Freedom in Christ: Stand Firm and Resist the Yoke of Slavery

I can never decide whether Christianity is the easiest religion in the world, or the hardest. There are very few rules in Christianity, which arguably makes it easy to follow. According to Jesus, the whole of our faith can be summarized in the commandment to love God with all our heart, and to love our neighbor as ourselves. In our baptismal covenant, we add a second promise: to continue in the teaching and the fellowship, the breaking of bread and the prayers, in other words, to be a part of a community of faith.

Love God, love your neighbor, go to church. It sounds pretty simple doesn't it? Jesus was not interested in imposing rules or restrictions on people, or in making religion a burden. As he says in Matthew: "my yoke is easy and my burden is light." (Matt. 11:28). He wanted to set us free from all kinds of burdens: inner burdens like fear, anxiety and guilt, and external burdens like religious rules and regulations. As St. Paul writes in the Letter to the Galatians, it was for freedom that Christ set us free. He urges us to "stand firm, therefore, and do not submit again to a yoke of slavery."

Paul is writing in the context of a dispute over whether Gentile Christians should be circumcised in accordance with Jewish law. This was the first of many disputes in the history of Christianity over what is required of believers. Another early dispute was whether people who renounced the faith under torture should be accepted back into the faith. More recently, there have been arguments about whether women should be ordained, whether homosexuality is a sin, whether Christians should be pacifist, whether abortion is a sin and so on. As well, there are disputes over how to read the Bible, how to worship, how to pray and so on. Some of these issues are worth arguing over, but the problem is that we are all too ready to draw a line excluding those who don't agree with us.

It seems to be part of our human nature to let rules creep back in. We want a checklist to make sure we're following the faith, and for that matter, we would like a checklist to make sure other people are following the faith. We take what Jesus has made easy and we make it hard.

But there is method in our madness, because if we focus on rules, and deciding who is in and who is out, we can distract ourselves from the really hard part of Christianity: trusting and loving God, and loving our neighbor as ourselves.

Loving God with your whole heart and your neighbor as yourself is a truly radical demand. It requires detachment from the many things that beckon to us and potentially enslave us. Paul summarizes those things with the phrase, "the works of the flesh."

A word about Paul's language is in order here because he is so frequently misunderstood. Commentators generally agree that when Paul condemns "the works of the flesh," he is not condemning the body as such. He is not advocating a disembodied spirituality or asceticism. The "flesh" is his shorthand way of referring to the whole self under the power of sin, with its self-serving desires and motives. This self is never satisfied-there is never be enough wealth, status, approval, pleasure or security for this self to be at peace. It is the anxious, self-seeking part of us that seeks to impose rules, and exclude others, rather than accepting others in love, as we have been accepted by Christ.

Paul's message in this letter is that Christ has set us free from self-centeredness and self-seeking and the destructive behaviors that flow from them. Christ has opened the door to true freedom, which is the freedom to love. But Paul is warning us that we need to safeguard our freedom and resist falling back into the slavery of self-seeking.

The behaviors Paul counsels us to avoid seem to fall into three categories. The first is using your body in a way that is destructive to you or another person-thus, fornication, impurity, licentiousness, drunkenness, carousing. The second category is using religion in a manipulative way, to try to get what you want-sorcery and idolatry-rather than loving God for God's sake and trusting God for what you need. The third category is anything that destroys peace and unity among people-enmities, strife, jealousy, anger, quarrels, dissension, factions, envy.

Again, I can never decide whether Christianity is the easiest religion in the world or the hardest. Perhaps we can say with T. S. Elliot, that it is "a condition of complete simplicity, costing not less than everything." Jesus' yoke is easy and his burden is light, if you can only let go of the demands of the ego-an impossible task without God's grace.

We are accustomed in our society to think of freedom as freedom from any restraints. The political philosopher Rousseau, and others, have argued that in the "state of nature" before society is formed, human beings are completely free to do whatever they want, subject only to their own conscience. But they enter into a social contract, and give up some of that freedom, for the sake of the benefits to be derived from living in society, in particular, social order. It is a useful argument because it implies that people have the right to consent to be governed, and if the government abuses them, they have the right to withdraw that consent.

However, the Christian understanding of freedom is much different. Freedom is not simply freedom from restraint, but instead, it is freedom to become an authentic human being, by loving God and your neighbor. Christ has set us free from self-will, and from the rules and regulations of religion, so that we will be free to love, and thereby become fully human.

The difference is illustrated by the classic comedy movie, Uncle Buck, starring John Candy. John Candy plays the ne'er do well bachelor uncle of a family with three children. During a family crisis, he has to go and stay with the three children while the parents are out of town. He finds his freedom of movement greatly restricted as he has to get the children up for school, prepare all their meals, chase the rebellious teenage daughter around as she tries to exercise her freedom etc. etc. Meanwhile, his girlfriend of 8 years is about to break up with him because he refuses to make any commitment.

At times, he expresses great frustration that his carefree life is being curtailed-especially when he has to give up the chance to make big bucks through a fixed horse race, in order to look for the missing teenage girl. But at some point during the movie, he has a moment of illumination about his life. He says, people used to say I have it made, with no wife, no kids, no desk or office to tie me down. They said that for years. But they're not saying that anymore. He realizes that his freedom from commitment is not true freedom. It has not led him to growth or fulfillment or peace. True freedom is realized in living out a commitment to love and serve others.

As we live out our commitments, whether to our children, our parents, our partners and spouses, and the friends and strangers we meet each day, we are slowly transformed. The anxious, striving self gradually gives way to a new and freer self. Paul describes the fruit of the Spirit: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. The kingdom of God is within us-Christ has opened the gates. Stand firm, therefore, and do not submit again to the yoke of slavery.