(published in the Abingdon 2014 Creative Preaching Annual)
Matthew 11.25-30
Few of us use yokes anymore—we often have to explain that a yoke is equipment used to hitch animals together and to something else, such as a plow. Machines do so much of our farming, and so few people work the land, that a yoke is an antique, a museum piece, not an everyday item.
However, for Jesus and the people in his community, the yoke was both everyday and held double meaning. The most obvious is the agricultural, but there was also the example of Isaiah 58: “Is not this the fast that I choose, to loose the bonds of injustice, to undo the thongs of the yoke, to let the oppressed go free, to break every yoke?” (v. 6, NRSV) A yoke is a system, often a system of bondage—whether that system is economic, political, or intellectual. Sometimes people are put under the yoke by an oppressive power, as the Israelites had been by the Babylonians, or as they were under the Romans. Sometimes the yoke is a choice—by choosing to follow a particular teacher, one took his yoke upon oneself. The yoke was the system of teachings, the teacher’s philosophy. And sometimes a system that should be life-giving—like the Torah—is turned into an oppression, as we see with the wise and intelligent—the Pharisees and the scribes—who have made the good law of God into a religious and political system that oppresses people and needs to be broken.
So Jesus calls all of us who are caught in those systems, especially those weary of following all 613 laws to the letter and still wondering about the grace of God, especially those who believe God’s love has to be earned, to come to him and trade that yoke for another.
I always thought the point of breaking the oppressive yoke was to be free. But we all know that isn’t exactly true—as Bob Dylan said, “You Gotta Serve Somebody.” The question is: will we be yoked to the letter of the law? To the economic and political system? Yoked to our possessions? Social status? Desires? Yoked to our limited understanding of God, or to what we think the good life looks like? Or will we slip into the empty side of Jesus’ yoke and partner with him in the work God has in mind for the world?
When a farmer has a new animal to train, the new animal is yoked together with an experienced one. That way the new animal learns the way while the experienced one carries most of the burden. Eventually the new animal becomes so experienced that it follows the way willingly, and finds the work easy, the burden light.
Are we willing to take Jesus’ yoke upon us? Are we willing to submit, knowing it means we cannot continue to pull our other burdens (however much they may look like blessings), to walk with Jesus until we are so trained that our lives won’t go any other way?
Monday, June 30, 2014
Monday, June 16, 2014
a well of laughter--a reflection for June 22
(published in the Abingdon Creative Preaching Annual 2014)
Genesis 21.8-21
So out they must go, out into the desert with only a little food and a day’s water. If Hagar had doubts about this God of Abraham’s, they have been confirmed now—this is a God who cares only for his own kind, not for outsiders or those who are mistreated. She will have no part in the covenant God is making with his people—she is literally and figuratively cast out. Her last meeting with God had resulted in instructions to put up with Sarah’s abuse (Gen. 16), and now she must know for certain that this is a God who not only allows but encourages pain, grief, and heartache. It seems unlikely she (or anyone else who feels outside of grace) would be interested in adding this kind of God to her already heavy desert burden.
Finally God takes notice…of Ishmael’s cries. Never mind that Hagar has been lifting her voice in grief and despair too, God has heard the cries of her son and remembered that promise to make him a great nation as well, to pay heed to his status as Abraham’s son even if no one else will. That paternity is what will save Hagar as well as Ishmael. By this point Hagar must be wondering if she matters at all—a foreigner with dark skin and different language, a slave turned concubine, an outcast. God’s messenger has even had the audacity to ask “what’s wrong?” What isn’t wrong? God is making covenant partners and has left her out, casting her aside into the desert. Is there any good news to be had?
There is a well. And actually, the presence of shrubs under which to place a child also means the presence of water. The haze of grief and despair can sometimes cloud our vision, but even so God offers what we need. God opens Hagar’s eyes and she sees her well of salvation right in front of her, and she is strengthened to go on, to find a way forward as a part of God’s great story, rather than as a footnote. How often do we resign ourselves to the bit part, eyes closed to the possibility of good news or clouded by resentment and despair of injustice ever being overcome? There is a well, even in the desert, for those whose eyes are open to see, and perhaps there will be laughter too.
Tuesday, June 03, 2014
100,000
Today, this happened:
It's a little ridiculously exciting. This is my first very-own car, finally paid off almost 2 years ago now. And now I'm filling up the odometer! Lots of places gone, people seen, trips taken.
Getting to this moment made me think of this awesome story from Snap Judgment. Except that I was alone in my car, and there's no one to turn those miles over with me. Except you, oh bloggies. So imagine those miles, these last few miles spent on US highway 14, sometimes called Northwest Highway. I drive it almost every day, to work with and for the people who make up a life with me. It's a stay-together ride.
and then...
 |
| I couldn't get the actual moment because when I did it for 99,000, I got busted by a FB friend for snapping the photo while driving... |
It's a little ridiculously exciting. This is my first very-own car, finally paid off almost 2 years ago now. And now I'm filling up the odometer! Lots of places gone, people seen, trips taken.
Getting to this moment made me think of this awesome story from Snap Judgment. Except that I was alone in my car, and there's no one to turn those miles over with me. Except you, oh bloggies. So imagine those miles, these last few miles spent on US highway 14, sometimes called Northwest Highway. I drive it almost every day, to work with and for the people who make up a life with me. It's a stay-together ride.
Sunday, June 01, 2014
attitude adjustment--a sermon for June 1 (Philippians 2)
Rev. Teri
Peterson
PCOP
attitude adjustment
Philippians
2.1-13
1 June 2014,
Easter 7, NL4-39
If then there is any encouragement in Christ,
any consolation from love, any sharing in the Spirit, any compassion and
sympathy, make my joy complete: be of the same mind, having the same love,
being in full accord and of one mind. Do nothing from selfish ambition or
conceit, but in humility regard others as better than yourselves. Let each of
you look not to your own interests, but to the interests of others. Let the
same mind be in you that was in Christ Jesus,
who, though he was in the form of God,
did not regard equality with God
as something to be exploited,
but emptied himself,
taking the form of a slave,
being born in human likeness.
And being found in human form,
he humbled himself
and became obedient to the point of death—
even death on a cross.
did not regard equality with God
as something to be exploited,
but emptied himself,
taking the form of a slave,
being born in human likeness.
And being found in human form,
he humbled himself
and became obedient to the point of death—
even death on a cross.
Therefore God also highly exalted him
and gave him the name
that is above every name,
so that at the name of Jesus
every knee should bend,
in heaven and on earth and under the earth,
and every tongue should confess
that Jesus Christ is Lord,
to the glory of God the Father.
and gave him the name
that is above every name,
so that at the name of Jesus
every knee should bend,
in heaven and on earth and under the earth,
and every tongue should confess
that Jesus Christ is Lord,
to the glory of God the Father.
