Sermon delivered by Rev. Dr. Lance Moore on Sunday, February 10, 2008
John 8:31-36 “To the Jews who had believed him, Jesus said, "If you hold to my teaching, you are really my disciples. Then you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free." They answered him, "We are Abraham's descendants and have never been slaves of anyone. How can you say that we shall be set free?" Jesus replied, "I tell you the truth, everyone who sins is a slave to sin. Now a slave has no permanent place in the family, but a son belongs to it forever. So if the Son sets you free, you will be free indeed.”
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I saved the other Scripture lesson for myself today, because it is my favorite of all the things that Jesus ever said, found in Matthew 11:29-30: “Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest unto your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light."
Rest unto your souls, down to the inner being, the root of who you are. Radical Freedom. Radical simply means, “down to the root.” That’s what he’s talking about. And I would also like to read that same verse, as expanded and paraphrased in a modern-language version of the Bible called “The Message”: Jesus said: “Are you tired? Worn out? Burned out on religion? Come to me. Get away with me and you'll recover your life. I’ll show you how to take a real rest. Walk with me and work with me—watch how I do it. I won’t lay anything heavy or ill-fitting on you. Keep company with me and you’ll learn to live freely and lightly.”
Is your burden heavy? In 1945, a troubled young man named Fred—his real name, by the way—went to the pastor’s office to talk about something personal. Fred and some of his coworkers at the box factory were going for lunch. They passed a blind man on the sidewalk with his guitar and a sign that said: “I am blind. Please help me.” There was a tin cup taped to the neck of the guitar. The three young men were still wearing their aprons with the nails they used to make the boxes, so they decided to play a trick on the blind man. They took nails from their aprons and dropped them in the tin cup, making the sound of coins. The blind man said, “Thank you very much. God bless you.”
The ugly trick began to gnaw at Fred’s conscience. So burdened by guilt, he finally decided to go talk to his minister about it. When he related the event to the minister, and how it was troubling him, the minister said: “Look, are you aware that this country is in the biggest war of our history? People are dying by the hundreds everyday. Soldiers are away from their families for years, and we do not know how this whole thing is going to turn out. And you are worried about nails in a blind man’s cup! Spare me!” Well, that provided no comfort or absolution for Fred. After being so poorly answered by the clergy, it is a wonder that he ever went back to church. You see, he was carrying a burden of guilt, and it doesn’t matter how big the problems of the world are, there is no problem bigger than one’s own particular burden at any particular moment. Fred could not let it go... and it weighed him down with guilt.
So in desperation, he went to the youth minister. She did not have the title “Reverend,” but she was a REAL minister in that she had a heart. He told her what he had done, and she said it was a terrible thing to have done that to a blind man! She felt bad, like he felt bad. She said: “God forgives you for that, but next week when you are on your lunch hour, why don’t you go to that blind man and tell him what you did, and ask him to forgive you, and if you have a nickel, dime, or a quarter, give it to him.” And that is exactly what Fred did, and that poor blind man forgave him, and the relief, the removal of that burden, was as if he had been freed from prison.
Now that may not seem like such a big thing to you, either. But consider whatever burden you are carrying around right now. Think about what it is doing to you. Wouldn’t you like to get rid of it? Wouldn’t you like to be free?
At the Ash Wednesday service, we read from Isaiah a passage that was later quoted by Jesus to describe his ministry. Jesus said that one purpose of his time on earth was “to proclaim freedom for the captives and release from darkness for the prisoners.…” Later, he re-emphasized this purpose by saying, “The truth shall set you free.”
Would you like to know the truth that will set you free? Stay awake and I’ll tell you! But first, let’s talk more about what it is that has you locked up, imprisoned or burdened down. Yes, Jesus said that SIN is what makes us captive. But later, he explained it is not all that simple. The imprisoning power of sin is more complicated than what my mama taught me. My mama mostly taught me that if I wanted to be free of sin, I should not cuss, or play cards, or drink liquor. That wasn’t bad advice—gambling and drinking and cussing is NOT going to help you in life. But I did live free of those vices, and I found out that I still was not set free from sin. And burdens, anxieties, still weighed me down.
First of all, I found that there are 147,649 other ways to sin. Actually, there may be even more than that, but that is all I’ve had time to discover in my short life experience! Give me some time, and I’ll get back to you with more! The point is, you can fix 147,649 sins in your life and there will always be one more waiting.
