Easter 7
May 29, 2022
William G. Carter
Memorial Day offers a time for us to give thanks for those who have gone on before us. We plant flowers, tidy up graves, and review the memories lodged within our hearts. With special gratitude, we thank God for those who have given their lives in the service of our country. They have made sacrifices for our well-being. They have seen action to defend our values. And somebody will add, we remember those who have fought for our freedom.
For our freedom. Freedom.
Today we are reflecting on freedom today, and its antithesis, captivity. And we will be instructed once again by an adventure story from the Acts of the Apostles (text). Listen to Luke’s first-hand account:
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.
As we heard last week, the Word of God had moved into Europe. The Word traveled from Jerusalem, to Samaria, through Turkey – and now to the ends of the earth, specifically to the region of Macedonia, northeast of Greece. Paul and his companions happened upon a wealthy merchant by the name of Lydia. She heard the good news of Jesus and welcomed the messengers into her home. A small circle of Christian believers began in the city of Philippi, as they preached the Word and offered prayers.
Yet one day, as we heard, the apostle Paul blew a gasket. His annoyance had been building over a few days. As he and the others went back and forth to Lydia’s place of prayer, they kept passing this unusual young woman. She kept calling out. She was persistent. She was loud. She was obnoxious. And she was a slave.
In that time and location, slavery was legal. It was an open economy without many limitations. Some men owned this woman. They discovered she had a special ability to tell fortunes. So they bought her – literally purchased her as a slave – and used her to make a buck.
She had a remarkable skill. The single person could ask, "Will I find the right mate?" The married couple could inquire, "Will we ever have children?" The business owner could wonder, "Will my fortunes rise next season?" In each case, for a significant fee, she provided an answer, a true answer. Her ability made a lot of money for her owners. They kept her fed and on an invisible chain of exploitation. They were free to do this. She was their captive.
However, something inside her would also blurt out the truth for free. I’m guessing it happened when her owners weren’t paying attention. As Paul and the others passed by, she would cry out, “These men are slaves of the most high God. These men are slaves of the most high God.” Nobody paid her to say it. The words just came out.
And they kept coming! “These men are slaves of the most high God. These men are slave of the most high God.” Every time they passed. Who wants that kind of exposure, even if she was telling the truth? Clearly, she couldn’t help herself. And the shouting continued, every single time. “These men are slaves of the most high God.” It was so annoying. Clearly, she was not only enslaved by her owners; she was enslaved by an unseen spirit.
It became so annoying that Paul had it. So one more time, “These men are slaves of the most high God.” Paul turned, looked at her, identified that thing within her, and said, “In the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, I order you to come out of her.” The shouting stopped. She was quiet. She was free. Free from that fortune-telling spirit that turned her into a commodity. She was free to be who God created her to be.
As you know, this healing infuriated her possessors. Why? You know why: they couldn’t exploit her anymore. They could make money off her ability anymore. And they were enraged. Up until now, they thought they were free to do whatever they wanted, pushing this woman forward as a sideshow attraction. But they can’t do that anymore. They thought they were free, but they were captive to their own greed.
So they grab Paul and his buddy Silas, drag them to the center of town, push them before the magistrate, and make up some accusations: These men are Jews. They are disturbing the peace. They are pushing customs that are not . . . lawful for Roman society. A riot breaks out. The citizens pile on. Paul and Silas are beaten badly (so much for “disturbing the peace”). And these two outsiders are thrown into a jail cell.
You can determine the real charges for yourself: casting out an unclean spirit, or liberating an exploited young girl, or – and this is probably it – messing with the pocketbooks of a couple of oppressive businessmen. Whatever the case, Paul and Silas, formerly free, are now imprisoned. They were free, but they are captives.
Except the two of them don’t act like captives. Even though their ankles were chained to the walls, something in their spirits was not bound. They started praying. They started singing. They kept on praying, they kept on singing. They were having a Holy Hootenanny in jail. All the other prisoners could hear them, as they sang about Jesus who is free from the powers of death. Paul was a prisoner, right? But free as a bird.
So they kept singing, they kept praying. It got to be about midnight, when suddenly the ground shook violently. The rafters of the jail wobbled. An earthquake shook so fiercely that all the prison doors flew open, and all the shackles fell off the prisoners’ legs. Not only that, but Luke also says the earthquake was so powerful that it woke the jailer from his evening snooze. That must have been some earthquake!
And the jailer looks up and down the hall. All the doors are open. This man is terrified. He had one job – to keep the captives in their cells – and he presumes they have all run away. Oh, the shame! He knows the rules: if a prisoner escapes under your watch, you might as well be dead. He is afraid of the awful consequences of losing his detainees, so he prepares to fall on his sword. He is a captive to his own fear.
Just then, Paul calls out, “We are all still here. Don’t do anything rash.” And the jailer couldn’t believe it. He rushes in, looks around, sees these prisoners where they’re supposed to be, takes them outside of that badly shaken jail, and then falls to his knees. “What must I do?” he blurts out. “What must I do to be rescued, to be saved?”
