Stay Free

The power of words never ceases to amaze. A friend of mine wrote a comment on one of my blogs. It was insightful and honest. He ended it with two words: Stay Free. Since then I cannot leave these two words alone. They are working me over. I realized that these are the words that we should say to all followers of the way every day.

So pick up the narrative in Exodus. The people of Abraham, who had made a covenant with God find themselves enslaved by an impressive, oppressive, self indulgent regime. The Egyptians were breaking their backs to build massive stone monuments to honor their Gods and their kings. The labor and the treatment was severe and they cried out to the God who had promised them hope and prosperity. Then the Bible says four sweet words, "He heard their cries." Awesome! God set in motion a plan to bring His people out from this oppression and fulfill his part of the covenant. We all know the story. God brought Moses from the desert to lead the children of Abraham out of Egypt and eventually they would end up in the promised land. A kingdom is established and a time of prosperity occurs.

However, the people did not uphold their end of the bargain and they slowly invited themselves back into slavery. They forgot where they had come from. They forgot what God had done for them. They had forgotten the exodus. So they found themselves in Slavery. First it was enslavement to decadence and failure to show mercy and take care of the poor. Next it was actual enslavement as the Babylonians swept through and destroyed Jerusalem and the temple and took away the best and brightest of them into exile and into forced labor. Slavery, again. God brought up prophets from among the people who came to make sense of all that had happened and to turn their hearts back to God. Eventually God heard their cry and allowed them back into their land and they returned again. Free.

While in exile in Babylon, the prophets Isaiah and Jeremiah prophesied that among them a new Moses would come and lead them into a new Exodus. What they said though is that this would be a new Exodus an ultimate exodus for all people and for all things and that it would not be freedom from physical oppression but freedom from the ultimate oppression. The oppression of sin. The oppression that we inflicted upon ourselves from the beginning.

430 years later that vision was realized in the birth, life and death of a Jewish Rabbi named Jesus. He has provided for us a new Exodus, an ultimate exodus a universal exodus. An Exodus that leads us out of chaos and into the promised land of restoration.

And that is where we are. But, if it was true then, than it is true now and although we find ourselves basking in our freedom we are always somehow inching back toward slavery.

Why do we do this? Why do we forget? Why do we have wait for painful circumstances to put us on our knees before we remember? Why do we have to wait until the Babylonians show up at the door, destroy our homes and cart away our children to decide that it is time to remember?

Our encouragement to each other therefore should be, hey don't go back to the old way. Don't forget. Don't be saddled by legalism, don't be enslaved by your sin. Don't go back to chaos run to the freedom of redemption. Whatever you do, wherever it takes you and whatever the cost....STAY FREE!!

God help me not invite disaster into my life by forgetting my past. Remind me of those moments of pain that pushed me back to freedom. Let me not forget and may we all stay free.

ONE

God continues to stretch me, and to stretch my mind and my concept of Him and of humanity. Words like love, creation, community, and intimacy trouble me. Where I use to say OK, now I say why. We use these words so lightly, like idle chatter. They have become so cheap. But words are powerful. They have meaning and purpose. It is the only way that we have to describe reality. It is the only way to communicate the deeper things. These words in particular are loaded with meaning and we need to rediscover them.

God has created us for community. Not just community but perfect community. Community with Him, with creation and with others. So what is community? What is it really? It has become the new church buzz word, the latest strategy and format for programming the christian life. But, what is it?

I know that the basis of life is love. Not just love but unconditional love. It is the thread that ties all of existence together. God is this love and He is the fabric of life. Unconditional love is difficult for us to understand because we put condition on everything. Love, without condition is not a means to an end but the beginning and ending of all things. It is at the heart of God's intent. It is the nature of God and written out for the world to see in the life and death of Jesus. It is God's desire for our relationships as seen in Jesus' admonition to "love each other as I have loved you" It is God's desire for all relationships. It is community as God sees it.

Community is the expression of this love. It is the expression of this love without condition. Not a means to an end but the beginning and the end. Not, if you do this I will do that. But, simply this is it, here it is, rest in it. Not, if you convert to my religion or denomination I will love you, not if you admit that I am right I will love you. It is simply I love you, period. It is intimacy, not identical to but not unlike the marriage relationship. "The two shall become one." Oneness. Community is oneness. Extending out from self to God, to family, to friends, to church and to the whole world. "Love your neighbor as your self." Oneness, so that even though individual still one.

God, Help me to love without condition. Help me to see all people, your people, as one with me. Help me to see and feel my intimacy with all of creation. Help me to see that their needs are my needs so that feeding the hungry, helping the sick, caring for the abandoned, freeing the enslaved and telling the world your good news becomes self preservation.