Held Captive by Love
If you’re anything like me chances are you’ve laid awake one too many nights with a mind full of anxious thoughts. Although sometimes these thoughts are about danger and harm, they are often about the regular duties of life. People care deeply about their daily duties. These are parental duties, school or work responsibilities, and any number of community commitments. The things that fill the mind in the middle of the night are things that command attention. We live in times that demand our attentions and in the supposed to be free moments—like sleep—our attentions may be held captivatingly awake.
Whether your captivated by something—or feeling like you’re being held captive—the feeling of not quite having a freed attention is all too familiar. Martin Luther knew a thing or two about attentions, and consciences, that felt like they were being held captive. A good deal of Luther’s theology is teasing out ways in which a person may be freed from a captivated conscience. Along the way the thing he discovered is that humans are hard-wired to have our attentions trained on something. What Luther sought to communicate was not an annihilistic view of attention—whereby you may be freed from ever using your brain—but rather to have your attention trained on the right thing.
“To be fully human is to simultaneously recognize that you have complete freedom from sin, death—and all associated anxiety—and to recognize that you live completely in this world. ”
Protestant Christians might bristle at the thought of being trained for anything. A large part of our heritage is being freed from some sort of overbearing training that, in turn, condemned our consciences (the same ones we’ve been talking about setting free). The freed conscience is an idea with plentiful examples in Luther’s theology and writing. When we read those examples we tend to see that Luther’s insights are exclusively trained on the misapplication of God’s Law to us. Or, having our attentions trained on the wrong things. Similar to the infamous Pharisees, Luther contended that medieval Roman Catholicism inappropriately applied the Law to people which, instead of setting their hearts on God, set their hearts on fear and anxiety. “The Law always accuses” wrote Luther’s protege Philip Melanchthon in the Apology to the Augsburg Confession. And who can refute that? Luther focused intently on freeing the always accused and misconstrued mind with the comforting promises of Christ.
When you’re up at night trying to keep pace with your racing mind you’re not so far from Luther’s insights. You’re hoping to do the right thing but you sense a hopelessness to the project. The racing mind is a recognition of life’s limitations. And yet you probably can’t quite shake the feeling that you’re hard-wired towards something. Luther wanted to be free from the misappropriation of God’s Law, but he didn’t want to be free from being able to think or act. In fact, free from the anxiety that kept him up at night Luther sought to live his whole mind, body, and soul for God in Christ Jesus. While we can see Luther push this fully human idea in many places, especially in the catechisms—which for centuries have been used to train pastors and laypeople alike—this idea of Luther is best summed up in his famous axiom from The Freedom of The Christian.
“A Christian is the most free lord of all, subject to none. A Christian is the most dutiful servant of all, subject to everyone.”
“Jesus is saying if you’re going to be held captive in this life, be held captive by love for your God and your neighbor. He’s saying that if your attention needs fixating on something then fixate it on love.”
To be fully human is to simultaneously recognize that you have complete freedom from sin, death—and all associated anxiety—and to recognize that you live completely in this world. Being free from the things that worry you in the middle of the night means you can transfer—not the anxiety—but your captivated attention to love of God and neighbor. And it’s precisely because you rest secure in Christ that you can focus your conscience outside of yourself. Caring for your neighbor doesn’t keep you up at night, it gifts you something for the day. You are forgiven and free in Jesus so your sins don’t inhibit you from acts of charity. A fully human person is one whom, freed from sin, is no bondservant and whom, bound to Christ, is a willing servant to all. Bound to Christ we live the only human life we know, the one that patterns itself after him.
During “the Last Supper” John’s gospel omits the institution of “the Lord’s Supper” and includes the story of Jesus washing the feet of his disciples. You know who washed feet? Servants. And not only servants, but slaves. Jesus concluded this remarkable act saying, “If I then, the Lord and the Teacher, washed your feet, you also ought to wash one another’s feet. For I gave you an example that you also should do as I did to you” (John 13:14-15). By becoming a living parable Jesus shows his disciples the way to life is by loving one another—as he has loved. To be fully human is to be a foot washer like Jesus. To be fully human is to lay aside the anxieties of this world and leave them at the nail-pierced feet of the one who did not see the washing of feet as something beneath him. Jesus showed us that to be fully human is found in being a servant—a servant for love.
Jesus is saying if you’re going to be held captive in this life, be held captive by love for your God and your neighbor. He’s saying that if your attention needs fixating on something then fixate it on love. You are so free in Jesus that you can be bound by love of God and neighbor. You may wonder, “who could possibly have the time to commune with God and break bread with and for a neighbor?” You, of course. Who else but you? You have been freed from sin and death for this kind of life. The sins which once weighed you down have been lifted so that you are light and ready to give to another. Another—this is the focus of life in Christ. Your attention is focused away from yourself and onto another—the crucified one. And when you’re focused on the crucified one your attention is drawn to those for whom he died. Much of American life resists the idea of focusing on anyone but yourself, but Luther’s axiom serves us well. Through Christ we are free, slaves to none, and at the same time servants to all.