Would the Real Prisoner Please Stand Up?
Rev. Eugene N. Nelson, Jr.
The Community Church of Sebastopol
May 16, 2010
Acts 16:16-34
Do you recall, among all the events during this year’s Holy Week, the arrest of members of a Michigan militia group that called itself the Hutaree? According to the FBI, the group was plotting to kill police officers and then attack the resulting funeral processions in an attempt to provoke a battle that would herald the end of time – the final great battle before the second coming of Jesus. It all sounded kind of like a twisted interpretation of the end-of-the-world theology we find in the “Left Behind” series of novels. It was all very disturbing on any number of levels, but perhaps what was most disturbing to me was that all media references to Hutaree and its violent plot referred to it as a Christian group. People plotting to assassinate law enforcement officers in the name of Jesus. Apparently the group’s website extensively quoted Jesus and other Christian scripture, and referred to its members as “Christian warriors.” And so, since they used Christian language to justify their paranoid antigovernment violence, the media referred to them as “Christian”. Now Hutaree was an appalling distortion of Christian belief and practice to be sure, but a legitimate Christian group, following the life and teachings of Jesus? Not hardly.
One can quote scripture without living a life that in any way reflects true Christian discipleship. Now I consider myself to be very inclusive and open when it comes to issues of faith, doctrine and practice. In fact, I think that openness is one of the real strengths of this church. I cringe when a Christian leader, such as Franklin Graham, Billy Graham’s son, says that Islam is wicked and evil and that neither Muslims nor Hindus can get to heaven. Such comments don’t do much for understanding and reconciliation among people of faith. But even as I seek to keep open minded, I am also aware that not everyone who claims to be a Christian is really a Christian. Our faith is not infinitely elastic, in doctrine or practice. And I hope saying that doesn’t make me sound too narrow or intolerant. But I think it’s true. Sometimes we really need to distinguish between good religion and bad religion. I mean Christian militia? It’s ludicrous! Just because one uses religious-sounding language, talks about God or Jesus, doesn’t make one a follower of God or Jesus. And I think this is a point which is illustrated in our text for today.
Paul and Silas are in the Roman colony of Philippi, in the province of Macedonia. Paul has founded a Christian community here, a community for which he has great affection. But on this visit, he’s run into a bit of a problem. He and his companions find themselves being followed by an unwanted “groupee,” – a slave girl possessed, our text tells us, with the “spirit of divination.” She can tell fortunes and this gift, if it is a gift, has brought her owners a great deal of money. Her fortune telling has earned them a big fortune. Of course, she has remained a poor slave. She sees Paul and his companions and immediately she, or the spirit within her, cries out, “These men are slaves of he Most High God who proclaim to you a way of salvation.”
Now on one hand, you could say, that’s pretty good free advertising. Here she is proclaiming over and over again that Paul is on a mission from God. It would cost a lot of money to put an add like that in the Philippi Times News day after day. But the trouble is, she is there day after day. And as the days pass, instead of being thankful, Paul is increasingly angry. And so finally he drives the spirit out, he heals her – not out of compassion, not out of sympathy, but out of anger. He’s had enough. “Look, if you don’t shut up, I’m going to heal you! Like it or not.” Probably not classic pastoral bedside manner.
And it’s interesting. Think of Paul’s life, he’s endured beatings, shipwreck, disease, imprisonment, starvation and more. Why would the ranting of this girl upset him so, really causing him to lose his composure? I return to the distinction between good and bad religion. The spirit in this girl, whatever it was, recognized Paul. Remember in the Gospels, the first ones to recognize Jesus are always the demons and evil spirits. It recognized his ministry. But Paul recognized that this was not a spirit that enlarged this girl’s life, that freed her, that opened her to new possibilities. In fact, it kept her confined and suppressed and quite literally enslaved. Here we have a situation where the spirit uses all the right language, but to what end? I think Paul sees the girl’s situation as one where religious language, religious faith, is being used for corrupt purposes. She is being harmed by all this. And so, finally he’s had enough. He gets angry – he heals her – he frees her. Good news, right? Unless, of course, you happen to be one of her owners. In a blink of an eye, they lose their source of income. They had used her affliction to get rich Now she was free, but her freedom means that an unjust economic arrangement has been overturned. Funny what religion can do. So what do they do? They have Paul and Silas hauled into court and accuse them of subversion. These “Jews” – little first century anti-Semitism – “these Jews” are threatening our social order, better to make that argument, I suppose, than come right out and say that religion is threatening their financial self interest.
