Matthew 10:16-20
“See, I am sending you out like sheep into the midst of wolves; so be
wise as serpents and innocent as doves. Beware of them, for they will hand you
over to councils and flog you in their synagogues; and you will be dragged
before governors and kings because of me, as a testimony to them and the
Gentiles. When they hand you over, do not worry about how you are to speak or
what you are to say; for what you are to say will be given to you at that time;
for it is not you who speak, but the Spirit of your Father speaking through
you.
Matthew 11:28-30
“Come to me, all you that are weary and are carrying heavy burdens, and I
will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me; for I am gentle
and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls.
For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.”
Matthew 28:16-20
Now the eleven disciples went to Galilee, to the mountain to which Jesus
had directed them. When they saw him, they worshiped him; but some doubted. And
Jesus came and said to them, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been
given to me. Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in
the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit,
and teaching them to obey everything that I have commanded you. And
remember, I am with you always, to the end of the age.”
Acts 16:11-40
We set sail from Troas and took a straight course to Samothrace, the
following day to Neapolis, and from there to Philippi, which is a leading city
of the district of Macedonia and a Roman colony. We remained in this city for
some days. On the sabbath day we went outside the gate by the river, where we
supposed there was a place of prayer; and we sat down and spoke to the women
who had gathered there. A certain woman named Lydia, a worshiper of God, was
listening to us; she was from the city of Thyatira and a dealer in purple
cloth. The Lord opened her heart to listen eagerly to what was said by Paul.
When she and her household were baptized, she urged us, saying, “If you have
judged me to be faithful to the Lord, come and stay at my home.” And she
prevailed upon us.
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. While 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.” She
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.
But 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. When they had brought them before the magistrates, they said,
“These men are disturbing our city; they are Jews and are advocating customs
that are not lawful for us as Romans to adopt or observe.” The crowd joined in
attacking them, and the magistrates had them stripped of their clothing and
ordered them to be beaten with rods. After they had given them a severe
flogging, they threw them into prison and ordered the jailer to keep them
securely. Following these instructions, he put them in the innermost cell and
fastened their feet in the stocks.
About midnight Paul and Silas were praying and singing hymns to God, and
the prisoners were listening to them. Suddenly 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. When 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. But Paul shouted in
a loud voice, “Do not harm yourself, for we are all here.” The jailer called
for lights, and rushing in, he fell down trembling before Paul and Silas. Then
he brought them outside and said, “Sirs, what must I do to be saved?” They
answered, “Believe on the Lord Jesus, and you will be saved, you and your
household.” They spoke the word of the Lord to him and to all who were in his
house. At the same hour of the night he took them and washed their wounds; then
he and his entire family were baptized without delay. He 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.
When morning came, the magistrates sent the police, saying, “Let those
men go.” And the jailer reported the message to Paul, saying, “The magistrates
sent word to let you go; therefore come out now and go in peace.” But Paul
replied, “They have beaten us in public, uncondemned, men who are Roman
citizens, and have thrown us into prison; and now are they going to discharge
us in secret? Certainly not! Let them come and take us out themselves.” The
police reported these words to the magistrates, and they were afraid when they
heard that they were Roman citizens; so they came and apologized to them. And
they took them out and asked them to leave the city. After leaving the prison
they went to Lydia's home; and when they had seen and encouraged the brothers
and sisters there, they departed.
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Paul was
no stranger to natural disasters. Back when he was known as Saul, he was a
fierce opponent to the followers of Christ. The book of Acts tells us he was
“breathing threats and murder against disciples of the Lord”. On his way to
Damascus, to round up followers of Christianity, of the way, he was struck to
the ground by something that was described like a bolt of lightning. It was in
the midst of that experience that he encountered Jesus Christ, asking him why he,
Saul, Saul was persecuting Jesus. He was temporarily blinded, and was led into
the city by his traveling companions, where he had been instructed by Jesus to
go. It wasn’t until three days later, when one of Christ’s disciples, Ananias,
was told to go lay hands on Saul, this enemy, this persecutor of the faith,
that Saul’s sight is restored. Ananias is told to pray for Saul, to heal him.
