And The Truth Shall Set You Free...

“WE SHALL BE FREE”
Text: John 8:31-36
Faith United
July 6, 2008


I’ve been in the church
since conception,
since I was listening to hymns
through my mother’s belly button
so I know the language
of the Church very well
and all the special code words of the United Methodist Church
like UMW, SPRC, UMM, UMCOR
but I also know the Christian dialect
as well as I know English
There are words and phrases in our vocabulary
that we take for granted
words that we repeat again and again
like the pass word into a clubhouse
but we rarely think about their meaning
because we take their meaning for granted
and we do that as citizens too

This is the weekend where we celebrate our country’s birthday
and we celebrate freedom
We’re thankful for our freedom
We celebrate the ones who have fought for that freedom
But do you ever stop and think
what does freedom mean?
What IS it?
What is freedom?
What are we celebrating? Do we know?
What do we mean when we say the word freedom?
Freedom of speech?
Freedom of religion?
Freedom to vote in a democracy?
Freedom to own property,
get an education, pursue a career?
What is the freedom that we are willing to die for?

I looked up freedom
and there is no single definition --
in fact, on dictionary.com
I found 20 different meanings for freedom
It’s one of those words that means different things
to different people
Just like “truth”

Jesus said to his people
“If you continue in my word, you are truly my disciples,
and you shall know the truth
and the truth shall set you free.”
What truth?
Did anyone ask?
I’d want to know… Jesus, what will set me free?
What is the truth?
Later, when Jesus was brought before Pontius Pilate
as Pilate tried to figure out
what this man did so wrong
that people wanted him to die
Pilate asked Jesus, “are you a king?”
And Jesus said, “You say that I am a king.
For this I was born and for this I came into the world,
to testify to the truth.
Everyone who belongs to the truth listens to my voice.”
And Pilate asked the question
that was never really answered
“What is truth?”
The question just hung in the air
Jesus didn’t answer him
And so the question hung in the silence
What is truth?

I looked up the word truth
and the first thing that it said
was that there is no single definition
that scholars can agree on
No one can agree on what truth means
but there are 15 definitions
in the dictionary
so they gave it a good try
What truth was Jesus talking about?
What truth was he born to testify?
What were all those sermons for?
All that teaching to the crowds
in the cities and in the countryside
What was Jesus testifying to? and for?
Someone might say, well, the truth is that Jesus died for our sins
so that we can be free
Ok, what does that mean?
Free from what?

If I’m sounding like the devil’s advocate here
it’s because I’m finding more and more
that fewer and fewer people know the code words
know the language
that I’ve known since I was a fetus
And so we can’t just say the words
we have to say what we mean
we have to say what those words mean to us
How those words
those old, old words, give our lives meaning and hope
I’ve always told Sarah to tell me the truth
she knows that one of the worst things she can do
is lie to me
I don’t like being lied to
Even if the truth hurts or I don’t like it
I prefer the harsh truth rather than a lie

The people that Jesus was talking to
had been life-long Jews
they knew the language, too,
since they were in the womb
So they didn’t like him coming along
and trying to teach them something new
“And you shall know the truth and the truth will make you free.”
Well, they said, “we don’t need to be free…
we are descendents of Abraham,
and have never been slaves to anyone…”
Whoa… excuse me?
Never been slaves to anyone?
First of all, at that time, the Jews were living in a land
occupied by the Romans
the Romans were running their country
making all the rules
inflicting punishments, keeping the Jews in line
The Jews’ country was being occupied
by a foreign power
They’ve never been slaves to anyone?
What about the 400 years that their ancestors
were slaves in Egypt??
Hello?
They were descendents of Abraham THEN,
but for 4 centuries, they were slaves to the Egyptians
owned like property
forced to do back-breaking labor every day

Have you ever met someone who was in serious denial?
We’ve never been slaves…
when in fact, most of their history
was defined by slavery and oppression
What would it cost them to tell the truth
the truth that Jesus already knew?
He was a Jew, too
Any good Jew knew their history
knew that their people had been slaves for centuries
had been a conquered people again and again

Sometimes the truth is terrifying, isn’t it?
What do we say-- “no news is good news”?
We’d rather not know the truth
even if we have a good inkling of it
As long as we don’t know, or don’t admit it,
then we don’t have to do anything about it
We don’t have to deal with it
but if we know the truth,
we have to respond
and sometimes that is just too frightening

Most families have secrets
that they don’t tell
that they try to forget themselves
as if forgetting will make it go away
For a people who live with so much freedom
we sure do bind ourselves up, don’t we?
Sometimes we don’t want to be free
We don’t want to know or to tell the truth
because if people reject that,
then what else do we have?
Truth is scary
Freedom can be terrifying
It might demand something of us
that we don’t feel capable of giving
Former President Bill Clinton tells of his first meeting ever
with Nelson Mandela
after he’d become the leader of South Africa
Clinton said to him,
“When you were released from prison, Mr. Mandela,
I woke my daughter up at 3 in the morning
I wanted her to see this historic event
As you marched from the cellblock across the yard
to the gate of the prison,
the camera focused on your face.
I have never seen such anger, and even hatred
in any man as was expressed on your face
at that time.
That’s not the Nelson Mandela I know today
what was that about?” he asked

Mandela answered,
“I’m surprised that you saw that,
and I regret that the cameras caught it on tape.
As I walked across that courtyard that day
I thought to myself,
they’ve taken everything from you that matters.
your cause is dead
Your family is gone
Your friends have been killed
Now they’re releasing you, but there’s nothing left for you
out there…
“And,” he said, “then I sensed an inner voice
saying to me, ‘Nelson! For 27 years
you were their prisoner,
but you were always a free man!
Don’t allow them to make you into a free man,
only to turn you into their prisoner!”

