Galatians 5:1
Opening Song: "Were You There?"
For freedom Christ has set us free; stand fast therefore, and do not submit again to a yoke of slavery.
At a university Music Department, there was a piano teacher whom the students simply and affectionately called Herman.
One night, at a University concert, a distinguished concert pianist suddenly became ill while performing. No sooner had the artist left the stage when Herman rose from his seat in the audience, walked onstage, sat down at the piano and with great mastery, completed the performance.
Later that evening, at a post concert reception, one of the students asked Herman how he was able to perform such a demanding piece so beautifully without notice, and with no rehearsal. Herman replied, “In 1939, when I was a budding young concert pianist, I was arrested and placed in a Nazi concentration camp. Putting it mildly, the future looked bleak. But I knew in order to keep the flicker of hope alive that I might someday play again, I needed to practice every day. I began by fingering a piece of music on my bare-board bed late one night. The next night I added a second piece and soon I was running through my entire collection. I did this every night for five years. It so happens that the piece I played tonight at the concert hall was part of my collection. Every day I renewed my hope that I would one day be able to play my music again on a real piano, and in freedom.”
What would you do if you had your freedom? We all might think about how we would finish this sentence: "If I was really free, I would..." But in answering that question, and in finishing that sentence, you would first have to decide what being free would mean for you. And, you'd have to come face-to-face with the reality that you aren't free. The very reason you are asking yourself that question is because you know you aren't free.
So before you decide what you'd want to do with your freedom, you first have to realize how it is that you aren't free right now. Who or what has captured you? What is it that is making up the walls of your captivity?
Throughout Lent, using the book, The Deeper Journey, we have explored how our captivity--our concentration camp, so-to-speak--is our false self. The false self is the major part of us that tries to live without God. That life without God, or keeping God on the outskirts of our lives, results in living in a concentration camp where fear is the commandant of the camp; ego protection is daily life in the camp; holding on to even the minutest possession is how we think we define our concentration camp identity; manipulating others--even those we love--is how we define power in the camp; and making distinctions between ourselves and the other inmates is the way we try to inflate our self-esteem in the camp. All of that results in self-destruction.
The only way to break free of that--to be really free--is immerse ourselves in something bigger than ourselves. To find ourselves in the music of the Christ-life. By practicing the Christ-life daily, we don't just do the Christian life, we become the Christian life for others. Our freedom, can and will become not only our freedom, but also others freedom.
(Song: "Let Something Good Be Said")
Harry Houdini, the famed escape artist, issued a challenge wherever he went. He could be locked in any jail cell in the country, he claimed, and set himself free in a short amount of time. Always he lived up to the challenge. But one time, something went wrong.
Houdini entered the jail cell. The heavy, metal door clanged shut behind him. He took a tiny piece of strong, flexible metal from his belt. He went to work immediately, but something seemed to be unusual about this door’s lock. For 30 minutes he worked, but got nowhere. An hour passed, and still he had not opened the door. By now he was drenched in sweat and panting in exasperation, but he was still unable to pick the lock.
After laboring for two hours, Houdini collapsed in frustration in front of the door he could not unlock. Finally, the sheriff came and simply opened the door. It had never been locked. But in Houdini’s mind it had been locked, and that was all it took to keep him from opening the jail door.
The false self makes assumptions about life. One of the main assumptions the false self makes is that it can get out of anything. By our own resourcefulness; by our own intellect; by our own conniving; by our own bluster, we can meet any challenge and succeed. Be a success! Be a winner! Be someone, by the false self's ego inflation, who can do anything. You can do this!
But you know what? Those statements are assumptions you make based on the messages your false self is squeaking in your ear. What if you can't do this? What if you've made a strategic misassumption about the lock you are trying to pick to get yourself out of some predicament? And that misassumption has left you panting in exasperation.
The reason is, there are some things you can't get out of by your own ingenuity. Like the control of the false self and its false promises. Like sin. Try as you may, you will be lead to the constant dead end of exasperation and depression. You need to first let go of that false self and those false assumptions you make about yourself. Then you will be ready for the One--the Savior--to come and open the door and let you out. Only then will you be free. And only then will you finally realize how easy it could have been all along.
(break: song: "Why Me, Lord?")
