Reflection on Gal 5:13-15, 22-26 for 4th of July

You have been given liberty. You have been given freedom. Only this freedom is not for you - its for you to serve others. A difficult idea to wrestle with - you have been given a gift, but its not for you. I remember when I was really little my parents would give me money to buy a birthday gift for each of my brothers. The money was not mine to keep, not even the change. But it was money given to me to hold in order to pick out what I thought was the perfect gift. And there was such joy in that. Joy in being entrusted with that money. Joy with picking out the gift, wrapping it up, hiding it in my closet until the time had come. And such boundless joy in giving the gift. 

That is what our freedom is like. Being given a gift to use for other people. Perhaps no people understand that better then the men and women who serve our country. Those who understand that their life isn’t really their’s to hold on to, rather their’s to use for the protection and service of others. Those who stand among us today who have truly exemplified what it has meant to love your neighbor as yourself and those who have watched others whom they deeply loved lay down their life for others.

For only in giving can we truly receive. Only in using our freedom to bring to life to other people can we grow in the fruits of the Spirit talked about in this passage of scripture - love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. In talking about this passage in a Bible Study a few months ago, we realized that these are the characteristics that we want, because they best exemplify Christ. They show what it means to lay our lives aside for other people, because they are the marks of God using us. And we can all have them. The fruits of the Holy Spirit, each and every one of them, are avaliable to all of us who have gathered here today, if only we will start to use our liberty, our freedom, to live a life of service for others.

Yet, that is contrary to our belief system that it is about our individual selves getting ahead. Or doing what is best for us. Or even thinking that we have earned the freedom that we have been given. Brothers and sisters, I stand before you today to remind you that you have not and cannot earn God’s grace, love, and favor. It is a gift freely given to you, by Christ giving himself in the greatest act of service on the cross.

The question is not really if we are going to serve others, it is how are we going to serve others. How are we going to work towards someone else’s best interest. What decisions can we make each and every day to use our life as a gift, freely received and freely given? How can we grow into the fruits of the spirit and become the people, day by day, that God wants us to be? Tough questions without easy answers. Answers that only come after prayer and thought. My hope today is that we celebrate this day the freedom that our country has, that we begin to contemplate our own freedom and how God calls us to put that gift into action.