A Portal for God's Peace We warmly welcome single persons, people of all races and families of every kind.   Sunday Service: Holy Eucharist at 9:30 am Child care is available   Church of Our Saviour 191 Flanagan Way (Rt 153) Secaucus, NJ 07094 Map and Directions   Tel: 201-863-1449 Fax: 201-863-1474 Mark A. Lewis, Vicar MLewis@secaucus.org Dorothy Fowlkes Pastoral Associate   This page revised 2 Jul 01 http://www.secaucus.org/ oursaviour		The Church of Our Saviour in the Town of Secaucus, New Jersey Home | Welcome | News | Sunday | Bulletin | Sermons Bookshop | Stewardship | Justice | Community | Links ----------------Leave frames---------------------   Freedom comes in loving Reflections on the lessons for the Fourth Sunday after Pentecost, 1 July 2001 By The Rev. Mark A. Lewis, Vicar 1 Kings 19:15-16, 19-21 / Psalm 16:5-11 Galatians 5:1, 13-25 / Luke 9:51-62   In yesterday's Times, there is a really interesting article about an academic subdiscipline called "family theory". The article was written to report on the legal briefs being prepared for a marriage rights trial set to be heard in Canada this fall. Historians for one side argue that the motivation for state-sanctioned marriage has always been child rearing. Scholars on the other side say that marriage has meant different things in every culture and every century and that the only constant has been economic alliance. One fascinating part of the argument points out that around 1750 -- in the west -- the industrial revolution and a drastic fall in infant mortality completely changed the way people viewed children. Before, it seems, children were viewed by adults simply as "other people". They were expensive and undisciplined miniature adults that needed to be civilized and trained to pull their own weight ASAP. But in the last half of the 18th century people began to picture childhood as a distinct phase of life, a fleeting season in which children were to be prized for what they are, rather than what they could do or become. A sentimental attachment to "my darling baby" replaced a sense of long term investment in a future labor source or dynastic survival. But both views together started me thinking about what we can learn from small children. Little angels or little adults? Either way, they have something to show us. I have three pre-school goddaughters. And we have quite a few little ones here, too. And I watch them. They are people who have very little sense of anxiety about the future, I think. And they are supremely curious and discovering. Parents probably can give me lessons in what really troubles small children and what their real troubles are. But, to me, at least very young children -- say, two-year-olds -- seem unbelievably free. They play and learn. They eat and sleep. They have no responsibilities. No boredom. Just boundless energy and passion for living. Someone feeds and dresses them. And then all day it's just grabbing onto one thing after another and wallowing in the wonder of it. Finally, they just drop and fall asleep. The urgency and integrity with which a two-year-old takes on the world, I think, is the kind of living today's readings challenge us with. The unfettered passion of a child is the same kind of freedom into which God calls us. God calls people in lots of different ways to do lots of different things. God may not be calling you to be the kind of big league prophet Elijah was. But God IS calling you to be something. Most of us respond to God's calls, though, very much as Elisha did. We may want to answer and to follow. But we immediately think of all the things we need to take care of before we go off on a new path. In the gospel, James and John and the other unnamed characters in the story want to be good disciples. But family obligations, their sense of duty, and social expectations quickly start to tug at them. When the Samaritans are harsh to Jesus. James and John want to get even. But they have to let go of that social code. When the others hear the details of what following Jesus will cost them, they can't quite let go of the security and comfort they have and know and risk it all on the unknown. They can't behave like a child and learn new things by letting go of something and grabbing something else. They just aren't that free. It's another of Christianity's great paradoxes. Just as soon as we start to revel in the things we have. Just as soon as we start to think that we have it all in our grip. That's the time to let go and move on - figuratively at least. That's when our freedom and vitality are at risk. It's the same thing Jesus was talking about in last week's gospel. "If you try to save your life, you'll lose it. Losing it is how you find something new." Following Jesus on toward newer and newer life requires us to reclaim a simple pattern we all knew well when we were two. Saying "yes" to letting go and moving on is the opening door to real freedom. Paul writes to the Galatians "you have been called to live in freedom". It' s not an easy thing to do. How often do we feel really free? Deadlines. Bills. Housecleaning. Health care. School clothes. Company's coming. Where is our freedom when life is full of endless, ordinary, often tedious tasks? Maybe the answer to that is easier than it seems. And that's one big difference between the life we aim for and the life a two-year-old naturally leads. Letting go and taking up needs refinement. Children, we all know, really do need civilizing. A mature freedom doesn't come from flitting from one thing to another and casting off the past. Our freedom comes in loving. In placing ourselves at the service of one another. So, even in the midst of keeping our obligations to the things that constrain us, if we drop the anxiety and grab out for love before everything else then we start being free. Following God demands that we love always, and keep on moving, even when we don't quite know where we are headed. Doing that fills a life with the kind of freedom and eager living children embrace and everyone else hungers for. Take Jesus' word on it. You know he's right. -- Mark Lewis   Your comments or questions are welcome MLewis@secaucus.org. Links to additional "Reflections on Lessons" may be found at the bottom of the Sunday web page. © 2001 -Church of Our Saviour Home | Welcome | News | Sunday | Bulletin | Sermons Bookshop | Stewardship | Justice | Community | Links http://www.secaucus.org/oursaviour Webmaster - DRoberts@Secaucus.org