When I was a kid, whenever anyone stood up to a bully, after they pushed someone or took something from another kid or whatever, the bully would act outraged and say, “What!? It’s a free country!”

It wasn’t just one kid who said this – it was a go-to line, tried and true.

Did kids say that when you were a kid? My dad told me bullies would say this when he was a kid too. So I know it was at least an Upper-Midwest thing that got passed down at least two generations. Maybe there’s some bully convention somewhere where they swap tools of the trade, I donno. 

“What!? It’s a free country!” I can push you around if I want to. I can take your things if I want to. How dare you deny my freedom by telling me I can’t.

Of course, the bully doesn’t honor anyone else’s “freedom” to do to them what they do to others. It’s a free country for the bully but not for their victims. But far be it for them to see beyond their own padlocked brain box. 

The problem is that some people never grow past this stunted school-yard ethical philosophy, if you can call it that.

But just because they don’t, doesn’t mean we shouldn’t. 

And if we have in fact been the one to behave in that way, God can give us the grace to grow toward a truer freedom that takes responsibility for our actions. 

The Apostle Paul has a powerful teaching about how God has given us freedom, but we can use our freedom in ways that undercut that freedom (Galatians 5:13-23, quotes from the Message Translation). When we exercise our freedom in self-centered ways, it gets us ensnared in conflicts and addictions and cycles of suffering of all kinds.

“It is obvious what kind of life develops out of trying to get your own way all the time: repetitive, loveless, cheap sex; a stinking accumulation of mental and emotional garbage; frenzied and joyless grabs for happiness; trinket gods; magic-show religion; paranoid loneliness; cutthroat competition; all-consuming-yet-never-satisfied wants; a brutal temper; an impotence to love or be loved; divided homes and divided lives; small-minded and lopsided pursuits; the vicious habit of depersonalizing everyone into a rival; uncontrolled and uncontrollable addictions; ugly parodies of community. I could go on.

This isn’t the first time I have warned you, you know. If you use your freedom this way, you will not inherit God’s kingdom.”

A truer freedom, the freedom we find through the Grace of Christ, is one that truly frees us for a love beyond bounds.

Paul then goes on to name some virtues that are in fact expressions of this kind of freedom, fruits of a Holy Spirit that can move us beyond the confines of our own self-centeredness.

“things like affection for others, exuberance about life, serenity. We develop a willingness to stick with things, a sense of compassion in the heart, and a conviction that a basic holiness permeates things and people. We find ourselves involved in loyal commitments, not needing to force our way in life, able to marshal and direct our energies wisely.”

This Sunday, like last Sunday, we’re going to explore some virtues together.

These are virtues from this organization called “The Virtues Project”, which has identified and defined dozens of virtues shared by religions and wisdom traditions the world over.

I already have shared a helpful definition of virtue as: “The power to realize the good.” We can also see virtues as expressions of a truer kind of freedom – or aspirations or inspirations toward a truer kind of freedom.

My reason for doing this now, as I shared last week, is that we seem to be living in a particularly cynical era, where truth and goodness are thrown out, or used in self-serving ways, and there is so much conflict and tension and dehumanization in our country and world. On top of all that, in the coming weeks we get to exercise our freedom and responsibility as citizens of a democracy. So, this is a very important time to be clear about the virtues that our faith calls us to represent and aspire to and to hold each other accountable to.

Check out these virtues. Which speak to you? Which repel you? Which do you need affirmed in yourself? Which do you need to or be challenged by? Which do you need to advocate for? Which do you need to hold yourselves and others accountable to?

Which virtues would you like to see named that are missing?

Which virtues could turn into vices if they are not balanced by other virtues?

Which can we aspire to not only as individuals but as communities and a society?

This sounds good. But we seem to be always falling short. Moreover, we know that it is by the free gift of God’s Grace that we are saved, not by some impossible perfection of our own righteous deeds. This does not mean, however, that we can dismiss and discount the virtues we are indeed called to, the virtues that do indeed express hearts freed by grace to grow more truly into who God has created us to be.

More than anything, this takes courage, especially in the midst of meanness and cynicism.

So let me end with a “Prayer for Courage” by Pádraig ó Tuama:

“Courage comes from the heart

And we are always welcomed by God,

The heart of all being.

We bear witness to our faith,

Knowing that we are called

To live lives of courage,

Love and reconciliation

In the ordinary and extraordinary

Moments of each day.

We bear witness, too, to our failures

And our complicity in the fractures of our world.

May we be courageous today.

May we learn today.

May we love today.

Amen.“

Delivered Sunday, October 20, 2024, by Rev. Nathaniel Mahlberg, at the United Church of Christ at Valley Forge. You can watch video of this sermon here.