For freedom Christ has set us Free.  Stand Firm, therefore, and do not submit again to the yoke of slavery.

Transcribed from the sermon preached June 30, 2013

The Reverend Max Lynn, Pastor

Scripture Readings: Galatians 5:1, 13-25

²²the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, ²³gentleness, and self-control. There is no law against such things.

 
This week we can celebrate that the Supreme Court has decided that a majority cannot prevent a minority from making a covenant of love and faithfulness.

By contrast last February, Justice Scalia questioned the motives of Congress, which in 2006 had overwhelmingly voted to extend the Voting Rights Act of 1965.

“And this last enactment,” said Scalia, “not a single vote in the Senate against it. And the House is pretty much the same. Now, I don’t think that’s attributable to the fact that it is so much clearer now that we need this. I think it is attributable—very likely attributable—to a phenomenon that is called ‘perpetuation of racial entitlement.’ Whenever a society adopts racial entitlements, it is very difficult to get out of them through the normal political process.”

Funny, but I thought just and equal access to the vote was not a racial entitlement, but an entitlement of an American citizen.

In a 2012 story about the Texas redistricting fight, the New York Times noted this argument:

“Minority groups and Democratic lawmakers sued the state in federal court over the maps drawn by the Republican-controlled Legislature, arguing that they discriminated against blacks and Hispanics. Lawyers for Greg Abbott, the Texas attorney general, who is representing the state, have argued that the maps were drawn to help Republicans maintain power, not to discriminate.”  Apparently being Republican is not related to race.

This attitude was reflected this week in the 5-4 decision gutting the Voting Rights Act. Justices tossed the section that requires states with a history of voter discrimination to get federal approval before making changes in their voting laws. (Robin Abcarian, LA Times, June 23, 2013)

Chief Justices Roberts acknowledged that Congress compiled voluminous data demonstrating racial discrimination, but he wrote that the coverage formula reauthorized in 2006 wasn't based on that data. Instead, it was based on 40-year-old data, from the time Congress originally enacted the VRA.

The Court said that Congress could rewrite the formula, but given the backbiting, dissension, enmity, jealousy and anger strife and futility in Congress, that is not likely. If it doesn't happen, preclearance under Section 5 remains on the books, but it will have no effect, because there will be no jurisdictions covered.

Without preclearance, the VRA loses its crown jewel.  Section 2 case-by-case litigation against offending jurisdictions remains in play, but, as Congress found, case-by-case litigation has a hard time keeping up with the clever, under-the-radar sorcery that some states and jurisdictions use in their voting laws to discriminate in the vote. Some sins are conscious. Some appear later.
http://lawprofessors.typepad.com/conlaw/2013/06/the-core-problem-with-preclearance-coverage-under-the-voting-rights-act.html

The American family system is going through a period of anxious reactivity.  The basic understanding of family systems theory in psychology is that we each have a need for autonomy and community, to have a self and to be connected to others.  A well differentiated self is one who can differentiate between our self and someone or some group, while at the same time remaining connected for the common good and love. We know our boundaries, are able to take a stand and have self control, yet our stand can be for the benefit of others or the group.  In order to love our neighbor as ourselves we have to have a self that we love and respect. We recognize the freedom and independence of others and don’t have to fix them or bully them into line.  We can act selflessly, but it is a choice rather than something we are shamed or rigidly mandated to do.  In our freedom, we choose to love and serve. For Freedom Christ has set us free. Stand firm therefore and do not submit again to the yoke of slavery.

An unhealthy self will have weak boundaries and emotionally fuse with others. We will automatically react to the anxiety of the other or group; we seek stuck togetherness or we emotionally cut off or flee when anxiety arises. When emotional intensity becomes overwhelming, rather than taking a stand and staying connected, we blame, cut off or run away. We have a hard time taking responsibility for our own actions or feelings, and seek to blame others and hold them responsible for our feelings and the feelings of the group. If we are a fixer, we may take the responsibility of others on ourselves – their pain is too much for us to bear so we intrude on their space for self.

