Freedom of the Servant

This sermon was heard at the Federated Church in Weatherford, Oklahoma on Sunday June 26, 2016, the Thirteenth Sunday of Ordinary Time.

2 Kings 2:1-2, 6-14
Psalm 77:1-2, 11-20
Galatians 5:1,13-25
Luke 9:51-62

May the words of mouth and the meditations of our hearts be acceptable to you, O Lord, our rock and our redeemer. Amen

The Reverend Chip Andrus is the Pastor at South Salem Presbyterian Church in South Salem, New York. I knew Chip when he was the Pastor of the First Presbyterian Church in Harrison, Arkansas. He’s one of those people I want to be when I grow up. If envy wasn’t a sin, I would covet his musical talent. I tell people I’m musical, but not musically talented. Chip is both.

A few years ago Marie and I went to Sunday worship at First Harrison and the sermon had to do with being a servant. The choir didn’t do an anthem that day. Rather than the full choir and organ, Chip and a small combo of guitars gathered around the font. They sang the first single released from Bob Dylan’s 1979 studio album “Slow Train Coming.” It was his first release since becoming a born again Christian. They played “Gotta Serve Somebody” and played it quite well. During the sermon, Pastor Chip quoted the song:

But you're gonna have to serve somebody, yes
You're gonna have to serve somebody
Well, it may be the devil or it may be the Lord
But you're gonna have to serve somebody

There are two things from last Sunday’s sermon that I want to say again. The first is this paraphrase of Paul from Galatians, “there was a time when the nation of Israel lived under the custody of the Law, the Torah, until the faith could be revealed. The Law acted like a guardian taking care of the nation. Then the Christ came and we are now justified by faith and now that this faith has come, we are no longer under a guardian.”

I bring this back because this leads us to the beginning of our reading from Galatians. The words found on the cover of our bulletin, “It is for freedom that Christ has set us free. Stand firm, then, and do not let yourselves be burdened again by a yoke of slavery.”

In the days of Jesus, the Pharisees literally turned the law into a yoke of slavery. To be right with the law was to be right with the Temple Elite was to be right with the Pharisees. If you didn’t do as the Pharisees wanted, your relationship with God would be brought into question. In Jerusalem, at a time when everything revolved around the temple, if you ran afoul with the leaders you could be kicked out. Being kicked out would lead to spiritual, social, and financial ruin.

In the sacred and the secular, the Pharisees had the people in a yoke of slavery made from the law. In and of itself, the law was not bad, but when people use the Law, the word of God, to make the people slaves, that is bad.

We are no longer under the guardianship of the law, but that doesn’t mean we don’t need safeguards. Without rules people have a tendency to get off the leash and run. Folks can become overzealous. Our gospel reading from the New International Version says, “Jesus sent messengers on ahead, who went into a Samaritan village to get things ready for him; but the people there did not welcome him.” Remember, the Jews and the Samaritans were cousins who didn’t get along. Back to the story, “[they did] not welcome him because he was heading for Jerusalem. When the disciples James and John saw this, they asked, ’Lord, do you want us to call fire down from heaven to destroy them?’ But Jesus turned and rebuked them.”

Another translation, the New American Standard Bible, includes a comment by Jesus not found in earlier manuscripts. In this translation, Jesus rebukes the disciples saying, “You do not know what kind of spirit you are of; for the Son of Man did not come to destroy men’s lives, but to save them.” In that translation, not only do we know that James and John were rebuked, but how they were rebuked.

James and John were two of the most trusted disciples. They will see the transfiguration. They will accompany the Lord to Gethsemane when the time comes; and they get scolded for offering wrath when that is not the will of God. The Samaritans are the Hatfield’s to their McCoy and the nuclear option looks pretty good, but that is not the will of God.

To live in the age of grace that follows living under the law, we need to live in the right spirit, the Holy Spirit of God in Christ. To do that, I first want to bring back the other thing from last Sunday’s sermon. In the conclusion I said, “This is the good news of Jesus Christ. The God who sent his Son to show us a better way, to be the better way, became the living Torah so we can live by faith and not under the law.”

It’s not wrong to ask the question “if we don’t live under the law, then what do we live under?” You might even ask me if I am “anti-law-and-order.” Rest assured I love order contrary to the appearance of my desk at any given moment. But I heard it said that laws and rules are written for society’s dumbest people. Why is there a speed limit? So people don’t drive 145 mph through downtown OKC. Why does the NFL make football stadiums quit serving adult beverages after the third quarter? To reduce the number of drunk drivers. Why can’t you drive drunk? It’s about safety, the drinker’s and everybody else’s.

As Paul writes, the flesh desires what is contrary to the Spirit and what the flesh wants is, “sexual immorality, impurity and debauchery; idolatry and witchcraft; hatred, discord, jealousy, fits of rage, selfish ambition, dissensions, factions and envy; drunkenness, orgies, and the like.” Paul sure knows how to make a list, doesn’t he?