But getting back to good and bad religion. It’s Interesting how Paul’s proclamation of freedom, of transformation, of new life completely upsets the status quo, turns conventional wisdom upside down. Look Paul, we don’t mind a little religion – that’s fine, until it starts interfering with the way we do business around here…until those who are slaves start thinking about being free. “You’ll know the truth and the truth will make you free.” said Jesus. Just another anti-establishment subversive preacher, I suppose. Amazing how religion can turn things upside down. So Paul and Silas are flogged, dragged off bleeding to jail, tossed in the dungeon in stocks, their ankles chained to the floor. We know how to deal with subversive preachers around here. Let’s see what they have to say about freedom now.
Beaten, jailed, their lives threatened, their ministry seemingly over. Pretty hopeless – no wonder Mom told me not to be a preacher – what are you going to do now? About midnight, Paul and Silas were praying and singing hymns to God and the prisoners were listening to them…” What was that?” Beaten to within an inch of their lives, not knowing what tomorrow might bring, they decided it was a good time to have a hymn sing in jail? Recall the words of the old spiritual – “Paul and Silas bound in jail, all night long. One for to sing, the other for to pray, all night long.” Actually, this text from Acts is a pretty good text for a Sunday when we pause to think about and give thanks for the music ministry of our church. You want to talk about true faith, true freedom? Take a look at who is singing in jail!
Now hopefully, you don’t have to literally end up in prison in order to prove this point. But as Paul and Silas discovered, as those who sang the great spirituals discovered, our hymns have the power to set us free in the midst of circumstances that seem to all the world to be pure bondage. Says Disciples of Christ minister, William Kincaid, “When we are at the crossroads of a major decision, when our health is failing, when someone we love has betrayed us, when our future holds fearful change, it won’t matter how well we sing. The test at that point is not the quality of our voices or our understanding of music, but the strength and hope of the songs of our faith. Whatever we are facing, we sing with confidence knowing that those challenges and situations do not reach far enough into our lives to threaten our music.” I think of Paul and Silas singing and praying and praising God in spite of their chains. I think of Brian taking the choir, not long ago, to sing to Naida. I think of Brian, himself, going and singing to Naida. Those familiar words and music meant so much to her. And, I know, they really did ease her way. There is life in our music, our songs, and again, you see, that’s faith, that’s freedom, that’s good religion.
Back to our text. A funny thing happened in the middle of their hymn sing. The earth shook, the prison bars crumbled and their chains came off. I mean, that must have been some kind of song they were singing! The jailer wakes up and when he sees that the doors are open, he is horrified. He assumes all the prisoners have escaped and, knowing what happens to jailers who permit their prisoners to escape, he draws his sword. Because death by his own hand is far preferable to whatever his employers are going to do to him. Interesting…having the key to someone’s cell doesn’t make you free and iron bars do not necessarily make a prison.
But the jailer stops when he hears Paul cry out, “Don’t worry, we are all still here, just singing and praying. Why don’t you come on in and join us?” And in that moment, the one with the keys knows he wants the freedom he sees in those who are supposedly his prisoners. Even in chains they are strangely…free. He knows he wants to live the story they’re living. It’s kind of like will the real prisoner please stand up?
Quite a story we have here in the Book of Acts. It confronts us and demands reconsideration of what constitutes genuine freedom. Look what happens. By the end of the story, everyone who at first appeared to be free – the girl’s owners, the judges, the jailer – is a slave. And everyone who first appeared to be enslaved – the poor girl, Paul and Silas – is free. And in the end, even the jailer and all those in his house discover this new freedom. Violence, oppression and confinement are reversed and instead we find freedom, hospitality, singing and faith. So often, I fear, our boasts of freedom, are nothing more than the rattling of our chains, surrounded as we are by our burglar alarms, our medicine cabinets, our fears and anxieties, living in what is our terribly driven, terribly lonely society where we are often treated as little more than self-interested consumers. But then the Spirit moves and the chains come off; the Spirit moves and brings freedom – true freedom – to all who believe. It would seem that Jesus just does things like that to people.
This all started with a discussion of good and bad religion. And this morning I feel I have wandered about in this sermon rather like the stereotypical male who just doesn’t want to stop and ask for directions. Music, spirits, freedom, prison…everything, I’ve crammed it all in here today. But what I have tried to lift up for you - and for me – is what I am calling good religion: a religion, a faith, that frees and enlarges the human spirit, that does not base its appeal on our lower instincts but on our higher, that lifts itself above the narrow, the fearful and the trivial and makes itself a servant of God and humanity. Good religion is open and growing and sensitive and curious, it is hopeful and radiant, it does not suppress doubts and questions, does not make religion an end in itself, but rather sees as its end helping women and men more deeply love God and one another. And in such a religion, you see, one finds hope, one finds a song, and one finds true freedom.