That's about the size of it. Paul believes that freedom does not simply mean opportunity to do all things. To his mind, true freedom is the ability to voluntarily surrender one's rights and prerogatives in order to enter into service of the neighbor. Furthermore, trading selfishness for self-giving is a way of moving from the oppression of sin to the freedom of love. It is, lastly, moving from a way of death to a way of life: "the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord," Paul tells us.

Now, some people across the ages have wondered if Paul didn't essentially invent his own religion. They feel that his message doesn't match up with the gospel message. But I think what he says in Romans fits perfectly with what Jesus says in Matthew:

"Come to me, all you that are weary and are carrying heavy burdens, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me; for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light."

Humans tend to think that living in sin is easy and free.* The truth is just the opposite, says Jesus. Sin is burdensome, but to live right with God is the lightest yoke you'll ever carry.

Which of course leaves the question hanging: so why don't we pick that yoke up? If living a righteous life is dang easy, how come more of us don't do it?

Paul's answer to this - in what should have been our epistle lesson for this morning - is that our wills are misplaced. Because we are so chained down by sin, we can't even fully want to do what is right. It takes the intervention of God's grace in Christ to complete the circuit between our brains and our actions.

Here's how the disconnect plays out in everyday life:

By coincidence, I went up to Boston that week and saw friends from law school. Their kids now graduate from places like Harvard and Yale. I asked their kids what they planned to do.

"I'm going into finance."

"I'm going into finance."

"I'm going into finance."

Later K., at her 60th birthday party, told me one daughter was in a prestigious law school, but guess what her second daughter was doing.

"She's going into finance."

"How did you know?"

They're at Morgan Stanley. They're at Goldman Sachs. After Teach for America, they go to work for Chase.

You may have noticed that plenty of these young hedge-fund managers are kicking in to the party of the left. In fact, being from Harvard, Yale, Brown, and Princeton, they really are on the left, such as it is.

But do they all have to work...

Now, I know that we don't have too many kids here going from the Ivy League off to Wall Street. Most of us would consider ourselves a real success if we could get a kid to the Ivy League, much less anything beyond it.

The point is that these aren't bad kids, necessarily. They want to do good things. They even do them, sometimes give up their lives for a year or two after college. But then they have to earn a living, and who can blame them for that?

A few years ago, I read an interview with a guy who graduated at the top of his class at Harvard Law School, then promptly turned down all of the lucrative offers he received in favor of earning peanuts to work on death penalty cases in Alabama.

The obvious question is why? How come you have the moral vision to walk away from all that money? To which comes the response: I'm no better than anyone else. What's different about me is that most people decide to work for a few years to pay down their bills from law school, and then they're going to go off and do great things. But then they get into the system, and they never get out. I didn't want that to happen to me, so I just went ahead to do the great things while the opportunity was still there.

That's it in a nutshell. "A Christian is a perfectly free lord of all, subject to none. A Christian is a perfectly dutiful servant of all, subject to all." You don't have to be at the top of Harvard Law to understand that.

Nor do you need to be a rocket scientist that there are plenty of things in the world that tie us down. You get a job, you get a mortgage and a car loan, you have kids or a dog, and before you know it, you're in a rut you can't get out of. That doesn't make you a bad person, it just makes you someone whose freedom is limited. We've all lived that, and those of us who are parents have lived the worry that our children's hands might be tied before they even have a choice as to what to do with their life.

And the good news is this: God does not judge us for our lack of freedom, not even when we willingly limit our own options chasing wealth, possessions, or status. Rather, God sent Jesus to give us our freedom, and to challenge us to understand that we are always more free than we believe ourselves to be. On this 4th of July weekend, that reminder is more than appropriate, it is a great and joyful blessing. Amen.

*I'm so tempted to do a Morbo imitation here: "Puny humans! Believe your lives are easy and free, until my race destroys your planet. Mwa-ha-ha!!!" Linda: "Hah hah hah!"