Therefore, my beloved, just as you have
always obeyed me, not only in my presence, but much more now in my absence,
work out your own salvation with fear and trembling; for it is God who is at
work in you, enabling you both to will and to work for his good pleasure.
A couple of
weeks ago, it was announced that someone I knew from my clarinet-playing days
had just been appointed principal clarinetist of the New York Philharmonic.
He’d already been principal at the Metropolitan Opera Orchestra, and had played
at President Obama’s first inauguration, and was well known as being one of the
best clarinet players of our time. And still it caught me off guard a bit—to
think that someone my age could be in such a prominent position in such a
competitive arena. Of course, when Ingrid and I talked about it she noted that
we’re not young anymore—people our age are doing amazing things all over the
place, as they should be!
Then this
weekend, several young clergy women were talking about how it feels now that
some of our classmates seem to be pulling ahead of the pack on the career
ladder, with people our age and younger getting called to be senior pastors at
large churches. One person started a conversation wondering why some people
climb that ladder while she doesn’t—even though she feels called to one day be
in a big church.
Church size
is also pretty common conversation among both church members and pastors—we all
want our churches to grow, to be successful in the eyes of the world, to have
plenty of money and more than enough people to do great things. Often those
conversations involve comparing one church to another, wondering how to be like
others, how to copy what they’re doing or climb the size ladder.
Meanwhile, I
was thinking about Paul’s teaching in the second chapter of Philippians.
Remember he is writing from prison, to a church that is thriving under Lydia’s
patronage and leadership. Last week we heard him exhorting us to remember our
place in God’s vision: we are workers, not master builders, sidekicks to the
greatest hero. Now we hear him telling us to think of others as better than
ourselves, to love indiscriminately as Jesus did, and to be of one mind with
both Christ and one another.
The phrase
“of one mind” or “the same mind” has nothing to do with how we think, or what
we believe. It is about attitude: how we approach things, our way of being.
In other
words, it feels like Paul is speaking right into my budding jealousy of those
other 30-somethings who are doing amazing things and telling me I need an
attitude adjustment. Not to mention a reminder that I really didn’t like to
practice the clarinet!
I doubt I’m
the only one who needs this kind of attitude adjustment, though. Our culture
teaches us to stand up and stand out, to get noticed and be a leader. Paul
couldn’t have written more counter-cultural or difficult words if he’d lived
down the street from us. And to top it off, when he says “you” that’s a plural
you, not an individualistic, singular you. So he says to us:
Y’all have
the same attitude among you as Jesus had. Y’all love the same way Jesus loved.
Y’all think of others as better than yourselves. Y’all turn off that selfish
ambition and seek the greater good. Y’all look to the interests of others, not
your own desires. Remember that Jesus was obedient to God all the way through
his life and death. The Body of Christ, and all the members of it, need to do
the same.
That is
indeed an attitude adjustment.
It has often
been noted that those of us who follow Jesus are often not very much like him.
Gandhi famously said that he loved Jesus, but Christians were another story.
Yet we also know that when a rabbi called someone to “come, follow me,” they
did so because they believed the student could become like the teacher. We know
that Jesus entrusted us with the ministry of reconciliation, of healing, of
speaking and living the good news of God’s love. And today we hear Paul’s
words, asking us to have the mind of Christ, an attitude of obedience and
humility, a posture of love and unity…and it kind of seems impossible.
It’s so much
easier to work for what we want. It’s
so much easier when we know we’ll be rewarded, with recognition, or thanks, or
money, or power, or admiration. It’s so much easier to look after ourselves and
offer the leftovers to God and our community. It’s so much easier to point the
finger than to be part of a solution. It’s so much easier to talk about people
than to them. It’s so much easier to make assumptions and judgments than to
think the best.
Spiritual
teachers say that one of the most important things for us to learn is a prayer
for indifference. Not in the negative apathetic sense in which we usually use
that word, but in the sense of being indifferent to everything but the will of
God. In other words, we need to learn to pray not for what we want, but for
what God wills. You may remember that even Jesus had to learn this by practice:
in the garden, just before his arrest, as he looked into the shadow of death, he
prayed “if it is possible let this cup pass from me…yet not what I will, but
what you will.” To be indifferent to everything but God’s will is to truly not
be tied to one outcome or another, as long as it is God’s direction. If we have
been given this gift, we are able to participate in things that may not be our
preference, to walk a path we might not have chosen, because we believe the
Spirit is moving the Body is moving in God’s direction. To let go of our own
preferred or desired outcome makes listening for God’s call easier…but of
course it’s crazy hard to let go! This is why the spiritual teachers say we
need to learn to pray for
indifference—to ask God to make us care more about what God wants than what we
want, to ask for the gift of seeking the good of the whole before our own good.
Sometimes we may look into our hearts and see that we really desire our way,
and that is an opportunity for us to pray again to be made indifferent to
everything but the will of God.
Here is some
good news in the midst of this challenge. Just at the end of today’s reading,
Paul reminds us of what he told us last week: It is God who is at work in us,
enabling us to will what God wills and to work for God’s glory. We don’t have
to do this with our own willpower—indeed, we can’t. We are able to pray for
indifference, and to see others as better than ourselves, and to look death in
the face knowing that resurrection is on the other side, and to love as Christ
loves, because God enables that in us. We couldn’t do it under our steam, but
the breath of the Holy Spirit makes this all possible.
I suggest
we, in this part of the Body of Christ, take up this challenge. For the month
of June, pray each day for an attitude adjustment. Ask for God’s help in letting
go of our own will and seeking only God’s will instead. Rather than praying for
us to climb the church ladder, or to be like other churches, or even for the
church to grow: pray for the church, the Body of Christ, to be indifferent to
everything but the will of God, and then for the courage to work for God’s will
rather than our own. We may just find ourselves aligned with Christ—the one who
was obedient even unto death, and then was lifted up for God’s glory.
May it be so.
Amen.
Sunday, May 25, 2014
God's Sidekick--a sermon on Philippians 1
Rev. Teri Peterson
PCOP
God’s Sidekick
Philippians 1.1-18a
25 May 2014, Easter 6,
NL4-38
Paul and Timothy, servants of Christ Jesus,
To all the saints in Christ Jesus who are in
Philippi, with the bishops and deacons:
Grace to you and peace from God our Father and
the Lord Jesus Christ.
I thank my God every time I remember you,
constantly praying with joy in every one of my prayers for all of you, because
of your sharing in the gospel from the first day until now. I am confident of
this, that the one who began a good work among you will bring it to completion
by the day of Jesus Christ. It is right for me to think this way about all of
you, because you hold me in your heart, for all of you share in God’s grace
with me, both in my imprisonment and in the defense and confirmation of the
gospel. For God is my witness, how I long for all of you with the compassion of
Christ Jesus. And this is my prayer, that your love may overflow more and more
with knowledge and full insight to help you to determine what is best, so that
on the day of Christ you may be pure and blameless, having produced the harvest
of righteousness that comes through Jesus Christ for the glory and praise of
God.
