Returning from this morning’s walk I passed a house with a bright yellow car parked outside. Noticing the reflection of the car in the window, I instinctively looked in the window; then felt a bit ashamed to have invaded someone’s privacy. This is the third, maybe fourth, time this has happened. It is the same every time – I was just working on autopilot. It can sometimes be hard to get out of routines, especially if you are thinking about something else. This example is trivial, but what about those whose tramlines lead them into seriously destructive behaviour? It’s not that the people are not responsible, but sometimes habits need serious effort and maybe help to get out of. Otherwise you may need to go all the way to Bispham before you can turn round.
A theme in the Lectionary for Sunday (in Romans) is ‘freedom’ – a slippery word if ever I heard one. Never trust anyone who promises freedom. Last night we watched on catch-up an episode of Alan Bennett’s funny and serious ‘Talking Heads’. Remembering roughly, I think the speaker said how free she felt gardening with her friend in prison, compared to being at home in her marriage. Hooray, we are free from the EU, free to do whatever Trump and Putin tell us to do.
And yet there is a sense of freedom in feeling that God’s love is not conditional on us fulfilling every strictest part of an impossible set of rules. At the same time, that love itself binds us. We love, as we have been loved. We forgive, as we have been forgiven.