2022 05 29 Sermon

Sermon for May 29, 2022 Easter 7 C House of Prayer Lutheran Church

Acts 16:16-34; John 17:20-26 “Out of the Mess” Rev. Karl-John N. Stone

We hear another story about St. Paul today from the book of Acts, continuing right after the story we heard last week. Last Sunday we heard, after God frustrated his plans to go to Asia, Paul made it to Philippi where he met a person from Asia—Lydia, who was a “dealer in purple cloth”. Things seemed to be going well, but they got frustrated again pretty quickly. Does that ever happen to you? It’s like you take two steps forward then two steps back.

When you dig into today’s selection from Acts you find a story full of cross-cultural confusion, greed, half-truths, lies, desperation, scapegoating, violence, misinformation, exploitation of the vulnerable, competing notions of how to attain freedom and peace, and situations that bring embarrassment or shame to people. In short, it’s not that different from today! And, like it was 2,000 years ago, people today are also looking for a different and better way. To paraphrase the jailer’s question, which we hear in Acts 16:30 today: “Ladies and Gentlemen, how do we get out of this mess?”

But before we get to the jailer, we hear about a slave-girl. And this interaction I think qualified as one of Paul’s failures. Paul and Silas met her one day while going to the “place of prayer” where they had recently met Lydia. But rather than being an accomplished businesswoman like Lydia, this poor slave-girl was exploited and marginalized. She had a “spirit of divination”—so she was someone the Greeks in Philippi would have consulted like people today might consult a psychic, a fortune-teller, or a tarot card reader—someone people consulted to predict the future. The girl did not benefit from this particular skill set because she was a slave and her owners made lots of money from her. She was not so much a person in their eyes as their golden ATM machine.

She followed Paul around for many days crying out “These men are slaves of the Most High God, who proclaim to you a way of salvation.” To our ears, what she said sounds true, but being a Greek she would have been referring not to the one God, but to the Greek god Zeus. Maybe that’s why Paul got so annoyed at her, because she was misrepresenting what he was really about. Even so, here she was, taking an interest in Paul, clearly a person in need of help and hope, but Paul dismisses her. He orders the spirit of divinization out of the girl in the name of Jesus—and out it comes. But this leaves the girl more vulnerable than she was before—and she just drops out of the story. I have to wonder, did she survive now that she wasn’t making money for her owners? Later, when Paul went to Athens, he would learn how to find common ground with followers of Greek religion, but not yet.

Maybe his failure taught him something, but before that could happen the slave owners were going to teach Paul their own lesson, because Paul has taken away their means of easy money. As a cover for their greed, they accuse Paul and Silas of violating the religious and political customs of the city, and have them arrested. At this point in the story we hear about a fact of everyday life in the Roman Empire—brutal violence as the means of enforcing the “Pax Romana” (the “Peace of Rome”). Paul and Silas are attacked by the crowd, stripped of their clothing, beaten with rods, flogged severely, thrown in prison, bound by the feet. This violence is reported matter-of-factly—something so common, it is simply expected by people who have become numb to it. Many of us may feel similarly in our own day—numb to the violence we hear about almost every day. Even as the violence is shocking and disturbing, it is no longer surprising, and that in itself is shocking and disturbing.

I was in seminary when we learned of the shootings at Columbine High School in Colorado. We could scarcely believe, 23 years ago, that such domestic terror could even happen, let alone ever happen again. But tragically, we know how things have gone since then, right down to the recent shootings in Milwaukee, the attack of a white supremacist in Buffalo, and now an 18-year-old in Uvalde, Texas. How do we get out of this mess? I have my opinions about the best way to reduce gun violence and increase gun safety, and I’m sure you do to. I wish I could tell you that I knew an effective way forward that enough people could agree on, but I don’t. I do know that the way things are isn’t working, and a different response is needed.

And I also know that, even in the midst of senseless tragedy, the crucified Christ meets us in the middle of the mess, to grieve with us and to walk with us towards new life. Even when things are a mess, we have Christ in our midst and we have each other—and when the earthquake shakes the foundations, we have freedom in God’s grace to start the holy work of healing; because transformation in Christ happens when we make authentic connections with other people.

This kind of authentic connection as a means of healing is what Paul and Silas failed to do with the slave girl. But God gave them another chance with the jailer—the very jailer who was charged with shutting them in prison. After an earthquake shook their prison so violently that the doors flung open and everyone’s chains broke apart, then the real miracle occurred. They stayed and offered themselves for the healing of others. The jailer was about to kill himself—he knew a prison break violated the dictates of the Pax Romana, and that his penalty would be torture or death by his superiors. So Paul shouted, “Do not harm yourself, we are all here!” We are going to use the freedom God has given us to offer healing and hope to you.

“OK then, gentlemen,” said the jailer, “tell me how to get out of this mess!” Paul’s answer: “Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and you will be saved.” The jailer did believe and was baptized. But what was the effect of this newfound faith and salvation in his life? He gained a whole new perspective on his place in the world, and how to be a vessel of real peace.

Rather than enforcing a “Pax Romana” by making people numb to the violence all around, Paul and Silas and the jailer—and you and me—are free in Christ to live by a different set of values: to have our hearts not broken apart but broken open in compassion; to care for each person as a person of equal worth; to regard each person you meet as a beloved child of God. To realize that your value is not determined by your failures or your successes, but by an eternal value won for you, and for all, by the Christ who willing gave himself on the cross, and who (with wounds and scars still in place) rose again to offer healing and hope to the world.

I think the jailer so quickly embraced this new vision of how to live because it was much more hopeful and life-giving than the alternative way based on greed and violence in the Pax Romana. The message of Christ brought healing and a new perspective to the jailer, and right away he set about giving Paul and his companions healing in return—he washed their wounds, set food before them, and rejoiced with his entire household.

As it was for them, so it is for us: hope comes when we open our hearts to give and receive healing and feeding. Authentic connections made with other people lead to joy; and we seek these things together in the name of Jesus—those are the first steps on the way out of this mess. Amen.