I want you to know, beloved, that what has
happened to me has actually helped to spread the gospel, so that it has become
known throughout the whole imperial guard and to everyone else that my
imprisonment is for Christ; and most of the brothers and sisters, having been
made confident in the Lord by my imprisonment, dare to speak the word with
greater boldness and without fear.
Some proclaim Christ from envy and rivalry, but
others from goodwill. These proclaim Christ out of love, knowing that I have
been put here for the defense of the gospel; the others proclaim Christ out of
selfish ambition, not sincerely but intending to increase my suffering in my
imprisonment. What does it matter? Just this, that Christ is proclaimed in
every way, whether out of false motives or true; and in that I rejoice.
Batman and Robin. Don Quixote and Sancho Panza. The Lone
Ranger and Tonto. Sherlock Holmes and Doctor Watson. Harry and Hermione and
Ron.
There’s nothing quite like a good sidekick, is there? They
help us relate to heroes, and put a human face on brilliance. Their foibles
make the story interesting and give us a glimpse into what it’s like to be part
of something amazing. They do the hard work of putting a plan into action, and
they know that all the glory is going to the hero, not to them.
All week I’ve been pondering Paul’s letter to the Philippians,
and how he talks about how we “share in the gospel” but it is God who began the
work in and among us, and God who will bring it to completion. Sometimes people
translate this “sharing in the gospel” line to say “partners in ministry” and
that conjures up for me this mental image of the Church—the Body of Christ—as
God’s sidekick.
I know, it sounds weird. But I suspect that if Paul had the
concept of a sidekick to work with, he might have used it, because it’s such a
great image.
So what makes a good hero-sidekick story work?
First, a good sidekick knows that they’re the supporting
character. It’s the hero who has the mission, and the sidekick helps carry it
out. Harry is the one who can see the path to ridding the world of darkness,
but he needed Hermione’s research and Ron’s unfailing friendship in order to
walk that path and to inspire others to walk it too.
In our case, it’s God who has the vision—for the kingdom to
come on earth and for God’s will to be done on earth as it is in heaven. We’re
the ones who are supposed to put the vision into action. It’s not our ideas,
our plans, or our mission: we’re the workers who do God’s will. Or, as Paul put
it: the One who began a good work among us will bring it to completion. We are
the partners, not the leader. God is the generator, and we’re the workers.
Second, a good sidekick acts as sort of an interpreter of
the hero to the people, and of the people to the hero. Imagine the stories of
Sherlock Holmes without Dr. Watson—they’d be almost incomprehensible, and we
probably wouldn’t much like Sherlock. Watson interprets for us, giving Holmes a
more human and more likeable aspect than we might otherwise see—and he does the
same in the other direction as well.
Isn’t that what the Body of Christ does when we talk about
God? Every time we proclaim the gospel, we are trying to interpret God’s
character and God’s good news for people who do not understand, and people who
see only the harsh God often portrayed in the media. The Church, as God’s
sidekick, is to offer people a vision of Christ. As Paul said, to “let love
overflow more and more, to grow in knowledge and insight” and to help others
see the God we know in Jesus Christ. Paul says that our task is to proclaim
Christ in every way, and to rejoice. It won’t be easy—it’s never easy for the
sidekick to do that hard work, and Paul is, after all, writing this letter from
prison, where he awaits trial. Yet still he says he dares to speak the word
with boldness. Isn’t that our calling as the Body of Christ—to speak God’s word
of grace, of love, of justice? To be the image of God, reflected into the
world? How will people know what God is like if we don’t tell the good news?
Third, a good sidekick always lets the hero get the glory.
Sure, it may seem that Hermione did all the work, or like Don Quixote would
have just gotten his arm cut off by a windmill if left to his own devices.
Sometimes it seems unfair that the sidekick doesn’t get the praise and
recognition for all their hard work…but ultimately, they know that the steam
running this engine comes from the hero, and that’s where they always point.
The sidekick has a big job, and the biggest part is to
always direct people’s attention back to the hero. Paul reminds us constantly
that everything we do is “for the glory and praise of God.” Even his
imprisonment is for Christ—meaning it is dedicated to Christ, for God’s glory. You
may remember that when he was in prison before, he and Silas spent the evening
singing hymns, dedicating that time to worship and praise of God! Everything is
about spreading the gospel, not about Paul. The same needs to be true of the
Body of Christ—everything is about God and God’s glory. When the church seeks
recognition for itself rather than for Christ, we’ve stepped out of the
sidekick role and made it about us. This story is always about God. Paul writes
to the church in Philippi—the church meeting in the home of Lydia, the dealer
of purple cloth—and he says he prays that they will be pure and blameless,
working through Christ for the glory and praise of God. It would have been easy
for them to work for themselves—after all, they have a wealthy patron, and
their city was the site of a miracle when God freed Paul and Silas from prison,
and the church is growing there by leaps and bounds. But Paul reminds them over
and over that the job of the Church is to follow The Way, and to be a signpost
for others to follow The Way. When we think we have become the way, we get
ourselves into trouble.
The hardest thing about being the sidekick is that the job
never ends. It is our 24/7 task to give glory to God, to tell the good news of
Christ’s love, and to work toward the Spirit’s vision rather than our own. We
are to rejoice and give thanks in all circumstances—not for all circumstances, but in the midst of all things, whether we
celebrate or struggle, it’s about God. And here’s the thing: God is love, and
love never fails. Which means that while we are busy doing our sidekick thing,
always pointing the way to God, God is a much better hero than any of those
other stories—because there is no circumstance in which God’s Church will be
abandoned or set up for failure. God will never turn back from us, but instead
sits beside us in the struggles and cheers beside us at the celebrations.
Because the one who began a good work among us will bring it
to completion. The one whose vision we pursue, whose mission is our life’s
work, will be working in and through and beside us all the way, even when the
road seems impossible. While I don’t know what God’s completed work will look
like, we do know from Scripture that it will involve peace that passes all
understanding, love overflowing more and more, seeing clearly face to face.
For now that is all work in progress—God’s word and God’s
work, being carried out through our voices and our hands. Because that’s what a
good sidekick does.
May it be so.
Amen.
Monday, May 19, 2014
To the Unknown--a reflection for May 25
(published in the Abingdon 2014 Creative Preaching Annual)
Acts 17.22-31
To The Unknown…
Most of the time, we are taught to fear You. Not knowing
means we cannot prepare, cannot control, cannot manipulate, and those
limitations mean we are afraid of what You might do and especially what You
might require of us. We like to know things. Our intellects are practiced and
ready to rationalize nearly anything, as long as it fits on a linear path and
follows a defined plan.
