We may readily affirm that Jesus Christ is the truth who
sets us free to love and leads us into fullness of life. So we may readily
affirm that freedom is one essential aspect of our core identity as truly human
beings; or, again, of the core identity of our Christian personality.
Sadly, each one of us humans still has two distinct and
opposing personalities: one Olympian, structured in terms of the false Olympian
gods; and one Christian, structured in terms of Jesus. Worse, our thoroughly
Olympian society and culture greatly strengthen our Olympian personality at the
expense of our Christian one.
Living with an Olympian personality in an Olympian society and culture makes affirming our Christian identity difficult. Affirming freedom becomes a daily challenge and often an unbearable one.
To be clear, we are speaking of freedom as freedom from
the Olympian gods and the enticements, threats, and necessities they impose upon
us through their minions and means. We are also speaking of freedom as freedom
for Jesus, other humans, and the rest of creation made possible by his grace
alone.
Yahweh revealed himself as the one odd god of freedom by
liberating his people Israel from their slavery in Egypt. A month after their
liberation, however, they were ready to head back. That’s how unbearable
freedom as a way of living is.
1The whole Israelite
community set out from Elim, and on the fifteenth day of the second month after
they had left Egypt, they came to the desert of Sin, which is between Elim and
Sinai. 2 There
in the desert they all complained to Moses and Aaron 3 and
said to them, “We wish that [Yahweh] had killed us in Egypt. There we could at
least sit down and eat meat and as much other food as we wanted. But you have
brought us out into this desert to starve us all to death” (Exodus 16:1-3, Good News Translation).
When the devil tempted Jesus to turn a stone into a loaf of bread (Luke
4:1-4), Jesus affirmed his freedom for Abba, his father and ours, by quoting
the Bible where it said that we humans live primarily by hearing and doing Abba’s
words. The Israelites affirmed their false freedom from Yahweh by wanting to get
back to the good food they wrongly imagined they had left behind in Egypt. They
preferred slavery with a steady diet to freedom with the steady need to rely
daily on that odd and invisible god of theirs.
Their life in the wilderness provided them with the opportunity to
affirm freedom as a way of living. But this way of living presented numerous
risks with no guarantees of success. Reaching the Promised Land was a noble
goal but it would be reached—if at all—only after a long time filled with many
heartaches. How much more reasonable life back in Egypt seemed in contrast.
Like the Pharisees, we Christians profess to know what freedom means but
justify freedom from Jesus in favor of the security, happiness, and status promised
us by the Olympian gods we unwittingly devote ourselves to. When we do witness
to freedom, when we actually do question the gods of politics, war, technology,
sex, money, and consumption in the name of Jesus, then the gods—through our
Olympian brothers, sisters, and neighbors—quickly punish us with ridicule,
rage, shunning, or worse. Conforming seems a much more reasonable approach.
Our Olympian rulers routinely invoke freedom as the goal for imposing
yet another Olympian means of controlling us. In contrast, freedom for Jesus,
that unbearable challenge without his grace, is our daily-renewed affirmation that
he alone is our savior and freedom for him, others, and all creation is the
meaning of life.
(Today’s reflections are based on the excellent book, The Ethics of Freedom, by Jacques Ellul
[translated by Geoffrey Bromiley, published by Eerdmans, pp. 91-94]).
Copyright © 2015 by
Steven Farsaci.
All rights reserved. Fair use encouraged.
All rights reserved. Fair use encouraged.
