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Our
reading is from Acts, the story of the early church. It’s
the story of ordinary people who shared God’s love in Jesus
Christ with those God led to them, in the situations they
found themselves. Their names are familiar: men like Barnabus,
Philip, Peter, James and Stephen; women like Lydia, Mary the
mother of John-Mark, Dorcas, Priscilla and Damaris. We can be
sure not all have been recorded. But each tells a story of God
working in the lives of individuals—people like us.
This
evening we explore one of Paul’s encounters. He and Silas
have come to a gentile community named Philippi, a coastal
city in what today is known as Greece. Let’s listen for how
God uses them:
One
day, as we were going to the place of prayer, we met a slave
girl who had a spirit of divination and brought her owners a
great deal of money by fortune-telling. While she followed
Paul and us, she would cry out, “These men are slaves of the
Most High God, who proclaim to you a way of salvation.” She
kept doing this for many days. But Paul, very much annoyed,
turned and said to the spirit, “I order you in the name of
Jesus Christ to come out of her.” And it came out that very
hour. But when her owners saw that their hope of making money
was gone, they seized Paul and Silas and dragged them into the
marketplace before the authorities. When they had brought them
before the magistrates, they said, “These men are disturbing
our city; they are Jews and are advocating customs that are
not lawful for us as Romans to adopt or observe.” The crowd
joined in attacking them, and the magistrates had them
stripped of their clothing and ordered them to be beaten with
rods. After they had given them a severe flogging, they threw
them into prison and ordered the jailer to keep them securely.
Following these instructions, he put them in the innermost
cell and fastened their feet in the stocks.
About
midnight Paul and Silas were praying and singing hymns to God,
and the prisoners were listening to them. Suddenly there was
an earthquake, so violent that the foundations of the prison
were shaken; and immediately all the doors were opened and
everyone’s chains were unfastened. When the jailer woke up
and saw the prison doors wide open, he drew his sword and was
about to kill himself, since he supposed that the prisoners
had escaped. But Paul shouted in a loud voice, “Do not harm
yourself, for we are all here.” The jailer called for
lights, and rushing in, he fell down trembling before Paul and
Silas. Then he brought them outside and said, “Sirs, what
must I do to be saved?” They answered, “Believe on the
Lord Jesus, and you will be saved, you and your household.”
They spoke the word of the Lord to him and to all who were in
his house. At the same hour of the night he took them and
washed their wounds; then he and his entire family were
baptized without delay. He brought them up into the house and
set food before them; and he and his entire household rejoiced
that he had become a believer in God.
(Acts 16:16-34)
It’s
good to be back together again. Last week I was at our Annual
Conference. As I’m sure you know, our Bishop, Linda Lee,
presided. During the weekend, I was fascinated by her
discerning and gentle passion for the spiritual life of the
church. As she preaches, it’s clear that the vitality of our
personal journeys of faith are, for her, the life of the
church. If I can paraphrase: “The true life of Christ’s
church will not be found in the minutes of a meeting or the
balance sheet of a ledger. The church’s life is found in the
transformation God is bringing in each of our lives.”
Her
preaching challenged us to look within and see, not what God should
do in our neighbor, but what God is doing in our lives.
How God is changing us so that we can know new life.
This
evening we’re presented with a crisis. It could be subtitled
“The Loss of the Cash Cow.” Paul and Silas encounter a
slave girl who has some kind of spirit. Her owners are using
her as a fortune teller, and they’re making good money from
her work. Then here comes Paul. Paul doesn’t seem to be too
concerned about the loss of the owners’ economic base, and
says straight up: “Since you can see who we are, and you
know who we represent, in the name of Jesus Christ, get
out.”
Through
the eyes of the girl’s owners, Paul ruins a pretty good
thing. Their goose is no longer laying golden eggs, and
they’re upset. So like good, law abiding pagans, they haul
Paul to court.
The
story is clear. That night while Paul and his traveling
companion, Silas, are praying and singing in jail, there is an
earthquake. Their chains fall off, the gates open. They are
freed by God! The ordeal is over. They’ve done their work,
now they can hightail it out of there. And who would blame
them?
Tomorrow
is Memorial Day. It’s a day in which we honor the thousands
of young men and women who lost (gave) their lives in the
service of their country: brothers, husbands, friends and
fathers. It is a solemn day of respect.
War is
something distant to us today. We see it on the television but
we don’t really see it up close and personal. When Memorial
Day was first observed back in 1868 following the Civil War,
war was very personal. Horrific were the clashes of army
against army and the bodies that littered the fields. It was
ugly, dirty, messy—a place that no one wanted to be.
Paul and
Silas have been tied up, beaten, and jailed.
But the gates are open now. They’re free!
Nothing binds them. They can go. And yet they stay.
What would
God’s Spirit be saying for you to remain there? It’s one
thing to be held. It’s another to be free, but stay. The
decision Paul and Silas made required that they listen more
attentively and be more ready to act on what God was calling
them to be, rather than on what their circumstances tempted
them to conform to.
I think of
the other prisoners. They have been listening to Paul pray and
sing all night long. We don’t know what they were praying
for, only that they were singing praises to God. Knowing Paul,
I can’t believe that he was simply praying: “Get me out of
here.” Instead, I can imagine him praying: “Thy will be
done. Give me the strength to follow it.” Then God acts and
the doors open. What is God saying?
I think
also of the jailor. Paul was his reason for overwhelming fear.
When the prisoners put in your care escape, it’s not a good
thing. The jailor was going to kill himself. But God was doing
something. This is not about Paul being freed! It seems to be
more about Paul being free to stay.
The
fact of the matter is, we don’t know why Paul stayed in that
cell. Luke (the author) doesn’t tell us.
And it really doesn’t matter. For the jailor and his
family, what matters is that he did. Paul and Silas stayed.
What does
this say for us today? That we should hold up naiveté as the
answer to the problems surrounding us: “Lord you take care
of it. I don’t want to know what’s going on”? That we
should stick our head in the sand and pretend something is not
what it is? I don’t read that here. Jesus himself said:
“Be as wise as serpents, but as gentle as doves.” (Mt.
10:6)
What it
does say is that God is working, even when our circumstances,
the measures by which we so commonly understand our world,
make us question that. This story reminds us that our
circumstances are not the end. We never hear about the owners
of the slave girl, or the leaders of the community (the
magistrates) again. They are forgotten. Instead, God is
working in one small, nameless family—the life and family of
a jailor—and their world was changed.
All that
to make a difference in one family. Are we willing to allow
God to use us like that? Even when others would run?
As we look
outside, it’s gardening time: seed, fertilizer, water,
warmth. If you garden, you know that you can do all the right
things—plant when the Poor Richard says plant, turn and
water the soil—but it is still God who makes the seed break
forth with life.
As Paul
sat in his cell, he didn’t know what the next day would
bring, any more than the men and women we honor this weekend
knew what was ahead. But he knew with unshakable assurance
that he was in God’s care, no matter the outcome. That it
all began with Christ, and no matter what it was like in the
middle, if he listened for God’s leading—and followed that
leading—it would end with Christ. The Alpha and Omega. The
first and the last.
That was
the message throughout Paul’s personal faith journey. I pray
that it is our assurance as well. God is at work in this
world. I believe that’s good news on this Memorial Day
Sunday, as we remember those who knew “that door would be
too easy.”
Amen.
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