But You defy our intellects. You remain shrouded in mystery
even as You surround us and support us and seek us. Your breath is our breath,
but we cannot figure out how. Our life is Your life, but we cannot explain the
mechanism that makes it so. We long for connection to something greater, to
You, and yet we tell ourselves it cannot be. So we build our altars, read books
crammed with big words, and push aside hope because it is impractical.
Still You keep coming around, swirling and pushing and
pulling and calling and inspiring and providing in ways we cannot understand.
We look for the who/what/where/when/why/how, and You tell us a story. We ask
for step-by-step instructions in what to do next and how to please You, and You
offer us instead Your very self, made flesh to live our story alongside us. We
seek a list of good deeds or appropriate sacrifices to get what we want, and
You remind us that You, not we, are God, and nothing we can do will change Your
grace or Your providence.
Perhaps we are right to fear the Unknown. Or perhaps what we
really fear is what You mean for our lives. If it’s true, if our life,
movement, and existence is held by You, is in
You, then we cannot be separated, we cannot be cut off, we cannot truly be
lost. No wonder You demand everything of us—changed hearts and lives to go with
our changed minds. No wonder You offer so much of Yourself to us—even life,
suffering, death, and more. While we have been busy creating rules for how You
can work, You have been busy loving us into life.
Perhaps You are not scary after all. And perhaps You are also not completely Unknown—and so we seek, and grope, and hope to find you “nearer than our breathing, closer than hands and feet” (Alfred Tennyson, "The Higher Pantheism" from The Holy Grail and Other Poems [London: Strahan, 1870]).
no pain no gain?
Recently I've heard a couple of teachers (on different, though related, subjects) say that, as adults, we do not learn from positive experience the same way we learn from painful experience.
At the same time, I've read and heard several times about how successful organizational (and personal) change is about building on strength and celebrating success, even small success.
And of course lots of what we know about children (and about animals, now that I think about it, haha) involves practicing positive reinforcement.
And yet there's something about change and transformation (two different things) that really do require us to face up to discomfort, and go through it, rather than avoid it.
Of course, avoiding discomfort is practically our culture's national pastime.
And yet pastors are taught that our job is to both comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable...because God's transformative work involves both.
So why do we insist that it only be comfortable? We want church to be warm and friendly, to meet our needs and to make us feel good. A moment of discomfort has us skipping the next few weeks, and pretty soon every time we come we're frustrated by something that's different, or challenging words, or the fidgety person in the next pew (whose fidgetiness we'd gotten used to when we sat there every week, but now that we're out of the habit, we just can't take one more moment of rustling the cough drop wrapper).
Why do we insist that the gospel be warm and friendly, when a straight-up reading of any one of the four accounts of Jesus' life will bring us up short?
Why do we insist that the Body of Christ give us warm fuzzies, when we know perfectly well that any human community, and any worthwhile relationship, requires work and compromise and continual hope, prayer, and effort?
One of my least favorite sporty sayings is "no pain, no gain." It feels like a fast track to getting injured, to ignore the pain signals my body is sending. I wonder if the saying is even true--is pain necessary for growth?
Well...Jesus talks about transformation with metaphors like pruning, refining fire, and death. So...maybe. As much as I don't want to think about it this way, the teachers who say that transformation--not just the change we make with our willpower, but the kind of transformation that comes from the Holy Spirit, the kind of transformation that lasts, the kind of transformation that makes us agents of the Kingdom--will hurt, at least a little (I mean, it might be stretching-hurt, it might be breaking-open-hurt, it might be grief-hurt)...they might be right.
Now to just trust that it'll be worth it.
At the same time, I've read and heard several times about how successful organizational (and personal) change is about building on strength and celebrating success, even small success.
And of course lots of what we know about children (and about animals, now that I think about it, haha) involves practicing positive reinforcement.
And yet there's something about change and transformation (two different things) that really do require us to face up to discomfort, and go through it, rather than avoid it.
Of course, avoiding discomfort is practically our culture's national pastime.
And yet pastors are taught that our job is to both comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable...because God's transformative work involves both.
So why do we insist that it only be comfortable? We want church to be warm and friendly, to meet our needs and to make us feel good. A moment of discomfort has us skipping the next few weeks, and pretty soon every time we come we're frustrated by something that's different, or challenging words, or the fidgety person in the next pew (whose fidgetiness we'd gotten used to when we sat there every week, but now that we're out of the habit, we just can't take one more moment of rustling the cough drop wrapper).
Why do we insist that the gospel be warm and friendly, when a straight-up reading of any one of the four accounts of Jesus' life will bring us up short?
Why do we insist that the Body of Christ give us warm fuzzies, when we know perfectly well that any human community, and any worthwhile relationship, requires work and compromise and continual hope, prayer, and effort?
One of my least favorite sporty sayings is "no pain, no gain." It feels like a fast track to getting injured, to ignore the pain signals my body is sending. I wonder if the saying is even true--is pain necessary for growth?
Well...Jesus talks about transformation with metaphors like pruning, refining fire, and death. So...maybe. As much as I don't want to think about it this way, the teachers who say that transformation--not just the change we make with our willpower, but the kind of transformation that comes from the Holy Spirit, the kind of transformation that lasts, the kind of transformation that makes us agents of the Kingdom--will hurt, at least a little (I mean, it might be stretching-hurt, it might be breaking-open-hurt, it might be grief-hurt)...they might be right.
Now to just trust that it'll be worth it.
Sunday, May 18, 2014
Good New Days--a sermon on Acts 17
Rev. Teri Peterson
PCOP
good new days
Acts 17.16-34
18 May 2014, Easter 5, NL4-37
While Paul was waiting for them in Athens, he was deeply distressed to see that the city was full of idols. So he argued in the synagogue with the Jews and the devout persons, and also in the market-place every day with those who happened to be there. Also some Epicurean and Stoic philosophers debated with him. Some said, ‘What does this babbler want to say?’ Others said, ‘He seems to be a proclaimer of foreign divinities.’ (This was because he was telling the good news about Jesus and the resurrection.) So they took him and brought him to the Areopagus and asked him, ‘May we know what this new teaching is that you are presenting? It sounds rather strange to us, so we would like to know what it means.’ Now all the Athenians and the foreigners living there would spend their time in nothing but telling or hearing something new.
