Parish Magazine Item in which I dare to mention Brexit

Whether you voted ‘leave’ or ‘remain’, you could be forgiven for being sick of all talk of Brexit. I’m afraid, even at the risk of boring you, I am going to mention it, though I hope to avoid giving away my own EU-leanings. Please don’t write in if you think you detect a bias!

There has been much talk of freedom and independence from advocates of ‘leave’. And such themes have been on my mind especially this summer, as, at our Ventures camp for 11-14 year olds, we’ve been studying the book of Exodus, in which Moses famously leads the people of Israel from slavery in Egypt to freedom. You can see how Brexitiers might love that.  It seems there were Remoaners amongst the Israelites. Many of them seemed to have despaired of the brighter future which God promised as they journeyed in the wilderness. They had rose-tinted memories of their time in captivity. They forgot their ill-treatment and complained that they were relatively well-fed when they were slaves. God might have brought them out of Egypt, but was their independent isolation any better? What would they eat and drink? Was God really powerful enough to bring them into a Promised Land of their own, flowing with milk and honey? Did God care? Perhaps they should have remained. You can almost imagine them saying “we didn’t vote to be poorer and unemployed!”.

Well, any Brexit analogy here is probably already overstrained and best abandoned. But the Bible does have much to say about freedom and slavery. Sometimes when we please ourselves it can seem as if we’re making a bid for great freedom. But the Bible tells us that all sin is really slavery. The liberation we hope for is an illusion because our own desires, the world around us, and the forces of evil master us. Jesus put it starkly: “"Very truly I tell you, everyone who sins is a slave to sin.” (John 8:34) By nature, all of us are trapped by our own misplaced longings.

When we know we’re spiritual addicts, Jesus’ promise comes to us as wonderful good news: “if the Son [that is, Jesus himself] sets you free, you will be free indeed.” (John 8:36)

In the Bible, freedom is not a merely negative idea. It is not just the absence of constraint. It is not only freedom from slavery but something positive: freedom to live not for ourselves or our own desires, but for God. It is freedom for life as it was meant to be lived. In the book of Exodus, we are repeatedly told that the Israelites wanted to go out into the desert so that they might worship God. And likewise, the Christian is set free from slavery to sin to live for God and others.

The Apostle Paul too makes much of this theme of freedom and slavery. He says that believers have died with Christ so that they are no longer slaves to sin. He tells the Christians at Rome: “You have been set free from sin and have become slaves of righteousness.” (Romans 6:18) Or again, “now that you have been set free from sin and have become slaves to God, the benefit you reap is holiness, and the result is eternal life. For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.” (Romans 6:23)

Christian freedom, then, is not autonomy from God. We are always dependent creatures. And why would we want to be “free” from God? Jesus transfers his people from the service of sin and self to the service of God. And, as The Prayer Book puts it, God’s “service is perfect freedom”. We were made to love and serve God, and it is as grateful recipients of his grace that we can find true fulfilment and purpose. We’ve no need to seek to earn God’s love – he loves us anyway. So, we can serve him gladly out of a sense of who he is and all that he’s done for us. We could have no better Master.

Who knows how Brexit will turn out – assuming it happens, of course. It is sometimes claimed that many who voted ‘leave’ now have buyer’s remorse and would change their minds if asked again. We’re told that we’ve been lied to and that people didn’t know what they voted for. God’s promises are clear and sure, however. You won’t regret looking to Jesus for freedom from the desires which promise so much, but which can easily enslave us. Even the most ardent Euro-sceptic should admit that only the Son, not Article 50, can make us free indeed.