Sermon on John 8:31-36

Pastor Jennifer Garcia

It’s surprising that Jesus’ audience in this story gets so offended by the idea that they need to be freed.

After all, Jesus, the Jewish rabbi, is talking to other Jewish people who are faithfully following him. They probably know their history and their scripture very well.

Throughout the Old Testament, the Hebrew Bible, it talks about God as the one who rescued them from Egypt. So much of the Torah, the first five books, describes God liberating the Hebrew people.

And then generations later, when so many are taken into exile in Babylon, the prophets talk about God freeing them and restoring them to the land God promised them.

And still, these followers of Jesus are insulted that Jesus would talk about them needing freedom and reply that they have never been enslaved to anyone. Perhaps they mean that they personally have never been enslaved, but that seems like a more modern, individualistic perspective that would not have been the worldview of a first-century person so steeped in community and the story of their people.

So, their response is perplexing.

But on the other hand, it’s a very human thing to assume we have more control over our lives than we actually have and to get defensive about it.

These followers of Jesus seem to have too much of a sense of pride to realize what Jesus is offering to them. Their perspective is limited. Jesus’ message, though it’s for everyone, isn’t received well by everyone.

In our day, something that isn’t received well by everyone is avant-garde theater.

For example: the play, Waiting for Godot by Samuel Beckett.

Most plays have things like a good deal of plot, a lot of characters, and impressive set pieces.

Waiting for Godotis unusual in that very little happens to two characters (three others show up now and then but there’s pretty much two characters) on a nearly empty stage.

The English translation premiered in London in 1955 and struggled at first until a couple favorable reviews came out.

It opened in the US the next year and did terribly. It had been unfortunately advertised as “the laugh sensation of two continents.”

Yes, there are funny parts, but no, it’s not a “laugh sensation.” So, oddly enough, people who had been promised a laugh sensation didn’t like this very strange and uneventful play.

Eventually, it gained traction and has since been named one of the most significant English language plays of the 20th century.

But it, like Jesus’ message of freedom, was not always received well.

In 1957, just a year after its premiere in the States, it was performed at San Quentin State Prison.

Imagine a room full of over 1,000 inmates waiting to see the first play performed in the prison for half a century. And what they get is Waiting for Godot, an avant-garde play where there’s nothing to look at and nothing happens. Doesn’t sound like a recipe for success, does it?

A journalist described the reaction of three inmates seated near him: “[A] trio of musclemen, biceps overflowing, parked all 642 lbs. on the aisle and waited for the girls and funny stuff. When this didn’t appear they audibly fumed and audibly decided to wait until the house lights dimmed before escaping. They made one error. They listened and looked two minutes too long—and stayed. Left at the end. All shook…”

The audience at San Quentin loved Waiting for Godot.

The play centers on two people who are stuck. They’re waiting for someone named Godot to come. And every day, a messenger boy comes and tells them that Godot won’t come today—but he’ll surely be here tomorrow. Every day—he’ll surely be here tomorrow. So, they try to pass the time any way they can, until the next message that Godot will surely be here tomorrow.

The inmates knew what it was like to helplessly wait for something that never seemed like it would arrive.

They had perspective that previous audiences couldn’t fathom.

Perhaps Jesus was speaking to the people in the crowd who had the right perspective to receive his message of freedom.

The text describes the crowd speaking as one, but you and I know that any crowd of people is going to have a variety of opinions. It’s just that usually only the loudest voices get recorded.

Perhaps there were some in that crowd who recognized that Jesus was speaking to a deep need in the human soul for the freedom that comes from being in an intimate relationship with God.

In this story, when Jesus talks about freedom, he talks about being part of God’s household. He contrasts his place as the heir of the household with one who is enslaved in the household. (Again, I can never say often enough that slavery is an insult to the image of God in every person.)

But despite the troubling slavery metaphor, Jesus is assuring his audience of his power to make them a part of the household of God. And to be a part of the household of God is to be in relationship with God.

The freedom Jesus talks about comes from being in relationship.

This freedom isn’t about social standing or power over others or the autonomy to do anything one wants.

It’s about relationship.

Freedom from being bound by the power of sin and the evil in this world and freedom for loving and being loved by God and one’s neighbor.

So, what about us?

What is our perspective?

Are we offended by Jesus’ suggestion that we need help to become free like the loudest members of his audience?

Are we like the first American audiences of Waiting for Godot, unprepared to look at the world differently?

Or are we like the inmates at San Quentin, aware of the frustration and helplessness that comes from being held captive by what we don’t have control over?

Privilege can make us feel like we have control over our lives, like we’re completely autonomous and free.

We’re Americans—we live in a nation that values freedom.

Maybe we’re middle class or upper middle class and feel like our money gives us options and the freedom to live comfortably.

Maybe we have any number of other types of privilege that make it so we feel like we’re free already.

Maybe it’s hard to see how we are still human, bound by the ways we fall short and hurt each other, or bound by systems and processes and bureaucracies that we don’t have control over but hurt us and our neighbors.

Maybe it’s the very value of freedom that leads us to a sense of individualism that cuts us off from our neighbor and insists that we have to be self-sufficient.

But the freedom Jesus describes here is about relationship. Through the freedom we find in Christ, we can rest in our relationship with God, who loves us to the point of becoming human to connect with us. And through the power of God’s love, we are free to love our neighbors as God loves us.

In Martin Luther’s work The Freedom of a Christian, he writes:

“The Christian individual is a completely free lord of all, subject to none.

The Christian individual is a completely dutiful servant of all, subject to all.”

“Lord of all, subject to all”; “servant of all, subject to all.”

And there we have one of the paradoxes of our faith. We are both completely free and completely devoted to the well-being of our neighbors.

That’s not an easy concept to grasp, let alone live by.

Jesus’ first audience had a hard time with this concept of freedom, with the truth that will set us free.

As a character from the tv show Ted Lasso put it, loosely quoting Jesus, “The truth will set you free, but first it will piss you off.”

That certainly was the case for Jesus’ audience and is definitely the case for me.

It’s only through the relationship with God that Jesus offers that we can recognize, like the inmates in San Quentin, our helplessness and our need for freedom.

And it’s only by the power of God’s grace that we’re able to be both free in God’s household and free to love our neighbor.

By God’s grace, you are part of God’s household forever!

By God’s grace, you are freed to love and serve your neighbor!

Thanks be to God!