Christ Lutheran Church

1701 Arroyo Chamiso

Santa Fe, NM 87505-4775

(505) 983-9461

church@clcsantafe.com

  

Sunday, May 16, 2010
Seventh Sunday of Easter

First Reading: Acts 16.16-34

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. 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.

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Harmless Christians:
The Early Church Model

 

+ In nomine Domini.  Amen.

[There were two sermons written for this morning … neither one had much to do with the title above.  I called them ‘Sermon A’ (which was a wonderful didactic lecture and therefore pretty boring) and ‘Sermon B’ (the Sermon I had been working on all week long in my head).  This is Sermon B.]

 

One day this past week I woke up with less than the ideal amount of rest the night before.  I walked outside, retrieved the morning newspaper, make a cup of coffee, sat down at my desk, turned on my computer, checked my email from the night before, decided not to post anything on FaceBook ™ like the things I was reading from the walls of other people who post things for the world to read, like:

 

“Just got up.”

“Didn’t want to get up.”

“Almost didn’t get up.”

“Beautiful day.”

“Ugly day.”

“I hate this day.”

“My dog just turned off the TV.”

 

And so I began my morning ablutions instead.  Things were going pretty well until I realized I had reached for the wrong tube and instead of a delightful Finnish Toothpaste I had acquired in Thunder Bay, Ontario … I had actually squeezed a portion of Sunscreen onto the bristles. 

Deciding that probably my teeth didn’t require SPF 30+, I rinsed the stuff off and began again.

The morning proceeded much like it had begun.  My first place to go that morning was the Division of Motor Vehicles EXPRESS … although having been there for nearly an hour the afternoon before and achieving nothing other than watching people wait and wait and wait … and having left in a huff, I wasn’t all that certain that thing would go any more quickly this morning.

But it only took 12 minutes, and all was going extremely well … the person who told me to “read the first line” in the eye-test machine walked away while I was reading and didn’t hear anything I said …

… and when it came time to “come over here, sit down, look at the camera, and smile!” … I barely had time to straighten my windblown hair, and find an appropriate gaze … I try not to smile at the DMV camera because it always make me look like a Lutheran Terrorist and more than a trifle goofy … but when the woman exclaimed again “Smile!” I sort of did and the result was that I got a Temporary License with a photo of myself with a “deer in the headlights” expression.

And … I’ll have you know, I’m blessed with this now for 8 years (!) L

I felt imprisoned in a week where I was the victim of the ineptitude of others, and (admittedly) myself (remember the toothpaste incident).

+++

I think Paul and Silas (the characters in the First Reading this morning) found themselves feeling that way in Macedonia during the famous “Missionary Journeys.”  They were having a bad day.

They find themselves in prison because Paul had become irritated by the ineptness of a fortune-teller and in a miraculous manner called for the “spirit of divination” to come out of her. 

But there was a problem, goes the story.  She was a slave-girl and her owners were making a lot of money off of her fortune-telling and so they brought charges against Paul and Silas for being Jews and advocating things that “we Romans don’t do here in Macedonia!”

So they are imprisoned, but instead of being sorry for themselves they pray a lot and sing hymns to God and in the middle of doing that an earthquake shook the ground and buildings and the prison doors were opened and the chains holding the prisoners were unloosened from the walls and everybody could go home!  But, for the Jailer that meant he would be tortured and killed for letting the prisoners free and so he was about to kill himself when Paul demanded that he not do that and so – in a pretty fanciful story – the Jailer becomes a follower of Jesus on the spot, takes Paul and Silas home as his guests and everyone in the family becomes a believer.

Next Day the authorities send the police to let Paul and Silas go, but Paul demands an apology because they have been beaten and imprisoned unjustly by the Roman Citizens of Macedonia when Paul and Silas are Roman Citizens themselves and of course such things were not legal … the result being that the authorities do apologize and ask that Paul and Silas go away … which they do … back to Lydia’s house where they teach and preach and do some pastoral counseling and after they’ve healed up a bit, they leave.

+++

It’s hard, sometimes, to see the point of this story beyond just being a great story of what can happen to you if you try to follow Jesus … you end up sometimes irritating people for what seems no reason at all.  It would seem that the life of love lived for others frequently interferes with the agenda others have for their own living.

But curiously, if you read through the story again, just who is imprisoned and who is free?  Think about it, because that is the whole point of the story.

The Slave Girl is enslaved not only to her probably mental-illness, but also to those who take advantage of her disability … and make money off of her disability!?

The Jailer is imprisoned to the tradition of needing to take his own life if the prisoners he is guarding escape.

The authorities are imprisoned to their own misinterpretation of being a Roman Citizen, and to the fact that one should not torture another human being anyway … they are imprisoned to their own attachment to torture (… where have we seen that in this new Century?).

In actuality it is those who are supposedly free who are imprisoned and those who are imprisoned who turn out to be free … look at the experience of Paul and Silas … they are so free they don’t try to escape …

[Another ¾ Sermon … i.e. the Sermon which is concluded not at the computer, but in the Pulpit … and differently at each of the two Sunday morning Services.  

[The conclusion made a point that “we are imprisoned so often in our freedoms … think of free market, free enterprise, freedom of speech, freedom of religion … and how often those ‘freedoms’ become anything but freedom … as in the ‘freedom of one mega-corporation to take over other little businesses’ … or the ‘freedom of speech which maligns, denigrates and stirs to anger and hate’ … But actually the freedom that is within this ‘gospel-story’ is the freedom that comes by following Jesus … freedom that is a life lived in love (not hate or anger) for others … that is true freedom, because it makes the other free.]

Deo Gratias (+)

The Rev. Benjamin Larzelere III
Pastor, Christ Lutheran Church
Santa Fe, NM