Free?

But there is value in the term, because the truth to which the term is pointing is important, and it is good news for us today: we are living today in anticipation of the kingdom of God, and the expectation of that kingdom is part of its reality.

So what?

Jesus says in today's Gospel: You will know the truth and the truth will make you free.

And the truth of this anticipation of the kingdom of God truly does set us free.

What is our world view?

How do we try to make sense of the crazy things that are going on all around and within ourselves?

Open or turn on the news in any media, and it appears that things are falling apart, more and faster each day.

Fires and floods, murder and mayhem, wars and rumors of wars, the indifference of Christians here in the US and the martyrdom of so many thousands of the faithful in Iraq and other places.

Is life just one awful thing after another, until it is finally over?

That is a very depressed, and depressing way to view things; the world without God.

How can one even get out of bed in the morning, if that be the attitude?

There is another way to see all this.

One might think that the kingdom of God is coming as the result of human progress and the hard work of the church's missionary actions, that it is a gradual turning around that will lead to peace and tranquility.

A hundred years ago, some still thought this, using the slogan “Every day in every way I am getting better and better.”

The problems with this world-view are several:

(1)it doesn't seem to square with our experiences of things falling apart.

(2)it doesn't really call on God, and instead depends on our own efforts to bring in the kingdom.

That will never do.

We know all too well how the things we do are fraught with unintended consequences that make it turn out quite differently than we expected.

As an example: we've heard so many times that a new plant or animal imported to the US ends up causing many more problems than the non-native species solved.

Instead of making things better, they made them worse!

Yet a third world-view focuses on the second coming as purely future event at the end, when all of the mess that we see now, the mess that gets deeper and deeper, is swept away.

But this view doesn't ring true with scripture.

The kingdom of God is a major topic in the life and work of Jesus of Nazareth, according to the Gospels, and is not all future.

Where in the other view we work our way up to the kingdom, in this view, the things which we do make no difference at all.

We would then just wait until the time that God decides to say The End, and then the Kingdom of God takes over.

This sounds nearly as depressing as the non-believers' view where nothing matters.

There is yet one more view, and to describe it we make use of our fancy term proleptic eschatology.

The kingdom is promised.

The kingdom is coming; and yet it is come now as well.

In the life, work, death, and resurrection of Jesus we see the anticipation of God's final rule.

Jesus is the down-payment of the fulfillment of mankind and indeed of the entire universe.

In Jesus, the final future, the culmination of all that is and will be, breaks into our present.

So far, that has only happened with Jesus, but it is enough to serve as the guarantee of Jesus' promise that by virtue of God's actions in Holy Baptism, it is our future as well.

That is proleptic eschatology.

So now that our heads are hurting because of thinking so hard about these things, it is time to ask again, So what?

How does this enlighten our verse from the Gospel of John?

How is that verse Good News?

The opposite of freedom would be bondage.

With joy we can proclaim that we are not to bondage to one stupid thing after another that leads only to death.

With joy we can proclaim that we are not in bondage to our own efforts which seem so paltry when measured against the world's problems that seek to overwhelm us.

With joy we can proclaim that we are not in bondage to the idea that God will be doing nothing until the cataclysm at the end.

With joy we can proclaim that we live now in anticipation of God's actions, confident that he can take our efforts, many of the weak or half-hearted, and transform them and use them in his completed kingdom.

How would all of this work out in the life of the church?

We could pick most any subject, but since we have been working so much with Family Promise over the past half-dozen years, let's use that as our test case with each of the four world-views.

1.Some might say that since everything is falling apart anyway, why bother helping these families?

It is too much time and effort and it doesn't make any difference anyway.

That would be contributing to the destruction of family and community.

2.Some might say that we should help the families in crisis, because by our efforts things are going to turn around.

You know what they say:” each day in every way, I'm getting better and better...”

The families might thereby be getting help, but it is really all about myself, doing it myself, for the honor of myself....

3.Some might be indifferent about helping families in crisis, saying that things are going to get worse before the Second Coming, so we could help, or not help, as each of us feels so moved; it doesn't much matter.

In order to continue the work of Family Promise, there has to be a focused and sustained effort.

Sitting around waiting for Jesus to come again does not help others very well nor does it honor the Lord Jesus.

Remember what happened in the parable of the servant who took his one talent and hid it away rather than investing it in a worthwhile effort?

What he had was taken away and given to others.

4.Let us be among those who hold the fourth world-view, who have heard Jesus' promise, who have recognized that it is guaranteed by his resurrection, who are thereby freed to work diligently with families in crisis.

These persons know that their work that is inspired by the Holy Spirit will be taken and used by the Father in a positive way, as signs of the kingdom which will be fulfilled in God's good time.

The emphasis here is on the Lord Jesus and his aims, and not much on us.

What a wonderful sense of freedom this brings; we know that our work is valued and used by God, but that the really heavy lifting, the work of salvation and the establishing of God's kingdom, is done by the Lord Jesus for us.

We have a true freedom.

We're not bound by sin, death, and the devil, the un-holy trinity.

Rather we are invited to trust the promise of Jesus.

Parents know what it is like to take a child into the swimming pool.

Often it happens that there is much fear and even kicking and screaming.

It takes the calm voice of the parent to finally convince the child to cease the fight and relax into trusting that voice which says “I will hold onto you, I will guide you, I will not let you drown.”

And if trust is finally believed, then freedom can be learned and given.

And now we shall sing it:

Once Christ came in blessing,

All our ills redressing;

Came in likeness lowly,

Son of God most holy;

He will then receive us,

Heal us, and forgive us.

Bore the cross to save us;

Hope and freedom gave us. Amen.

Please note: The preceding sermon is provided as a resource for the thought, prayer, and meditation of the members and friends of St. Mark's. It is the residue of a verbal event, and thus it does not have academic footnotes and other details that would be expected in a written document. The writer gladly acknowledges the prior thought and work of many Christians before him.