Who Owns My Soul?

St. Augustine of Canterbury Anglican Church

Bishop Peter F. Hansen

Sermon for the 15^th Sunday after Trinity, September 26, 2025

“No man can serve two masters: for either he will hate the one, and love the other; or else he will hold to the one, and despise the other. Ye cannot serve God and mammon..”

THE PHILOSOPHY OF MANKIND has gone from one slavery to another over the course of millennia. We sell ourselves willingly and cover the wires that operate us with slogans, passion, and millions repeating the mantra. We’re addicted to cigarettes one decade, alcohol the next, this drug to that drug: and then call it freedom. We shout, “I thank whatever gods may be for my unconquerable soul!... Bloody but unbowed, I am the master of my fate: I am the captain of my soul!” ^{William Ernest Henley - Invictus}

The gifts of heaven spoken of in our nation’s founding documents were life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. But those founders exercised great wisdom as they understood the limits of freedom. Unlike the Liberty that turned to Anarchy in the French Revolution, our Freedom was shaped by law, with respect for every person under God. Without God, the One True God, freedom become license, then anarchy, violence and wantonness, and finally tyranny, bigotry and totalitarianism. Our only security lies in the inscribed wisdom of the men who would not be king. They knew that a self-governing people only had a chance if they bent their knee to God, the God of the Bible, and made His Son, Jesus Christ, King of their personal lives.

Bishop Robert Sherwood Morse held a theory that all Christians bear the marks of the crucifixion in their invisible souls’ bodies. Two pierced hands, a gaping hole on each foot, a wicked gash in the side, thorny punctures at one’s brow. And why? We bear the image of Christ, and by His stripes are we healed. Without the risen Lord, we simply live for ourselves, but that is a myth. You don’t have independent life at all. Freedom needs oversight. The God-sized palace within our souls is wanting God seated in splendor and ruling over our passions.

Some great saints, Francis of Assisi, Padre Pio and others, have actually had bleeding wounds in those sacred places in their bodies as Christ had in His. That’s quite inconvenient, and subject to misuse by others of the stained linens left by the afflicted holy one. But if Bishop Morse was right, you have those wounds yourself, and only cover them with clothing, activity, and probably a good many sins.

So, who owns your soul? I’ve made a case that it’s either God or … what? Pinocchio was a wonderful story for children but a morality play for us. When the wooden headed marionette wandered off with the other unruly boys toward Pleasure Island, the pleasure was in doing forbidden things freely: getting drunk, smoking cigars, playing pool and staying up late. But the surprise came when long ears sprouted along with a donkey’s tail, and each boy’s voice became a braying until so many little donkeys were carted off to sell for hard labor. Slaves to their sin, they lost all that freedom they had celebrated.

We Anglicans are certain of free will, the doctrine that guards against determinism, unconditional election, the idea that God chose certain people for salvation, others for damnation, before they were even born. They had no say in it. Rather than the devotion of automatons, we claim agency in our choice of Christ as our Lord and our Savior. By His grace toward us, at His inspiration, we still hold the deciding power to render our consciences and values and truths and desires to the Lord our God. Then, by our free choices, we are set free from the addictions to the flesh, the world and its devils, to be subjects freely to God.

Is that freedom? It sounds like a dog who never loses the collar, but has its chain handed from one master to another. But look at this. Our Prayer Book has a prayer that says it best. It addresses God, “whose service is perfect freedom.” To serve Him is to be free. It sounds clever, maybe deceptive. But is it? 

St. Augustine said, “God, Whom to know is to live, Whom to serve is to reign, and Whom to praise is the health and joy of the soul…” He was certain of this because he had lived a life of pleasure, then found himself a slave to his passions, the world and the devil. Freedom only exists in being redeemed, which means somebody buys you out of the pawnshop and now you are His. Can we Americans be happy with that?

God says, “Behold, all souls are Mine; The soul of the father As well as the soul of the son is Mine.” ^{Ez 18:4} David sang, “Know that the Lord, he is God! It is he who made us, and we are his; we are his people, and the sheep of his pasture.” ^{Ps 100:3} St. Paul wrote, “if we live, we live to the Lord, and if we die, we die to the Lord. So then, whether we live or whether we die, we are the Lord's.” ^{Rm 14:8} God says “O Israel: “Fear not, for I have redeemed you; I have called you by name, you are mine.” ^{Isaiah 43:1}

Owned or free? The magic in this endless argument is that it’s both at once. The incarnation, the writing and assembling of the many books of Scripture, the human and divine aspects of God’s Church, and our own makeup speak to a divinely created co-operation. God and man are together to save man. God and man together wrote the holy pages. God and man together experienced the cross. God and man together order our worship. The more our wills align with His, the more we are what we were created to be, and the more He is our master, the more we find we’ve been left holding the great wheel of the helm of our lives. He will trust us with His heaven, to co-rule from His throne. We already have His temple within our hearts. We were redeemed for this. And rather than slaves, He makes us subjects. “Do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit within you, whom you have from God? You are not your own, for you were bought with a price. So glorify God in your body.” ^{1 Cor 6:19-20}

I can’t create one thing that will feed me and keep me alive. Why do I think that I am in charge? I make nothing from nothing that would drape well and clothe me. Jesus points this out in His lilies of the field parable. A bird doesn’t fall from the sky without the conscious will of the Father. Why do we think it’s all up to us, when we can’t add a second to the tale of our lives, and we are far more important in God’s grand scheme of things than any bird.

Rather than sweat it over the bills, the shopping, the lack and want of things not yet owned by us, Jesus admonishes us to seek the Kingdom of God. And that means? Confess to God that He is in charge, that you relinquish your every care to Him, all the money and what it’s spent on, all your relationships, every spare moment, your health, your future, your past, the works. Give it over to Him. Give Him all that you are and all you hope to be. Does that make you poor? Are you the loser?

The next thing is this: God received your kingdom from you. Thank you very much. And now He gives you His Kingdom, where He rules supreme, and has shown us by innumerable signs, that His benevolence is unbounded, that our joy will overflow, that abundance shall be ours. With the freedom to be who we were created to be.

Have no more anxiety. All good things will be yours. Each day has enough to contend with, don’t anticipate next week. God is present, with the answers. Rejoice. Give it over. And enjoy your freedom. You have much value.                                                   

            +PFH