Free From Fear of Judgment

Devotional Reflection, Thursday, July 4, 2024

Proper 8, the week of the sixth Sunday after Pentecost

The Rev. David W. Perkins, Th.D.

Key verses for reflection from today’s reading:

8:1There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. 2For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has set you free from the law of sin and of death.

Daily Office Lectionary Readings (BCP, 973

AM Psalm 131, 132, [133]; PM Psalm 134, 135

Num. 23:11-26; Rom. 8:1-11; Matt. 22:1-14

Today we celebrate Independence Day. (See below.)

David’s Reflections

When I was barely 21, a senior in college, and serving as pastor of my first congregation, a small country Baptist Church (Longstraw Baptist, Choudrant, LA), verses 1 and 2 of this reading came alive in my garage apartment across from the university.  Something in my spirit connected with the language of the first few verses.  “The law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has made me free from the law of sin and death.”  I realized that I was in no danger of judgment—beloved by God and secure in God’s love. The energy of the joy got so strong that I had to go downstairs and walk around under the pecan trees.

Yesterday’s reading described the depth and strength of inner evil in poignant and graphic terms.  One could be left distraught about the possibilities for any real freedom in Christ.  But, today’s reading bursts on the soul with the promise of the Spirit’s presence within us and of genuine freedom to order our lives differently. As Paul put it so well in Romans 5, “Where sin increased grace abounded all the more.”

We can live free from fear of judgment. God has drawn us to Godself, generated faith in us, placed us in Christ, and overcome the evil that would sweep us down the cosmic drain. A collect in Night Prayer in the New Zealand Prayer Book gives thanks “for the measure of freedom we have, and the extent to which we control our lives.” (See below for the full prayer.)

A poem by Thomas Merton, Cistercian monk, comes to mind:

Freedom as Experience

When, as the captive of Your own invincible consent,

You love the image of Your endless Love,

Three-Personed God, what intellect

Shall take the measure of that liberty?

Compared with Love, Your Triune Law,

All the inexorable stars are anarchists:

Yet they are bound by Love and Love is infinitely free.

Minds cannot understand, nor systems imitate

The scope of such simplicity.

All the desires and hungers that defy Your Law

Wither to fears, and perish in imprisonment:

And all the hopes that seem to founder in the shadows of a cross

Wake from a momentary sepulchre, and they are blinded by their freedom!

Because our natures poise and point towards You

Our loves revolve about You as the planets swing upon the sun

And all suns sing together in their gravitational worlds.

And so, some days in prayer Your Love,

Prisoning us in darkness from the values of Your universe,

Delivers us from measure and from time,

Melts all the barriers that stop our passage to eternity

And solves the hours of our chains.

And then, as fires like jewels germinate

Deep in the stone heart of a Kaffir mountain,

So now our gravity, our new-created deep desire

Burns in our life's mine like an undiscovered diamond.

Locked in that strength we stay and stay

And cannot go away

For You have given us our liberty.

Imprisoned in the fortunes of Your adamant

We can no longer move, for we are free.

Selected Poems of Thomas Merton.  With an Introduction by Mark van Doren.  (New York:  New Directions, 1967), pp. 69-70.

Collect of the Day, Proper 8, the  sixth Sunday after Pentecost

Almighty God, you have built your Church upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Jesus Christ himself being the chief cornerstone: Grant us so to be joined together in unity of spirit by their teaching, that we may be made a holy temple acceptable to you; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.  (BCP, 230)

Today we celebrate Independence Day

http://www.satucket.com/lectionary/July4.htm

Collect for Independence Day

Lord God Almighty, in whose Name the founders of this country won liberty for themselves and for us, and lit the torch of freedom for nations then unborn: Grant that we and all the people of this land may have grace to maintain our liberties in righteousness and peace; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen

Collect 4, Night Prayer

God our Creator, our centre, our friend, we thank you for our good life, for those who are dear to us, for our dead, and for all who have helped and influenced us. We thank you for the measure of freedom we have, and the extent to which we control our lives; and most of all we thank you for the faith that is in us, for our awareness of you and our hope in you. Keep us, we pray you, thankful and hopeful and useful until our lives shall end. Amen. (A New Zealand Prayer Book. (New York: Harper/Collins, 1997), pp. 834-35.)

A Collect for Guidance

O God, whose Son Jesus is the good shepherd of your people;  Grant that when we hear his voice we may know him who calls us each by name, and follow where he leads; who, with you and the Holy Spirit, lives and reigns, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.  (BCP 100)

For the Church

Give to your Church, O God, a bold vision and a daring charity, a refreshed wisdom and a courteous understanding, that the eternal message of your Son may be acclaimed as the good news of the age; through him who makes all things new,

even Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen

In the Order of Worship for Evening

Almighty, everlasting God, let our prayer in your sight be as incense, the lifting up of our hands as the evening sacrifice. Give us grace to behold you, present in your Word and Sacraments, and to recognize you in the lives of those around us. Stir up in us the flame of that love which burned in the heart of your Son as he bore his passion, and let it burn in us to eternal life and to the ages of ages. Amen.  (BCP, 113)

A Collect for Mission

O God of all the nations of the earth: Remember the multitudes who have been created in your image but have not known the redeeming work of our Savior Jesus Christ; and grant that, by the prayers and labors of your holy Church, they may be brought to know and worship you as you have been revealed in your Son; who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen. (BCP, 257)

Daily Office Epistle, Romans 8:1-11

8:1There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. 2For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has set you free from the law of sin and of death. 3For God has done what the law, weakened by the flesh, could not do: by sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, and to deal with sin, he condemned sin in the flesh, 4so that the just requirement of the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not according to the flesh but according to the Spirit. 5For those who live according to the flesh set their minds on the things of the flesh, but those who live according to the Spirit set their minds on the things of the Spirit. 6To set the mind on the flesh is death, but to set the mind on the Spirit is life and peace. 7For this reason the mind that is set on the flesh is hostile to God; it does not submit to God’s law—indeed it cannot, 8and those who are in the flesh cannot please God. 9But you are not in the flesh; you are in the Spirit, since the Spirit of God dwells in you. Anyone who does not have the Spirit of Christ does not belong to him

10 But if Christ is in you, though the body is dead because of sin, the Spirit is life because of righteousness. 11If the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, he who raised Christ from the dead will give life to your mortal bodies also through his Spirit that dwells in you.

Daily Offices in the Book of Common Prayer

Morning Prayer, Rite 2, page 75, The Book of Common Prayer

Noonday Prayer, page 103, Book of Common Prayer

Order of Worship for Evening (Vespers), p 109, Book of Common Prayer

Evening Prayer, Rite 2, page 115, Book of Common Prayer

Compline (Night Prayer), page 127, Book of Common Prayer

Daily Devotionals, page 136, Book of Common Prayer