(A sermon based on John 8:31-36 for July 6, 2014) Two days ago we celebrated Independence Day here in the United States of America. Freedom is a terrible thing. Frankly, it’s easier to live in bondage. Whenever I can I spend some time looking at the newborn babies in the hospital nursery, some of them just a few minutes or hours departed from the womb. Just a little while ago they had been safely confined in their mothers’ belly, warm and snug and peaceful. Now they are stretching their arms and legs out toward the wide and wild world, their bodies twisting this way and that, their mouths at times still and at other times contorted in yawns or cries. They are free. It is God’s way that those little babies don’t know what lies ahead of them—otherwise, they might petition the Almighty for a return to the womb. Now they have to live and in living they will have hard choices to make. And always they will live with the temptation to accept slavery rather than freedom.
Michael Ruffin has been involved with this preaching thing for almost forty years. It's time he started thinking about what it means. These are his reflections...