7th Sunday of Easter: May 12, 2013

7^th Sunday of Easter, May 12, 2013

Acts 16:16-34

PREACHER: Pastor Carrie Smith

Grace and peace to you from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. Amen.

A pastor-friend recently told me the story of going to church for the first time when she was about sixteen years old. A classmate had invited her to join the bell choir, knowing she was a musician and could easily follow the music. So she went, feeling skeptical and nervous and out of place, but hoping to hear something that would change her generally negative opinion of Christians and church.

The lesson of the day was about Jesus and the feeding of the five thousand. The preacher stepped up to the pulpit, and my friend tuned in with anxious anticipation to her very first sermon. And then the preacher began with: “Let’s get one thing straight. Jesus didn’t really feed all those people.”

The sermon went on to describe all the possible ways this miracle didn’t really happen, and how the story should teach us to share, but let’s not take it too seriously.

Well, the way my friend, the future pastor, tells it, she tuned out immediately after those first sentences. That sermon merely confirmed what she already thought about Christians: that they were all hypocrites; that they didn’t really believe the stuff in the Bible anyway; and all preachers were there to do was tell you how to live your life and make you feel guilty. Done, done, and done.

She didn’t go back to a church for a long while after that.

I’m telling you this story today, because as we consider the story of Paul and Silas and their dramatic escape from prison, I think it’s important that we’re careful not to over-spiritualize or take away the power of their story of imprisonment and freedom.

You saw the basic story played out just minutes ago, but let’s recap: Paul and Silas were thrown into prison for preaching about Jesus and especially for freeing a slave-girl possessed by a spirit. While in prison, they inspired the other inmates by continuing to pray and to praise God even from behind bars. When a huge earthquake shook the foundations of the prison, opening the cell doors and freeing them from their chains, the jailer was poised to kill himself out of fear of what his employers would do when they saw the prisoners had escaped. But Paul called out “Stop!” and announced that he, Silas and all the other prisoners were still there! The jailer, confused and in awe at this turn of events, fell to his knees and asked how he, too, could be saved. Paul and Silas not only answered that question, but followed him home, teaching his entire household about the Good News. That very night, the jailer and his whole house—slave and free—were baptized! And then…they had a party. All good stories should end with a party!

Now this is a story that grabs us, demanding our attention, complete with spirit possession, exorcism, false imprisonment, prison conversions and a mass baptism! Sounds like God’s own summer blockbuster to me! But, imagine for a moment hearing a sermon on this Gospel story that went like this:

“Let’s get one thing straight, folks: Paul and Silas weren’t really freed from prison during an earthquake sent by God! And even if they were, no one believes that all the prisoners would stick around afterwards or that the jailer wouldn’t kill them. This is merely a story about freedom from sins and bad habits. It’s about how if we believe the right things about Jesus we will feel free! But let’s not take it too seriously.”  Amen?

NO! Not amen! If preaching is about proclaiming God’s Good News for our Bad Situations, then exactly who is this good news for? I don’t need to come to sit in a pew for an hour on Sunday to hear how to feel free. I feel free when I have a real day off. I feel free on the last day of school. I feel free when I lose a few pounds or pay off the department store credit card.

But if it’s a beautiful spring morning, and I’ve come to a brick building to sit on wooden pews next to people I don’t even know, I want to hear about real freedom!

I want to hear about three girls, kidnapped and held captive for ten years, who gained freedom this week in Cleveland. I want to hear how one of those girls, Amanda Berry, said to the 911 operator after being rescued by a neighbor: “I've been kidnapped. And I've been missing for 10 years. And I'm here! I'm free now!”

I want to hear about Reshma, the Bangladeshi woman found alive after 17 days in the rubble of that illegally-built garment factory, who called out, “Brother, save me!” and then, when they pulled her free, “I never thought I would see sunlight again.”

I don’t know about you, but these days I desperately need to hear more real stories of freedom and liberation, of prisons broken open and slaves going free! I need to hear about people finding freedom from the prisons of addiction, of abuse, of guilt, and of shame. I need to hear about the poor and the elderly, the unemployed and the uninsured, finding freedom from systems of oppression we silently endorse.

I am standing here today to proclaim to you real freedom for real people, through the love of God in Christ Jesus. I take that seriously, and I hope you do, too.

We don’t come to hear the Word of God to make us feel better or to be entertained. We don’t come to the table because that piece of bread and that sip of wine can take the place of the Mother’s Day brunch we’re going to later today.

No, we come here each Sunday as a community, with all our differences and all our disagreements, from as many backgrounds and viewpoints as there are pews in this room, because we are hungry for freedom, and we know it is here for us in the water and in the Word, in the bread and in the cup we share.

Paul and Silas found freedom when an earthquake shook the very foundations of the prison. In the same way, we come here to be reminded of the day when the cross of Christ shook the very foundations of the world.

That event, when Jesus, fully human and fully divine, went willingly to the cross for the sake of people imprisoned by sin, turned the whole world upside down. The love of God we see when we see Jesus on the cross frees us today from the burden of trying to be perfect. Today we are set free from our past mistakes! Today the cross of Christ is stronger than the bars of injustice! Today God’s love tears down the walls of hate we love to build!

The cross of Christ is the earth-shaking, prison-leveling event which this very day breaks open our hearts and frees us to love extravagantly, just as God loves us through Jesus Christ. The cross breaks open cell after cell after cell, setting free the people of God to live lives that bear witness to the love of Jesus Christ.

This is real freedom for real people!

And…this freedom is not for us to keep to ourselves.

It was Martin Luther who taught the church about the responsibilities that come with freedom in his work “On the Freedom of a Christian”. He wrote:

“A Christian is a perfectly free lord of all, subject to none.


AND


A Christian is a perfectly dutiful servant of all, subject to all.”

In other words, through Christ we are perfectly free and must answer to no one.

But, because we are free in Christ, we are also, at the same time, perfectly bound to our neighbors. Our lives are not our own! We, who were made free through Christ, are now “slaves of the Most High God” as the servant-girl called Paul and Silas. And being slaves of the Most High God means we are forever linked to the lives of others.

Because we are free, we are bound to look past the white picket fences in our communities and to care what’s happening next door, whether we live in Cleveland or in Crystal Lake.

Because we are free, we are bound to consider how the $5.99 shirt we purchase is imprisoning workers in a foreign land.

Because we are free, we are bound, through the cross of Christ, to every prisoner, to every forgotten child, to every sex worker, and to every human being deprived of dignity and liberty.

As Christians made free through the cross of Christ, it is our baptismal call to work for the freedom of all people. It is our duty and our joy to break open screen doors and let free abducted girls from captivity. It is our duty and our joy to use our purchasing power to end slave labor. It is our duty and our joy to speak out against racism, sexism, homophobia, and every wall which separates us from each other.

Sisters and brothers, Jesus prayed that we would be one as he and the Father are one. As we leave this holy place today, I pray that we would indeed be one: of one mind and one heart, living into the freedom we have through Christ. I pray that when we leave this table, strengthened and nourished, forgiven and freed, we will go out boldly speaking God’s words of hope and liberation to all who need to hear them, shaking down walls of injustice, exclusion, and hate wherever they are found.

And now, since we Lutherans can be a quiet bunch, please turn to your neighbor and practice by proclaiming: “Sister (or brother), if the Son makes you free, you are free indeed!”