I knew an old man that I thought was morally pure, generous and kind in every way... then I learned he had a serious sin of racial hatred in his heart. I met a lady who never drank, cussed, gambled or even THOUGHT about the word “sex,” but sinned every day because she thought she was better than everyone else: the sin of arrogant self-righteousness. I knew another man, a rich man, who came to church every Sunday, taught a Sunday School class, said and did all the right things... except one: he couldn’t obey the Bible by giving generously to the poor.
And I’ll bet you, no matter how hard you work at trying to be perfect, at correcting the obvious sins in your life, the devil is going to find a new way for you to sin before you even realize it! Is there a person here who doesn’t, at least once a day, think of yourself first, or take care of yourself, in some small way, at the expense of someone else?
In this complex matrix of sin and its consequences that enslave us and weigh us down, there is yet one more aspect: not the sin itself, but the over-active guilt complex some of us have about our sins. Too many of us allow the unrealistic expectations of others, the voice of perfectionism or nitpickiness, to create unwarranted and excessive SHAME in our hearts.
Jesus talked about this. He cursed the religious leaders of his day, because rather than helping people get free of the weight of sin, they just made them feel worse. He said in Luke 11:46, “And you experts in the law, woe to you, because you load people down with burdens they can hardly carry, and you yourselves will not lift one finger to help them.”
Are you bound and tied by a voice in your head that says you aren’t good enough, smart enough, strong enough? Are you imprisoned because somebody in your past or present said you are not worthy? Now, we probably have all done something that we should be ashamed of. We all have sinned and we all should be earnestly seeking God’s forgiveness.
But don’t you ever let someone tell you, “You should be ashamed of yourself.” Listen closely. You probably should be ashamed of some of your thoughts and actions. But do not ever be ashamed of your SELF. Your Self, your inner Soul, your ultimate being, is a gift from God, made in the very image of God, and if you are ASHAMED of that SELF that God made, well, you might as well be ashamed of God!
In the Book of Acts, Saint Peter heard a voice from God speak to him, not once, but three times, and this is what it said: “Do not call anything unclean that God has made clean.” As they say, “God don’t make no junk.” Be free of that weak notion that you are not a wonderful, miraculous, awesome creation of God!
So let’s review: the first step of freedom from sin is to understand that we need liberty from the stranglehold of sinful addictions and vices. The second step of freedom is to be freed from an over-active conscience, from the burden of low-self-esteem and shame.
Well, the third step of freedom is to actually, truly, be forgiven for sin. Jesus came to earth to pay the price for your sin, so that you don’t have to. That is a pretty amazing thing. It’s so amazing, I might even write a song about it... let’s see, something like, “Amazing grace, how sweet the sound.…” Why would God do such a thing? One reason and one reason only: love. God so loved the world that He gave his only Son that we might be forgiven, saved, redeemed.
I can understand that. Imagine if my daughter were to travel to Libya, rob a convenience store, take the money and buy a pound of heroin, and then got arrested, and then the Libyan police called me and said, “Listen, we’ve got your daughter in one of our jails. She’s guilty...caught her red-handed. And Dr. Moore, I have to tell you, 20 years in a Libyan jail is NOT going to be pleasant experience for her. But if you will bring me $50,000 in unmarked bills, we can sneak her out of the country tomorrow.” Do you think I would say, “Oh, she deserves the punishment. She broke the law. Bye.” No, I would go straight to the bank, take out a second mortgage, and I would be on a plane to Libya with a suitcase full of cash. And why would I do that? Because I love my daughter. I helped make her. Just like God made me. And you. And I would find a way to set her free from that jail. And that, my friends, is exactly what God has done for his children.
Guilty as we are, God sent the Truth, embodied in Jesus Christ, over to the Middle East on a plane that landed in Bethlehem, that picked us up, and flew off of a hill near Jerusalem... and set us free. If the Son has set you free, and you are free indeed, why would you ever want to go back to a life of slavery?
Close your eyes for a moment, and thank God for setting you free. Free from sin, free from guilt, free from punishment, free from death, free from shame. Free to live out a gracious life of grateful thanks. Thank you, Lord!
Now let me close with a postscript to the story... the story we started the sermon with, about the troubled young man. That man eventually became a minister himself, and in fact, 40 years later, was recognized by TIME magazine as one of the 10 Most Influential Preachers in America. And if you are interested, his name is Dr. Fred Craddock, and he went on to teach seminary, and one of his students is standing before you today, passing to you the same message that he told me, and that his youth minister told him: Jesus Christ is the Truth, and the Truth will set you free, and if the Son has set you free, then you are free indeed!
In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
Foley, Alabama