NEW YORK (RNS) We awakened to eight inches of snow last Sunday and, once the year’s shortest day had dawned, went straight to Central Park for a walk in what amounts to this city’s snowy “countryside.”
There we found proof that the urge to be free can overcome almost anything.
Despite grumbles from runners who don’t appreciate sharing their road, people insisted on walking slowly along the plowed service road and throwing the occasional snowball.
On hillsides, children proved that not even over-involved helicopter parents trying to dictate their every movement could prevent them from having a good time on sleds. Nor could domineering older sisters prevent younger brothers from throwing snowballs.
Freedom isn’t something we are granted by a benign government or tolerant parents. Freedom is a surge of determination that starts deep within and looks for every outlet for expression. To the dismay of controllers, organizers, lawmakers, rule-enforcers, political correctness posses and marketers, people insist on exercising their God-given freedom to be, to speak, to think, to act as they will.
I still marvel at how much energy parishioners have expended trying to take away my freedom as their pastor. A senior lay leader once tried to pass along rumor and innuendo about members, and I insisted on discovering people for myself. He never forgave me.
Church leaders tried to dictate my schedule and to coerce me into favoring the wealthy, shunning young adults, stifling children, ignoring minorities and not affirming gays and lesbians. One demanded phony attendance numbers. Another questioned every expenditure. Another gave me a list of topics that I should never preach about.
The urge to explore freedom, you see, provokes an equivalent urge to stifle it. That urge also starts deep within. Lovers profess their ardor — and then set about controlling each other. Parents and children are fighting for control almost from the beginning of life.
No amount of seasonal cheer and sweet creche scenes should hide the foundation of the Christmas story as told by Luke. It is a power struggle that begins in oppression, proceeds into deprivation, and names the powerless as favored witnesses.
Civil authorities compelled Joseph and Mary to leave home. God found them in a stable and gave them the freeing gift of life.
Angels told shepherds what Jesus later told disciples: “Don’t be afraid.” The essential act of rebellion was, and remains, overcoming fear.
God saw people in bondage and sent a Messiah — a liberator and redeemer — to set them free.
The battles that roil Christianity aren’t about the sanctity of doctrine, authority of Scripture or high morality. They are about freedom. Some people want others not to be so free.
The same is true in government: Democracy is always under assault. So are academic freedom and the free marketplace. Some want more than their share, and the easy way to get it is to stifle the other guy’s freedom.
Freedom, however, is God’s desire. Only free people can worship God in spirit and truth. Only free people can do the counterintuitive act of loving their enemies and making peace. Only free people can raise up the fallen and give hope to the desperate. Only free people can promote decency and teach their children right and wrong.
Every attempt to stifle freedom — whether by overbearing government, by fearful religion or greed masked in righteousness — only demeans the human condition. People are born to resist such stifling; our guide is the Son whose very birth was a cry for freedom.
(Tom Ehrich is a writer, church consultant and Episcopal priest based in New York. He is the author of “Just Wondering, Jesus,” and the founder of the Church Wellness Project, http://www.churchwellness.com. His Web site is http://www.morningwalkmedia.com.)