And it was then that we are told that “something like scales fell off his
eyes”, and that he was filled with the Holy Spirit. From that point on, Saul
became known as Paul, and he traveled all over the region, proclaiming that
Jesus is Lord to both Jews and Gentiles.
So when we
enter into today’s story from Acts, Paul and Silas have been thrown into
prison, bound and shackled, because they have disrupted the livelihood of a
couple of fortune tellers, having freed their slave-girl from her work in
support of them. So they are imprisoned, but we read that at midnight, as they
are singing and praising God, there is another natural disaster – this time an
earthquake. But it is not the kind of earthquake that causes destruction and
devastation, like the kinds that were experienced this past week in Ecuador and
Japan. This earthquake is described by Brian McLaren, the author of our
year-long congregational study, as “an earthquake of liberation”. Because it
didn’t take down the structure of the prison, but it shook the foundation in a
way that opened the prison gates and all the shackles that bound the prisoners.
Not just Paul and Silas, but all the prisoners.
So I would
like us to consider today the aftereffects of this earthquake, and of
earthquakes and other natural disasters like these – the things that shake the
foundations of our lives – and what happens next – both near term and long
term. What is the consequence of the transforming moments in our lives? How do
they occur, and how are we transformed by them?
This
earthquake that we read about this morning, the one that freed Paul and Silas,
might well had been the moment of escape that they could have been praying for.
After all, if we were in prison, and something like an earthquake gave us our
opportunity to break free, to cut loose and run, who among us wouldn’t do just
that? But what we hear is that not only Paul and Silas, but also the other
prisoners who had been listening to them sing and praise God just a few moments
before, all stayed where they were. So when the jailer came in and, seeing what
happened, drew the immediate conclusion that he preferred death to whatever
punishment was coming to him for the escape of the prisoners, Paul and Silas
stop him. Rather than take immediate action to save their own skin, the
immediate aftershock of this earthquake is to use their situation to not only
save the jailer from death, but also to witness to him in a way that leads to
him asking to be baptized.
Paul and
Silas were freed from the prison – and they were freed for God’s work. They
were not freed for the purpose of their own preservation, but rather to save
another – in this case the jailer. They set aside their own personal priority
to give of themselves to another. This was the aftereffect of this earthquake
of liberation.
It’s
similar to Saul’s first experience of Christ – that lightning strike. The
aftereffect was that his sight was transformed – he began to see the world in a
new way. And that transformation was not simply a benefit to him – it was the
start of a life of many trials for him, as he proclaimed the risen Christ as
Lord and Savior all over the world. As he wrote about the trials he endured, he
considered them all joy for the saving love of Jesus Christ. He was freed from
a life of hate and persecuting others, and freed for a life of proclaiming
Christ, even with all the risk and persecution he would endure in the process.
So what
about us? What sorts of earthquake moments have we personally experienced? What
sorts of life-shaking experiences have happened to us? And how have their
aftereffects brought liberation? What have we been freed from? And what are we
being freed for?
Perhaps it
has been a great personal loss that has shaken your foundation. Perhaps your
life’s plans haven’t worked out the way you expected. It usually takes
something totally unexpected to cause us to reexamine our lives, to be open for
transformation.
We tend to
think of coming to a place of faith as a comforting or pleasant experience. But
more often than not, it involves hitting rock bottom in some way, shape, or
form. Until our foundation is shaken in a way that causes us to let go of
control of our own lives, and to acknowledge that God is at work in the world
and in our lives in ways beyond our own control and understanding, we are not
open to the sort of transformation that Christ brings to us. We are not aware
of the earthquakes of liberation that are happening all around us, if only we
have eyes to see.
Once we’ve
experienced that liberating experience, we need to be prepared for the
aftershocks, the near-term and long-term effects. How will our lives be
transformed? For Paul, it was a 180 degree shift from persecuting Christians to
bringing more and more people to the saving love of Christ Jesus. It was Paul
and Silas sticking around when the prison gates opened, to protect the life of
the jailer, not themselves, which ultimately caused the jailer to see Christ’s
saving love as something he wanted for himself and his family – seeing it in
the self-giving actions of these followers of Christ.