Then Paul stood in front of the Areopagus and said, ‘Athenians, I see how extremely religious you are in every way. For as I went through the city and looked carefully at the objects of your worship, I found among them an altar with the inscription, “To an unknown god.” What therefore you worship as unknown, this I proclaim to you. The God who made the world and everything in it, he who is Lord of heaven and earth, does not live in shrines made by human hands, nor is he served by human hands, as though he needed anything, since he himself gives to all mortals life and breath and all things. From one ancestor he made all nations to inhabit the whole earth, and he allotted the times of their existence and the boundaries of the places where they would live, so that they would search for God and perhaps grope for him and find him—though indeed he is not far from each one of us. For “In him we live and move and have our being”; as even some of your own poets have said, “For we too are his offspring.” Since we are God’s offspring, we ought not to think that the deity is like gold, or silver, or stone, an image formed by the art and imagination of mortals. While God has overlooked the times of human ignorance, now he commands all people everywhere to repent, because he has fixed a day on which he will have the world judged in righteousness by a man whom he has appointed, and of this he has given assurance to all by raising him from the dead.’
When they heard of the resurrection of the dead, some scoffed; but others said, ‘We will hear you again about this.’ At that point Paul left them. But some of them joined him and became believers, including Dionysius the Areopagite and a woman named Damaris, and others with them.
~~~
Once upon a time, Athens had been the center of learning. It had been well known as the place for intellectuals in every field, brimming with ideas about mathematics, philosophy, government, and the arts.
By the time Paul arrived in Athens, those bright days had dimmed into the past. The center of power had shifted to Rome, and Athenians were left trying to recapture what once was. They filled their city with statues and shrines, and filled their time with ideas and debates, hoping desperately that something would bring them back to the days when they were bursting at the seams with young people, money, power, and vitality.
The people of Athens tried everything. They made statues and sacrifices and offerings in every place and to every god they could think of. They worshipped at the altar of memory, of success, of fashion, of the latest trends and the oldest mysteries. They covered all their bases, hedging their bets even with an altar to an unknown god—just in case they might have missed one along the way.
It was a strategy of desperation—doing everything that used to work, grasping at the straws of what others were doing, and all along the way creating gods that would serve them if they would just offer the right thing at the right time. The Athenians found themselves full of activities, bound by extremes, and longing for something they couldn’t quite put their finger on. While the Epicurean and the Stoic philosophers—as far apart on the spectrum of philosophy as you can get—debated in the marketplace, the people gorged themselves on any crumb that might bring back the good old days.
When Paul walks in and says “I see how religious you are,” he’s being a bit sarcastic. They are religious—in the sense that they do a lot of things that look religious. But they aren’t, in the sense that they have completely missed the point. The point of religion is to connect human beings to the divine, and that connection happens not through buying God off or through endless activity, but through relationship and mystery and spirit. But Paul’s sarcasm isn’t so overt it turns people off—it’s sarcasm for us, the reader, but to the Athenians it was an acknowledgment of their hope.
Paul builds on that hope—he takes a bright spot: an altar to a god unknown, a desire for more, a longing for a new story—and combines it with their own familiar words in order to offer them The Truth: God, who created all things, cannot be controlled by us, no matter how many statues and sacrifices we make. God, who created all things, is so close to us that it is impossible to know ourselves apart from the divine. And God, who created all things, is doing a new thing even right now, while we are busy trying to recreate the past.
My favorite part of Paul’s proof is this: if we are God’s offspring, made in God’s image, then why do we think that God could be contained in a statue, imagined and created by us? Or, since we’re not really statue people, maybe we should ask why we, who are created by God, made in God’s image, called God’s children—why do we insist that God can be contained by our church buildings, our scriptures, our theological systems, our religious rules, our long-standing church programs, our worship bulletin, our petty squabbles, our favorite pews? Paul looks around Athens, as he would probably look around many of our churches, and is distressed at the ways people fill up life with things that will always be a poor substitute for the kind of relationship with God that comes through walking the way of Christ.
It’s so interesting that the Athenians, even in their seeking, could not see God already in their midst. Their own poets said “he is not far from each one of us.” Their own altars had a sense of mystery. It was clear that their attempts to get their way by controlling the gods were ineffective. It had to be obvious to them that the past was never coming back—I mean, even their public discourse had descended into arguments between polar opposites. And yet it had not occurred to them that maybe God, in whom we live and move and have our being, was also living and moving and being in a more dynamic, rather than static, way. It had not occurred to them to look around and see what God was doing, or if there might be a future just as bright as the past. They spent so much time looking at yesterday that there was no room for tomorrow, no matter how much they might seek.
When Paul started talking about resurrection, and how God had done something completely new and unexpected by raising Jesus from the dead, many of them went away. The concept was ridiculous, and the implications were too much to handle. If God does things like that—things so completely uncontrollable and unbound—then what does that mean for those who want to be in relationship with God? If God can’t be bought, or appeased, then how are we supposed to relate? If God is God—loving, just, and faithful—no matter what we do, then what exactly are we supposed to do? It seems that if the relationship with God is not a transaction, where we control at least a portion of the situation, then it’s not worth it. It’s too much—and the Athenians weren’t the only ones to think so. Ever since that day they met Paul, people across time and place have heard this story and decided to turn away—sometimes we have turned away by constructing elaborate theological systems that allow us to feel like we have some control, and sometimes we have turned away by simply insisting it doesn’t make sense. Sometimes we have turned away by believing the church is a building we visit, like a shrine to an idol, and sometimes we have turned away by using the words of scripture to pretend that God’s grace is not available to some. There are many ways to scoff at what God offers, because we cannot comprehend unconditional love.
To be in relationship with God, the One who created all things and who raised Jesus from the grave, is to admit that all that other stuff we cling to is actually an idol—whether it is our memories of the past, our stuff we can’t bear to let go of, our image of how religion should work, or our insistence that God’s grace must be earned. God’s love is the true reality—cling to that!
To be in relationship with God who created all things and raised Jesus from the grave is to admit that we find our truest selves when we rest in God’s care, not when we frantically fill our lives with everything that used to work or that seems like a good idea. Sometimes the deepest relationship comes from silence and Sabbath rather than endless speech and activity.
To be in relationship with God who created all things and raised Jesus from the grave is to admit that we have created God in our own image, rather than living as those created in God’s image—and then to repent, to turn around and walk Christ’s way instead.
It took a little while for those who followed Christ to be called Christians. At first, they were simply called Followers of The Way. Sometimes I think I’d like to reclaim that name, because it so clearly reminds us that to follow Christ is a way of life, not simply a way of thinking. To follow The Way is to do what he did, to love as he loves. To follow The Way would mean there was no room for idols, because their weight is quickly seen for what it is: not worth it. To follow The Way is to be always on the move, going wherever the Spirit is going, always looking forward to where God is calling. Or, as Paul put it, to search and grope and find that God is as close as our own breath—and is always leading us forward into the kingdom, into the good new days God has planned.
May it be so.
Amen.
