The Freeing Slavery: Habituation, Sanctification and Sin or “You’re not as free as you think you are.”

Sanctification, Transformation and Habituation are all different flavors of the same word, a word which means one thing, waking up each day and putting to death the old self.

 

Now as someone who came up in faith in what I call loosely “Baptist-Land” (though much of this is true for all flavors of Christianity), I first came to understand salvation as a one time instantaneous kind of event. Believe, Repent, Confess: Wabam! Saved! I walked down the aisle when I was 13 years old and prayed.

And that was it right? I’ve been perfect ever since. The end…(Those of you know me are laughing right now)

But we all know better. Something does indeed happen. We become a new creation. But the old creation doesn’t die easy. There is an inertia to our old selves. Our old ways of life have a trajectory which does not immediately collapse. While our guilt and sin is gone the structures which held them up are not. The destructive malicious fruit has been fully excised but the tree still stands and its roots are still dug deep into us. Sin is every bit as much an addiction as any drug. It is not merely a spiritual harm but it has physical, social, relational and even financial dimensions.

Our sins lead us into particular relationships, particular settings and even shape us physically and psychologically. Is a soul free which is free only spiritually but not in any other sense? So does Christ free our souls and leave us to flounder through the rest? Of course not. (As Paul loved to say “Me Genoito” something like “Let it not be!” or “God forbid!”) If this kind of freedom is a part of our salvation then Christ has provided it as well. What is lacking isn’t the teaching or the Spirit but our own outlook, our own understanding of our sin and salvation.

The first step is admitting that we are not truly free. This is a beast for American Christians. This is the “Land of the Free.” Every person is only ever answerable to her or himself. We can do anything we want, when we want to do it and how we want to do it. Weber called it “rugged individualism.” We can do it for ourselves, win or lose.

But this is ignoring an awful lot of the evidence (and scripture and Christian tradition and good sociology). We’re enslaved to cycles of living, patterns of thought, worldly systems and institutions, powers and principalities in that gray space between the humanly evil and the diabolic. We are tangled up in the society that hurt us and taught us to hurt ourselves and others. The wound is infected and it will not heal without help. And that’s why this is so important, the sins we do not repent of, the life we do not confess is not set free.

After years of study I’m less and less convinced that Paul believed in anything like what we call real autonomous individual freedom, the ability to make a decision completely detached from any external stimuli. We’re just not that in charge of ourselves. Paul doesn’t say “We can be slaves to sin and the flesh or we can be free.” He says “We can be slaves to the flesh or we can be slaves to righteousness.” He speaks of rulers, authorities, principalities, pedagogues and powers. Jesus doesn’t say “You can serve mammon or be free.” He doesn’t say a man can serve no masters.

Freedom can be just another kind of master. When we unbind ourselves from the World but fail to take up the yoke of Christ we often find that we’ve not become very free at all. Our salvation is not merely a forensic status change. God doesn’t just look at you and say “Oh, OK not guilty anymore. Case dismissed.” Freedom and Salvation in name alone are neither. It is, paradoxically, only in our choice to take up the discipleship, and yes, servitude of Christ that we can become free.

The answer to sinful habits and bad practices is not no habits. We are creatures and we are, truly, creatures of habit. I think perhaps Catholicism, courtesy of Aristotle by way of the scary smart Thomas Aquinas, have held on to this better than Protestantism. We must fill our lives with the things that truly conform us to Christ. We must replace sinful models of living with holy ones. We must replace hurtful, damaging and broken practices with practices of healing, love and forgiveness. We must be freed of the iron rod and heavy yoke of our Babylons but we must replace them with the good yoke the shepherd’s staff of Christ.

One of my good friends and roommates used to wake up and write the word δουλος on the side of his fingers, the Greek word for slave. This might sound a bit peculiar to some but I think I understand. We must live in constant remembrance of our healing, remembering not just our old slavery but our call to spend each day and each breath living into our new life of holiness through discipline and the Spirit.

