TRUTH & FREEDOM

Jeremiah 31:31-34; John 8:31-36

Reformation Sunday, October 27, 2024

Rev. Dr. Ritva  H. Williams

We meet Jesus on this Reformation Sunday morning, confronting a group of people who believed in him. They are like us. He challenges them and us by saying,“If you continue in my word, you are truly my disciples.” Jesus’ statement immediately raises the question: what is the difference between believing in Jesus and being a disciple of Jesus?

To believe in Jesus can range from acknowledging his existence as a real person of history, to affirming the Apostles Creed as a true statement about Jesus, to a heartfelt trust in his continuing presence at the cosmic Christ.

To be a disciple of Jesus is to be student, a learner who continues, abides, persists, and is steadfast in his word. To be a disciple of Jesus means to actively immerse ourselves in his teaching, preaching, and way of life. Abiding and persisting in Jesus’ word, we are reformed and transformed into the image of God that Jesus reveals to us.

It’s as if Jesus is asking us this morning, “Are you all in? Are you committed to reformation and transformation? If you are, you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.”

And Pontius Pilate asks, “What is truth?”

Truth is the accurate representation of facts or reality. Truth allows individuals to make informed decisions, and take appropriate actions. Truth-telling is essential for personal growth, healthy interpersonal relationships, ethical conduct, community activities and political decision-making.

The truth that Jesus reveals to us today is that “everyone who commits sin is a slave to sin.” Here “sin” has two meanings. Sin-with-a-small-s refers to the words we say or don’t say, the things we do or don’t do. It’s easy to recognize when we commit sin, because someone gets hurt. Even when we try to avoid hurting others, things can get messed up and someone still gets hurts. That’s because of Sin-with-a-capital-S-in-bold.

Martin Luther described Sin-with-a-capital-S-in-bold as emerging from a soul incurvatus in se  — a soul curved in on itself.

Think of a hedgehog. When a hedgehog is frightened it curls up, pulling its head, belly, feet and legs inside its prickly coat of spines. Curling up in a tight ball covered with pointy spines is how hedgehogs protect themselves from predators. They also do this when they are hibernating.

So much of the harm and hurt we inflict on each other comes from our tendency to act like hedgehogs, protecting our vulnerabilities by curving in on ourselves so the world sees only our prickly outer shells. Egotistically we presume that our ideas, our perspectives, and our decisions must be right, good, and self-evident. We defend our imagined superiority by labeling, mocking, shaming, and excluding those who think, speak, act, look, or love differently.  We are obsessed with controlling not only our own lives but the lives of people around us. When control eludes us, we curl up even tighter, self-medicating or burying our fear and pain so deep within it that we can’t see how it controls us. We have built families and tribes, churches and communities, cultures and corporations, societies and nations in our own image — curved in on themselves like hedgehogs. 

The truth that Jesus reveals does not feel like good news, does it? As Mark Sparks writes in his poem “Hidden Truth” (Instagram:@marksparksinc; www.MarkSparks.com)

Finding out a hidden truth can be very tough.

It can make us free like we’re not enough.

It can break our hearts into a million shards.

It can cause us to question the foundation of who we.

But that same hidden truth that cuts so deep helps us grown.

It helps set our hearts free from the pain of the lie

that truth brought to light, a lie that held us captive.

So though we fight it at first, deep down we know

that we can’t live as we desire and live in that lie too.

So we rejoice in half the pain when that hidden truth is set free

cause it means we can grow into the whole we most desire to be. 

But truth-telling is essential for personal growth, healthy interpersonal relationships, ethical conduct, community activities and political decision-making. Our truth telling starts when we admit we are curled up like hedgehogs bristling with deceit and disbelief, selfishness and jealousy, envy and greed, arrogance and anger, hatred and violence because we are afraid, feel inadequate, exposed and vulnerable. We are enslaved by our fears, and held captive by social structures and systems that amplify those fears. 

In our reading from Jeremiah, God promises to make a new covenant with all the families of God’s people. This covenant will be different from the first covenant God made with their ancestors. Now God’s law and commandments will be put within people, written on their hearts instead of on tablets of stone. Everyone from the greatest to the least will know God personally. In this way God will forgive — free, release, and liberate them from Sin-with-a-capital-S-in-bold. God will remember their sin-with-a-small-s no more.

What was not included in our reading is why God is willing to do this. The reason is given in Jeremiah 31:3, where God proclaims,  “I have loved you with an everlasting love; therefore I have continued my faithfulness to you” (31:3). The good news is that God’s dream for us has never been, is not, and never will be for us to be curved in on ourselves like hedgehogs. God simply loves us too much.

As Christians we find the fulfillment of God’s promises in Jesus who speaks truth, and calls us to truth-telling. We worship Jesus as the Christ, the Word made flesh, the Truth that sets us free to live as God’s beloved children.

One of the most precious legacies of the Reformation is the recovery of the truth of God’s everlasting love for us in Christ. Martin Luther’s insights into how we are freed from fear and anxiety and empowered to love and serve one another as Christ loves and serves us are described in his 1520 treatise on “The Freedom of a Christian.” Luther makes two assertions. 

The first is that a Christian is a perfectly free lord of all, subject to none. This describes the inner self — the soul — realigned with the image of God through faith alone, relying entirely on the Word of God to reform and transform it. In communion with our souls, Christ takes on the sins, death and pains of hell — read fear — that our inner self struggles against throughout our lives. Through Christ’s faithfulness our souls are secured against death and hell, endowed with eternal life and salvation. Growing in faith we are freed from fear and anxiety — slowly, incrementally, bit by bit.  

The second is, that a Christian is a perfectly dutiful servant of all, subject to all. This describes our lives in the here and now as persons who discipline ourselves so we can live peacefully in community with other humans. Luther writes:

[since] my God has given me in Christ all the riches of righteousness and salvation without any merit on my part … I will therefore give myself as Christ to my neighbor, just as Christ offered himself to me; I will do nothing in this life except what I see is necessary, profitable and salutary to my neighbor, since through faith I have an abundance of all good things in Christ. 

This is what our mission here at St. Stephen’s is all about, loving, caring for, and serving one another and our neighbor as Christ loves, cares for and serves us. 

Please pray with me:

Lord Jesus, you challenge us not just to believe in you, but to go all in as your disciples. Give us the wisdom, strength and courage to embrace the truth that sets us free. Lord keep us steadfast in your word now and always. Amen.