PCOP
good new days
Acts 17.16-34
18 May 2014, Easter 5, NL4-37
While Paul was waiting for them in Athens, he was deeply distressed to see that the city was full of idols. So he argued in the synagogue with the Jews and the devout persons, and also in the market-place every day with those who happened to be there. Also some Epicurean and Stoic philosophers debated with him. Some said, ‘What does this babbler want to say?’ Others said, ‘He seems to be a proclaimer of foreign divinities.’ (This was because he was telling the good news about Jesus and the resurrection.) So they took him and brought him to the Areopagus and asked him, ‘May we know what this new teaching is that you are presenting? It sounds rather strange to us, so we would like to know what it means.’ Now all the Athenians and the foreigners living there would spend their time in nothing but telling or hearing something new.
Then Paul stood in front of the Areopagus and said, ‘Athenians, I see how extremely religious you are in every way. For as I went through the city and looked carefully at the objects of your worship, I found among them an altar with the inscription, “To an unknown god.” What therefore you worship as unknown, this I proclaim to you. The God who made the world and everything in it, he who is Lord of heaven and earth, does not live in shrines made by human hands, nor is he served by human hands, as though he needed anything, since he himself gives to all mortals life and breath and all things. From one ancestor he made all nations to inhabit the whole earth, and he allotted the times of their existence and the boundaries of the places where they would live, so that they would search for God and perhaps grope for him and find him—though indeed he is not far from each one of us. For “In him we live and move and have our being”; as even some of your own poets have said, “For we too are his offspring.” Since we are God’s offspring, we ought not to think that the deity is like gold, or silver, or stone, an image formed by the art and imagination of mortals. While God has overlooked the times of human ignorance, now he commands all people everywhere to repent, because he has fixed a day on which he will have the world judged in righteousness by a man whom he has appointed, and of this he has given assurance to all by raising him from the dead.’
When they heard of the resurrection of the dead, some scoffed; but others said, ‘We will hear you again about this.’ At that point Paul left them. But some of them joined him and became believers, including Dionysius the Areopagite and a woman named Damaris, and others with them.
~~~
Once upon a time, Athens had been the center of learning. It had been well known as the place for intellectuals in every field, brimming with ideas about mathematics, philosophy, government, and the arts.
By the time Paul arrived in Athens, those bright days had dimmed into the past. The center of power had shifted to Rome, and Athenians were left trying to recapture what once was. They filled their city with statues and shrines, and filled their time with ideas and debates, hoping desperately that something would bring them back to the days when they were bursting at the seams with young people, money, power, and vitality.
The people of Athens tried everything. They made statues and sacrifices and offerings in every place and to every god they could think of. They worshipped at the altar of memory, of success, of fashion, of the latest trends and the oldest mysteries. They covered all their bases, hedging their bets even with an altar to an unknown god—just in case they might have missed one along the way.
It was a strategy of desperation—doing everything that used to work, grasping at the straws of what others were doing, and all along the way creating gods that would serve them if they would just offer the right thing at the right time. The Athenians found themselves full of activities, bound by extremes, and longing for something they couldn’t quite put their finger on. While the Epicurean and the Stoic philosophers—as far apart on the spectrum of philosophy as you can get—debated in the marketplace, the people gorged themselves on any crumb that might bring back the good old days.
When Paul walks in and says “I see how religious you are,” he’s being a bit sarcastic. They are religious—in the sense that they do a lot of things that look religious. But they aren’t, in the sense that they have completely missed the point. The point of religion is to connect human beings to the divine, and that connection happens not through buying God off or through endless activity, but through relationship and mystery and spirit. But Paul’s sarcasm isn’t so overt it turns people off—it’s sarcasm for us, the reader, but to the Athenians it was an acknowledgment of their hope.
Paul builds on that hope—he takes a bright spot: an altar to a god unknown, a desire for more, a longing for a new story—and combines it with their own familiar words in order to offer them The Truth: God, who created all things, cannot be controlled by us, no matter how many statues and sacrifices we make. God, who created all things, is so close to us that it is impossible to know ourselves apart from the divine. And God, who created all things, is doing a new thing even right now, while we are busy trying to recreate the past.
My favorite part of Paul’s proof is this: if we are God’s offspring, made in God’s image, then why do we think that God could be contained in a statue, imagined and created by us? Or, since we’re not really statue people, maybe we should ask why we, who are created by God, made in God’s image, called God’s children—why do we insist that God can be contained by our church buildings, our scriptures, our theological systems, our religious rules, our long-standing church programs, our worship bulletin, our petty squabbles, our favorite pews? Paul looks around Athens, as he would probably look around many of our churches, and is distressed at the ways people fill up life with things that will always be a poor substitute for the kind of relationship with God that comes through walking the way of Christ.
It’s so interesting that the Athenians, even in their seeking, could not see God already in their midst. Their own poets said “he is not far from each one of us.” Their own altars had a sense of mystery. It was clear that their attempts to get their way by controlling the gods were ineffective. It had to be obvious to them that the past was never coming back—I mean, even their public discourse had descended into arguments between polar opposites. And yet it had not occurred to them that maybe God, in whom we live and move and have our being, was also living and moving and being in a more dynamic, rather than static, way. It had not occurred to them to look around and see what God was doing, or if there might be a future just as bright as the past. They spent so much time looking at yesterday that there was no room for tomorrow, no matter how much they might seek.
When Paul started talking about resurrection, and how God had done something completely new and unexpected by raising Jesus from the dead, many of them went away. The concept was ridiculous, and the implications were too much to handle. If God does things like that—things so completely uncontrollable and unbound—then what does that mean for those who want to be in relationship with God? If God can’t be bought, or appeased, then how are we supposed to relate? If God is God—loving, just, and faithful—no matter what we do, then what exactly are we supposed to do? It seems that if the relationship with God is not a transaction, where we control at least a portion of the situation, then it’s not worth it. It’s too much—and the Athenians weren’t the only ones to think so. Ever since that day they met Paul, people across time and place have heard this story and decided to turn away—sometimes we have turned away by constructing elaborate theological systems that allow us to feel like we have some control, and sometimes we have turned away by simply insisting it doesn’t make sense. Sometimes we have turned away by believing the church is a building we visit, like a shrine to an idol, and sometimes we have turned away by using the words of scripture to pretend that God’s grace is not available to some. There are many ways to scoff at what God offers, because we cannot comprehend unconditional love.
To be in relationship with God, the One who created all things and who raised Jesus from the grave, is to admit that all that other stuff we cling to is actually an idol—whether it is our memories of the past, our stuff we can’t bear to let go of, our image of how religion should work, or our insistence that God’s grace must be earned. God’s love is the true reality—cling to that!
To be in relationship with God who created all things and raised Jesus from the grave is to admit that we find our truest selves when we rest in God’s care, not when we frantically fill our lives with everything that used to work or that seems like a good idea. Sometimes the deepest relationship comes from silence and Sabbath rather than endless speech and activity.
