Easter 7 C/Ascension C May 12, 2013 Family of Christ Lutheran Church Chanhassen, Minnesota Pr Kristie Hennig Acts 16:16-34; Luke 24:44-53 This morning we gather around another dazzling story of the Holy Spirit in action, this time setting the captive free. With its Hollywood action and vivid details, the story about Paul s exorcism of the palm-reading slave-girl and the earthquake that shakes Paul and Silas free from their shackles, might strike us as far-fetched if it hadn t been for the daring escape and rescue of the four kidnapping victims in Cleveland and the revelation of the details of their decade of cruel imprisonment. The two storylines have some eerie parallels. Both stories involve people held by others in captivity, and their miraculous release from bondage. Both stories expose the cruelty of those who use others for their own gratification. Both beg the question, How can humans do such things to one another? To have a slave in a Bible story isn t so surprising, maybe. We understand that slavery was a part and parcel of ancient societies, so it is part of the cultural background of the Bible. But slavery in the 21 st century? A Google search reveals the jaw-dropping statistic that in the world today 1
there are between 12 and 27 million people in slavery and another 200 million in some kind of bondage sex work, bonded labor to pay off ancestors debt, arranged marriage, children forced to beg, to weave carpets and make bricks, and serve as soldiers. Those numbers are so large they numb the sensibilities. But here, now, in front of us on all the networks: three young women in Cleveland, kidnapped, torn from their families when they were 14, 15, and 20 and subjected to the cruelest isolation, the violation of their bodies, mental torture. They lived in constant fear and intimidation, chained, locked away for unending days and nights. Nearly ten years of a living hell. Although the details are different, I think the news out of Ohio helps us empathize with the slave-girl in ancient Philippi... she who was forced to read palms to make her owners rich. After years of being treated like property, she is not only enslaved by her owners; the girl suffers from the enslavement of mental illness, too. We don t know her name and we don t know what happens to her once Paul leaves town, but she along with her sisters in Cleveland -- reminds us of the many nameless women and children who are in need of liberation in our world today. And we know that there are many men women, too who are unjustly imprisoned, 2
including prisoners of conscience and those falsely convicted of crimes. They, too, pray for their chains to be undone. So the story in Acts, while ancient, speaks to us in our time, too because human beings have always had (and will always have) a dark side that rises up to take and to hoard, to subject those who are vulnerable to their will, to their power, because they can. And there will always be some whose darkness is so dark it swallows them whole, and they do unspeakably horrible things. Ariel Castro is in that group. And others who have been in our news very recently. Out of these stories of human depravity, heroes often rise up, too. In this story, Paul rescues the girl from the demon of mental illness by performing an exorcism. The text says it is because he found her hanging-on annoying. Regardless at the name of Jesus, those chains come undone. But there is a consequence for Paul and Silas, who are subjected to public humiliation, beating, and jail. Their sin is that in exorcising the demon out of the palm-reading slave-girl, the girl s owners were denied their ill-gotten livelihood. Bloody and naked, they are thrown into a dark, windowless, airless cell, and their feet are locked into heavy iron stocks. If they had prayed to die right then, no one would blame them. But instead, in the utter darkness, with the other prisoners listening to them, Paul and Silas start praying and singing. What an odd venue and moment for a worship service! 3
No candles, no table, no bright welcome only dank darkness, creepy crawlies, the stench of desperation. What of the listeners, I wonder. How many of them heard good news in the singing? How many scoffed? Did any laugh? How many sobbed? Then, all of a sudden, the earth shakes so violently that the doors of the prison come flying open. The floors must have heaved, because the prisoners chains come undone, too. Usually in an earthquake, people are trapped and crushed; this one opens and liberates instead. Which the jailer did not experience as good news since it looks like the prisoners have all escaped under his watch. He prepares to fall on his sword in shame, when he hears Paul s entreaty: Do not harm yourself, for we are all here. Paul s little sermon on the faith in the One who saves, the faith that liberates is enough to free the jailer from his chains, too. He guides the limping Paul and Silas home to his house for supper and first aid. And with great rejoicing, the jailer and his entire household are baptized, washed by the truth that sets them free. From desperation to rescue. From captivity to freedom. From death to life. 4
And for you What do freedom, rescue, and life look like for you? By the end of the story in Acts, everyone who at first appeared to be free the slave girl s owners, the judges, the jailer is a slave to something. And everyone who first appeared to be enslaved the poor girl, Paul, and Silas is free. 1 What about you? Where are you in this story? Are you a slave or are you free? We are proud of our freedoms in this great country of ours. We cherish the freedom to think, to speak, to publish, to worship, to preach, to assemble, to vote our conscience. As people of means and abundant opportunity, we are free to choose from a numbing array of choices, but what is that freedom doing to our peace of mind? We are free but also terribly driven, and terribly lonely, many of us. Long hours at our jobs; gigantic car and mortgage payments; college bills; anxious, over-programmed children; intense competition for grades and awards and W s on the fields of play This is what we do with our freedom. Jesus offers us a different kind of freedom, a different kind of power. Sitting at the Father s right hand, putting in a good word every chance he gets, 1 I thank Will Willimon for this insight, from his Interpretation commentary on Acts, 140. 5
Jesus offers freedom as a part of becoming whole God making everything right out of love for us, keeping us safe which is what being saved really means. Not a piece of heaven someday if the points tally up. But wholeness, forgiveness, health, freedom from all that would harm us, all that would enslave us right now. On the cross of Jesus, for the sake of the world God loves. And we experience that salvation, that freedom, in the Word of God spoken and sung, splashing in the font, sharing in table fellowship, delighting in friendship and service with others in Christ s body, the church. Christ invites each of us today to let go of all that binds us, and embrace the freedom and life God offers. In ascending, Christ passed the baton on to us, his disciples. He s counting on us to continue the race he started, looking out for others on the track, passing on the good news. But the hard truth is that not all are free today. Not all with power use it wisely and well. Please pray with me. We pray for those who are bound in fear of others who seek to dominate them. we pray for those who are caught up in pain, who are trapped in the suffering of illness or anxiety, 6
who seek freedom through peace of mind, who long for a life supported and encouraged by others. we pray for those who are trapped in conflict, in violence that is not of their own making. we pray for those who are snared in abuse, in unhealthy and unloving relationships, those trafficked and abused by others who lie about their worth and value. we pray for all people whose living is not the fullness you intend, who are held back by another s power. And we pray too for their oppressors, those who abuse power and subject the vulnerable, that they may repent and experience your forgiveness the power to heal their brokenness. Hear us as we pray for all who are bound up in life. Use us to break the chains. For Jesus sake and in the power of your Holy Spirit. Amen. 7
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