Be Free!

Luke 13:10-17

I have made lots of mistakes.  And it’s a good thing too because that is how we learn right?  We venture out into the unknown and we try new things. Sometimes we get lucky and it works out a lot of the time we suffer the consequences of our decisions and we grow and learn. 

This is our path through life. We experience things and we grow.  God has given us this creation to care for and to enjoy.  However this creation that we have been given to care for and to enjoy is a broken and dangerous place.  The perfection of the heavenly realm is not matched by the earthly realm.  Though the perfection of Jesus is given to those who trust in him, we remain imperfect broken people. 

And so this is our path through life with God.  We Experience things, we listen to the guidance of the Holy Spirit. And as we are obedient, we are made to look more and more like the way God first intended.  This process is called sanctifying grace. Sanctify, meaning “to make holy,” and grace meaning God’s favor that we cannot earn. Or “Love.”  So sanctifying grace is “God’s love that makes us holy.”

But we still make mistakes. We all fall short.  We may be perfected in love but I have yet to meet someone who is perfected in word, action and thought.  Let Share with you one of my mistakes.  This is the worst thing I have ever said to a church person.  I said, “So, you want to be a tramp?”

Pretty bad huh?

Now let me give you the context. I am person that likes to use accurate words.  I may not have the largest vocabulary in the room but I like to know that the words I am using are the right words.  If I am using a word incorrectly I like to know about it so I can correct it.

Let me tell you about Helen, the person to whom I said that awful sounding statement.   Helen was a gem.  She was a woman in a church that I served before I came to be pastor here at St. Paul.  Helen was the voice of reason.  When there was disagreement or discord of any kind she offered kindness and perspective. Helen had a calm and measured demeanor.  Helen had a smile that could instantly warm your heart.  Early on in my ministry there I visited her in the hospital because she was going to have some minor procedure done.  I was in the waiting room with her two sisters, who lived in other towns and attended different churches, during most of the afternoon.  I hadn’t said much to the sisters beyond the initial introduction before one of them started telling me how awful her pastor was.  She was so impressed that I was wearing a tie because her pastor wears Hawaiian shirts and shorts to worship. On and on she went.

Helen later heard from her other sister about this conversation and was an ongoing joke between her and me over the next few years that I was there.

Helen’s health declined.  She suffered from lymphoma.  She had a hard time making it to church so I would go a visit with her in her home.  When it got really bad I visited her in the hospital.  She lost so much weight.  But she still smiled.  She still had a positive outlook.  The folk from the church came to say goodbye because it seemed that her time on this earth was almost done.  She held on. Then she started gaining some weight back.  Then she started gaining some strength back. Then she was strong enough to be able to be cared for at her daughter’s home. After several weeks she was strong enough to live at her own home.  A few weeks after that she started coming to church again and washing dishes at the monthly pancake suppers. 

We were so glad to see her back at the pancake suppers.  She always decorated her hat to match the season and she always had a smile to warm your heart. 

I visited her at her home.  And she shared with me a desire that she had in her heart for a long time.  She said that she wished she could just sell everything she owned and be free to travel from place to place and to see the world without any worry about what she may have left behind.  Now think Disney.  Think Lady and the tramp.  Lady was the dog that lived in the people’s house with comfort and also with restrictions.  Tramp was the dog that had freedom but lived a life of danger.  When I said “so, you want to be a tramp,” this is what I meant:  Someone who travels by foot from town to town. 

I heard the words come out of my mouth and I immediately perceived that they may be taken in a way that I didn’t intend.  But she understood. 

Helen had in her a desire for freedom.  She wanted freedom from material, earthly things.  She wanted to be able to appreciate this life God has given her as it came to her, or rather, as she went out to meet it.   

Helen died a few months after I left.  She has found the ultimate freedom.

Helen had the desire for freedom that is in all of us.  That desire may not come out of us as a desire to sell everything and travel. But Jesus said He came to set the prisoners free.  I don’t think he meant just those who were locked in a cage. We can all be imprisoned in illusions of this world. We can be imprisoned in the distractions that we give ourselves over to.  We can be imprisoned by worry and guild and shame.

In the scripture today Jesus was teaching in a synagogue.  A woman came in with a spirit of weakness, or a spirit that crippled her.  She suffered from it for 18 years.  There are a lot of people who like to try to explain the miracles of Jesus by putting it in modern terms. Some say it was a psychological problem some say moral problem, But whatever the diagnosis, the woman was suffering for 18 years and found healing in Jesus Christ.

The woman was bent over, she couldn’t stand up.  She was bent over she must have had her eyes continually cast down ward. Her life was her disease. 

Eli needed to stop and smell the flowers at the super-mart. 

She came to the synagogue downcast and a prisoner but she left the synagogue that day praising god.

Her life her identity was changed in the encounter with Jesus.   And all the Pharisees could do was to cite the law and to criticize Jesus. 

They were just as much prisoners as the woman was.  Her prison was her disease.  The Pharisee’s prison was their religious rules. 

My friend Helen wasn’t much for religious rules but she loved Jesus.  Her love for Jesus was manifest in her compassion.  She didn’t much of an opinion about how communion should be served or weather the pastor wears Hawaiian shirts or a robe. 

When we come before Jesus, there will be all sorts of people ready to tell us what the rules are.  In fact I have a big brown book that the United Methodist Church calls the Book of Discipline.  It’s how we are organized and it’s a summary of what we believe.  It is easy, like the Pharisees to be distracted by the rules.  It is easy to mistake the journey for the destination.  It’s easy to mistake church activity for a relationship with God.  When we come before Jesus, resist the distractions.  Resist those who have been imprisoned and want you to join them in their imprisonment. When we come before Jesus we should expect to be transformed.  When we come before Jesus we should expect to experience God’s love that makes us better than we have ever been before, whatever that looks like.

So, how is it with you today on your spiritual journey?  The destination that we are continually striving for and are continually arriving at is being in loving relationship with Almighty God through Jesus Christ.