Whose Slave Are You?

 

Whose Slave Are You?

Romans 6:15-18

            “In a consumer society there are inevitably two kinds of slaves:  the prisoners of addiction and the prisoners of envy.”

            So said Ivan Illich.  Sounds like a name out of a Dostoyevsky novel, especially when you learn he was a philosopher and a priest.  He was Russian, definitely, but not one of Dostoyevsky’s characters. 

            You might wonder what a Russian who lived from 1926-2002 would know about a consumer society, but he obviously had an understanding of consumerism and its effect on people.

            Two kinds of slaves:  prisoners of addiction and prisoners of envy.  We understand prisoners of addiction, and we are aware that they exist in a consumer society.  We are familiar with addiction.  Anyone who reads newspapers, magazines, novels, will soon come face to face with addiction.  The addict may be hooked on drugs, or alcohol, or something else, but we’ve read enough to understand that people become so addicted to one thing or another that it’s not far-fetched to say they are enslaved. 

            I’ve just finished reading a Harlan Coben novel.  For those of you not familiar with Coben’s writing, he is a master of the plot twist, even planting one final turn in the last few pages of many of his books.  I say frequently that writers of fiction begin with a “what if…?” turn of mind.  Coben’s what ifs happen to be more intriguing than most.

            In this novel, Play Dead, one character is addicted to gambling and also to scams, which is where he gets the money to gamble with.  Unfortunately, he doesn’t come close to shaking his addiction until it’s too late.  Just as he is on the edge of breaking his bonds of slavery he is murdered.  We might say he was sacrificed to the novel’s plot twists, but we know this also happens in real life.

            Slavery to envy might not be as evident as slavery to addiction, but we know it exists, and far too frequently.  You have something I want.  If I want it too much, I become a slave to that desire.  Isn’t that how advertising works?  Ads create a desire to have what we don’t possess.  If that desire becomes overwhelming, I will do almost anything to obtain what I don’t have but wish I did.

            I believe Paul understood these kinds of slavery.  He must have seen examples of both addiction and envy as he moved through the Mediterranean world.  Paul drew no distinction between the two.  He lumped them together under the category of slavery to sin.  For him, whether you were addicted to alcohol, or sex, or anger, or judgmentalism made no difference.  Slavery to one was no better, no worse than slavery to another.  He also knew the Torah, and  the commandment, “You shall not covet…” (Exodus 20:17).  For Paul, sin was sin, and those who pursued a life of sin were slaves to sin. 

            Paul knew another kind of slavery:  slavery to righteousness.  His training taught him both the evils of sin and the virtues of righteousness.  His conversion changed his understanding of righteousness, but not its importance.  He understood, as Jesus taught, that we are never completely free.  We have a choice:  we can be slaves of sin or slaves of God. 

            It is interesting as well as paradoxical that being God’s slave is really the path to freedom.  If I am God’s slave I am free from both addiction and envy, free to be righteous in God’s sight, and free to pursue a life without slavery.