To be in relationship with God who created all things and raised Jesus from the grave is to admit that we have created God in our own image, rather than living as those created in God’s image—and then to repent, to turn around and walk Christ’s way instead.
It took a little while for those who followed Christ to be called Christians. At first, they were simply called Followers of The Way. Sometimes I think I’d like to reclaim that name, because it so clearly reminds us that to follow Christ is a way of life, not simply a way of thinking. To follow The Way is to do what he did, to love as he loves. To follow The Way would mean there was no room for idols, because their weight is quickly seen for what it is: not worth it. To follow The Way is to be always on the move, going wherever the Spirit is going, always looking forward to where God is calling. Or, as Paul put it, to search and grope and find that God is as close as our own breath—and is always leading us forward into the kingdom, into the good new days God has planned.
May it be so.
Amen.
Sunday, May 11, 2014
set free--a sermon on Acts 16
Rev. Teri Peterson
PCOP
set free
Acts 16.11-40
11 May 2014, Easter 4, NL4-37
(take two)
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 worshipper 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 market-place 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.
~~~~~~~~
1. Deborah
2. Awa
3. Hauwa
4. Asabe
5. Mwa
6. Patiant
7. Saraya
8. Mary
9. Gloria
10. Hanatu
11. Gloria
12. Tabitha
13. Maifa
14. Ruth
15. Esther
16. Awa
17. Anthonia
18. Kume
19. Aisha
20. Nguba
21. Kwanta
22. Kummai
23. Esther
24. Hana
25. Rifkatu
26. Rebecca
27. Blessing
28. Ladi
29. Tabitha
30. Ruth
31. Safiya
32. Na’omi
33. Solomi
34. Rhoda
35. Rebecca
36. Christy
37. Rebecca
38. Laraba
39. Saratu
40. Mary
41. Debora
42. Naomi
43. Hanatu
44. Hauwa
45. Juliana
46. Suzana
47. Saraya
48. Jummai
49. Mary
50. Jummai
51. Yanke
52. Muli
53. Fatima
54. Eli
55. Saratu
56. Deborah
57. Rahila
58. Luggwa
59. Kauna
60. Lydia
61. Laraba
62. Hauwa
63. Confort
64. Hauwa
65. Hauwa
66. Yana
67. Laraba
68. Saraya
69. Glory
70. Na’omi
71. Godiya
72. Awa
73. Na’omi
74. Maryamu
75. Tabitha
76. Mary
77. Ladi
78. Rejoice
79. Luggwa
80. Comfort
81. Saraya
82. Sicker
83. Talata
84. Rejoice
85. Deborah
86. Salomi
87. Mary
88. Ruth
89. Esther
90. Esther
91. Maryamu
91. Zara
93. Maryamu
94. Lydia
95. Laraba
96. Na’omi
97. Rahila
98. Ruth
99. Ladi
100. Mary
101. Esther
102. Helen
103. Margret
104. Deborah
105. Filo
106. Febi
107. Ruth
108. Racheal
109. Rifkatu
110. Mairama
111. Saratu
112. Jinkai
113. Margret
114. Yana
115. Grace
116. Amina
117. Palmata
118. Awagana
119. Pindar
120. Yana
121. Saraya
122. Hauwa
123. Hauwa
125. Hauwa
126. Maryamu
127. Maimuna
128. Rebeca
129. Liyatu
130. Rifkatu
131. Naomi
132. Deborah
133. Ladi
134. Asabe
135. Maryamu
136. Ruth
137. Mary
138. Abigail
139. Deborah
140. Saraya
141. Kauna
142. Christiana
143. Yana
144. Hauwa
145. Hadiza
146. Lydia
147. Ruth
148. Mary
149. Lugwa
150. Muwa
151. Hanatu
152. Monica
153. Margret
154. Docas
155. Rhoda
156. Rifkatu
157. Saratu
158. Naomi
159. Hauwa
160. Rahap
162. Deborah
163. Hauwa
164. Hauwa
165. Serah
166. Aishatu
167. Aishatu
168. Hauwa
169. Hamsatu
170. Mairama
171. Hauwa
172. Ihyi
173. Hasana
174. Rakiya
175. Halima
176. Aisha
177. Kabu
178. Yayi
179. Falta
180. Kwadugu
PCOP
set free
Acts 16.11-40
11 May 2014, Easter 4, NL4-37
(take two)
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 worshipper 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 market-place 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.
~~~~~~~~
I wonder if they thought about her.
The enslaved woman who started all this—did Paul and Silas
think about her while they were being beaten, or while they were in prison
singing, or while they were telling the good news of Jesus to the jailer, or
while they were using their privilege of Roman citizenship in a show of
nonviolent resistance?
Or was she just an irritant to be brushed off and forgotten?
We like to read this as if she is yet another person set
free from a demon by the power of Christ’s name. And that is true, but it is
not the whole truth. The text does not tell us if she was truly set free, or if
she was just made disposable to her owners. After all, she was a slave who used
to bring in money, and now she doesn’t, and her owners are angry about that.
What will happen to her?
Scripture doesn’t tell us what happened to her. She just
disappears, as if she’s nothing more than a way for Paul and Silas to make a
point in the prison and with the magistrates.
But to God she is a precious child, carrying God’s image. To
God, she has a name, and a story, and value beyond what income she can
generate. And that means that she has value to us as well. We who follow Jesus
can never simply assume that some people are collateral damage, that some people
are disposable, that some people matter more than others.
Paul and Silas’ trip to Philippi had started well. They’d
gotten to know the town a bit, looking for the places where the light of Christ
was already shining, where the Spirit was already visible. Once they found that
bright spot, they were able to begin work there and let the light spread. That
bright spot happened to be down by the river, where the women worked and
prayed. Philippi was a Roman colony, so it did not have a synagogue but it did
have a vibrant economy. Down at the river, they encountered Lydia, a wealthy
merchant woman whose business was dirty but profitable work, extracting costly
purple dye from small snails. The work meant she was unclean according to
Jewish law, but she was a Gentile anyway. In fact, she’s often considered the
first European convert to the Way of Christ. The Spirit was already moving in
that little community by the river, and when Paul and Silas brought the story
of God in Christ, they immediately embraced it in both word and deed, with
radical hospitality and grace.
A fledgling church began in Lydia’s home, and news must have
spread. By the time the slave woman gets on Paul’s last nerve, they’ve been
there for a while and are beginning to be known. But they are still Jews in a
Roman colony—outsiders. And that makes it easy to accuse them when they lash
out and hurt someone’s bottom line.
As they sang in the darkness, did they think about her? Were
they praying for their freedom in Christ to become literal freedom for
themselves and for her? Or was she forgotten?
