He has sent me to proclaim liberty to captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to let the oppressed go free, and to proclaim a year acceptable to the Lord.
Today, we are called to reflect on the ministry we have been given.
Jesus tells those listening to Him that Isaiah’s prophecy has been fulfilled. He is the one that came to carry out a ministry of freedom and to draw us into that ministry.
Jesus’ freedom is true freedom. His freedom is not just a concept nor is it a political system. God’s freedom is the essential way of being and living that is in our very essence.
Freedom comes from our relationship with our Creator God in which He provides every bit of love we need (we call that grace) and where we in turn live and act within that freedom by sharing it everywhere, every time, and without restriction. Our freedom is the reality wherein no one and nothing can bind us nor restrict us. It is the free invitation we offer to all to enter the community of the one body.
Our words and actions of love and grace toward all is not just something we do because we feel like it or have a few extra minutes, or because it agrees with something we hear on TV or online, but rather it is an expression of our love relationship with God.
Our free love is perfect and complete when we carry out what we have been given by sharing it, by not being possessive of it, and most particularly by not restricting it in any way.
You see, every other form of alleged freedom is more of a bargaining of this for that. Those ‘freedoms’ only work if we give up parts of our freedom in the bargain. Limit yourself here, don’t say that, don’t stand up for them, repeat what we tell you and you can have what we give you. That sounds more like a deal with the devil.
God’s reality is so different. St. Paul shows the Corinthians the nature of our life together. Now you are Christ’s body, and individually parts of it. We are part of one body. There is no border or division in the Christian life. We cannot cut off one part of us, or another, or another and survive as a body. We must stand together in the many ministries of love given us.
I said at the start that we are here to reflect on the ministry we have been given. It is so true; we each have a ministry we are charged with carrying out and if we do not, the body suffers.
So let us be as the people hearing God’s word for the first time in ages and rejoice as we set forth in the ministries given us to care for the freedom of the whole body.