Aristotle called this habituation. The Methodists, mindful of the Holy Spirit in Christian habituation, call it sanctification. Regardless of your terminology the end goal is transformation. When God’s forgiveness relabels us it doesn’t simply slap a new category on us. Rather, through God’s Spirit in our lives, it also equips us to be transformed into new creations.

So what does that mean? Not only must we confess our sins but we must ask God every day for the holy practices that heal the brokenness we have been and are but hopefully will not always be.

Do not gossip but speak love in truth, see good in others.

Do not complain but dream new dreams of holy imagination, find new solutions to old problems.

Do not take vengeance or return evil for evil but forgive your brothers and your enemies, pray for those who persecute you and provide for those who would see you undone.

Do not be conformed to the patterns of this world but be holy strangers and aliens in the lands you are from.

Question the costs of our comforts and find new ways to share God’s blessings with all.

Do not hoard where moth and thieves may destroy but instead give to any who ask of you.

Empty yourself of sin and self-centeredness. Free yourself of evil and hate.

Fill yourself with righteousness and discipline. Free yourself in love and holiness.

 

Matt 11

28 ‘Come to me, all you that are weary and are carrying heavy burdens, and I will give you rest. 29Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me; for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. 30For my yoke is good, and my burden is light.’

 

Matt 12

43 ‘When the unclean spirit has gone out of a person, it wanders through waterless regions looking for a resting-place, but it finds none. 44Then it says, “I will return to my house from which I came.” When it comes, it finds it empty, swept, and put in order. 45Then it goes and brings along seven other spirits more evil than itself, and they enter and live there; and the last state of that person is worse than the first. So will it be also with this evil generation.’

 

With God On Our Side: Some Unfamiliar Remembrance for July 4th

So on the 4th of July we are often called, even or perhaps especially in Christian settings, to remember those who have died to secure American freedoms. However, we often approach such a remembrance with a fierce myopia. We are often quick to remember the long history of American soldiers who gave life and limb for American freedoms. However, this fails to acknowledge a very important fact. War and violence is, by nature, a two(+) party affair. For every loss of American life there is another party, another group who also experienced the kind of wrenching familial loss we often associate with our soldiery.

Now, in normal contemporary tribalistic patriotism this is a completely fine affair. Myopia is perhaps even essential to maintain an unreserved and unabashed devotion to country. And yet as Christians we are not allowed to ignore the “other.” Christ himself freely shattered our traditional patterns of life, our assorted boundaries of affection. Jesus dismantles our tribal boundaries and invites us into a new, larger family which extends love and hospitality not only to other Christians but also to the whole world, as we acknowledge the worth of the image of God inside them and the blood of Christ shed for them. To diminish, dishonor or, even worse, to ignore the price of their lives is to ignore the great sacrifice which was surely made for them as it was for us.

So when we examine the history of our freedoms, regardless of our views on violence as it stands, we must, as believers also consider the other blood which has been shed for each of our freedoms. The Declaration of Independence was not merely underwritten with proto-American blood but also the blood of good and valorous British soldiers. Our freedoms as we understand them are not simply paid for in American blood but also in the stolen currency of our foes’ lives. These men (predominantly) did not intend to sacrifice and die for American freedoms. But nor were they simply irrational beasts whose involuntary sacrifice sanctifies our altars and our capitals. These soldiers and citizens, Native American, Spanish, Mexican, French, British, German, Italian, Japanese, Russian, Korean, Vietnamese, Iraqi and Afghan, even the blood of America’s brief rebellious South are all part of the cost paid for the maintenance and prosperity of the lifestyles we enjoy today.

 

Whether one believes in just war or complete pacifism, we must regard with dreadful reverence the sacredness of the lives taken in the names of our freedoms. This is no mean cost but the great worth for which Christ took to the cross. The enemies whom we are called to forgive, to love, to pray for and to embrace are also children of our God. For God so loved the world. For God so loved Afghanistan. For God so loved Iraq. For God so loved America. For God so loved Germany. For God so loved the entire world, beyond the borders of our tribal love, that he sent his one and only beloved son to die for us.

 

Forgive us, God.

Forgive us our carelessness.

Forgive us our flagrancy.

Help each of us to be peace-makers in a violent world.

God bless the world.