The truth will set you free

What links an antequated rock video with the Reformation?

Twenty-five years go the rock group Queen had a hit with a song called I want to break free. Perhaps even better known than the song itself was the film clip that accompanied it. It featured the lead singer, Freddie Mer­cury, dressed in drag as a housewife, singing this song of emancipation from a mundane suburban existence while doing the vacuuming.

Stills from the video clip for I want to break free, by Queen.

'I want to break free…' What's the connection between freedom and Refor­mation Day, a day when we re­mem­ber the doctrinal rectitude of our ancestors in the faith? Caricatures of Luther and the other reformers might paint them as people for whom truth was a far higher priority than freedom. Furthermore, for some of us, early memories of the church involved the parental injunction to be silent, while the pastor preached a stern sermon designed to call to memory our numerous failings.

Postmodern position

In this day and age, we wouldn't con­sider truth and freedom to be natural partners. In fact, the question of truth is a problematic one for this post­modern culture. The best we can now say about truth is that it is relative. There is thought to be no such thing as objective truth. What is true for you is just that. The Christian faith, the gospel of Jesus Christ, the death and the resurrection of Jesus Christ may be true for you, but you cannot call it truth for all. There are as many truths as there are people. I can say without causing offence to anyone that Jesus is my Lord, but to call him Lord of all, both people and creation, is stretching the friendship.

In postmodern thinking, concepts of relative truth are inextricably bound with freedom. Personal autonomy is enshrined as one of the highest values. Absolute truth threatens this value, because it calls into question my ability to discern my own values and philoso­phies. Society says that as long as my values don't hurt anyone, and don't breach the law of the land, then I'm free to pursue them. But the con­fession of Jesus as Lord implies that others gods, or goals, or things, are not in fact God. Absolute truth is a threat to freedom.

Church lost respect

The church finds itself living in interesting times. What should our response be to a world that doesn't recognise the cosmic claims of Jesus Christ, the redeemer of the entire creation? In centuries past, the church made dogmatic and philosophical pronouncements from a position of strength. When the church spoke, people listened. The church is now a much weaker position. People no longer accord it the same respect. Scandals have damaged its credibility. It now has to jostle with other institutions and interest groups to be heard. The debate surrounding the decriminalization of abortion shows how contemptuous hardline secularists are of the church and it pro-life stance.

The two dangers

There are two dangers for the church, in response to attitudes such as these. The first is the danger of complete retreat. The church licks it wounds, and retires into its own corner. It fearfully guards its heritage, too scared to test this anymore in the marketplace of ideas. It preserves its traditions like museum pieces, for those who are interested in antiquities. The church is a virtual pri­soner. It is not free. But it lobs its truth at people like a weapon.

Upper house MPs Martin Pakula, Candy Broad and John Vogels debate the abortion bill on October 7, 2008. Photos The Age.

The other danger involves such an accommodation to the spirit of the age that the church sits comfortably and chummily with every other pur­veyor of partial truth. The church plays the game, accepts the rules of engage­ment, and hopes its message appeals to the purchasers of religious philoso­phies. The market of public opinion rules the day, and the church tailors its message for the times. The danger here is that the church is free, but it has nothing to say that sets it apart as church. It's captive to the culture and no longer interested in the truth. If you want a clear example of this approach, go no further than Dr Francis Macnab and his campaign to sell Christianity to its cultured despisers.

The third way

There is a more faithful way, but it's an uncomfortable path, caught between withdrawal and accommodation. It's the way that Jesus' words selected for Reformation Day direct us to. His words show us that truth and freedom are not abstract concepts to be tossed about, but real things, which are to be found in relationship with him. In him, truth and love coexist. That's the news that the world needs to hear.

Jesus says of himself: "If the Son makes you free, you will be free indeed." Truth is more than an idea; it is em­bodied in Jesus' life, death and resur­rection. Sin is falsehood and untruth. Sin is living a lie, because it means placing our self, our needs, our agendas, before the one who claims our worship. This lie is powerfully damaging, and leads to death. The good news is that in Christ, God faces this problem front on and wins us perfect freedom through Jesus' death and resurrection. As Luther puts it so well: "At great cost Jesus has saved and redeemed me, a lost and condemned person. He has freed me from sin, death and the power of the devil ... with his holy and precious blood, and his innocent suffering and death." This is the truth. This brings freedom. This truth is expressed in love. That's the simple beauty of the Christian faith.

And the result

We are free to live a truly human life, now that we're no longer trapped in fear or cowed by guilt. This freedom is cross-shaped. We have swapped ser­vitude for meaningful service. We are servants of one lord or the other. We are by nature sin's servants. Now another Lord has asserted dominion in our lives. Our hearts have been enlivened in Christ, and our minds have been renewed through the presence of God's Spirit. Our pride, resentment, fear, anger, lack of confidence in God's call and whatever else chains us — we give all that to Christ. He can have them and experience them. From him we claim his confidence, his love for others, his gentleness, his forgiveness and what­ever other attributes we need for the day at hand. That's a message for Reformation Sunday and every other day. "For freedom Christ has set us free. Stand firm, therefore, and do not submit again to a yoke of slavery... 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 slaves to one another. For the whole law is summed up in a single com­mandment, 'You shall love your neigh­bour as yourself'." [Galatians 5]

Each generation in the church is called to appropriate the gospel truth of the Reformation for itself. Sitting on Luther's words, cherishing the pure teaching of the church, achieves nothing if no contact is made with the world. Neither does watering down the teach­ing of sin and grace, or law and gospel, as if we hope to make the message of the church more palatable. We are at the coalface, where truth and freedom are to be lived within and outside this community.

The American Lutheran Book of Wor­ship has a service allowing people to affirm their baptism. Are you willing to make this pledge, to live the truth in godly freedom?

Do you intend to continue in the covenant God has made with you in Holy Baptism:

• to live among God’s faithful people,
• to hear his Word and share in his supper,
• to proclaim the good news of God in Christ through word and deed,
• to serve all people, following the example of our Lord Jesus Christ,
• and to strive for justice in all the earth?

I do, and I ask God to help and guide me.

by Pastor Andrew Brook