July 4th: favorite holiday.  A celebration of independence from tyranny.  A celebration of freedom, of the time when our forefathers made the realization of liberty their foremost concern.  In so doing, they were trying to satisfy a primal desire; something that God Himself had put within their hearts: a yearning for what they called “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness”.  This is the same yearning that the forefathers of this parish felt when they repeatedly tried to carve out a space free from oppression, where they might know vol’ya (freedom).  The founders of this parish finally found such a place here; and thanks to the efforts of those who have gone before us, we can know it to.

But what is this freedom?  And why do we still yearn for more?  Today’s Epistle answers these questions.  It starts with a very basic premise:  we are born into slavery.  This fact is obvious to those who are born into physical bondage, but Orthodoxy teaches us that it is true for everyone.  In this Epistle, St. Paul reminds us that we are born the slaves of sin; and that this spiritual tyranny is far worse than even the terrible wickedness of human slavery and serfdom. 

Unfortunately, this condition is so widespread that it often escapes our attention.  This is the result of well documented psychological processes.  Over the last couple of weeks, I have described to you how sin colors the way we see the world.  So far, I have only described this as an individual phenomenon (e.g. with the metaphor of the hammer), but this kind of vision is often shared.  When a group of people has a common (paradigmatic) worldview, the resulting culture is what sociologists call “hegemonic”.   A hegemonic culture is useful to the extent it allows people within that culture to understand and communicate with one another, but it also has the effect of making the way things are seem natural.  The psychological mechanisms behind this phenomenon are so strong that they can make even the most brutal oppression seem legitimate.  It was this kind of oppression that our forefathers resisted; working against it to create a new culture in which “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness” – and not tyranny would become natural and automatic.

And while we benefit from their efforts, we are also the victims of their success.  Every American is the enemy of foreign oppression, slavery, and poverty; and we have largely thrown off these shackles.  But we have not dealt with the greater issue: we must use our God-given liberty to throw off the shackles of sin.  We are no less born into sin for being American: and while our shackles seem much more comfortable than those born into a life in iron chains, this is only because our sinfulness has become hegemonic.  And because the system our forefathers established works pretty well, our sinfulness doesn’t just seem natural and legitimate: it feels good.

But this is a lie, and because we are made in the image and likeness of God – the One who is the source of all Truth, our consciences cry out against it and the tyranny it tries to hide.  We can try to the silence this cry with comfort, but in our unguarded moments of pure honesty, we know that we are living a lie.  We are living a lie, but we yearn for truth.  We are living in sin, but we yearn for purity.  We are living in bondage, but we yearn for freedom.

As St. Paul teaches us today, this truth, this purity, this freedom can be ours: it is the inheritance of all who live in Christ.  If we submit to Him, then all those things that the Evil One used to make our sinfulness seem good and right, will be turned to their proper purpose: the eternal reign of righteousness.

Like our forefathers, we long for freedom: let us, like them, devote ourselves to it: let freedom ring!