The United Church of Christ: Freedom & Responsibility

Galatians 4:20-5:2

Doug Hodges

June 24, 2007

The morning we are going to talk about the role of Freedom and Responsibility in the United Church of Christ. But first, let’s do a little Bible Study.

The lesson we read this morning was written by Paul to churches in what is now the nation of Turkey. The churches were new. And they had a problem. Some conservative preachers had visited the churches and taught that Christians had to accept a lot of regulations. Don’t touch this. Don’t taste that. Don’t wear that material. And above all else—if you are a guy and if you haven’t been circumcised—do it now. But some of the guys did not think that was a good idea. “Look, we don’t have good hospitals. And anesthesia hasn’t been invented.”

The short answer Paul gives is: “You are free in Christ. Don’t submit to those unnecessary regulations.”

The problem is that Paul usually doesn’t give short answers. He gives long answers. And here he takes a story from the Old Testament about the two sons of Abraham and uses that story in the most round about way to prove his point.

In the story, Sarah was Abraham’s wife. But he also had a mistress, a slave woman named Hagar. Both women had sons. The two boys did not get along with each other. So in time Abraham kicked Hagar, the slave woman and her son out of his camp.

To you and I this is a great story of human conflict that begins with two siblings and continues up to this day in the conflict between Jews and Arabs. But Paul takes an entirely different slant on the story—a slant that at the least doesn’t make sense to modern ears and at the worst becomes offensive to modern ears.

But Paul isn’t concerned about what is offensive to modern ears. Paul is trying to make a point. To make that point he sees the story of the two sons of Abraham as an allegory. It’s all quite simple, Paul says. The son of Hagar, the slave woman is the old law. The son of Sarah, the freewoman is the New Jerusalem. Therefore Paul argues, “You are the children of the free woman. Drive the son of the slave woman out of your camp, that is, drive away those preachers who are trying to impose all these regulations on you.”

Now, when you and I hear the story, we scratch our heads and ask: How did Paul get from point A – that story in Genesis to point B which is Paul’s understanding that the story teaches Christian freedom. What’s the relationship?

Today Paul would probably flunk out of almost any modern seminary. He’s trying to interpret scripture through the lens of allegory. That just doesn’t fly like it used to. But in the ancient world, Paul was a great scholar, trained by one of the greatest rabbis of the time. Allegory was a highly acceptable method of interpretation of scripture.

Now the other problem with the story is the issue of slavery. Paul doesn’t say anything to condemn slavery in this passage. He just accepts it as a fact of life---indeed if anything he is condoning Abraham’s treatment of his slave –which could have lead to her death of dehydration in the desert. I can’t excuse Paul. Elsewhere in the book of Galatians, we see that Paul is starting to get it. But still he hasn’t got it.

What Paul does get is our freedom in Christ – even though he could not get how far that freedom must go. “For freedom, Christ has set us free,” In Christ we are free people. We are not bound by Old Testament regulations. We are bound by Christ.

And what Paul also gets and insists that we get too, is the responsibility that goes with freedom. Paul sense of freedom is not a libertine—anything goes freedom. It is freedom in Christ.

We are free. But we are free in Christ. Because we are free in Christ we also have the responsibility to live in Christ, to be bound to Christ and to love our neighbor.

Now what do the words of Paul mean to the United Church of Christ in 2007? The short answer is: “We take freedom and responsibility very seriously.” But I’m still got a few minutes, so let me give you a little longer answer. In particular, I’m going to refer to the Constitution of the United Church of Christ to see what this document says about freedom and responsibility.

But first let me take a brief detour to me explain that the Constitution of the United Church of Christ deals mainly with the ordering of the national church. Technically it is not binding on local congregations, but it is a document that local congregations should take seriously because it protects the rights of local congregations to be self governing.

Now, we’re back on the main road. Detour is over. What does the Constitution of the United Church of Christ say about freedom and responsibility? Let’s look first at freedom.

Our preamble declares: “Jesus Christ, Son of God and Savior, is the sole head of the United Church of Christ” The freedom here is that there is no man or woman who can order the church around or control the lives of its members. If you want a denomination where a national body owns your church property and spells out what religious ceremonies can be conducted in your building and what can not be conducted, then the United Church of Christ is probably not the right place for you. If you want a denomination where the pastors tells you what you must think and what you must do, then the United Church of Christ is probably not the right place for you. Jesus Christ is the head of the United Church of Christ and we are free in Christ.

Our constitution also says that we “claim as our own, the history of the Christian church, its creeds, as well as the basic insights of the Protestant Reformation. Some congregations regularly say the ancient creeds as a general reminder of the things all Christians hold in common. Others do not. However, we do not impose these creeds on anyone or make them a litmus test.

The constitution also says we look to the Word of God in scripture. We have a great reverence for scripture. We believe scripture is authoritative and I consider scripture the basis for my preaching. We believe scripture contains the word of God. But most of us do not insist that every word of scripture is a literal word of God. We take scripture with uttermost seriousness. But we do not insist that any one interpretation of scripture is the only way to understand scripture.

