For freedom Christ has set us free… Galatians 5:1

(With Dr. Melissa A. Jackson)

Sophia is a community of freedom.

For most of us, the word “freedom” calls up lots of images, experiences, thoughts, and feelings—many of them likely tied closely to the politics of citizenship. In Galatians, however, Paul writes of a very different understanding of freedom. After opening with the phrase, “For freedom Christ has set us free,” Galatians 5 goes on to discuss traditional ritual responsibilities of the Hebrew Bible’s Torah teaching (the “law”), primarily that of circumcision. Paul then asserts that observing or not observing this ritual doesn’t really matter. Instead, “in Christ Jesus . . . the only thing that counts is faith working through love.”

In verses 13-14, Paul expands on the nature of this love:

For you were called to freedom, brothers and sisters, only do not use your freedom as an opportunity for self-indulgence, but through love become enslaved to one another [ital. added].For the whole law is summed up in a single commandment, “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.”

We should not be tempted, as many are, to interpret Paul’s powerful and provocative words as calling for the end of religious rituals and practices or the end of following Torah instruction. In fact, Paul’s instruction to love one’s neighbor as oneself is a quotation from the Torah, namely Leviticus 19:18 (see also Jesus’s quotations of this same verse in Matthew 19:19 and 22:39; Mark 12:31; Luke 10:27). Paul is, however, putting any such ritual and practice in its proper perspective. Anything we do, as followers of Christ Jesus, should be governed by one thing only: love.

In today’s deeply polarized society, so many people, including those who speak of themselves as Christians, say and do hate-filled, destructive things, all the while proudly shouting about their “freedom.” The words of Galatians challenge such awful, narrow-minded cries of “freedom,” protesting in stark contrast that freedom, in Christ Jesus, is not any individual’s “right,” but rather is a communal way of being and doing, centered around the love of one for each and every other.

“Until we are all free, we are none of us free.” These words from poet Emma Lazarus, written in the face of rising anti-Semitism, have echoed through the voices of others since Lazarus first penned them in 1883. Civil rights leader Fannie Lou Hamer similarly said, at the founding of the National Women’s Political Caucus in 1971, “Nobody’s free until everybody’s free.” In a 2013 interview, poet Maya Angelou, speaking of the legacy of MLK who himself referenced Lazarus’s words various times during the Civil Rights Movement, offered her variation: “No one of us can be free until everybody is free.”

“Freedom” in Christ Jesus is neither mine, nor yours. It is ours. Freedom from what oppresses our neighbor. Freedom to live abundantly in community. Freedom for which we must work. Freedom for which we must work together in love. God who freely creates created humankind with freedom. At Sophia, you are free—to express yourself, to think creatively and critically, to speak openly and honestly. Free from pressure to conform, you are free to explore and question, tearing down those traditions and systems that hold us captive while building up relationships that bring joy, hope, and peace.

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