Freedom did come for them. The earth shook and the doors
open and the chains fell to the floor. The jailer knew that their freedom meant
his own expendability was now front and center—and Paul knew this too. As the
jailer’s despair deepened to match the pitch-black darkness of a maximum
security prison in the dead of night, a voice came out of the dark. Imagine the
freedom he must have felt, to hear the words “we are all here.” It’s almost a
resurrection story all over again, with life coming out of death in the middle
of the night. In fact, not even “almost”—it is
a resurrection story, for where the jailer previously thought his life was tied
only to the value of his work, he now rejoices in knowing that he, and
everyone, is a part of the Body of Christ.
So I wonder if they thought about her?
Was she part of the Body too? Later in his career, Paul will
write that if one member of the body suffers, all suffer together with it. Is
that true for this woman, so easily cast aside? Is it true for the thousands of
women and men and children whose names we will never know but who live their
lives chained to sewing machines to make our lives easier and cheaper? Is it
true for the Nigerian mothers weeping for their daughters while we spend twenty
billion dollars on cards and flowers and gifts for our own mothers? Is it true
for the hundreds of thousands of people sold, like this woman, into sex
slavery? Do we all suffer together with those whom Christ loves but we ignore
as useful at best and disposable at worst?
When the magistrates try to brush off Paul and Silas as an
irritant, sending them away in secret, Paul uses his privilege in exactly the
way Jesus teaches us to resist oppressors: by highlighting their cruelty
through turning the other cheek and walking the extra mile. He brings up his
citizenship for the first time in the story, and forces the leaders of the
colony to come out and make a scene, apologizing for their wrongdoing in public
where everyone can see they were in the wrong. It’s a brilliant move that puts
the good news of God’s story of freedom front-and-center in the town square, at
the same moment it highlights the weakness of the Empire’s assumptions and its
mob justice.
Did they go look for her? Did they try to set her free in a
literal sense now that she was spiritually free? Because spiritual freedom is
important, but it’s only one part of freedom. God didn’t just set the
Israelites free in their hearts, God led them out of Egypt. God didn’t just tell
the disciples that death had now power, God raised Jesus from the dead and
freed him from the tomb. Paul and Silas had all the spiritual freedom they
could want, yet still the earth shook and the doors of the prison opened.
Conversely, it’s easy to assume our freedom because we have
no literal shackles. But we are just as bound. Whether we are shackled to our
socio-economic status, to our insistence that our desires be met at every turn,
to our complicity in a world system where some people are disposable, to our
history, or to our material possessions, or to any other impermanent thing that
has tricked us into believing it is ultimate…Christ has come to set us free. It
may be earth-shaking, it may be hard, it may take a massive shift in how we see
ourselves and others, but God’s will is always for freedom, for justice, for
grace, for peace—in other words, for good news for all, not just for some. For
as often as we do it to the least of these, we do it to Christ. And the least
of these have names, and stories, and value as children of God, regardless of
their value to our economy or interest to our media.
As we seek the freedom and hope that Christ came to give,
and remember that with that freedom comes a responsibility to one another, I
invite you to pick up a little piece of that responsibility by committing to
pray for another member of the body. In these baskets are the known names of
the Nigerian schoolgirls who are still missing. Take one or two, and hold them
fiercely, surrounding them with the light and love of God that breaks open prisons.
For until their prisons are opened, ours can never be. And while you’re praying
for them, confess also the ways in which our own system benefits us at their
expense, whether economically or geographically or socially or politically. May
the earth shake loose our shackles and theirs, until all the world is set free
by this Truth: Christ is risen, he is risen indeed—and freedom is coming.
May it be so.
Amen.
1. Deborah
2. Awa
3. Hauwa
4. Asabe
5. Mwa
6. Patiant
7. Saraya
8. Mary
9. Gloria
10. Hanatu
11. Gloria
12. Tabitha
13. Maifa
14. Ruth
15. Esther
16. Awa
17. Anthonia
18. Kume
19. Aisha
20. Nguba
21. Kwanta
22. Kummai
23. Esther
24. Hana
25. Rifkatu
26. Rebecca
27. Blessing
28. Ladi
29. Tabitha
30. Ruth
31. Safiya
32. Na’omi
33. Solomi
34. Rhoda
35. Rebecca
36. Christy
37. Rebecca
38. Laraba
39. Saratu
40. Mary
41. Debora
42. Naomi
43. Hanatu
44. Hauwa
45. Juliana
46. Suzana
47. Saraya
48. Jummai
49. Mary
50. Jummai
51. Yanke
52. Muli
53. Fatima
54. Eli
55. Saratu
56. Deborah
57. Rahila
58. Luggwa
59. Kauna
60. Lydia
61. Laraba
62. Hauwa
63. Confort
64. Hauwa
65. Hauwa
66. Yana
67. Laraba
68. Saraya
69. Glory
70. Na’omi
71. Godiya
72. Awa
73. Na’omi
74. Maryamu
75. Tabitha
76. Mary
77. Ladi
78. Rejoice
79. Luggwa
80. Comfort
81. Saraya
82. Sicker
83. Talata
84. Rejoice
85. Deborah
86. Salomi
87. Mary
88. Ruth
89. Esther
90. Esther
91. Maryamu
91. Zara
93. Maryamu
94. Lydia
95. Laraba
96. Na’omi
97. Rahila
98. Ruth
99. Ladi
100. Mary
101. Esther
102. Helen
103. Margret
104. Deborah
105. Filo
106. Febi
107. Ruth
108. Racheal
109. Rifkatu
110. Mairama
111. Saratu
112. Jinkai
113. Margret
114. Yana
115. Grace
116. Amina
117. Palmata
118. Awagana
119. Pindar
120. Yana
121. Saraya
122. Hauwa
123. Hauwa
125. Hauwa
126. Maryamu
127. Maimuna
128. Rebeca
129. Liyatu
130. Rifkatu
131. Naomi
132. Deborah
133. Ladi
134. Asabe
135. Maryamu
136. Ruth
137. Mary
138. Abigail
139. Deborah
140. Saraya
141. Kauna
142. Christiana
143. Yana
144. Hauwa
145. Hadiza
146. Lydia
147. Ruth
148. Mary
149. Lugwa
150. Muwa
151. Hanatu
152. Monica
153. Margret
154. Docas
155. Rhoda
156. Rifkatu
157. Saratu
158. Naomi
159. Hauwa
160. Rahap
162. Deborah
163. Hauwa
164. Hauwa
165. Serah
166. Aishatu
167. Aishatu
168. Hauwa
169. Hamsatu
170. Mairama
171. Hauwa
172. Ihyi
173. Hasana
174. Rakiya
175. Halima
176. Aisha
177. Kabu
178. Yayi
179. Falta
180. Kwadugu
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)