We talk a lot about freedom in the United States. It is part of our DNA. But the question we need to ask ourselves is this: what does it mean to be free?
Saint John Paul II said: “Freedom is not the ability to do anything we want, whenever we want. Rather, freedom is the ability to live responsibly the truth of our relationship with God and with one another.”
Remember what Jesus said: “You will know the truth and the truth will set you free” (Jn. 8:2).
The truth is you are free!
In the book of Exodus, we find Moses crying out on behalf of the people. And God says to Moses: “I am the Lord your God and I have heard the people’s cry. I have heard the groaning of the Israelites whom the Egyptians have reduced to slavery. And I am mindful of the covenant I have made with you.”
When I read this passage of Exodus, one of the things I am struck by is this: Who is it ultimately who is going to free us?
God says, “I am the Lord your God. I will free you from the burden of the Egyptians. I will bring you out as my own people. I will be your God. I will rescue you. I will bring you into the land I have promised you. I will give it to you says the Lord your God” (see Ex 6:5-8).
Moses goes to the people and says, “The Lord has heard your cry. The Lord has listened. And what he wants you to know is that you are free.” Celebrate, right? Rejoice!
And the Israelites say to Moses, “We’re not free. We’re slaves.”
There is this frustration that they experience. On the one hand Moses said, “You are free.” On the other hand, they said, “Look at us! Look at the shackles around our wrists and ankles. We have the Pharaoh constantly over us. We’re not free.”
What is important for us to see from this text is that the people begin to define themselves not from who they are, not by what God had created them to be. But they define themselves by their slavery.
My concern is this, rather than define ourselves as this: I am a child of God, created in God’s image and likeness. And I have beauty, and I have dignity, and I have worth, and I have goodness, and I am radically free. Instead, what we begin to do is to define ourselves by our brokenness. If someone tells you that you are free, you say, “You have no idea. You don’t know my story. You don’t know what I’ve done. You don’t know what my sin is.” We begin to define ourselves by our brokenness and by our sinfulness.
So Moses goes back to the Lord and says, “See, I told them and they didn’t listen to me. I don’t speak very well.”
Then the Lord says, “Then this is what I want you to do. I want you to go to Pharoah and tell him that the people are free.”
What the Lord is telling Moses to do, and what he is telling us to do, is to identify: What is our Pharoah?
What is that thing which binds us?
Sometimes people are literally slaves, they are bound, and they don’t even know it. They’ve just gotten used to it. This is the way it is.
They don’t know what it is to be radically free in Christ.
And because of it they have become accustomed to their slavery. They become accustomed to their brokenness. They become accustomed to their past, their shame, their regret. And the Lord ultimately desires to free us.
Extracted from the beginning of Fr. Dave’s video conference, The True Meaning of Freedom. Join Fr. Dave Pivonka as he offers a deeper look at what freedom really is: not the absence of constraint, but the ability to live responsibly in a truthful relationship with God and others. Drawing from Scripture and his own experience, Fr. Pivonka explores how we were made for this kind of freedom and how sin, fear, and distorted images of God can keep us from fully living it.
Fr. Dave Pivonka, TOR, is the President of Franciscan University of Steubenville.