When talking about Jesus as the Living Torah, the Law of God that came to be with us and to be one of us, we must remember that the Messiah only wants what is good and right for the children of God. Nothing bad can come from Jesus. I’ll say that again. Nothing bad can come from Jesus. This is the breadth of God’s love for us. The Lord who can do all things from creation to destruction, chooses love. There is no hate, no spite, no arrogance, no ignorance, no impatience, no grudges in the name of God.

In this “What Would Jesus Do?” moment, we have to remember that the answer is to live in the spirit of God. Paul has a list for what it means to live in the Spirit too, ‘love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control.” He ends saying, “Against such things there is no law. Those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires.”

Our reading from Paul’s letter to the Galatians ends with an admonition that can be read as a prayer, “Since we live by the Spirit, let us keep in step with the Spirit.” He tells the Galatians that they live in the Spirit! Yes, they live in the Spirit!

Paul says freedom is in Christ. When we stand firm in Christ the burdens others place on us are gone. That doesn’t mean everything in life will automatically be peaches and cream; there are people who will try to put the yoke of the law around your neck again and again. There are Pharisees in every age who will tell you what to think and how to act and will do it in the name of God. When done to lift up what is not Godly, Paul tells to beware, “If you bite and devour each other, watch out or you will be destroyed by each other.”

Yes, people err. People goof. People make mistakes. You know the old expression, “To err is human, to blame is also human.” This is the nature of sin which we will not escape this side of glory. We can rejoice that while to err is human, to forgive divine. Living under the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ we are not servants to the law or, more importantly, the Pharisees, whether ancient and modern, who would bind us with it.

Pastor Chip quoted Bob Dylan saying:

But you're gonna have to serve somebody, yes
You're gonna have to serve somebody
Well, it may be the devil or it may be the Lord
But you're gonna have to serve somebody

I love Chip as a friend, pastor, and colleague in ministry. I follow him on Facebook, but not as a prophet. I am not a servant of Chip. As for Dylan’s music, I like this song. The album got fair to good reviews and the song won a Grammy. I’m not a servant of Dylan or his music. We are servants of Christ, and as his servants we are free from the yoke of the law. We are free. Free to live by the Spirit, serving one another humbly in love, for the entire law is fulfilled in keeping this one command: “Love your neighbor as yourself.”

Extra Credit

This sermon was delivered at the First Presbyterian Church in Berryville, Arkansas on Sunday October 7, 2007, the 27th Sunday in Ordinary Time.

Lamentations 1:1-6
Psalm 137
2Timothy 1:1-14
Luke 17:5-10

May the words of my mouth and the meditations of our hearts be acceptable to you, O Lord, our rock and our redeemer. Amen

I don’t know if I have ever shared this with you, but I have a rule of thumb. When looking at the scripture for Sunday, I generally find that the shorter the reading, the tougher the message. I don’t know if it works this way for everyone, but that’s the way it works for me. I find that the longer a passage is, the better it flows. Longer pieces just tend to have more of a melodic quality, a rhythm that lends itself to preaching. Narratives like the Call of Gideon in Judges or the Sermon on the Mount from the Gospels lend themselves to proclamation. True to form I find today’s reading of just seven verses from Luke’s Gospel just plain nasty. In this tiny little reading, Jesus gives two lessons to his apostles, the first is two verses on faith and the other is five verses on personal worth.

Let’s begin by noting that this Word of the Lord was not for everybody. Jesus did not direct this message to the masses. He specifically addressed these sayings to his apostles. So when we read, “Who among you would say to your slave…?” Jesus was asking the twelve to put themselves in the place of the master, the slave owner. And Jesus is asking them how they would treat their slaves.

Also remember that slavery in the first century was not the same thing slavery was in seventeenth to nineteenth century America. Slavery in the first century was closer to what we would call indentured servitude. It was possible for slaves to earn their release from service after a period of time. This is particularly true among the more orthodox Jewish masters who by the Law of Moses were called to release their slaves on the Sabbath year. Still first century slavery was not a picnic. The hours were long and the work was difficult. Slaves could earn their release, but it was a long and arduous process.

So Jesus is asking his apostles, the twelve who knew him best in this world what they would do as masters of slaves. Jesus anticipated their answer, nobody would invite their slave to sit on down, take a load off, and take a place at the table while someone else, or even less likely the master, gets the slave’s dinner. No self respecting slave owner would ever do this.

Is it so different today? If you say yes, I want you to go to Crescent Hotel after worship and tell the person waiting your table at the Crystal Dining Room to take your seat, have a little bagel and lox, and maybe a waffle, while you take care of their tables.

Or how about going to Sonic, telling the carhop to get in the back seat of your car while you get her a Coney and some Ched-R-Peppers[1] while you handle her orders?

Oh, and the tips still go to the restaurant staff.

Yeah, I didn’t think so.

In a way, we are different. We appreciate the people who serve us, but we don’t invite them to trade places with us. More than that, the slave master of the day would not thank a slave for doing what they had been commanded. Appreciate maybe, commend no.

