Christ-love is the Foundation

Galatians 5:1, 13-16

Luke 9:51-62

Sunrise at Lake Colden in the Adirondack High Peaks. Photo: Getty Images

“For freedom Christ has set us free.” These are beautiful words from Paul’s letter to the Galatians. I want to spend some time with this concept of freedom this morning: both as Paul was using the term and as it applies to our context, because it will help us to unpack the lesson from Luke.

I experience a sense of freedom when I arrive to the north woods. Freedom from city crowds and city concrete. Freedom from the summer heat of Texas. Freedom from the burdens of the school year. As a boy, I remember feeling an unbridled sense of freedom as I sprinted barefoot through these woods playing capture the flag or blob tag. I imagine that many of us have similar experiences or memories of freedom here. For many of us, this is a place where we can step away from pressures and the burdens of the world. Just as tuberculosis patients from over a century ago traveled here to breath clean air, many of us come to breathe easier, to feel our burdens lifted from our chests -- freedom as a sense of relief.

Paul is writing at a different time to a very different audience, but this same sense of freedom is essential to the revelation that he points us towards in Jesus. Bishop N.T. Wright provides a helpful illustration to capture Paul’s perspective in his letter to the Galatians. His illustration – which I am going to draw on through this sermon – is rather fittingly of a lake town near Montreal where the lake freezes to a depth of at least 10 feet or more (that should sound familiar to Upper Saranac Lake!). During the winter months, people drive cars across it to a village on the opposite shore. As spring comes and the ice goes out, anyone who wants to cross to the other side must take a boat.

Paul’s point in his letter – Bishop Wright illustrates – is that spring has come to the people of God. For over a thousand years, their fellowship with God has been established through the law of Moses. But this law has essentially been a wintertime regime, a time of waiting. Now that the ice is out, the only way to cross the water is through a new means of transportation.

Paul’s opponents, whom he calls “the circumcision faction” earlier in the letter were – to extend this illustration – insisting that everyone still needed to cross the lake by car.  They insisted on this because they had developed all kinds of rules for crossing the ice safely, and the first step, for those starting this journey – to return to Paul’s world – was for all males to be circumcised. Circumcision was like starting the engine of the car; it was a sign that they had committed themselves to making the journey through the law of Moses.

Paul’s point to the people of God is that the ice is out! It doesn’t matter whether we start the engine of our car or not because the car is no longer relevant to the journey. God’s new age has come upon the world; Jesus is prepared to take anyone who wants to cross the water into his boat, but we can’t take the boat if we stay on the shore in our cars. So…when Paul talks about freedom in this letter, he is talking about freedom from the laws of Moses. That is, freedom from the previous mode of existence that worked when the proverbial lake was frozen.

Of course, most of us haven’t lived under the law of Moses, so the freedom that Paul is describing may not resonate for us in the same way it did for Paul’s audience. But most of us know what it feels like to be trapped by some form of law. Not the law of Moses, maybe—but the kinds of laws that we create for ourselves or the ones that society places on us: The expectations we feel from family. The constant pressure to be financially secure. To stay healthy. To be attractive. To be young. To succeed. To be enough.

Have we ever felt like we weren’t enough? Have we ever been overwhelmed and thought, “There’s no way I can live up to this”? We all build systems of meaning and virtue around ourselves, which are ways of measuring our worth and proving to ourselves (and the world) that we have value. But over time, those systems become a trap, an overwhelming burden—and it can feel like we’re sitting in a car on the edge of a lake that’s no longer safe to cross, and we’re too scared to leave what we know.

It is through this lens that our rather difficult lesson from Luke might be interpreted. We are presented with four responses to Jesus’s journey to Jerusalem — and in each one, someone is holding back, unsure if the freedom Jesus is offering is a viable alternative to what they know.

The first response comes from James and John – full of fire and passion – who want to call down destruction on those who oppose Jesus, calling to mind the prophet Elijah who consumes Baal worshipers with fire. James and John are caught in the trap of being right. They care more about winning the argument and punishing their opponents than following Jesus. The next man to respond is eager, ready to follow—but Jesus warns him that he will have no place to lay his head. Trapped by the need for security, he might want to follow, but not at the risk of being uncomfortable or unsafe. A third man says he wants to follow, but only after he’s buried his father. He’s trapped by a sense of duty and honor. His heart is sincere—but he’s waiting for the right moment, when everything else is settled. And the last one simply wants to say goodbye to his family. He’s trapped by affection, by the fear of letting go of those he loves.

In each case, it’s not that people aren’t interested in Jesus—they are. It’s just that something else comes first. The Kingdom of God is on their bucket list, so to speak—but to return to our illustration from Galatians—they’re not yet convinced that Jesus is the boat that can get them there. Or at least, not yet. That’s what makes these four responses in Luke so challenging—they feel so relatable. These aren’t wild or wicked people; they’re deeply human.  Who among us hasn’t felt the weight of caring for family? Or the need for financial security? Or the pull of duty and responsibility? Or a desire to do what’s right? These are all good things. Beautiful things, even. So shouldn’t we hold on to them?

That question brings us right into the heart of the struggle the Galatians were having as they wrestled with issue of circumcision and the law of Moses. This is a good thing, they thought, “Shouldn’t we hold on to it”?

Paul’s message to them—and to us—is this: The gospel Jesus offers is a love so wide, so strong, so unexpected, that it surprises us. Shocks us, even. He’s not saying the law is bad. Or that our virtues don’t matter. What he is saying is that the way into God’s Kingdom—the starting point of true life—is not something we can earn or build. It begins with a love so radical that only Christ, who gave his life for us on the cross in Jerusalem, can offer it. And anything we try to put in His place—our best intentions, our moral systems, even our virtues—will ultimately leave us stuck on the far side of the lake.

This Christ-love is the starting point and soul of everything that is good. It is not something that we can make secondary behind other virtues because without this Christ-love, those virtues become hollow. Franciscan priest Richard Rohr explores this dynamic beautifully. He writes:

“Justice without love is legalism. Faith without love is ideology. Hope without love is self-centeredness. Forgiveness without love is self-abasement. Fortitude without love is recklessness. Generosity without love is extravagance. Care without love is mere duty. Fidelity without love is servitude…No virtue is really a virtue unless it is permeated and informed by love.”

As Jesus walks the road to Jerusalem, he shows us what love is. He shows us who love is. And without it, without him, even our best virtues  become like cars idling on the shore of a lake that they’ll never cross. The good news is this: we don’t have to stay stuck.The freedom that many of us feel here in the Adirondacks—the open sky, the lakes and the mountains,  the campfires and unscheduled time for fun—these are glimpses of the freedom that Christ offers us, which is why this is holy ground for many of us; it is why we call these “healing woods.” Jesus offers us a freedom to lay down every burden we carry, a freedom that calls us to step away from the things we cling to, the burden of our laws, to follow Him into the kingdom of God. We are free—Paul tells us—not just from sin, but also from the need to save ourselves. All we need is the love of Christ.

So I will return to where we began: “For freedom Christ has set us free.” Good news indeed.

Amen.