Freedom

Nothing is more frustrating than a busy intersection without a traffic light! While I’m slowly getting used to roundabouts, I will likely never desire a society without stoplights. Those green and red lights direct traffic, control the flow of vehicles, and even prevent death. Thank God for Garrett Morgan, an African-American from Cleveland, who invented the first traffic light in 1923. I wonder if the initial thought was “we need to get these crazy drivers under control?” 

Without oodles of conspiracy theories, I imagine the first traffic light was understood as a blessing. In the long-run this is certainly true because the value of community safety and well-being far outweighs the value of individual freedom. If freedom is our highest priority,  and if freedom is the essence of the Gospel, shouldn’t we have the freedom to zoom across the intersection as we please? 

Martin Luther addresses this question in his work The Freedom of a Christian. In summary, Luther insists that “a Christian is a perfectly free, lord of all, and subject to none. However, a Christian is a perfectly dutiful servant of all, subject of all, and subject to all.” Read that again… According to Luther, our freedom is a relational concept rooted in one’s relationship with Christ. We are to completely place our trust in Christ to establish our righteousness before God. There is NOTHING that has the power to separate us from God’s love. We are truly made free by the Gospel. Yet, we are still tethered to the principle of servanthood. 

The non-negotiable component of what it means to be Christian is our mission that seeks to serve our neighbors. The moment that serving others ceases to be our purpose, then we cease to be Christians. To put it another way, the only reason why it’s important to follow traffic laws is for the sake of others. Community safety and collective well-being has to be the reason for the laws and the reason we follow them. 

The question is… what rules, laws, practices, and behaviors work to promote the best interest of our neighbor and the community? That is the servanthood that we are bound by if we’re trying to live like Jesus. God’s Grace may save us from eternal damnation. Through Christ, the forces of sin, the devil, and the grave, no longer have power over us. Still, we must choose love. We may not have to care for one another, but we want to because choosing love is choosing to follow Christ. We don’t follow the traffic commands because we’re forced to, we follow them because of our care for the drivers beside us. When we choose to do the next most loving act, one action at a time, God provides the rest. 

Eager for the green light, 

Pastor Lucas McSurley

Photo by Luke Thornton