Sermon for SMHP, Year C, Easter 7, June 2, 2019
Acts 16:16-34
16One
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. 17While 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.” 18She 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. 19But
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. 20When
they had brought them before the magistrates, they said, “These men are
disturbing our city; they are Jews 21and are advocating customs that
are not lawful for us as Romans to adopt or observe.” 22The crowd
joined in attacking them, and the magistrates had them stripped of their
clothing and ordered them to be beaten with rods. 23After they had
given them a severe flogging, they threw them into prison and ordered the
jailer to keep them securely. 24Following these instructions, he put
them in the innermost cell and fastened their feet in the stocks.
25About
midnight Paul and Silas were praying and singing hymns to God, and the
prisoners were listening to them. 26Suddenly 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. 27When
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. 28But
Paul shouted in a loud voice, “Do not harm yourself, for we are all here.” 29The
jailer called for lights, and rushing in, he fell down trembling before Paul
and Silas. 30Then he brought them outside and said, “Sirs, what must
I do to be saved?” 31They answered, “Believe on the Lord Jesus, and
you will be saved, you and your household.” 32They spoke the word of
the Lord to him and to all who were in his house. 33At the same hour
of the night he took them and washed their wounds; then he and his entire
family were baptized without delay. 34He 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.
“That
peculiar institution.” That’s what we
used to call slavery in this country. A
“peculiar institution.” Capturing other
human beings and making them work for you for free, under duress. Yeah, I’d say that was peculiar. And a whole lot of other things.
Slavery
was wrong, right?
Of
course. And if you travel around to just
about any Christian church in this town, you will hear agreement that slavery
was totally, completely wrong.
Now.
A
hundred and fifty years ago—just a few generations back—you would hear a
different story. In a pretty large swath
of this country, including right here in Kansas City, Missouri, you
would find near-universal acceptance of the idea that slavery is just a peculiar
institution, and that God had given white people the right to own their African
neighbors.
They
called it “the curse of Ham”—the misbegotten idea that condemned all of the
people of the continent of Africa because one of Noah’s sons, Ham, saw his father
drunk and naked. Noah then cursed Ham’s son Canaan, and voila: slavery!
Makes
sense, right?
It
didn’t make sense ever, but the curse of Ham, which was really a curse of
Canaan, was used first to justify the subjugation of the Canaanite people—the descendants
of Canaan—to the Israelites, which at least makes sense a little. Later, someone decided that Ham’s descendants
were Africans, so the entire continent of Africa was under the “curse of Ham.”
Between
that and the fact that Paul implores servants to obey their masters, many
generations of Americans and others managed to talk themselves into
believing—or pretending to believe—that slavery was a neutral, if peculiar, institution that may not have
been blessed by God, but certainly
wasn’t cursed. Not like poor old Ham.
People
manage to convince themselves of all kinds of things, don’t they? I’m sure the Philippians who owned the slave
girl in our lesson for this morning felt completely justified in exploiting her
to make money. I mean, it sounds bad
when you say it like that…but after all, the culture of the Roman Empire had no
problem with citizens of means keeping slaves to do their bidding.
And
lots of those other slaves had to do
worse stuff than a little divination-by-virtue-of-an-evil-spirit.
Notice,
in fact, that when the authorities enter into this story, it isn’t the people
who own and exploit another human being who are called to make an accounting
for themselves. Nope, it’s Paul and
Silas who are accused of “advocating customs that are not lawful for us as
Romans to adopt or observe.”
Imagine
what it would be like to travel somewhere and be thrown in jail just because
you are an immigrant whose customs don’t fit the Way of the dominant culture.
Wouldn’t
that be awful?
At
least Paul and Silas didn’t have any kids who were thrown in a different jail.
The
charge against Paul and Silas is completely true. It is the same charge leveled against
abolitionists and members of the Resistance movement in Nazi Germany and the
folks who are providing water and shelter to immigrants along our southern
border, trying to salvage a few shreds of American decency.
I
hope it is a charge which could be leveled against every one of us.
What’s
that charge? Not “going with the
program.” Anti-empirical thinking. Advocating for freedom in a culture that
feels some folks should just be enslaved, imprisoned, and even killed.
Empires
use all of those means to keep people in line, especially those who fall
outside of their dominant culture.
That
is why the values of the kingdom of God so often find themselves in conflict
with the values of the kingdoms of earth.
God
desires for us to be free. In creation,
God gave human beings the whole world to enjoy. And while that turned out to be too much for
us to handle, the story of our relationship with God is one in which God is
always leading us toward freedom. When
God’s people were enslaved in Egypt, God lifted up Moses and did some heavy
persuading with pharaoh. And the people
were set free.
When
the people of Judah were taken away to Babylon, God sent prophets to remind
them of who they were and whose they were.
God reminded them that even though they would be in exile for a long
while, God had a plan. The prophet
Jeremiah read them a letter from their God:
11For surely I know the plans I have for you, says the Lord, plans for
your welfare and not for harm, to give you a future with hope. When you search
for me, you will find me; if you seek me with all your heart…and I will restore
your fortunes and gather you from all the nations and all the places where I
have driven you. (Jer. 29:11, 13-14)
And
when we were in bondage to sin, and unable to free ourselves, God sent for us a
savior, Jesus Christ, who took on our lot and our sin and forged a new freedom
for us.
God
wants us to be free. Couldn’t you tell
that from the story? This is a story
about freedom! And in it, everyone is
freed.
The
slave girl is freed from her demon.
Paul
and Silas are sent to jail, but then in a miraculous earthquake, they and everyone in the jail are freed from
their chains.
The
jailer is freed, along with his whole household, in the waters of baptism.
God
wants us to be free. And God wants us to
work for freedom on behalf of the whole world.
We are liberated in order to become liberators.
As
satisfying as this story is, it’s not wrapped up neatly with a bow. The slave girl doesn’t have a demon, but she
is still a slave. The jailer will have
some hard decisions to make, now that he is a Christian. Will he continue to participate in a system
which locks people up for opposing the exploitation of the Empire?
The
work of liberation is ongoing. Just look
around us.
How
many people are being exploited by the dominant culture of our time?
How
many are literally in jail in this country just because of who they are? Or because they are powerless over
addiction? Jailing people for addiction,
rather than treating them for addiction, is an endless cycle of exploitation. And just like the culture which allowed a
slave girl to be exploited for her demon, the dominant culture of our time has
created wealth for a few out of the demons of the many.
But
God. Wants. Us. To. Be. Free. Free from
our demons and free from being
exploited as we battle our demons.
The
work of liberation is ongoing, and there is plenty of it to do at this time in
our lives together.
There
is also, I am willing to bet, plenty of it to do in each of our lives.
Is
there something keeping you from being free?
An addiction you’re battling? A wrong
that lies unforgiven? An amends you need
to make? Or ask for?
Is
there a relationship in your life that needs healing?
Where
do you need liberation in your own life?
God wants you to be free. God
desires liberation for you, and is willing to walk with you on every step of
the path toward that liberation.
People
of God, hear again the words of the prophet Jeremiah, and know that they are as
true for you as they were for the exiles in Babylon: 11For surely I
know the plans I have for you, says the Lord, plans for your welfare and
not for harm, to give you a future with hope.
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