea, but you know that it is. We have a lot of misperceptions in our heads about what Jesus does for us and what Jesus expects of us. For some people, that story of the parrot and the burglar is not so far from the mark because we believe that the way Jesus relates to us is like a watchdog, watching our every move to see if we have been naughty or nice and ready to “sick us” if we go astray. If we have this image in our head then Jesus becomes a punitive Santa who sees us when we’re sleeping and knows when we’re awake and knows when we’ve been bad or good (so be good for goodness sake)! That doesn’t sound much like freedom.

Other folks believe that being a Christian is a drag. The stereotype of Christians is that they are laden with rules and burdened with all sorts of concerns. In this view, Christians only have a list of “Thou shalt nots” to attend to and they certainly can’t be having any fun, even though some of them are called “fun”damentalists. Some of us even have that stereotype. We worry if we’re feeling joyful because there must be something wrong. Freedom in Christ doesn’t compute.

But Jesus sets us free. Paul says so in his letter to the Galatians. “For freedom Christ has set us free. So, stand firm and don’t submit to the yoke of slavery again.” [Gal. 5:1]. Jesus is our Liberator. Jesus is all about defeating the “cosmic powers of this present darkness” [Eph. 6:12]. Jesus doesn’t want us to be fearful slaves of a harsh master. Jesus came to set us free and so we are.

It’s only when we accept our new life in Christ and realize our freedom that we begin to understand how enslaved we were before. It’s not easy resisting God’s will. When we do we end up serving a lot of things that we have no business serving. There are many false gods in the world and they go by familiar names - consumerism, self-aggrandizement, substance abuse, power, greed - you know their names. They are seductive and they are often glorified by our media. Which, I have to say, seems more and more immature every day. To watch the entertainment and even the news and political programs on TV today you would think we were all in a state of arrested development at somewhere around puberty.

But that’s not what I came to talk about today. I came to talk about freedom. Freedom in Christ. A freedom that overcomes all the old ways and saves the old me and tells me that I am no longer constrained to serve those false gods. Whatever I was before, I’m not now. Whatever I was enslaved to before, I’m not bound to it now.

One of Martin Luther’s most famous writings was titled “The Freedom of a Christian” and he talked in grand language about how Christians should not feel constrained by anything - even the law of Moses - because Christ had done everything necessary to make them free through his death on the cross. “A Christian person is the most free lord of all, and subject to none,” Luther said. Because of Christ the door was opened for all people to be priests and kings. We are living in a new age in this time after Jesus’ death and resurrection. What was needed to free us from sin and death has been done.

But…and you just knew there would be a ’but’, didn’t you?…this doesn’t mean that there are no changes in the way that we live as Christians. Luther went on to say, “This doesn’t mean that we should be careless or go on to lead a bad life. The Christian is lord of all and subject to none, but she or he is also servant of all and subject to everyone.” Finding a new life in Christ means that our priorities change. The world shifts on its axis. We are pointed toward a new star for guidance. Once we know that Christ changes everything - Christ changes everything. And suddenly we find ourselves serving others because that’s just what we have to do. Oh, we are free to do other things. But when we love Christ, what else is there to do except what Jesus would have us to do?

There’s no better example of how this all works out in a human life than Paul. Paul, if you remember, was a bad guy in the Christian story. He shows up first as a persecutor of the Christians and a zealous persecutor at that. He’s on his way to Damascus to continue his reign of terror when he is confronted by Jesus and turned completely around. He is freed from being the person he was to become something more.

Paul responds by becoming Christianity’s first great missionary. He travels throughout the Jewish communities of the Middle East but then he has a vision of someone in Greece begging him to come across the water to Europe and he does. He becomes an apostle to the Gentiles - to those who were not Jewish but who responded to the good news of Jesus anyway.

