Freedom

Galatians 5:1, 13-25

An experiment was conducted with children where they were given access to two different playgrounds in order to observe their behavior. The playgrounds were identical with one primary difference between them: one had a fence, and one didn’t.

Our assumption might be that the playground without a fence would result in exploratory and curious behavior from children. Without a fence, they would certainly explore beyond the playground and be difficult to keep together, right?

It turns out the opposite happened. Without a fence, the children felt insecure and tended to remain close to the caregiver/authority figure that brought them to the playground. But in the playground that had a fence, the children explored more freely and weren’t as attached to the adult caregiver. It seems that the safety that the fence created also led to a sense of freedom for the children to be more curious and to explore more.

Maybe you have heard of that experiment before. I heard about it in a presentation about how even small details in design can have significant effects on human behavior.

This experiment reminds me that we in the United States have a fraught relationship with “freedom.” It’s a concept that we value, but have differing stances on what it means. Is freedom the right for us to do what we want? Or is freedom based in the ideal that people should not be imprisoned or bound in unjust ways? If freedom for me creates bondage and oppression for someone else… is that freedom?

Does having 50+ choices between different kinds of spaghetti sauce give us freedom, or does it just paralyze us and cause us to keep returning back to the brand and flavor we know? I think we need to figure out our relationship with freedom. Because we can take the version of freedom that just means “I can have it my way” to a point where, if all of us claw for it, we destroy ourselves.

Our addiction to a certain version of freedom in America is tearing us apart. This version of freedom benefits those with power and wealth who decide that their freedom is more important than the wellbeing of people with less power and means. This version of freedom has addicted us to a desperate fight for a right to unfettered access to guns and a fierce fight against any shared investment in healthcare that benefits the common good.

Is that freedom worth it? Is that the kind of freedom the Apostle Paul talks about in Galatians when he wrote, “for freedom, Christ has set us free?” I don’t think so. A lack of limits and boundaries on what we feel like doing isn’t freedom if it only creates more fear and anger. We aren’t made free so we can have license to dominate others.

We are made free to be in relationship with God. The same God who reminded us that the commandment to love God with all of our hearts is equal to the commandment that we love our neighbors as ourselves.

So let’s claim a freedom that empowers all of us rather than a freedom that places no limits on the harm we are capable of doing to one another.