Our text is from Paul’s Letter to the Galatians, the 5th chapter, the 1st verse:
Plant your feet firmly therefore within the freedom that Christ has won for us,
and do not let yourself be caught in the shackles of slavery.       (J.B. Phillips)

Baruch Spinoza, the 17th century Dutch philosopher, once summed up the task of government with these words:

The ultimate aim of government is not to rule, or restrain by fear, nor to exact obedience, but contrariwise, to free every man from fear... In fact, the true aim of government is liberty.

A similar idea, this time applied to the purpose of religion, was stated much more recently by the late Hindu thinker and one-time Vice President of India, Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan. In an interview for The Saturday Review of Literature he said:

I firmly believe that humanity will endure and triumph; that the quality of all religions depends upon their power to make people more free, not to fill them with fear; upon the power of their advocacy of love, not hate; of faith, not doubt.

When their words are put together, Spinoza and Radhakrishnan appear to have something in common. Both are saying that freedom — in one instance, freedom from political oppression, in the other case, freedom from spiritual bondage — lies close to the heart of human understanding. Whether institutions be political or religious, their purpose is in essence the same: to release people from that which enslaves them. If a political or a religious institution fails to speak for freedom, both men assert, it not only is found wanting. It violates its very purpose.

Now it is not my intention to debate the validity of this thesis. Rather I wish to look at the key word around which any discussion of this matter rotates: the word “freedom.” Freedom, after all, is constantly on our lips. All of us want to be free. None of us wants to be a slave. Yet, I suspect, we take the term pretty much for granted. We mouth it, hear it. and read it; but how often do we take time to reflect on it? How often do we stretch our thinking to equate it with anything more than the absence of restraints?

So let’s spend time with this multi-faceted word. Let’s ask what it can mean to us, not only as political but as religious beings. Going further, let’s ask whether there is a special insight that our faith as Christians offers to our thoughts about freedom.

The first paradoxical observation to make about freedom is that there is no such thing as limitless freedom. Unfettered freedom is a myth. You are not free to do anything you wish. You may want to be in Boston and New York at the same time, but the limitations of physical location prevent this from happening. You may want to perform superhuman deeds, but you are limited in your accomplishments by your nature as a human being. In your fantasy life you may want to be a great lawyer, a great doctor, a great scholar, a great statesman, a great entrepreneur, all rolled in one; but limits in the time span allotted to you make excellence in all these fields unlikely. In other words, freedom is always linked to a structure. It is always tied to limits that define its range and its possibilities.

Think about this for a moment. Consider the bundle of limitations which go into shaping the kinds of persons we are. In addition to being restricted by our physical natures, we are socially limited. That is, we are limited by other people who establish the social codes by which we live. We are limited by such simple things as geography and history. That fact that you live in Weston, Mass., not Beijing, China, has an enormous amount to say about how you think and act. Similarly, much that we are depends not only upon our own personal history or the history of our parents; it depends upon the history of countless others whose cumulative toil and skill made our community, our nation, our civilization. It is doubtful that such sophisticated questions as world oil prices, population control, global warming, weapons proliferation, would concern us if we were born tribal inhabitants eking out a living in the heavy undergrowth of an Amazon forest. In short, the fortunes of geography and history shape our economics, our politics, our religion, the ultimate destiny of our lives; and we should not overlook that fact.

Let’s face it. Walls confine us on all sides; and how many a person who has viewed these walls and scanned their towering heights and felt their impenetrable thickness has asked if there is anything to the belief that he or she is truly free? Or is freedom merely an illusion — a figment of a furtive imagination?

Given such limitations, where then does human freedom lie? In what sense can we properly label ourselves free beings? Humanity has struggled with this problem for centuries, and there appear to be no simple answers. But perhaps we can say certain things that might at least be pointers in supporting the basic intuition we have that our decisions are freely chosen. Perhaps there is still light to be shed on the conviction that we in some measure are responsible for what we think, say, and do.

Some years ago the late Paul Tillich, the great Protestant theologian, wrote an article for the now defunct Saturday Evening Post. In it he tried to show the relationship between human freedom and the meaning of human existence. “The verb exist,” he noted, “means, etymologically, to stand outside or beyond oneself.” On the human level, &ldquuo;it is this self-transcendence that makes humans what they are. It distinguishes humans from other animals whose [conscious] existence does not reach backward and forward in time and history ... Because they are this perpetually self-transcending animal, humans cannot be understood in their totality by the natural sciences — physics, chemistry, biology, or purely behaviorist psychology — as the materialist of old have held.”

What is Professor Tillich affirming here? Essentially he is saying that people’s freedom resides in their peculiar ability to transcend themselves. It lies in their capacity to stand outside of themselves and their world while remaining involved with themselves and their world. We humans can stretch our thought far beyond the confines of our own physical measurements. We can stand back and look at ourselves. We can ponder the events going on around us. We can become aware of our personal limitations. We can ask questions about goals and life’s destiny. More than that, we can view ourselves against a larger framework of meaning. We can arrive at certain conclusions about life’s purpose in general and our own purposes in particular. We can weigh the various alternatives confronting us; and we can predict. Because we can do such things and because we have the added faculty of summoning up from within us energy to reach out for the goals we set, we say that we are free. We say that we hold a portion of life’s destiny in our hands.

To state the matter simply, human beings are not only determined by forces outside of themselves; they are also self-determining creatures. They are bound, but their uniqueness lies in the fact that they know they are bound. It is their capacity to decide and to act within the context of life’s boundaries that is the ground of their freedom.

