Freed from and Freed to.

What would a “double share” of the spirit of a modern prophet or saint look like? The one who received a double share of the spirit of Dietrich Bonhoeffer would likely not rest while there were unjust governments in the world. A double share of Nelson Mandela would mean resisting oppression wherever it appeared, and putting oneself in a position to resist it. Twice the spirit of Mahatma Ghandi could mean moving forward even in the face of certain death for the sake of others and one’s own self. Doubling the spirit of Mother Teresa would mean walking past no one in need, even as one fears and grieves the perceived absence of the Lord.

A double share of the spirit of Pope Francis might mean defying the unspoken traditions of your denomination to lift up your deeper understanding of the gospel of Jesus Christ. A double share of the spirit of many who speak out in love as God moves them might mean skewering the loud voices of our time, on all sides, that seek their own advancement over the welfare of their neighbours. A second helping of the spirit would mean seeing all people, including children, as your neighbour and doubling the effort to lift them up to better circumstances.

Elisha dared to ask for a double share of Elijah’s spirit. Would we dare to ask for a double share of the Spirit of any of these? More than daring to ask, would we (could we) dare to want it? And yet from this comes freedom. As I matured my cultural heritage came from both the world of the Maori and the Pakeha and in that world the word freedom carries great weight. It is a word of yearning, inspiration, hope, frustration, and celebration. People who have experienced oppression often have a relationship with the idea of freedom— looking back to its absence, forward to its appearance, or discerning what is required to live as freed people.

There is an intimate connection between being freed from and freed to something. As part of the dominant culture in the land of my birth I could only see the absence in the other and yet briefly while living in the Solomon Islands I became the non-dominant culture and began to notice the curbing of freedom – not intentionally I made add as most of the people I met in the Solomon’s taught me much about the caring and sharing Christ calls us to. But I began to get a sense of what it was like to be the minority.

In this week’s text from Galatians 5 we have described both. Before our relationship with Christ, we are not free. We are bound to the demands of our bodies, emotions, imaginations, and external necessities. We tend to get preoccupied with day-to-day drama. Despite being good, people find themselves snapping at servers or cashiers, or the dog or loved ones. Sometimes we are justifiably angry about true injustice or harm to others or ourselves.

And then there are addictions, compulsions, and obsessions— internal struggles seemingly without solution, as we fight them over and over and over again. Yet Paul tells us we can be free from anything or anyone that keeps us in a state of unrest and distraction, from guilt, shame, and anxiety. Free! We can be free to be people who bear the fruit of Christ’s spirit: love, joy, peace, long-suffering, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control.

Christ does indeed, live within us, yet life reminds us that we have far to go. We are called to make being free in Christ our daily goal. It is part of our double share of the spirit. This is the freedom that allows us to be fully and completely all that God has created each of us to be, that allows us to do with abandon what God put us on the planet to do. In this freedom, serving God may sometimes bring challenge, but it always brings the sense that we have been aligned with God in Christ Jesus, creating deep peace and anticipation of God’s transformative work in the world, through our earnest and imperfect efforts.