And how do
we know what to do once we are transformed? Jesus gives us the answer in our
gospel texts today.
· Don’t
worry bout what you will say; the Holy Spirit will give it to you, because it’s
not you speaking, but God’s spirit speaking through you.
· Take my
burden upon you, for it is easy and light. If you learn from me to be gentle
and humble in your heart, you will find rest for your souls.
· Remember,
I am with you always. All authority has been given to me, so go and teach
others my commandments – to love God with everything you have, and to love your
neighbors as yourself.
When we
trust in God to work in us, we can step out in faith and know that God will
work with our most timid and uncertain efforts, to bring about God’s will in
God’s time.
Yesterday
during worship at the Presbytery meeting, the Rev. Bryan Smith of Geneva
Presbyterian Church, in Canton, told us about a transformational experience he
had in 2001, when he read in the Detroit Free Press that his community, Canton
did not recognize Martin Luther King Jr.’s birthday. This was not news to him,
but in the reading of that story, the Holy Spirit moved him in a way that
compelled him to find a way to do something about it. He told about going to
City Council along with another pastor, and how each of them spoke, and how in
comparing notes later, they realized how the council, which was all white, had
listened politely to the other pastor, who is African American, but how the
same council had treated Bryan, who is white, disrespectfully, challenging his
statements, and ultimately dismissing them. Rev. Smith said he and his
colleague acknowledged two things from this, upon further reflection – first,
that they had taken Rev. Smith seriously, and not his colleague, which is why
they had expressed their disagreement to him; and second, that the sort of
disrespect that Bryan had experienced and was so angry about, was the type of
disrespect that his colleague experienced most of the time. Rev. Smith said to
us yesterday, “I had an expectation that I should be treated respectfully. This
was an expectation my African-American clergy colleague was not able to hold in
the same way, because of his different life experience.”
This was
an earthquake for Bryan – and it was an earthquake of liberation for him. Over
the following years, both he and his congregation found themselves becoming
more and more liberated from the perceptive filters of a mostly-white
community, as they actively sought to listen for understanding to stories and
life experiences that were different from their own, during authentic
conversations about racism with persons of color. They began a Congregational
Anti-Racism team. Over time they became recognized in the community as a safe
space for such conversations. As the years went on, people of color began
attending and joining the church. Rev. Smith told about a phone call he
received from a Canton resident who said, I don’t attend your church, but I want
you to know that your congregation has become the conscience of our community.
What an
aftereffect to the earthquake of liberation they experienced – to be now known
as the conscience of the community.
The
prophet Jeremiah said to the people of Israel who were living in exile in
Babylon:
“Jer. 29:4
Thus says the LORD of hosts, the God of Israel, to all the exiles whom I have
sent into exile from Jerusalem to Babylon:
Jer. 29:5
Build houses and live in them; plant gardens and eat what they produce.
Jer. 29:6
Take wives and have sons and daughters; take wives for your sons, and give your
daughters in marriage, that they may bear sons and daughters; multiply there,
and do not decrease.
Jer. 29:7
But seek the welfare of the city where I have sent you into exile, and pray to
the LORD on its behalf, for in its welfare you will find your welfare.
Seek the welfare of the city where I
have sent you, and pray to the Lord on its behalf, for in its welfare you will
find your welfare.
How shall we seek the welfare of our
own community? How shall we recognize where we have been
liberated, by earthquake or trauma or whatever call to change has been brought
upon us, and how shall we humbly accept and receive the transformation that God
is providing for us?
Do not be
conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your minds, Paul
said to the church in Rome. Do this so that you may discern what is the will of
God – what is good and acceptable and perfect.
The
starting point of our congregation discerning the will of God, which is the
work that New Beginnings is taking us through, is for us to humbly accept and
receive the transformation that God is calling us to – the renewal of our
minds, the removal of scales from our eyes, the release of our bonds of fear
and judgment, the putting on of clothes of compassion, kindness, and love.
Accepting all this as the transformative, liberating earthquake of Christ’s
resurrection is what leads us to the paths of righteousness for Christ’s sake,
in Christ’s name, through the power of the Holy Spirit. May it be so for us
today, tomorrow, and always.
