"Free to Be"
Galatians 4:4-7
December 28, 2008
Chris McRae
Matt Russo, a Catholic priest, friend and mentor, once said to me "Chris, your so
caught up in the doing that you forget to be." I gave him a puzzled look and said: Matt,
"What on earth do you mean?" He replied; that I was so task oriented in wanting to get
the job done, that I wasnt enjoying the process along the way. I should get off the
treadmill of life and stop and smell the roses occasionally. Now, Im not saying that hard
work is bad, but working hard with all the wrong processes is much less productive. I
should reflect more on life and become "Free to Be." Charles Hummel in his writings
called this the tyranny of the urgent. We are so caught up in putting out the urgent
forest fires of life that the important things get neglected. He went on to say that the
telephone was one of the worst intruders of life, and this was long before cell phones,
text messaging, emails and laptops came into being.
What is it in life that keeps us form becoming "Free to Be? Work loads at the
office, not being able to say no, family, money, daily task that always seem to be pilling
up, television, books that you need to read, chores around the house.... I could go on
and on but I think you get the picture. There never seems to be enough time in the day
yet we possess all the time that there is! Hard work is not the problem. Its the setting
of priorities that need to be examined. In John 17 verse 4 Jesus prays " I have brought
you glory on earth by completing the work you gave me to do." In the three short years
of Jesus ministry, certainly He could have done much more. More soles to be save,
more limbs to be healed, more water into wine, more Pharisees to be converted and
more demons to be expelled..... Why was His work on earth completed? I think that the
answer lies in the priorities that Jesus set for himself and the examples that he set for
us, to carry on His work after Him. Many times in Jesus life he grew tired with the many
urgent demands that came His way, but He always was able to focus on priorities.
Remember in John 11 when Lazarus was sick and dying; Martha and Mary sent word to
Jesus to come and save His friend. Yet, Jesus stayed where He was for two more days.
What could be more urgent than to save the life of a dying friend? Yet, in Gods eyes,
raising of Lazarus form the dead was more important than preventing his death. What
Jesus accomplished in His three years of ministry has lived on for centuries in the lives
of Christians all over the world. His priorities were us, you and me, and our priorities
should be focused on Him. We are the urgency that needs to be made manifest in the
world.
What does it take to find the freedom in life that releases us from the bonds of
this workaday world? How can I be responsible to my family, my future and my God
while at the same time seeking first the Kingdom of God? Micah 6:8 gives us a clue to
this freedom that we are seeking. The profit Micah says, " This is what Yahweh ask of
you, to act justly, to love tenderly and to walk humbly with your God." None of these
three task in the Kingdom of God can exist independently of each other. In the secular
world you could come up with some examples, but they would all ring hollow without the
others in tow. *To act justly with compassion would be empty justice without loving
"Free to Be" tenderly. For justice without love can be cold and harsh and can unwittingly be the
vehicle for fresh injustices. To love tenderly without acting justly is not possible and is
said to be sentimental and naive. To love victims of economic deprivation without doing
something about it is empty love. Finally, you might say, walking humbly with God
would be the best place to start, but the God of love and the God of justice are all one in
the same. So walking humbly with God is the same as acting justly and loving tenderly.
They are equivalents of each other. Freedom comes with priorities deeply rooted in
God.
Millard Fuller,
poor in order to walk humbly with God. Through the injustices he saw in inadequate
housing Millard founded Habitat for Humanity and the love of many around the world
was manifested in housing for those who needed shelter. Millard would be the first to
tell you that his freedom in Christ came through housing the homeless!
Helen Keller
dark and without sound from 18 months of age. She graduated from Radcliffe college
magna cum laude, wrote many books and was a great inspiration to the hearing and
sighted impaired. She was once asked what it was like to be in the dark all her life and
she replied that only the sighted know the difference between light and darkness...... her
vision is perfectly clear. Helen would be the first to tell you that the light of Christ
brought her freedom in darkness.