Mandela felt he was faced with a choice
He could be bitter and angry
for all those years of imprisonment
and really, in that way, he’d never be free
He realized that even after everything
that he’d been through,
in order for him to live in freedom
he had to forgive, to let it go….

We are a people of great freedom,
and yet, we are still enslaved in so many ways
What is it that enslaves us?
Secrets?
Something that happened a long time ago
that we can’t talk about?
And yet it eats at us all the time…
Or is it just not being able to be ourselves?
To live truthfully, openly,
risking rejection, risking the people we love
turning away in disgust?
‘If they only knew me, really…’

And I’m not advocating us all going out
and writing Tell-All books
to exploit pain and sorrow for profit
I’m talking about allowing God to set us free
God offers us so much freedom
and yet we so often choose bondage
The Jews were slaves for much of their history
they knew slavery,
they knew bondage,
they knew sorrow and despair
And so, at the time of Jesus,
even as they were no longer slaves
but still living under Roman rule
they denied any sense of slavery, any bondage
when in fact, they were bound to the law
They used the laws of God
to bind themselves up, to bind up others
to keep others out, and to define who was in
Their relationship with God
was supposed to set them free
and yet time and time again, they used it to bind themselves
and others up
Do we do that?
Are we ever bound up in our religion?
Do we ever use it to deny ourselves joy?
Do deny ourselves freedom and beauty?
Do we withhold ourselves
from the people that love us the most
because we’re afraid that if they knew the whole truth
they’d turn away?
Sometimes they do
and maybe that’s why we don’t trust in the truth anymore
But we celebrate Freedom
freedom that is very costly in so many ways
freedom that throughout history
has cost human lives
yet even as we celebrate freedom
we continue to live in bondage
whether it’s external or internal
as if we don’t trust ourselves or trust each other, or even God

We all have those things inside of us that we struggle against
We all have those things inside of us
that we’re sure are too ugly to share
that people who know us would be shocked if they knew
And Jesus says,
“If you continue in my word, you are truly my disciples
and you will know the truth,
and the truth will set you free.”
God knows you better than anyone
and yet God never turns away
no matter what
We might turn away from God
because we think that God would be so disappointed
in us --and yet we can’t keep secrets from God

Jesus is speaking to people
who use the many gifts of God to torture themselves
with guilt, with obsessive-compulsive behavior
because for a people who are so used to being enslaved,
freedom can be terrifying --
all that wide open space
with endless possibilities
yikes!

“Everyone who belongs to the truth
listens to my voice,” Jesus told Pilate
“For this I was born, and for this I came into the world
to testify to the truth…”
Jesus embodies truth
and with Pontius Piliate we might say,
“Ok, but what is truth?”
And this weekend, every year
I want to ask, “what is freedom?”
It would be lovely
if Jesus would just hand us the answers
simple and clear
THIS is the truth, and he hands it over
But he never lets us get off that easy
He’s given us a lifetime
to learn
a lifetime to listen, to see,
to look closer, to relate to all kinds of people
to get hurt and to learn to forgive
to suffer loss and come through the other side
He’s given us a lifetime to unwrap the truth
and we do that by living with him
living in relationship to him
who embodies truth
he came into the world
to testify with his whole life and being
what is truth
and so we are invited on that journey with him
To let go, to open our clenched fists
to consider that we DON’T have all the answers
that we DON’T know everything
but are willing to learn

We are invited into a life of love
and that is never dull
it’s never perfectly smooth or predictable
in fact, it can be absolutely terrifying
but Jesus says he’s with us always
He faced Pontius Pilate, who had the power to release him
he could have proved himself in that moment
he could have shown all his credentials
“do you know who I am?” he could have said
“If you knew who I am, you wouldn’t dare have me killed,”
he could have said,
he could have saved his own life

Instead, he didn’t say a word
What is truth?
Truth was standing right before Pilate
in all its fullness,
in love that would lay down his very life
for the world
Love that was so powerful
that it would transcend death
and bring life that cannot be finally vanquished

We have a lot of freedom as Americans
that make us very fortunate
but I don’t believe any of us are truly free
we are bound up in so many ways
The gospel group, the Blind Boys of Alabama
have a song that says,
“none of us are free if one of us is chained.”
And of course, that contemporary prophet Garth Brooks
says that we will be free
when all of our brothers and sisters on the earth are free

“When the last child cries for a crust of bread,
when the last man dies for just words that he said
when there’s shelter over the poorest head
we shall be free…
When the last thing we notice is the color of skin
and the first thing we look for is the beauty within
when the skies and the oceans are clean again
we shall be free…
When we’re free to love anyone we choose
when this worlds big enough for all different views
when we all can worship from our own kind of pews
then we shall be free…
When money talks for the very last time
and nobody walks a step behind
when there’s only one race, and that’s humankind
then we shall be free…”

We’re not free
But we’re getting there
we just need to get out of our own way
and let God set us free
again and again
Let God work
in your life and in the lives of those around you
get out of the way
This weekend we celebrate freedom
let’s live the rest of the year living out that freedom
and trusting in the truth that God offers in Jesus Christ
and whether it’s in this lifetime
or in some distant future
that we’ll only see from the vantage point of eternity
We will be free
God doesn’t give up
and God won’t stop till everyone finds their place
at the table….