Let me illustrate this. Today you read and hear a great deal about how damaging smoking is to your heart and lungs. For several decades members of the medical profession have bombarded us with studies and statistics demonstrating the injurious effects of cigarettes. They have done so on the grounds that we humans are capable of understanding their warnings and abiding by them. Now you may follow their advice or you may ignore it. You may choose to live within the limits that they advocate, or you may choose not to do so. Still the guiding assumption is that you can choose, that seeing the alternatives you can call up the energy to follow one course of action over the other. It is this ability to stand outside yourself, to review the past and anticipate the future, and (in accord with your knowledge of life’s limitations) make decisions about what you shall do and be which focuses what you mean when you affirm your freedom.

Now if this analysis has any truth in it, it also says something else about life’s limitations. In addition to being restrictions, limits also can become gateways. That is, they can become doors to greater freedom. Let’s ponder this paradox briefly. Nature may limit us so that we cannot be in a hundred different places at the same time, but by so doing it gives us a sense of personal location that is a door to living sanely in our world. Heredity may endow us with certain capabilities and withhold from us others, but in so doing it becomes a door through which we pass to find those vocations and avocations that best utilize our talents. History may give us certain special insights as a people and keep from us others, but in so doing it becomes a door by which we enter the world marketplace of ideas with something unique to share and much to learn. Our legal and political systems may restrict some of our desires and activities, but in so doing they become doors to the building of human order and community. Personal self discipline may mean that we must devote time to perfecting certain of our potentialities at the expense of others — we cannot be both a skilled pianist and a professional boxer — but in so doing it becomes a door to responsible, effective living. Our limitations can and do become open doors to greater freedom.

But there is still another side to our analysis of human freedom. If it is true that we have within ourselves the capacity to decide what our life ought to be and the power to choose or not to choose to follow that “ought,” then you and I become responsible for our decisions. We become accountable for our actions. What we are and what we become depends for the most part upon how seriously we take that responsibility. We may consider ourselves free to drink our life away or just fritter it away on matters of no real consequence; but when we make such a decision, we stand accountable. We stand accountable to ourselves for becoming cramped into a desultory way of life. We stand accountable to those who depend upon us. We may consider ourselves free to exploit our fellow humans in a thousand different ways, but when we choose such a path, we sacrifice the trust upon which abiding relationships are built. And again we stand accountable; we stand accountable to the larger society of which we are an integral part. We may consider ourselves free to cheat in our marriages, but once we choose to go down this road, we are no longer free to build the wholesome home life we want. Furthermore, we stand accountable to our spouses and to our families for our deceit. The truth is: we are free to misuse our freedom. We are free to bind ourselves to the mediocre, the shoddy and the trite; but when we do so, we not only discover that we stand accountable for our actions; we discover, paradoxically, that our freedom has lost its luster. We find that we are enslaved to the grubby and the second rate.

All this, of course, highlights the final paradox of human freedom. You are no more free than the truth that holds you in its grip. Freedom has “no compass of its own.” How vital and real it is depends upon the end to which it is bound. How well St. Paul understands this! That is why in the Epistle to the Galatians (Gal. 5:1,13-25) he writes of freedom not as an absence of restraints. Quite the contrary! He writes of the freedom he knows as one who belongs to Christ. He writes of freedom not as a release from ties but as an obligation to God and to the servanthood the faithful share with one another. You are free, St. Paul declares; but that freedom is a freedom that rejects all that corrupts and debases human life. You are free, but that freedom is a freedom that purges you from the indulgences that destroy your soul. You are free, but that freedom is a freedom that constrains you to love your neighbor as yourself. The implication is clear. You are free, but that freedom is the freedom that takes hold of you when you open your heart and receive the spirit of the indwelling Christ as the power source of your life’s allegiances.

Your task then? It is to acknowledge the freedom God gives you. How? By saying “yes” to Christ and Christ’s way for you! By dismantling the barriers that block your soul and letting the mind and spirit of the living Christ enter and take up permanent residence within you, freeing you to know and live out that “love, joy, patience, kindness, goodness, gentleness, self-control” that are the fruits of God’s spirit at work among you (Gal 5:22).

New Testament Text: Galatians 5:1,13-25

Plant your feet firmly therefore within the freedom that Christ has won for us, and do not let yourselves be caught again in the shackles of slavery.

It is to freedom that you have been called, my brothers and sisters. Only be careful that freedom does not become mere opportunity for your lower nature. You should be free to serve one another in love. For after all, the whole Law toward others is summed up by this one command, “Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself.” But if freedom means merely that you are free to attack and tear one another to pieces, be careful that you do not destroy your fellowship altogether!

Here is my advice. Live your whole life in the Spirit and you will not satisfy the desires of your lower nature. For the whole energy of the lower nature is set against the Spirit, while the whole power of the Spirit is contrary to the lower nature. Her is the conflict, and that is why you are not free to do what you want to do. But if you follow the leading of the Spirit, you are not under the Law.

The activities of the lower nature are obvious. Here is a list: sexual immorality, impurity of mind, sensuality, worship of false gods, witchcraft, hatred, quarreling, jealousy, bad temper, rivalry, factions, party intrigue, envy, drunkenness, carousing and things like that. I solemnly assure you, as I did before, that those who indulge in such things will never inherit God’s kingdom. The Spirit, however, produces in human life fruits such as these: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, fidelity, tolerance and self-control — and no law exists against any of them.

Those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified their old nature with all that it loved and lusted for. If our lives are centered in the Spirit, let us be guided by the Spirit.

      — J. B. Phillips Translation