Trinity 3, 2007 1 Kings 19:1-4, 8-15a
Twente, Arnhem Galatians 3:23-29
Luke 8:26-39
Free from Fear
Life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. Liberté, égalité et fraternité. Freedom is a popular idea, but do we know what it is? We say we want it but we often do not understand what we mean by it, much less how it relates to other values like equality, justice and so forth. More often than not, the western liberal notion of freedom is about ‘freedom from’ – as in the freedom not to be forced to do something or the freedom not to have something taken from you. This sort of freedom is easy to legislate (simply because it is easier to make laws that say what should not happen rather than what should). But is freedom really only negative? Can it not also involve freedom to live, to develop one’s potential? Freedom is a powerful theme in our faith. It runs throughout the Bible. Freedom from: from fear and bondage – whether in Egypt or, more universally, from fear and bondage to sin and death. Freedom to: freedom to live fully, fully as God intends, energized by his Spirit. Freedom from fear à Freedom to live.1 Kings 19: Freedom from fear for oneself.A very, very curious episode in the saga of Elijah, one of the greatest prophets in all of Israel’s history. Elijah had spoken against Ahab and Jezebel and their worship of other things than the one, true God. Elijah had, with God’s help, worked miracles – providing unending food to starving widow, reviving her son from death, calling fire from heaven to show the power of God to the false prophets. Moses and Elijah are the two who have the privilege to appear at the Transfiguration of Jesus in the Gospels – together Moses and Elijah typified the Law and the Prophets, the sum total of God’s revelation to his chosen people.Elijah was impressive. But in a small way we find it heartening that even Elijah could lose faith and succumb to fear for himself. In chapter 19 of 1 Kings we find Elijah retreating, no, running for his life. His victory on Mt Carmel against the false prophets of Baal had made Queen Jezebel very, very angry. She wanted Elijah’s scalp. So he headed for the hills. Literally: Mt Horeb, to be specific. Mt Horeb, which may well have been Mt Sinai, was a strange choice of sanctuary; because like Moses, Elijah would meet God there, and his whole life would be turned back around.How could Elijah lose faith in himself, his mission and his God? Perhaps it is not so incredible. When things go well it is perhaps obvious for a believer to attribute all blessings to God. But under pressure, it is harder. This is perhaps why it is crucial to build one’s faith on solid things. The wise man builds his house upon the rock, as Jesus says. One reason we read the Bible is to reassure us of our security in God. One reason we pray regularly is to reconnect with the One who can comfort us. It is said that practice makes perfect. If we wish to have a faith that survives wind and rain and fire, we have to practice it, in prayer and Bible reading and in other ways. In this way we learn to recognize that we build on the rock of God, that His promises are true, that He is totally reliable. It’s like First Aid or any other skill: if you use faith, test it, & practice it, you grow in confidence.Even in a mid-life crisis, Elijah went to where he would meet God. Yes, he was avoiding Jezebel (and perhaps giving her too much credit by fearing her), but he could not avoid God. On Horeb, the great prophet learns something new about God. That God is not to be found in the storm, in the quake, in the fire. All that may have just been to get our attention. After the crescendo, God speaks in the sheer silence. God demonstrates, as he did to Job, that God is ultimately in control and capable of redeeming any situation. Elijah is freed from his fear for lesser things, & freed to serve God anew.Luke 8:26-39: Freedom from fear of the unknown/the ‘other’.
Here Jesus healing power that frightens, challenges our assumptions. At this point, Jesus enters predominantly Gentile territory for the first and only time in Luke’s Gospel. Gerasene or Gadarenes, we do not know, but on the Sea of Galilee opposite Galilee we are told. This move of Jesus is a preface for Luke’s sequel – the Acts of the Apostles – where the new faith would break out to embrace all peoples of the known world. Jesus is blazing a new trail that would inspire his followers ever since. But he not only crosses racial boundaries here. He is also facing down social taboos and overcoming deep-seated fears people had. Just as he steps out of his boat, a crazed and naked man falls at his feet. In Biblical language, he is possessed by demons. I suppose nowadays, we’d say he was deeply disturbed psychologically. Psychotherapy is just a fancy word for healing of the soul, after all, the kind of thing that people used to be less secular about. Happily, modern psychiatry, post-Freud, now recognizes the positive contribution religious belief can make to healing, even of psychological disorders, if one’s faith is healthy, that is!Anyway, this man had demons, and he recognized, instantly, that Jesus could address them. Whatever they were, these demons had incapacitated this man, forcing him to live outside of society. He was anathema. Nowadays much more understanding of psychological problems, but even less than a century ago, even people with relatively mild psychological illnesses were separated from so-called normal life, locked up in institutions, hidden away from polite society.Jesus ignores all that, and frees the man from his bondage. The sad thing is that this great miracle is unappreciated. The crowds are frightened of Jesus’ power. Moreover, they cannot cope with the positive change that has happened to the local crazy man. Perhaps they have no scapegoat anymore. Their whole sense of the social order has been turned upside down by this outcast’s turnaround. Must he now be accepted, integrated? Jesus’ healing brings new and intimidating freedom and raised a few embarrassing questions, too.From day one of his public ministry, Jesus came to proclaim and live the Kingdom of God, come what may. His Gospel is the Gospel of Freedom – freedom from injustice, freedom from race hatred, freedom from slavery to evil things and people, freedom from fear itself. Elijah was freed from his fear by his new encounter with God on Horeb. Jesus brought God down to earth and out to all of us to change us for ever.Galatians 3:23-29: Freedom to receive GodEugene Peterson describes Paul’s letter to the Galatians as ‘Paul’s Letter of Freedom’. It is not, he reminds us, just a freedom to take, at the expense of others, or a just a freedom from, as in from rules. It is a new freedom to receive, to receive the love and grace of God in an uninhibited way. If we can finally learn that we cannot earn God’s approval as a way to salvation, we can be free from slave-like view of religion. If we learn that God loves us and that that alone is what saves us, then we gain a joyous new freedom to live with and for God. Now that’s freedom. Amen
