Catholic philosopher Remi Brague makes an interesting observation: “…in Spain, when a cab is for hire and looking for a customer, it has a flag of sorts on which is written “FREE”. For many of our contemporaries the model of what “being free” means is the way in which this cab is “free”. This means that it is empty, that it doesn’t go to any particular place.” In a sense you are indeed “free”, but you don’t have a life. A cab that does nothing more than flying its “FREE” flag will end up not servicing any customers and will go bankrupt. From his “Slow Train Coming” album, the songwriter Bob Dylan writes:
You’re gonna have to serve somebody
Well, it may be the devil or it may be the Lord
But you’re gonna have to serve somebody
On social media you can come across stories from Uber drivers who ended up with a “customer from hell”. Luke chapter 8, tells the story of Mary Magdalene who, however innocently, ended up with seven passengers who were truly from hell. The end result of their demonic joyride, at her expense, was going to be the total wreckage of her life. Whatever freedom she did have would be gone. Jesus comes along, and like his casting out of the money changers, cleanses the temple of her innermost being and shows the demonic passengers the door.
Saul was on his way to Tarsus, to wreck the lives of the Christians in that town, when he was thrown down from his high horse and eventually became the Apostle Paul. Commenting on his experience he says, “…it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me.” Galatians 2:20. “Do you not know that you are the temple of God, and that the Spirit of God dwells in you?”, 1 Corinthians 3:16. Paul too, like Mary Magdalene, now has the passenger from Heaven accompanying him on his journey through life. In the words of the Negro spiritual, both of them are now on that train “Bound for Glory”.
What do we do with the freedom given us by Christ? Cab drivers develop “street smarts”, because not everyone who is trying to get our attention is a fit passenger. Being selective as to who we allow into our personal space and take for a ride, is job 1. “With freedom did Christ set us free: stand fast therefore, and be not entangled again in a yoke of servitude”. Galatians 5:1. We must be careful to not squander the freedom that we have been given.
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