Year A Lent 3 WED 2023 Of Shackles and Sandbags

 Year A Lent 3 WEDNESDAY, 15 March 2023

St. James the Less Episcopal, Ashland, VA

“Of Shackles and Sandbags”

Collect: Give ear to our prayers, O Lord, and direct the way of your servants in safety under your protection, that, amid all the changes of our earthly pilgrimage, we may be guarded by your mighty aid; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.

Matthew 5:17–19

Jesus said, “Do not think that I have come to abolish the law or the prophets; I have come not to abolish but to fulfill. For truly I tell you, until heaven and earth pass away, not one letter, not one stroke of a letter, will pass from the law until all is accomplished. Therefore, whoever breaks one of the least of these commandments, and teaches others to do the same, will be called least in the kingdom of heaven; but whoever does them and teaches them will be called great in the kingdom of heaven."

In our readings we hear of how we are expected to be, whether the nation of God’s righteous in Deuteronomy, or the Reconciled through Christ in Romans. God wants us righteous, and enables, empowers, and encourages us to be just that.

In the novel The Life of Pi, the author shares stories of Zoo animals who were “liberated” by well-meaning activists who opened up their cages to “set them free.” All it did was terrify the animals, who might run to get away from the stress-filled situation, but would often get back to their “known territory” (aka their “enclosure”) as fast as they possibly could. Sometimes the comfortable cage is what we seek so we can be free of the responsibility of living life truly liberated.

In a similar way, they say if you tie an elephant to a stake when it is young it will learn obsolescence. When older, and more than powerful enough to break free, they will stay tied to the stake because their whole life they were conditioned to stay put.

God wanted more for us than that. God wanted us to have life and have it to the full. “For Freedom Christ has set us Free,” says St Paul. (Galatians 5:1) But why then, do we get Rules? Why would Jesus say what he said in the Sermon on the Mount?

“Do not think that I have come to abolish the law or the prophets; I have come not to abolish but to fulfill. For truly I tell you, until heaven and earth pass away, not one letter, not one stroke of a letter, will pass from the law until all is accomplished.”

True Freedom comes in being What We Ought To Be. The Libertine thinks that Freedom comes in Doing Whatever We Want. This is a distinct and marked difference.

We are Free in Christ. Free to be who God intended us to be.

Like the Founders of this nation knew that our Freedom was not without limits. Life, Liberty, the Pursuit of Happiness. Yes. But that requires an educated electorate with skin in the game. That meant white male  landowners when they said all men were created equal. We have come to a bigger, better, and more full understanding of that since then, thanks be to God.

Jesus knew that when he said we were free, that libertine concept would slink in. But our freedom is from what held us back, sin, judgment, self-destruction. Our Freedom is for us to be free to grow into the fullness of who God made us to be.

The Laws and Instructions of God are not shackles that hold us back. God’s laws for us are instructions for how we can be fully ourselves. Instead of shackles holding us back, as mentioned, we are hot air balloons, and sins, foibles, conditionings are the weights holding us back from the heights we are called to soar! We are meant to be free, being directed by the Holy Spirit like the hot air balloons are by the wind.

Our perspective, and in this case our metaphors, make all the difference. The Rules are the Rules for us to Win Life, not hinder our Fun. God dreams a dream of a good life, blessed, fruitful, and happy for us. When we run from the plan, we run from God’s Dream for us.

Embrace the Laws, or Rules, or I as I like to think of them, Instructions for the Best from Life. Freedom is found there, for all of us. Amen