This is where Jesus puts the screws to the disciples. They have just finished affirming the way things are in the world as if they were the masters when Jesus turns the tables on them. “So you also, when you have done all that you were ordered to do, say, ‘We are worthless slaves; we have done only what we ought to have done.’” Jesus gets everyone worked up over how they would treat their slaves, only to be told that they themselves are slaves, and when they have done all that was ordered, they shouldn’t expect any thing more than to be slaves. They are expected to say, “Well, I’m just doing my job, boss.”

Yuck. There’s something you want to hear from the Messiah, the Anointed, the Christ, “we are worthless slaves.” But let’s take this apart before we get too offended by these words. Other translations don’t use the word slave; they use the word servant instead. So we are able to soften this if we wish. But I don’t think we should.

Without bondage to the slavery imposed by sin, we don’t need the redemptive work of Jesus Christ. If sin is turning against God and others, claiming mastery of our own lives, and becoming exploiters of the world,[2] then redemption is how we who are slaves to sin are recovered by our original owner for a price.[3] When we use the language of slavery we can use the language of redemption.

We are slaves, slaves to sin who have been redeemed, purchased for a price by the body and blood of Christ. Using the word “servant” gets rid of that nasty antebellum plantation connotation, but it candy coats who we are and minimizes what God has done. As slaves, our freedom was purchased by the Lord on the cross with his body and his blood.

Jesus is subtle. He sets a snare for the disciples, having them imagine themselves masters over slaves and them springing the surprise, tells them that they themselves are slaves in this life. And as they do what they ought to do, they should not expect to receive special treatment from the master.

There is a bit of this passage in the New English Bible translation that I like better than the New Revised Standard Version. Instead of saying we are “worthless” the New English Bible says we “deserve no credit.” The nuance that this translation gives us is not that we are not worthy, but it’s that we don’t deserve extra credit for doing what we are supposed to do.

Marie didn’t sponsor a parade for me because I took out the trash on Wednesday night. It’s what I’m supposed to do. There will be no bill boards posted for me because I served as chaplain at the hospital last week. This is what I am supposed to do. Now Marie did graciously thank me for taking out the trash, and others have thanked me for serving at the hospital. But these are not master-slave relationships either. To tweak this a little, it’s not that I’m worthless; it’s that I don’t deserve extra credit from the Lord for doing what I am called to do.

And this is where I am glad that Jesus Christ has come to redeem us. The big twist of this passage is the difference between what we have earned and what we have received.

You see, despite the fact that we shouldn’t expect to be invited to sit down and be served; God has invited us to the table. The words, “come, taste and see that the Lord is good” ring from the table every time we celebrate the Lord’s Supper. It is the Lord who invites those who believe to come and receive his gift not because we have earned it, but because the Lord wants us to be there. The Lord invites us to the table and says this is my body given for you and this is the new covenant sealed in my blood shed for you for the forgiveness of sins. And whenever we take of the loaf and the cup, we do it in remembrance of Him who invites us to the table and provides the meal.

Since early this morning, and throughout the rest of the day, Christians around the world come to tables like this one and share the one loaf and the one cup. With other Christians around the world, today we celebrate World Communion Sunday. In this meal, we are fed, we are fortified, and we experience the outward sign of the inward grace of the Lord God Almighty. In this meal, the church, the body of Christ is fortified and nourished.

The joy of this meal is in the simple fact that we participate in this good gift not because we deserve it, but because the Lord wishes to share it with us. We are slaves who do not deserve extra credit for doing what we are supposed to be doing, feeding the poor, praying for the church, taking the word into the world. But because God has created us and because God wants a relationship with us, God invites us to this table. The extravagant gift of the living God is that the Lord God gave himself, body and spirit that we may be in relationship with him, even though nothing we can do could ever earn us a spot at the table. We are not worthy of such a wonderfully gracious gift, yet we are invited to come, share, and celebrate.

We are saved by grace through faith. And by the Lord’s grace our faith is fed by the meal he sets before us, the meal of bread and cup which become so much more by the virtue of the one who provides them. It becomes so much more because the Master invites us to join him at the table. It is the meal the Master serves the slaves. It is the meal that lifts our spirits and our bodies as we do the Master’s work in the world. And by this meal, this sacrament, we are able to move mountains, and mulberry trees. We are able to join together to do his work.

We are hungry, so hungry, and we long for the master’s table. But there is nothing on earth we can do to deserve a place at the table. Yet in the twist that defines our faith, the master invites all of us, all of humanity, all of creation to the table not because we deserve it, but because the Lord God wants us to come and join him. This is the meal we share with God and God’s glorious creation. Come, taste, and see, the Lord is good.

[1] Ched-R-Peppers is a Registered Trademark of the Sonic Corporation.
[2] The Confession of 1967, The Presbyterian Church (USA), Line 12.
[3] “Redeem” entry, The Interpreter’s Dictionary of the Bible. Buttrick, G. A., General Editor. Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1962-1992, electronic version, 2002.