The Freedom of a Christian

Our pericope for today is a prayer that enjoins the first and second half of Ephesians. It is a prayer that connects the theological with the ethical. The last two weeks we have discussed being in Christ. We have been chosen and adopted in Christ. We have citizenship in Christ for the Kingdom of God. In this prayer we too are shown to have the first fruits of reconciliation in God. Our inner beings are strengthened, our knowledge widened, and our love perfected in Christ through the Holy Spirit. We see a movement from God to the community of believers and to our neighbor. This movement begins with grace and ends in freedom. 

This prayer admits that we are ignorant! It begins with the confession that we have not, do not, and will not completely understood the love of God. We see this in the way that the people of God have understood God’s love to be exclusive. In the past preachers and teachers have erected requirements to be a Christian. They had to be landowners, to be of a certain class, to be of a certain ethnicity, to be of a certain skin color, to be of a certain gender, or to have their lives together! “But God proves his love for us in that while we still were sinners Christ died for us.” (Rom. 5:8). This promise is inclusive to all peoples at all times. The message of grace is incomprehensible. Why would God choose us? Why would God admit me into the Kingdom? Why would God trust in me to be God’s witness? To know this love surpasses all understanding and continues to be confounding to us today. 

When I was a young boy around the age of five or six, we visited Chicago for my older brother’s hockey tournament. We stayed at what I thought was an incredible hotel. My little boy brain was shocked at how many floors this hotel had, its elevator which was see-through glass and could view the lobby, and how many people were everywhere! It was such an incredible place. To make it even better, this hotel had a store! I begged my parents to check it out. So, after one of my brother’s hockey games, we finally checked it out. I immediately started looking at all the candy. I picked up a pack of gum to ask my mom if I could get it and she told me to ask the person at the counter how much it was. They told me the price and my mom suggested we could get it later if I behaved well. I thought that that sounded like a good plan and placed the gum in my pocket before we left the store. 

When we got out into the lobby and back into the elevator to go back to our room my head was once again spinning. I couldn’t believe we were in a place so huge and fancy! We took the elevator back to the room and were settling down. I jumped on the big bed (with a little help) and reached into my pocket. My heart sank. I realized that I had taken the gum. Panicking I called for my mom. “What do I do? What do I do? I didn’t mean to take it! I thought I put it back!” Guilt flooded my young conscience and tears started to well up in my eyes. I started to say, “I’m sorry I didn’t mean to. I didn’t know!” 

My Mom and Dad, to their credit understood this prayer in Ephesians. They understood what it meant to be filled with the heart and love of Jesus. So, like any good parents, they chuckled at first. Then, they came over to me and gave me a hug. They said, “Andy, we forgive you, but you have to make it right.” With their help we went back down to the hotel store, and I mustered up the courage to talk to the cashier. I shakingly handed back my gum and said, “I took this. I’m really sorry.” And then something amazing happened, the cashier purchased the gum and gave it to me, and they said, “you are forgiven.” To know intimately, the love of Christ shown to me by my parents and this cashier surpasses all knowledge and understanding. It is an experience beyond words and beyond comprehension. 

This movement of faith does not abandon those distinctive traits which make us, “us.”  The prayer which Paul prays acknowledges that all of us retain our personality through a faith which is covenantal. Faith whether that be God’s, Jesus’ or our own, presupposes a relationship in which one partner trusts and is faithful to the other. Jesus is distinct from God the Father, who is distinct from the Spirit. Three persons- Father, Son, and Spirit- one God. We see that distinction is not erased but embraced in covenantal promise and love. This covenant is extended to us in the fulfillment of the promises of Jesus Christ. We are rooted and founded in this love through the course of our own experiences. 

The combination of our distinct talents, gifts, personalities, and experiences is brought into relationship with Christ. In this covenant we are given true freedom: which is the ability to freely give and receive love even as God has freely given and received love. To be perfected in love is to be in continual relationship with God and to continually witness to that covenant. It is to have our inner beings strengthened, our knowledge widened, and our love perfected in Christ. When we become more like Christ, we do not forsake who we are. In fact, God said that humanity was very good! No, we do not forsake who we are. Instead, we grow into the image of God that was manifested in us before creation. We take up the mantle of this covenant and grow into the image and likeness of God which is already in us. In Christ we do not have the forsaking of ourselves. In Christ we have the realization of who we were always created to be.

That lesson I learned in Chicago sticks with me to this day. In my inner being I know that stealing a pack of gum is wrong. I know that taking something without permission is not right. In an encounter with the grace and forgiveness of God I did not forget what happened, I did not avoid my mistakes, but I was given the courage to confess and to open myself up to forgiveness. My knowledge of stealing has widened to this day. My understanding of justice, right and wrong, and who I should be continues to grow. To be continually made in the image of Christ means that God would reveal more and more of God’s self to us. It means that our understanding of God expands stealing from a boy taking a pack of gum, to anything that would rob our neighbor of well-being and what is rightfully theirs. Our encounter with God means that thou shalt not steal is a more intensive and imperative command for us. We do not steal because we have been told not to, instead we choose not to steal because it is not who we are. Who we are, who we strive to be is the person who is like Christ. 

Now to him who by the power at work within us is able to accomplish abundantly far more than all we can ask or imagine. It is this Christ we are in. It is in this Jesus that we experience transformation with God and with one another. To all of us, whether we have been far off from God or remained intimately near, it is to the God who hears our concern and sees us that we lift up our hearts. Our freedom is the opportunity to witness to this love. Our freedom is the opportunity to pay for a teary-eyed kid’s pack of gum. Our freedom is the opportunity to teach a child the lesson of forgiveness and grace. Our freedom is the opportunity to love as we have been loved.It is to God that this prayer is addressed because it is to this one that the church is a home of transformation. It is in Christ through the Spirit that the church witnesses to transformation and praise in his name. It is in Christ that we have freedom to give and receive genuine love. It is in Christ that our freedom is not in the ability to do whatever we wish, but in the freedom to extend mercy, grace, and forgiveness all in God’s love. It is in the name of the Father, Son, and Spirit that we have life and live for love.