No law against loving your neighbor

June 16, 2022 + Third Sunday After Pentecost + Lect 13 + Galatians 5:1, 13-25 + Luke 9:51-62 + Pr. Michelle Sevig

Law and Freedom. Usually, Lutherans are known for talking about Law and Gospel. But this week, all I can think about is law, or laws, and freedom. 

You don’t have to watch The View to know what the Hot Topics in America are right now; just glance down at the news feed on your phone, listen to NPR, or turn on the evening news and you’ll know there is a lot of discussion about freedom and what should or should not be legal in America. 

For instance, gun safety. While the vast majority of American citizens support some restrictive measures, or laws, to reduce the rate of gun violence, a powerful lobby exercises its influence to counter those measures, arguing that it infringes on our freedoms granted in the constitution to bear arms.

During the pandemic, health precautions were codified. Restrictions on gatherings, mask wearing, and eventually vaccination requirements for certain activities were met with resistance, because of an infringement on our freedom. 

On the other hand, there are now challenges to existing, established laws seeking to reduce the rights of millions of Americans under the guise of freedom for a few. Legislation restricting the books teachers can assign and the subjects educators can address, claim to protect parents who don’t want their children exposed to those topics while ignoring the will of the majority of parents. Is this freedom?

The apostle Paul writes in the letter to the Galatians, “For freedom, Christ has set us free.” But what kind of freedom is he referring to? Not American freedom, as we’re used to celebrating during the first week of July. Not freedom to do whatever the heck we want. And certainly not the freedom to overpower, overtake and overrule others. 

No, freedom, for Paul, does not translate into a lawlessness where anything goes.  Freedom does not grant license to do anything we want without concern for the impact of those actions on God, neighbor, or even self. 

Freedom isn't a weapon, it’s a gift. Paul writes, “For you were called to freedom, my siblings; only do not use your freedom as an opportunity for self indulgence, but through love serve one another. For the whole law is summed up in one commandment. You shall love your neighbor as yourself.”

This freedom leads to love, joy and peace lived in the presence of the Holy One. Christ has made us free to embody the gifts of the Spirit—love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness and self control. We are free to live for others and follow Jesus in the radical adventure of putting people before protocol.

In Christian community that is how we care for one another, embodying the gifts of the Holy Spirit for each other in Chrisitian love. Even when we disagree with each other about hot topics (And we do. This community is not of one mind on everything) even when we disagree, we are free, not only to welcome one another as we say each Sunday in worship, but we are free to love each other with patience, kindness, faithfulness, gentleness and self control, the fruits of the Holy Spirit. 

I’m going to tell you something I’ve not shared with many people before, my abortion story. I was in college, living in the Lutheran Campus Ministry house as a peer minister/mentor, and found myself unexpectedly pregnant. I turned to my LCM peers and my campus pastor for counsel. I was afraid to tell anyone, especially my pastor because I knew he and his wife were not able to have a baby on their own and I thought he might judge me for the “sin” of being unmarried and pregnant because I was supposed to be a “good Lutheran mentor” to others. 

At that time 35 years ago, my pastor was not pro-choice. Most of my peers had never talked about it and would have considered themselves anti-abortion if asked. But that’s the problem when only given binary options. It’s either/or and there’s no room for gray, for nuance, for understanding and compassion. 

But what they did, with a good amount of self control, is listen with patience, helped me discern with gentleness, and with faithfulness assured me of God’s presence and grace as I made the most difficult decision of my life. They exercised their freedom in Christ to love their neighbor, even when it was difficult or painful, because their neighbor (me) was their sibling in Christ also no longer bound by the law and free in Christ. Of course none of us were theologians then and wouldn’t have used those words or this bible passage, but we did know and live by the command found throughout the Bible, love your neighbor as yourself.  

My Facebook friend, Natalie Hall, who is a great theologian and a Lutheran Pastor who serves in an Episcopal church, wrote on Friday about both denominations responses to abortion. She said, “the two church bodies recognize that abortion is neither to be celebrated nor casually consumed. Rather, we recognize that abortion is usually considered in circumstances of duress, life-threatening danger, tragic medical diagnoses, and oftentimes in the context of complex socioeconomic considerations. No one I know or have served as a pastor who has availed themselves of an abortion made the decision lightly or had the procedure with a callous heart…Rather, they all come to conversations about pregnancy, labor, delivery, and babies in the context of reality; in terms of what circumstances mean for everyday life now and into the future.”

She went on to say, “I'm sad and angry that today's decision means I will be limited in my ability (as a pastor) to communicate God's love and presence in complex, often heart-wrenching situations - because sometimes communicating God's love and presence means helping people get the services they need in order to promote the life they live. And "the life they live" is not normatively a matter of being merely inconvenienced by a pregnancy and baby. To "promote life" in the circumstance of every friend, family member, and parishioner I've walked with in matters of abortion have included contexts of saving a mother's life, inducing delivery of a deceased fetus, catastrophic fetal diagnosis incompatible with life after birth, and considerations about bearing a child into real poverty.”

Her experience as a pastor has been mine too. I have accompanied people from this congregation who needed abortions that they didn’t want, because they yearned for their child, but their diagnosis was incompatible with life after birth. I’ve visited parents in the hospital shortly after a medical abortion of a deceased fetus in utero. It’s heart wrenching, awful and soon to be unlawful in some states. I have supported young adults and teens after their abortions too, offering them the same grace and freedom we all receive in Christ.

Yesterday I was angry and grieving, even though we’ve known for weeks that this decision was coming from the court. And I know there are others in the Christian community who are rejoicing and relieved. There are probably a whole lot of us who are right in the middle knowing that all the hot topics that surround us in our lives today will not be settled with increased idolatry, quarrels, dissensions or factions-the works of the flesh-that Paul names.  

But can we hear the words from Paul written years ago to the new Christian community just learning how to be the one body of Christ, as if he were writing to us, today here in Lakeview, on Pride weekend, while the January 6 hearings are taking place, as the Supreme Court is releasing its decisions this season, as some are celebrating the births of their children, as summer is beginning? 

In Christ you have been set free to love your neighbor. 

Love with a spirit of self-control and gentleness. 

Love with peace and patience. 

Love with faithfulness and generosity. 

For there is no law against these things!