Who we are, how we behave as individuals is directly related to the systems that we are a part of. Our part in the system helps maintain a balance.  Every system has balance: extremely anxious systems may be rigid where everybody conforms, or they may have weak boundaries, or they may fluctuate where one extreme behavior is balanced by an equal but opposite extreme.  If painful feelings are suppressed, someone gets depressed.  If my spouse chases me because she desires emotional fusion which smothers me, then I run away into work or drink or golf.  If she dominates, I am submissive. If I am lazy, she is a hard worker.  If we are both emotionally lazy, then often the first child falls into the hyper responsible “parental role.” If mom doesn’t serve dad’s need for affection, daughter tries.  If I rage, another is a peacemaker at all costs.  If one child is super close, another runs away.  If one is rational and has a hard time with feelings, the other is touchy feely.  If one blurts out criticism, the other is eternally positive.  If the father is the judge, the mother the forgiver, one child the savior, the other the rebel, one always seems to please, one is never quite accepted.  Someone has to play each role to keep things in balance, but it doesn’t matter who. If one excluded rebel changes and is included, someone else will fall out. The system needs someone to focus anxiety on.

Things happen that cause anxiety, and the system is thrown out of balance. Thus anxiety may provide opportunity for freedom and growth, or cause reactivity and regression.  The most vulnerable or the most responsible in the system are the usual targets. Often the most vulnerable and the most responsible are the same person. This may be the mother, the pastor or the president. When the anxiety seems overwhelming, we are shocked, we lash out, rigidify, act out, or retreat.  We finally get our freedom, leave Egypt, get out into the wilderness, get anxious about food and water and we start to quarrel and create factions,  blame our leader, create idols, and want to return to the “good old days” back in Egypt.  For Freedom Christ has set us free.  Stand Firm, therefore, and do not submit again to the yoke of slavery. 

Systems thinking applies to the family but also to social groups.  The US has experienced multiple stressors in recent years: a push for greater equality and justice for the marginalized, population growth and an increase of ethnic diversity, resource depletion and natural disasters, employment and financial problems, and of course the terrorist attacks of 9/11. 

Anxiety magnifies difference and difference can be a synonym for discord.  We are threatened by difference, differentiation and diversity - so people attempt to circle the wagons of an exclusive faith and patriotism, find blame outside themselves, in immigrants, blacks or gays.  We buy guns and send vigilantes to the border and to patrol white neighborhoods, suspect people with brown skin, cut funding for the poor and increase it for big business, send more black men to prison than to college, and send drones to kill citizens without due process.  We monitor phones calls and Facebook, write propositions and reshape voting districts to exclude, and protect the freedom of selfish corporations to buy elections and exploit the environment beyond its carrying capacity. 

Reinhold Niebuhr notes,

"The nation is a corporate entity, held together much more by force and emotion, than by mind. Since there can be no ethical action without self-criticism, and no self-criticism without the rational capacity of self-transcendence, it is natural that national attitudes can hardly approximate the ethical. Even those tendencies toward self-criticism in a nation which do express themselves are usually thwarted by the governing classes and by a certain instinct for unity in society itself. For self-criticism is a kind of inner disunity, which the feeble mind of a nation finds difficulty in distinguishing from dangerous forms of inner conflict. So nations crucify their moral rebels with their criminals upon the same Golgotha, not able to distinguish between the moral idealism which surpasses, and the anti-social conduct which falls below that moral mediocrity, on the level of which every society unifies its life." (Moral Man and Immoral Society. p 88)

In Christ we are set free of simple selfish reactivity,  from coerced stuck togetherness to allow true love, to give birth to rational capacity, self- transcendence and differentiation.  Niebuhr again: “Man’s capacity for justice makes democracy possible, but man’s inclination to injustice makes democracy necessary.”  We are blessed to live in a nation that is relatively democratic and prosperous.  It has taken personal responsibility within our family, church and society, collective hope and creativity, and hard work to come this far.  As we approach Independence Day, we give thanks to God, and celebrate victories for justice, equality and prosperity, even as we recognize anxious times stir up selfishness and fear, and calls to return to Egypt.  For Freedom Christ has set us free. Stand firm, therefore, and do not submit again to a yoke of slavery.