Sermon: Slaves to Freedom

Matthew 4:12-23

Slaves to Freedom

James Sledge                                                                           January 26, 2020

I once saw a newspaper comic strip that depicted a teenager who was angry at his parents for not letting him do something he wanted to do. He yelled, “I’ll be glad when I’m 18 and no one can tell me what to do!” The final panel showed his parents doubled over in laughter.

As much as we celebrate freedom and individualism in this country, almost none of us ever reach the point where no one can tell us what to do.  It may be parents, a teacher, or professor; it may be our boss; it may be the speed limit and the police radar gun, but much of the time, we either do as others say or suffer the consequences.

We often wish it were otherwise. That starts early. Toddlers love the word “No!” Children and adults enjoy saying, “You can’t make me.”  Part of American mythology is that anyone can grow up to be whatever he or she wants to be. We know it’s not really true, even if it’s truer here than in many countries. But still, we love the idea that we’re free to become whatever we want, that we can simply decide, and if we try hard enough, we will make it.

In some countries, children are given aptitude tests and then slotted into certain academic or vocational tracks as early as elementary school.  That would never fly here.

Yet despite this, people often ask themselves the question, “What should I do with my life?” That’s a somewhat different question from “What do I want to do?” What I want to do is about preference, but what I should do speaks of something outside myself having a say.

Sometimes people go to career counseling services to help figure out what sort of thing they should do. Some colleges offer such services to their students. People who are thinking about changing careers sometimes use them. And our denomination requires people who want to become pastors to be evaluated by a reputable career center.

This career counseling usually includes tests that chart personality, interests, and aptitudes. The process assumes that certain traits are necessary for certain careers. When I was 12, I would have loved to become a rock and roll star, but it didn’t take all that many guitar lessons to make it obvious that would never happen.

So I’m wondering, what information would you consider in making a decision about what you should do with your life? Whose voice would you listen to; what authority would you recognize as having a say in that decision? 

And this isn’t limited to decisions about career. Life is full of should questions. Where should I go to college? Should I go to grad school? Should we get married? Should we have children? How should we raise our children? How should we spend our retirement?  What should we do with our estate? The list goes on and on. Perhaps you’re wrestling with such a question right now.

How do you answer such questions? Who and what get a say in answering the question, “What should I do?”

I wonder how Simon Peter, Andrew, James, and John answered that question. How did they decide what they should do when Jesus showed up and said, “Come on, drop everything; leave it all behind, and come with me?” Did they even know what Jesus meant when he said they would be fishing for people? What on earth made them simply get up and go?

When Jesus begins his ministry, the very first words he says, words spoken immediately before he calls Simon Peter and Andrew are, “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven has come near.” I think that when a lot of people hear the word “repent,” they think of confessing, admitting that they’re bad and need to turn from their evil ways. It can mean that, but I don’t think that is what Jesus is talking about. Jesus is saying that God’s rule, God’s new day is drawing close, and to get ready for it we need to start living differently. Peter and Andrew and James and John all repent, not because they stop doing something bad or wrong, but because they go in a new direction when Jesus calls. They hear Jesus telling them what they should do, what they must do if they are to get ready for the kingdom.

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  Years ago, before I went to seminary, I took part in a discussion with a church youth group where I was a volunteer leader. We asked them whether or not they would go overseas to some dangerous, poverty stricken country if they were absolutely certain that Jesus was calling them to do so. I’m not sure I would have been as honest as they were. Every single one of them said, “No.” 

I don’t recall much of the conversation that followed, but clearly these high school students understood their lives to grow out of the choices that they would make, and this choice would not fit. It violated some standard, guideline, hope, or expectation that influenced them, the authoritative voices that they listened to.

Now in fairness to them, they said “No” only to a hypothetical situation. Peter, Andrew, James, and John might well have said the same to a hypothetical question about leaving the life they knew behind and following Jesus. But then they met him.

Our culture makes it quite easy to believe in Jesus. Even though our society is becoming more and more secular, believing in Jesus is still something of a norm. Following Jesus in another matter. Our culture actually says that’s a bad idea. It will get in the way of prestige, power, wealth, possessions and other things our culture says we need for a full,  happy life. 

Jesus calls people to counter-cultural lives, lives that love enemies, that take up a cross, that give themselves for the sake of others, even others who don’t deserve such a gift.  Following Jesus looks like a foolish choice, and it looked just as foolish back when Jesus called those fishermen, until they actually met him.

I think that a lot of us live with a significant, unresolved conflict in our lives. On the one hand we know deep down inside that we were created for something, for a life of meaning and purpose. There is a deep should for each of us, a calling. But we have been well conditioned to think that happiness and fulfillment come from being free to do what we want, from following our own wants and desires. Some of us are virtually slaves to this freedom, finding it impossible to trust anything other than our own wants and desires.

When Peter and Andrew, James and John meet Jesus, they drop everything. They abandon all the plans they previously had and go with him, not knowing where it will lead. I do not think it was anything that they had ever wanted, at least not until the met Jesus. I’m not sure that following Jesus ever seems like something people would want to do at first, which is probably why so many go no further than believing in Jesus. But what if we actually meet Jesus? What if we hear him calling us to follow him?

All praise and glory to the God who comes to us in Jesus, and invites us to discover new life by following him.