Before I'd Be a Slave

Text: Matthew 10:28

“Whoever does not take his cross and follow me is not worthy of me. Whoever finds his life will lose it and whoever loses his life for my sake will find it.”

These are hard words, are they not?

I think we often misinterpret them. The first thing we should keep in mind is that Jesus’ talk about a cross is literal.

Jesus's words are not meant to be symbolic. Not meant to represent our everyday life burdens. Jesus is not talking about staying in a bad situation or a bad marriage and accepting our suffering.

Jesus is not glorifying suffering. Jesus is not telling us to be happy in suffering.

Jesus is not telling us to keep our head down and take whatever comes to us with grace. All these different ways we have interpreted this passage—that is not Jesus’ point.

A cross was, quite simply for Jesus and for everyone who was listening to him, a symbol of execution. Today, we might say the “electric chair.”

What Jesus is asking is—

What are you willing to die for?

That, my friends, is a scary question.

I took the title of my sermon from an old gospel spiritual:

Oh, freedom, Oh, freedom,
Oh freedom over me.
And before I`d be a slave
I`d be buried in my grave
And go home to my Lord and be free.

"Before I'd be a slave, I'd be buried in my grave." Willing to die for freedom. We have a long tradition in our history—as a church and as a nation too—for being willing even to lay down our lives to be free. We often quote the words from Patrick Henry: “Give me liberty or give me death.” Harriet Tubman, that courageous woman who led dozens of people out of slavery 150 years ago in our country, said; "I had reasoned this out in my mind; there was one of two things I had a right to, liberty, or death… I should fight for my liberty as long as my strength lasted."

Harriet's words are rooted in the message of Jesus.  “I have come,” remember those words Jesus says in Luke 4, “to proclaim liberty, to proclaim freedom to the oppressed.” To give us freedom. Soul freedom. The knowledge deep within ourselves that no matter what anyone said or did to us, we would know that God loved us and that God was on our side. Actual freedom too. Freedom from oppression and slavery and poverty.

So, what are we willing to die for?

When I read these words, as I’ve prayed on these words, I think of how we are surrounded by a great cloud of witnesses. A cloud of people, of ordinary everyday people like you and me, in our history who were willing to die for Jesus and for Jesus’ message.

I think of Harriet Tubman again. A woman who was born a slave in the American south and was determined to be free, because she knew that she was a child of God and she was determined to demand her dignity and her freedom. But she didn’t just work for her own freedom. She operated the underground railroad, leading her friends and family to freedom out of slavery, risking her life over and over for the freedom of her people. She was called the Moses of her people.

“Before I’d be a slave, I’d be buried in my grave.”

I think of the words of Martin Luther King Jr, who said; “I choose to identify with the underprivileged. I choose to identify with the poor. I choose to give my life for the hungry. I choose to give my life for those who have been left out of the sunlight of opportunity. This is the way I’m going. If it means suffering a little bit, I’m going that way. If it means sacrificing, I’m going that way. If it means dying for them, I’m going that way.” And he did, didn’t he?

I think too of a whole host of ordinary men and women who have been committed to Jesus mission. Have you ever heard of John Wycliffe? In England, hundreds of years before the printing press, a group of young preachers under Wycliffe transcribed the Bible and they travelled, like Jesus’ disciples, from town to town and village to village, reading people the Bible. Telling them, these thousands of serfs and peasants, living in unimaginable poverty and under unimaginable oppression, that they were loved of God. Telling them that they were people of dignity and worth. Many of these young preachers were persecuted and executed, especially as people began to rise up and demand their liberty.

“Before I’d be a slave, I’d be buried in my grave.”

You’ve seen the pictures from Brazil and the protests around the world cup? Well, this protest has been led in part by a group called Movement of Homeless Workers. This group had its root in several movements that began several decades ago, when men and women around Brazil started reading their Bibles together and asking questions. About what it meant to be free. About what it meant to claim their dignity as children of God.

“Before I’d be a slave, I’d be buried in my grave.”  

So, what are we willing to die for?

It has been said that only those who know what they would die for know what they are really living for.

In our world—in this time and this place—what are we willing to die for?

We live again in a world growing increasingly dark. In a world increasingly struggling. In a world where people don’t always have enough to eat or a place to sleep and many of us are only a paycheck away from that.

Are we willing to take up Jesus’ message of good news—of freedom for the oppressed?

Are we willing to stand on the side of our friends and neighbors who are struggling?

Are we willing to ask what freedom would look for us now? To do what those English peasants and those Brazilian groups did—to read our Bibles together, to read the gospel together—and then act on it? Claim our dignity and the dignity of our neighbors?

If we know what we are willing to die for, my brothers and sisters, we will know what we should be living for.