Seventh Easter
Acts 16:16-34; Revelation 22:12-4, 16-17, 20-21; John 17:20-26
As many of you know, Pastor Chris and I spent this past week in Washington DC attending a preaching conference. We listened to an average of three sermons and two lectures each day. After five days of sitting in a pew I want you to know that I am really glad to be standing before you this morning. After a week of sermons that ranged in focus from the prophetically challenging message to the contemplatively reflective meditation, I find myself this morning feeling a bit uncomfortable about the direction my words should take. In a way I suppose I am feeling what Jesus felt in our gospel text when he prays for the disciples. Jesus seems to be struggling to define the wholeness. the oneness. That he would wish for his disciples. Jesus knew too well that this unity held far greater possibility for the future then any of the disciples could imagine or see. Yet Jesus also speaks of those who do not yet know him, who have yet to discover the unity and oneness that holds all creation together.
But this is not our only text for this day. In a wholly other direction we have the first lesson from the Acts of the Apostles where we hear the recounting of the story of Paul and Silas. After some success in proclaiming the story of Jesus, these two early missionaries find themselves in Phillipi, a very Roman and non-religious city. The tale that unfolds is strangely unsettling in light of recent news stories. We need no great imagination. The descriptions produce a too easily recognized image. Prisoners stripped of their clothing, beaten and abused. humiliated and then thrown into prison, chained and bound. Even as I offer these few descriptive words each of us begins to conjure forth images that have disturbed us the last few weeks. Yet the images our text refer to of prisoners stripped and beaten have nothing to do with our American embarrassment over incidents in Iraq. Still the language of prisons is too close to us at this time. I will be honest. When I first read this text a week or so ago the Iraqi prison reports were just beginning to be printed. While it happens time and again. I am always a little amazed when a lesson from our lectionary series, the texts we read each Sunday, speaks so closely to events in our contemporary life setting.
These lessons were established as a lectionary series to be read on this Sunday decades ago. The fact that they speak of treatment of prisoners in descriptions straight out of the morning papers may say something about the prison mentality of humanity. Through the centuries the role of jailer and prisoner has changed so little that a text description written centuries ago rings to true to this day. Prisoner and jailer, both locked into roles that threaten their humanity. Jesus prayed that we might be one, yet the headlines establish again and again that we are a people divided. Divided politically, socially, economically, ethnically, religiously, sexually, intellectually, environmentally, regionally, globally. Strive as we might to stand for the good and the just and the true we find ourselves unable to be the Paul or Silas that we might want to be. For that would mean being a prisoner for Christ, a noble calling but most of us have long since been trapped by the ordinary forces of life into other roles. The desire to fit in, to protect what we have even if it diminishes another defines our divided place in the world.
Paul and Silas were arrested. Whether we like it or not, there is a tendency to assume that anyone found in a prison must be there for a reason. We would like to believe that good people just don't get sent to prison. But in the days of the early Christian community not unlike many places in the world today it was quite common for those who we would have considered to be good people to be arrested for what they taught and believed. In our story for today from the Acts of the Apostles, the great missionary, Paul, gets himself arrested after he heals a slave girl. Now the story is told with a certain irony since the girl is a slave who has been possessed in some way that causes her to see the future. A palm reader or psychic is what we assume. And she uses her psychic powers to identify Paul and those with him as the slaves of God. She apparently does this so incessantly that Paul finally can't stand her shrieking any more and heals her. The slave of the Most High releases a slave to a lesser power and in the process makes himself very unpopular with the owners of the slave girl. The slave girl had been a cash cow for her Roman owners. Her curious psychic abilities produced a good income for her owners. Healing her removed not only her value but their income. And it is not wise to mess with another person's source of income. The Roman owners have Paul arrested. They bring charges and the end result is Paul being stripped, beaten and thrown into the prison cell along with his companion Silas. These are men of great faith and they continue to witness to that faith in prayers and the singing of hymns.
And then it happens. the jail begins to shake, rattle and roll. An earthquake springs the doors of the prison and breaks the chains that held the prisoners. The prison guard rushes to see what has happened and when he sees the cell doors all open he assumes the worst. Under the laws of Justinian the jailer was responsible for the prisoners. And the escape of a prisoner usually meant the forfeiture of the jailer's life, so the jailer drew his sword. but Paul calls to him and assures him that no one has escaped. No one escaped. Who sits through an earthquake? What possible purpose could it serve?
