We will not appreciate Jesus’ loyalty to the Law and the Prophets if we do not accept his deeper understanding of freedom. I’m afraid that the cry of the French Revolution, “Liberty, equality and fraternity,” has formed us much more than the Jesus Revolution. His cry might instead be “Identity, justice and community.” Think about the difference. We also tend to think of freedom as freedom of movement and the liberty to choose between options. This is surely a good and important freedom. There is no indication that the great spiritual teachers, Jesus included, see it as essential, however. They seem to recognize that the world of preferences and possibilities does not of itself lead to wisdom, truth or even depth of experience. In fact, in the spiritual life the rule seems to be that less is more. There is almost no correlation between the amount of options and the amount of truth or goodness that one attains.
—from Jesus' Plan for a New World: The Sermon on the Mount by Richard Rohr, OFM
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