Wednesday of the Fifth Week of Lent - March 20, 2013
Wednesday of the Fifth Week of Lent
John 8:31 – 42
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, “Very truly I tell you, 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. I know that you are Abraham’s descendants. Yet you are looking for a way to kill me, because you have no room for my word. I am telling you what I have seen in the Father’s presence, and you are doing what you have heard from your father.”
“Abraham is our father,” they answered.
“If you were Abraham’s children,” said Jesus, “then you would do what Abraham did. As it is, you are looking for a way to kill me, a man who has told you the truth that I heard from God. Abraham did not do such things. You are doing the works of your own father.”
“We are not illegitimate children,” they protested. “The only Father we have is God himself.”
Jesus said to them, “If God were your Father, you would love me, for I have come here from God. I have not come on my own; God sent me.”
As a 20th – 21st century citizen of the United States, I have to acknowledge some perverted notions of freedom and how to attain it. We too easily transfer political or national ideas about freedom into the realm of the Spirit, when those paradigms are not interchangeable.
I’m thinking today of the statement made by the religious leaders that as Abraham’s descendants, they had never been enslaved to anyone. It was a ludicrous statement, a most obvious denial of their historical situation.
It was also a denial of their spiritual condition. It was an illusion under which they lived. Perhaps they had convinced themselves that they were not slaves to anyone, yet it was not the reality of their spiritual state.
“I am not enslaved to anything or anyone.” That’s a lie. Each of us lives in slavery, not to one thing or person, but to many. We are all enslaved to a number of things. We each have our attachments, those things to which we cling for happiness – people, things, ideas, beliefs, practices, and so on. Some of them may feel like healthy enslavements, and others not so much. But we are all enslaved in some way.
(Much like poverty . . . we tend to view those who live in a certain socio-economic way as being in poverty . . . while in reality, we are each poor in some way. We each have our own poverty. Only the arrogant, blind, or oblivious person believes she or he is not impoverished in some way.)
One of the functions of Jesus in our midst is to help us see our enslavements, to acknowledge them – rather than deny them – and then to find freedom from their hold over us. This is the actual freedom that comes from relationship to Jesus. With him, we are in the presence of someone who illumines our shadows, who helps us to see where we have not looked, who brings to light the things that have been hidden from our own eyes.
It is not bad or evil or wrong to be a slave. We are all slaves. What is most dangerous is to be enslaved, yet not recognize your enslavement . . . to believe, even while enslaved, that you are free.
John 8:31 – 42
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, “Very truly I tell you, 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. I know that you are Abraham’s descendants. Yet you are looking for a way to kill me, because you have no room for my word. I am telling you what I have seen in the Father’s presence, and you are doing what you have heard from your father.”
“Abraham is our father,” they answered.
“If you were Abraham’s children,” said Jesus, “then you would do what Abraham did. As it is, you are looking for a way to kill me, a man who has told you the truth that I heard from God. Abraham did not do such things. You are doing the works of your own father.”
“We are not illegitimate children,” they protested. “The only Father we have is God himself.”
Jesus said to them, “If God were your Father, you would love me, for I have come here from God. I have not come on my own; God sent me.”
As a 20th – 21st century citizen of the United States, I have to acknowledge some perverted notions of freedom and how to attain it. We too easily transfer political or national ideas about freedom into the realm of the Spirit, when those paradigms are not interchangeable.
I’m thinking today of the statement made by the religious leaders that as Abraham’s descendants, they had never been enslaved to anyone. It was a ludicrous statement, a most obvious denial of their historical situation.
It was also a denial of their spiritual condition. It was an illusion under which they lived. Perhaps they had convinced themselves that they were not slaves to anyone, yet it was not the reality of their spiritual state.
“I am not enslaved to anything or anyone.” That’s a lie. Each of us lives in slavery, not to one thing or person, but to many. We are all enslaved to a number of things. We each have our attachments, those things to which we cling for happiness – people, things, ideas, beliefs, practices, and so on. Some of them may feel like healthy enslavements, and others not so much. But we are all enslaved in some way.
(Much like poverty . . . we tend to view those who live in a certain socio-economic way as being in poverty . . . while in reality, we are each poor in some way. We each have our own poverty. Only the arrogant, blind, or oblivious person believes she or he is not impoverished in some way.)
One of the functions of Jesus in our midst is to help us see our enslavements, to acknowledge them – rather than deny them – and then to find freedom from their hold over us. This is the actual freedom that comes from relationship to Jesus. With him, we are in the presence of someone who illumines our shadows, who helps us to see where we have not looked, who brings to light the things that have been hidden from our own eyes.
It is not bad or evil or wrong to be a slave. We are all slaves. What is most dangerous is to be enslaved, yet not recognize your enslavement . . . to believe, even while enslaved, that you are free.
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