Saint Nicholas (Santa Claus)
the area of Greece now southern Turkey. His parents died in an epidemic when he was
very young. He was well known for his generosity for the needy, sick and suffering. He
had a special love of children and was always giving them gifts whenever possible.
Later in life he was appointed Bishop and in 325 AD attended the Council of Nicea
where the Nicene Creed was formulated. He believed in the power of prayer and many
miracles would happen when St. Nick was in meditation. One great story about St.
Nicholas was about a poor man who have three daughters. In that day and age the
father of daughters had to pay a dowry in order to get their daughters married or else
they could be sold into slavery. As the story goes, three bags of gold were thrown
through the window late one night and landed in stockings that were hanging by the fire
to dry. The poor mans daughters had their dowry and the tradition of hanging stockings
on the mantel for St. Nick to fill began. On December 6th 343 AD St. Nicholas was said
was born to wealthy parents in the village of Patara inhad a deep abiding faith in her walk with God albeit a walk that was in thea millionaire by the age of 29, gave away all his acquired wealth to theto have passed on, but I think that he move to the North pole and started a toy factory
instead
children.
Florence Nightingale
In 1837 Florence experience a divine Christian calling. Much to the chagrin of her
parents, she turned this calling into a desire to become a nurse. This lead her to serve
in the Crimean war where she reduce the causality rate of solders dramatically by her
miasmatic theory of disease. She was very learned in mathematics and introduce the
pie chart as a way of graphically explaining her germ theory of infection. Nurse
"Free to Be" Nightingale could often be seen late at night making her rounds with a small lamp in her hand tending to the miles of sick soldiers. Henry Wadsworth Longfellow wrote this
poem about her nickname "The Lady with the Lamp."
Lo! in that hour of misery
A lady with a lamp I see
Pass through the glimmering gloom
And flit from room to room
Florence Nightingale found her freedom in loving tenderly the sick and needy.
These are just a few examples of people who discovered there freedom in Christ by
following the road less traveled. Freedom in Christ is an all encompassing process that
leaves no dimension of life untouched. Millard Fuller, Helen Keller, Saint Nicholas and
Florence Nightingale could not separate the their spirituality from their everyday lives.
To do so would run the risk of compartmentalizing their faith. If we go to church on
Sunday morning and cannot take the lessons that we learn with us out the front door
and put it to use in our other life then we run the risk of making spirituality irrelevant.
True freedom comes form knowing what is meant by spirituality. *It is a liberation from
the power of fate that can lead to inaction. It is freedom from the power of sin and its
paralyzing control of life. It is freedom in knowing that no matter what blows that life
may deal to us; we can endure. Freedom is knowing that nothing, absolutely nothing,
can separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord! (Romans 8: 39b)
Since this is the first Sunday of Christmas, I would like to share one more
Christmas story with you today. It is called "Christmas in the Trenches" by Stanley
Weintraub. It was Christmas Eve on a World War 1 battlefield in Flanders. As the
German, British and French troops facing each other were settling in for the night a
young German soldier began singing silent night, holy night and others joined in. When
they finished, the British and French responded with other Christmas carols.
Eventually, the men from both sides, put down their arms, left their trenches and
met in the middle. They shook hands, exchanged gifts, and shared pictures of their
families. Informal soccer games began in what had been "no-mans-land." and a joint
service was held to bury the dead of both sides.
The Generals, of course, were not pleased with these events. Men who have
come to know each others names and seen each others families are much less likely
to want to kill each other. War seems to require a nameless, faceless enemy.
So, following that magical night the men on both sides spent a few days simply
firing aimlessly into the sky. Then the war was back in earnest and continued for three
more bloody years. Yet the story of that Christmas Eve lingered; a night when the
angles really did sing of peace on earth.
"Free to Be"
In one of the bloodiest wars that this world has ever seen on a battlefield a long,
long time ago, a few solders found the "Freedom to Be." Amen
* Gutiérrez " A Theology of Liberation"
* Robert McAfee Brown " Spirituality and Liberation"
"Free to Be"
was born to a rich upper class well connected family in England.. Saint Nicholas would be the first to tell you that he found freedom in the love of