In the book, God's Smuggler, Brother Andrew tells of the time he served in the Dutch army in Indonesia. While there he bought a young, gibbon monkey. It became a pet for the whole barracks. He and his friends noticed that when they touched the monkey in some areas around the waist it seemed to hurt him. He examined the gibbon more closely and found a raised welt that went around its waist. What he was to discover is that when the monkey was a baby, someone had tied a piece of wire around its middle and never taken it off. As the monkey grew larger the wire became embedded in its flesh, causing it a great deal of discomfort.
That evening, Andrew began the operation. Taking his razor, he shaved off some of the monkey's hair in a three inch wide swath at the monkey's middle. With the other men in the barracks looking on, Andrew cut ever so gently into the tender flesh until he exposed the wire.
The gibbon lay there with the most amazing patience. Even when it was obviously hurting, the monkey looked up with eyes that seemed to say, "I understand." Andrew cut the wire, and slowly pulled it out. Instantly, the monkey jumped up, did a cartwheel, danced around his shoulder, and pulled Andrew's hair in joyful happiness.
Andrew wrote, "After that, my gibbon and I were inseparable. I think I identified with him as strongly as he with me. I think I saw in the wire that had bound him a kind of parallel to the chain of guilt still so tight around myself--and in his release, I saw a symbol of the thing I too longed for."
A band, a wire, a chain of guilt. It's not just Brother Andrew who struggles with that. Seems to be a common theme for many people. No matter how uncomfortable we are with the pain of guilt that bands us, we let it fester and remain. It's like our guilt has been with us for as long as we can remember, and we don't know how to define ourselves differently without it. So we just let it remain--even though it hurts.
We get touchy when others start pressing us on those places of guilt. Our guilt becomes the basis for our ego-protection. We don't want anyone messing with our guilt and we let them know when they're too close to it. It's ours, dang it! Leave it alone! We've gotten used to it. We know how to get around it, deny and pretend it's not there or not bothering us. We can live with it.
But deep within us all, right in the middle of the guts of our denial and pretense there is that which is begging someone to come and take care of our guilt once and for all. We know we can't do it. We can't and we don't want to deal with it. We want to just let it lie, beneath the surface. But, please, someone, set us free from this band that just keeps getting more and more painful! Please!!
When we're finally ready to say that, then comes Christ who through a small wound, finally sets us free from our guilt pained woundedness. Sets us free from guilt and it's increasing pain. Once free, we had no idea of how amazing it feels to be free of it. We want to jump! We want to dance! Unafraid, we finally want to allow others to touch us! We are free!
(Song: "I Saw A Man")
A biologist once did an experiment with "processional caterpillars." On the rim of a large clay pot that held a plant, he lined the caterpillars up so that the leader was head-to-end with the last caterpillar. The plant in the pot was a variety that these caterpillars loved to eat. Instead, the tiny creatures circled the rim of the pot, following each other, for a full week. Not once did any of them break away to go over to the plant to eat. Eventually, all the caterpillars died from exhaustion and starvation.
Maybe you've heard that definition of insanity: doing the same thing, the same way, over and over expecting a different result. Like living that concentration camp life, being a prisoner for so long. Many of the men in those camps defined themselves by that environment. They didn't know how to be any other way--even to the point when many of the concentration camps were freed and open, and the prisoners were free to go, many of them wouldn't leave that place. They had become false self caterpillars going round and round.
Or like Houdini, who made one major strategic misassumption. That misassumption wasn't just about the jail cell door that day, but also about his own hubris. I can do this! I've gotten myself out of every situation. I'm in control. He followed that trail, round and round. This time he got no where, and he couldn't figure out why. He could always save himself, but not this time. Round and round we go.
And the wire band of guilt. Wrapped around us from the time we were young. Imperceptibly cutting into us. Disappearing into us. Become part of us. Cutting deeper and deeper. We think guilt is just the way we're supposed to be. We've always been that way. "That's life," we tell ourselves. We go through life touchy and pained and we don't know why. Round and round we go.
Round and round we go. And then we die. With our last breath, we wonder why. Why didn't I give myself to something bigger than my concentration camp self? Why wasn't I free? Where did I go wrong, making misassumptions which led to further bad decisions? Why wasn't I free? How could I have let guilt cut its way into my self definition? Why didn't I let someone cut it away? Why wasn't I free?
Well, you aren't dead. Yet. But you still need to ask those why questions: Why wasn't I free? The freedom you yearn for can be yours. "For freedom Christ has set us free; stand fast, therefore, and do not submit again to a yoke of slavery."
(song: "Tramp On The Street")
The Lord's Supper
Depart In Silence
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