Learning freedom

7 Easter C 2013
http://www.lectionarypage.net/YearC_RCL/Easter/CEaster7_RCL.html


What does it take to be free?

Our Acts reading is a story of liberation. The anonymous slave-girl who follows Paul and his companions around suffers from several slaveries at once. Legally she was someone’s slave. She was also enslaved by the magical practices of that time. Ancient Middle Eastern magic worked like this: you knew that on your own you were powerless. So through offering yourself, or through secret magical rites and incantations, you asked or persuaded or forced a spirit or angel or demon or even a god to do what you wanted. I think our slave girl had been offered to a spirit, literally in Greek a “python”, in order for her owners to make money. Think of this as spiritual prostitution. Her slavery was legal, financial, and spiritual.

But the Way of Jesus is a way of freedom. In an instant she was cast loose of spiritual and financial slavery at least.

I wonder what life was like for that slave afterwards? It is hard to be free. It is scary. You don’t know the rules, or you have trouble dealing with the fact that there are no rules that tell you who you are and what you can expect. The three young women in Cleveland, released from 10 years of hideous captivity and abuse, are in seclusion right now. Moving from slavery to freedom can be painful and jarring.

As Christians, we move from slavery to freedom all the time. At least, we should, if we are truly people of the Holy Spirit. “But where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom” says Saint Paul. A young student for the priesthood who just finished his Greek studies excitedly shared with me how learning to read a little New Testament Greek really opened his eyes. “In Bible Greek, there really is no linear past or future as we understand it” he said. “There are cases that indicate action that is completed, or action that is ongoing. Everything is part of a dynamic, unfolding kind of Now where more is constantly coming to light.”

Well, we’re not all Greek students, but we are Christians of the New Testament, and it is good to think about what the young student said. We are in that part of Eastertide season where we remember that Christ ascended into glory. That is why the Paschal candle is gone, and the awareness of empty space in the chancel is a reminder of that physical absence of Jesus. There is empty space that is not simply loss but is creative emptiness and anticipation. We are in the nine-day period of prayer before the feast of Pentecost. These days are not simply memorials, pious habits that we observe dutifully year after year. The coming of the Spirit of Jesus is a dynamic, ongoing reality. Pentecost is still unfolding in our lives, in our congregation, in the wider church, and in the world. We are literally “in Pentecost.” "Pentecost" is a better verb than it is a noun: we are "Pentecosting." So what do we do?

We honor the creative empty space in our lives. As we live, we accumulate a lot of clutter. We begin to think and act as if we cannot exist without all the things, or the ideas, or the habits that make up who we think we are. Consider the accumulation of our own lives: what has built up, in terms of things or actions or attitudes that we simply cannot release? The same applies to our congregation: we are clearing out our physical space, amidst some wincing on the part of members who have memories attached to this or that, as a sign of clearing out our minds and souls. Freedom is hard. The slave-girl had to adjust to a new life. Can we adjust to a lighter, more agile Saints Peter and Paul, where our conversations center on the Now of God and Christ and the Gospel and the dynamic future opening before us? Can we leave aside any thoughts of defeat or frustration or disappointment, or any rose-tinted nostalgia of a past that in our memory seems so wondrous?

What does it take to be free?

The Collect asks that we not be left “comfortless”. That word has become fuzzy in modern English. “Comfort” means “with strength.” With strength may Spirit come, and make us the free daughters and sons of God.

It matters—not just us, but for the world. For all creation waits with eager longing for the freedom of the children of God.