25 August 2013 - Kay Edgerton

Loose Lutherans

Our family has a longstanding New Year’s Eve tradition of spending the evening at the home of some old college friends in Tacoma. The gathering is made up of about five regular couples and their families who meet up every December 31st to make pizza, drink wine, and usher in a new year. We don’t have much in common except friendship with the host couple, so our conversation is usually fairly general and free of controversy and conflict. A few years back, however, there was a new couple introduced to the mix. They were younger than we were, and were quite vocal about their religious activities. Our hosts are not at all religious, but someone knew that I was a church goer and said something about my involvement with the Lutheran Church. The young wife asked what congregation I attended, I explained and noted that we are an ELCA congregation. “Oh,” she said, “You’re one of the loose Lutherans.” Luckily, someone else quickly changed the subject and I didn’t have to respond or get bogged down in a discussion that might have dampened the cheerful nature of the gathering. But, it got me to thinking.
Obviously, this young woman meant the term in a derogatory manner. For some reason that adjective, “loose,” comes with negative connotations in the common vernacular. It implies a sort of laxness of morals, an inability to stick to the proper path, a tendency to disregard the rules, and to behave with impropriety. In reality, though, “loose” has many definitions in the dictionary, most of them involving the word “free.” To be loose is to be “free or released… free from anything that binds or restrains, unfettered.” In that sense, then, I am – we all - are loose. According to the book of Romans, Chapter 8, verse 2 we have been “set free from the law of sin and death” by the Holy Spirit through Christ Jesus. We have been called to be free and to serve one another in love. Just before the verses we have today in the 58th chapter of Isaiah the prophet proclaims that the Holy Spirit has freed us so that we might in turn “loose the chains of injustice and untie the cords of the yoke, [and] set the oppressed free.”
Why, then does the word “loose” get such a bad rap? Why did the woman think she was putting me down by labeling me a loose Lutheran? In today’s scripture reading, Jesus is once again in trouble with the religious leaders of the day because he has broken the rules by healing (working) on the Sabbath by freeing a woman from her bondage to Satan – by setting her loose. Jesus has a habit of upsetting status quo. In this case it is the leader of the synagogue who is indignant that Jesus has, in his view, broken the commandment to keep the Sabbath day holy. He is a man for whom the Kingdom of Heaven was still something that was to be earned by following the rules. Many times in the gospels people ask Jesus what they have to do to get into the kingdom. Jesus came to free us from bondage to the belief that our own actions will earn us a place in the kingdom by showing us that grace is something freely given for which we should gratefully rejoice. Rejoice and praise God because He has raised us from the position of slaves to joint heirs with Christ, freed us from sin and death and given us the keys to the kingdom. He has set us all loose from bondage to the law of sin, just as he freed this daughter of Abraham from Satan’s power.
Still, freedom can be a very scary thing and maybe that is why people fear to have their chains loosened. I am reminded of my cat, Koko. Koko thinks she wants to be a free and roaming cat rather than the pampered house pet that she is. Every now and then she makes a break for freedom when the front door opens. Once out onto the porch, though, she skids to a halt. Where to go? What to do? Chase a squirrel? Climb a tree? Hide under a bush? Too many options! Before she has a chance to act, she is scooped up and returned to her safe and predictable environment. People are like that, too. We profess to want freedom, but then are often overwhelmed when we get it. We don’t know what to do, we are blinded by our own light rising in the darkness and turning our gloom into a noonday sun and before we know it we’ve fastened those chains right back on and turned back into the familiar darkness. We trade freedom for a false sense of security and control.
During the summer I like to read fiction that doesn’t demand too much brain power – usually mystery novels. This summer I have been reading the Lord Peter Wimsey detective stories by Dorothy L. Sayers – not exactly where I would expect inspiration to strike for a sermon, but God works in mysterious ways. These stories are set between the two world wars in England. Lord Peter is a member of the aristocracy and he marries a woman from a lower class (her father was a country doctor). She is not used to keeping servants and when she becomes “Lady Peter,” she is suddenly required to manage a household staff. This is also a time period when a lot of the old traditions and class barriers in England were beginning to break down. She wonders if they have to be “bound” by the old rules. He responds that “The servants like rules…They know where they are then, and exactly what they must do to give satisfaction. It makes for a peaceful household” (Thrones, Dominations by Dorothy L. Sayers and Jill Paton Walsh). I suspect many non-loose (tight?) Christians feel the same way. If they know the rules, they know where they are and how to give satisfaction to their Lord. It makes for a peaceful world. We loose Lutherans, on the other hand, know that (as we heard last week) Jesus did not come to bring peace, but rather division and we profess that we are saved by grace through faith and called to do the difficult and dangerous and divisive work of living free and loose in the world.
And it is difficult, dangerous and divisive work. It is difficult because it requires us to take on a new level of responsibility. The servants in the above example like the rules because they know what to do to please their masters. We, however, are no longer servants, but joint heirs to the kingdom. To continue the English class system analogy, being a lord or lady carries with it a large portion of noblesse-oblige. Being a noble means that you have a responsibility to lead, manage, and care for those less fortunate. As we see in the reading from Isaiah, we do not cast off the yoke to run amok, but rather to offer food to the hungry and satisfy the needs of the afflicted. Being free – loose – does not give us the right to become self-indulgent; it carries with it the obligation to care for others.
It is dangerous, because working for justice in an unjust world carries risks. We are pretty comfortable here in our little suburban community, but even here it is not always popular to speak up for the poor, the hungry, the mentally ill, the economically distressed. We can be hurt, emotionally, spiritually, and even physically not only by those who oppose our actions, but even those we are trying to help. Those living on the margins are often slow to trust and we may feel that our actions are futile. I know a little about this from working with “at-risk” students. Some of my colleagues have had money stolen from them, had their property vandalized, or even been physically assaulted by those young people we are working so hard to educate and care for.
It is certainly divisive. Our new Presiding Bishop-elect, Elizabeth Eaton has spoken eloquently about the ELCA being a denomination that has a history of living in paradox, of being able to hold strong opposing viewpoints but remaining unified around the cross. Sadly, though, some congregations have left the ELCA because we are have gotten too loose. They don’t seem to be able to live in the place Bishop-elect Eaton describes as “a place that says we can disagree on things that are vitally important but still listen to each other and see in the other a brother or sister in Christ, and more importantly, someone for whom Christ died.”
Here at Nativity we proclaim that we are called and empowered (freed/loosed) to serve, witness, nurture, and love – no qualifiers. We follow the great commandments to love the Lord our God with all our hearts and souls and minds and love our neighbors as ourselves. We have been filled with the Holy Spirit and set loose on the world to serve, witness, nurture, and love even in the face of derision from those who think we are not tight enough. We live boldly in the bright light of freedom, casting off our yokes, sharing the abundance of our watered garden with the world. So, I take that derogatory term “Loose Lutheran” and turn it on its head. Sadly that young woman never returned to our yearly gatherings, so I couldn’t thank her or share the insights her comment stirred up for me, but now I embrace the title. The Holy Spirit has set us loose, freed us to be the face of Christ to the world and I take great pride in being a Loose Lutheran – or as my husband says - a “Loose-erin.” Amen.