In this passage we read from today, Paul is writing back to one of the churches he started in the Greek city of Corinth. He reminds them that he really was free and that he could have demanded a fee for the service of preaching the gospel, but he doesn’t. Someone working for wages might be suspect to new converts. Besides he feels a compulsion to preach the gospel. He has to preach the good news. He has to tell people about Jesus. “Woe is me,” he says, “if I don’t proclaim the gospel!”

His life has been so reoriented by his encounter with the Living Christ that he can not do anything other than talk about what happened to him. He wants others to know what it means for him and what it can mean for them. And it affects the way he lives in the world. He starts entering into new cultures and new worldviews. He was a Jew and he was trained in the synagogues, so he went to the synagogues and talked about Jesus. He was an educated man who knew the Greek and Roman world, so he talked with Gentiles. He could talk philosophy so he talked with philosophers. He was one of our first cross-cultural missionaries. “I am free with respect to all,” Paul says, “but I have made myself a slave to all so that they could hear what the good news might mean for them. I have become all things to all people that by all means I might save some.”

This week I was in Blackstone with our Virginia Conference Board of Ordained Ministry. When I joined the Board four years ago I was the youngest person on there and it was rather intimidating. I remember what I thought of the Board when I had to go appear before them when I was seeking ordination as a pastor. At that time they were the suits - the men in black (and they were mostly men) - and they were the heavies. Well, now I am one of the suits and it’s amazing how your perspective changes when you get on the other side of the interview table.

I am amazed at the people who come before us at these interviews…mostly pleasantly amazed. These are men and women who have placed everything on the line to follow a call. And they are entering into the United Methodist ministry, which asks a lot from them. We believe in itinerancy which means that people who are ordained elders can expect to move throughout their ministry. We believe in open itinerancy, which means that elders can be moved anywhere within the conference. So we have to prepare people who can go into ministry in rural areas and suburban areas, in the mountains and in the cities, in predominantly black churches and predominantly white churches, in neighborhoods in crisis and in places of great wealth. Elders can even expect to go to the Eastern Shore - but only the fortunate few.

What this means is that we need incredibly versatile people who are comfortable stretching out of their comfort zones. We need pastors who are willing to walk out of their culture and to learn another. We need pastors who are educated and flexible and willing to work with all ages. We need pastors who have families that are also willing to at least understand what the call requires. When people put themselves up for this type of role, it is remarkable.

But people will do this. They will respond to a call that requires all this of them because they have a quality that we need more than any of those that I have just mentioned. They have a love for Jesus and a desire to serve and a compulsion to talk about the good news of Jesus because they know what has transformed their lives. They know that they have been shaken up, reoriented and set on a new course. They stand ready to give an account for the hope that is within them. They are free to do many, many other things, but they are servants of God because what else could God-touched people be?

But this is not just true for clergy; it’s also true for every Christian. It’s true for you. These past two days we have had some wonderful sessions as we got together for a church wide retreat using the results of our Natural Church Development survey. Friday night we got together for dinner, we sang, we talked about our history, we talked about our present, and we started to look ahead to our future. What we said is that God has done remarkable things with us. God has blessed this congregation and the members of it in many, many ways. We have been freed to do many things in this remarkable church.

But there is still a world that needs to hear the good news. There are people who are desperate for the good news. And they come in all shapes and sizes and in many different backgrounds. Many of them don’t look like many of us. They may be poor. They may be heartbroken. They may be ill. They may be Hispanic. They may speak another language. They may think different. They may be from here or they may be come heres. And you may think that you don’t have what they need.

But I tell you what you do have. If you have discovered something here…if you have met God in this place or in the ministry of this church…you have something that can change lives. You don’t have to be afraid that you don’t have what it takes to reach out to someone else. You have been given everything you need. You have Jesus.

Come on…stretch yourself a little. There’s room at this table for many more to come. But how will they know if you don’t realize your freedom in Christ and become the servant of God you were always meant to be? You’re going to meet some people this week who need some good news. Give it to them. You’ve got it. Thanks be to God.