Well, with a wishy-washy doctrine like that, which when boiled down to its essence means that the only thing we believe in is the God we know through Jesus Christ our Lord and his teaching—then what kind of people are you going to find in the United Church of Christ?

The answer: A lot of liberal people. But also some moderate and conservative people who value independent thought. You might even find a few recovered fundamentalist—like myself. You will also find Democrats, Republicans, and Independents. You will find people whose ancestors came from Europe and people whose ancestors came from Africa. You will find Asian people, Pacific Islanders, Hispanic people, and Armenian people—to name just a few. You will find straight people and gay people and sometimes bisexual and transgender people. You are likely to find a few people who think they have found the answer to all of life’s persistent questions and a lot of people who are still trying to find the answer. In the United Church of Christ we say, it doesn’t matter who you are and where you are on life’s journey—you are welcome here. And one other question: Who else are you likely to find in a United Church of Christ? Well, you are also going to find courageous people. And that leads us my next point which is that the United Church of Christ is not only a denomination of freedom. It is also a denomination of responsibility.

Yes, we are free in Christ, but we are also responsible in Christ. To go back to the preamble of our constitution, If we say that Jesus is the head of the Church, then we have a responsibility to live out our lives—as best we can—according to his teachings. We are free in Christ. But we are also limited by our responsibility to Christ.

What does this responsibility mean? When I was a boy growing up in South Georgia, being a responsible Christian meant you did not play cards, go to movies, school dances, or go to the lake because you might see girls in swim suits. By the way, I was not very responsible.

But in the United Church of Christ we have taken a broader view of Christian responsibility. And sometimes our views have not always been the most popular view, the most politically correct views, or the safest views. But we have been people of courage.

Back in the 1800’s, before the United Church of Christ was created, our predecessor denominations stood up on the issue of slavery in the United States.

You remember how Paul sort of overlooked the issue of slavery when he talked about freedom in Christ. Well our spiritual ancestors in the German Evangelical Church, the Christian Church and especially the Congregational church realized that was an issue they could not overlook. So they began to ask themselves: If we are free in Christ—how can we allow some people to be slaves. They also looked at the story of the Exodus when God freed the slaves in Egypt and ask, if God could free slaves then, why can’t God working through us, free slaves now. So our ancestors went to court and helped freed the slaves of the Amistad rebellion. They demonstrated against slavery. They wrote novels and newspaper articles and spoke out where ever their voice would be heard—even when the view of the abolitionist was not a popular view in some quarters.

After the United Church of Christ was created in 1957, it was not long before pastors, such as the Rev. Andrew Young –and courageous lay people were called to the front lines of the civil rights movement. Then came the war in Vietnam. Many in the United Church of Christ though it was their patriotic duty to fight in that war. With great courage, they went off to war. But others saw the war as wrong, immoral and totally against the teaching of Jesus, the sole head of the United Church of Christ. They too, stood up with courage and called our nation to seek the leadership of the prince of peace.

Today, the United Church of Christ is still a denomination that many people call different things. But few have called us timid. We are concerned about exploited meat packers in Smithfield, North Carolina and low wage tomato pickers in Florida. Many congregations are open and affirming to gays. We are willing to study difficult issues like physician assisted suicide. We are deeply concerned about American soldiers in Iraq and we are concerned about the people of Iraq and we are deeply concerned about the war itself.

Why are people in the United Church of Christ always sticking their necks out for causes that are not always popular causes? Some would say the “United Church of Christ is just a bunch of liberals who don’t believe in God, so they have to do something.” Well, the truth is the UCC is a bunch of liberals and conservatives and moderates who have a strong faith in God and take that faith very seriously. We are people who listen to God speaking through scripture and we believe God wants peace and justice and wholeness in the world God created. Back in the 1970’s I remember a saying some teenagers wore on their tee shirts: “The Devil Made Me Do It.” In the United Church of Christ, we say, “God made me do it.”

Now there is always a problem when you say you are listening to God. The problem is that sometimes when we study scripture we can not always agree about what God is saying to us. Different people and even different congregations are going to have different views and are going to take different stands. The solution is not to always be silent—for fear we will offend, but rather to speak and live in love. Each of us in the United Church of Christ has a responsibility to be courageous and true to our own beliefs. Yet each of us also has a responsibility to be loving and respectful of others—including those with whom we disagree.

Long ago the Apostle said: “for freedom, Christ has set us free.” In the United Church of Christ, we take our freedom very seriously. But we also take our responsibility to Christ very seriously.

There is a quote in some of the new promotional material from our national office. It doesn’t mention freedom and responsibility the way I have mentioned it today. But I think it gives us a good understanding of who we are and what we are doing. The quote is a good answer to that question: “What is the United Church of Christ?” Here it is: “I love my church because it’s sort of like The Wizard of Oz --- it’s about having a heart and a brain. And courage! It’s about having a heart and a brain. And courage!

That sounds like the church where I belong.

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