I learned about a new game this week that I have to recommend to you. The game is called "tornado monopoly." I learned about it from Pastor Susan Briehl at the preaching conference Pastor Chris and I attended. Pastor Briehl is a Lutheran pastor from the Northwestern United States. She tells how when she was growing up her family and the Chamberlain family used to get together on the weekends. Both families had a number of children whose ages stair stepped together such that the youngest children would play wildly with each other in one room while the four older children played "tornado monopoly." Tornado monopoly was played like any other game of monopoly with everyone going around the game board collecting their $200 each time they passed GO and buying and selling property and hotels. The game progressed pretty much as usual until someone began to find that their money was depleted and their property was all mortgaged and they were about to lose. At that moment the player could suddenly yell "Tornado" and everyone would grab wildly for money and property and hotels and a whole new game was created letting those who were almost out of the game back in. This strategy proved to be especially valuable when the evening wore on and the parents would yell down. "We'll leave as soon as your game is finished." And the kids would yell back "Okay" as someone else whispered, "Tornado."
We all can relate to this miraculous game that allowed for new beginnings. But what Pastor Briehl remembers especially well was the time when she was 12 years old and playing with the older kids and she was winning. Her older brother and his friend Tom were languishing in jail while she sailed around the game board collecting her $200 and buying up the choices pieces of property. She had houses and hotels. She was pumped up with power and money and property. She was winning big time when suddenly her brother yelled "Tornado!" and she screamed at the top of her lungs "No!" She scooped up her deeds and money and clutched them tight against her. She knew she wanted the game to go on but she also knew she wanted to win. She clutched everything she had as tightly as she could and then she remembers her brother Bill saying to her, "Let it go, Susan. Susan, let it go. We'll all have more fun if you'll let it go."
Power, money, property. Life can be so good. The patterns and the routines can be so pleasing as we gather the things we value and treasure, create our homes and families, secure our place against all that threatens. No one likes to lose. But the point of Tornado Monopoly, the point that the young Susan hadn't understood, was that the game has no winner. The purpose is to allow all to play and play and play.
Jesus prayed that we might be one even as he was one with God. The purpose is not that we should be superior to others. But that we might recognize our common humanity as created by God. The One God over all. Paul and Silas knew that. there was no prisoner and jailer to them. There was only that which gives life. And an earthquake that shattered one set of locks and chains revealing the other powers of law that threatened life, the very life of the jailer. But love knows no bonds. Love does not clutch after just its own life or scoop up power to itself. Paul and Silas could not abandon the jailer to death. They stayed in the cell, now open, and the jailer and his whole family discovered a new life baptized into Christ who makes us one in Him. A Christian jailer. Imagine how that changed the prison. A person of power who sees their oneness with all humanity. No enemies to overwhelm. Only others who have been imprisoned by their own lust for power and domination. Jesus said, "Love your enemies and pray for them." Nice idea but most of us see that as about as comfortable as someone calling out "Tornado." We clutch to those proofs we have of our power. We become defined by our enemies and they by us. And Jesus prayed that we might be one. "Let it go. We'll all have more fun."
This past Monday while we were in Washington DC, Pastor Chris and I stopped by the Lutheran Offices of Governmental Affairs. If you want to look them up on-line they are simply LOGA.org. Many people around Washington refer to them as LOGA. The offices are less than two blocks from the Capital Building that houses Congress. There is nothing glamorous or impressive about these offices. They are basically desks, computers, telephones and lots of paper. And a very small staff with the very big responsibility of striving to remind those with power to use it wisely and for the good of all people. We talked with the director and staff about legislative priorities and agendas, then Chris asked, "What have been some of your latest victories?" There was a pause and great silence as staff looked at each other and then the director said, "The victories now are more often what is not lost rather than what has been gained or accomplished. We have preserved food programs for children that were marked to be cut. We have kept funding for prenatal care to pregnant teenagers. We kept congress from cutting funding to programs providing shelter to the homeless. And we just got enough votes to sustain funding of preschool and day care programs created to allow single parents to work as part of the welfare reform package but had been cut in the leave no child behind bill. The only new appropriations of new money is being spent for weapons, war supplies and troops." Power. money. property. It is difficult to walk around Washington DC and not think in those terms. We walked out of the LOGA offices and stood for a moment looking at the great dome of the Capitol, then we turned to walk down the mall and passed one of the hundreds of homeless who fill the parks of Washington DC. A voice repeated in my head. "Tornado. Let it go, that they may be one."
Amen.