And Paul says, “Let me tell you about Jesus. He was a good man, falsely arrested for doing charitable deeds. He healed many, spoke truth to power, and this is what got him condemned. He suffered a shameful death, a death on a cross – but then God raised him and lifted him as Lord over all. Jesus was a captive – but he is free. Hear the news and trust it.”
This jailer who has been shaken awake so abruptly took the two prisoners to his home, cleaned their wounds, bandaged their bruises, and asked to be baptized. Then they all sat down to have something to eat. The jailer, once fearful, was now free. Paul and Silas were still captives, under the watch of the jailer, but they had been free all along.
The story moves along from there. When morning comes, the magistrates send word through the police, “Release the prisoners and tell them to skedaddle.” But Paul said, “What? After a night like that?” They can’t pretend it didn’t happen. They can’t merely do a political washing-of-the-hands. He said, “You tell the court that we are Roman citizens (see, he could play that card when he had to). Not only were we falsely accused, but you also can’t just whisk us away secretly. Come and release us yourselves.”
See, he’s still a captive – but he is free. The authorities come to apologize, and to gently request them to leave. Apology accepted, farewells are made, and off they go. The Word of God moves on.
It’s a remarkable story, given the interplay of captivity and freedom. Those who believed they were free were prisoners of something. Those who had been captives are curiously liberated. And the event that set the whole, long tale into motion was the release of a young woman - enslaved, commodified, captive to an unseen spirit – she is set free, and this exposes the other imprisonments that seem so familiar to us all.
There’s a woman who found herself hooked on painkillers; she thought they might set her free, but they enslaved her. Or that business person, on the surface might appear liberated by a whopping paycheck yet is merely wearing the golden handcuffs of a consuming job.
One of the privileges of my job is standing backstage at weddings. I often hang around with the nervous groom as he steadies himself before walking in. I can’t tell you how many times his buddies will joke, “Tom, you are trading in your years of single freedom for the old ball and chain.” They laugh, but I can testify that a good marriage is one that frees you from the tyranny of selfishness.
Who truly is the captive? Who is free? And what are we going to be captive to?
We hear it all. Years ago, complaints about a high school dress code. Adolescents surging full of hormones, arguing, “I am free to wear whatever I want.” What they didn’t notice is what they wanted to wear was exactly what all the other kids were wearing, purchased from the same stores in the mall, same gaps showing too much flesh, same identical look. They told themselves they were free, but the mall told them to fit in with all the others and sold them a bill of goods. Looked like freedom, but it was really a form of captivity.
So here’s the underlying question of the story: who yanks your chain? To whom do you belong?
Like you, I continue to be speechless at the senseless slaughter of innocents in elementary schools, or shoppers in a grocery store. I have a lot to say, just like you, but I don’t know what to say. But maybe here’s one thing. Maybe if we belonged to our children, maybe if we belonged to our neighbors, maybe if we belonged to Christ, we could give up our captivity to violence.
It is clear there are voices that enslave us, unseen forces that play on our fears and diminish whatever it is that makes us human. We won’t be free – we can’t be free – until we belong to something greater than our own anger and our addiction to hostility. And for some we will be free only if we increase our own arsenals, that is a form of madness. Let’s call it what it is – it is captivity to the powers of destruction.
Our recurring challenge is a soul-sized battle. To whom or what will we belong? And are we free, truly free?
The Bible story begins with an act of liberation. A woman in Philippi was trafficked by a couple of men. She was exploited. They were marketing her abilities to line her own pockets. She was enslaved – and Paul called upon Jesus Christ to set her free. That act of truthful healing is what set the whole story in motion.
Yet, even as she had been possessed, she did tell the truth. Do you remember what she called out, whenever Paul and the others passed by? “These men are slaves of the most high God.” Slaves! That’s the word. They did not belong to themselves. They belonged to God in Christ, and that is what set them free.
Reminds me of a song that we used to sing in church before the old hymnal was revised:
Make me a captive, Lord, and then I shall be free.
Force me to render up my sword, and I shall conqueror be.
I sink in life’s alarms when by myself I stand.
Imprison me within Thine arms, and strong shall be my hand.[1]
This brings us close to the mystery of what it means to be a Christian: we belong to Jesus, the living Christ. We surrender to him and give up any illusion of independence. We submit to his ways, awkward as they may be, and turn from our own natural inclinations. We give up the vain dream so commonly voiced in the phrase, “I am my own person,” for we keep opening ourselves to the possibility of how we could be Christ’s person.
To some, in our hyper-individualized culture, this sounds like a form of incarceration. But when we join Christ in the works of healing, forgiveness, and love, we discover that taking his yoke is the true freedom.
No wonder that the Christian people remember how Paul offered advice to one of his churches. He said, “As a prisoner in the Lord” (hear that? He’s not referring to merely being in jail), “I beg you to lead a life worthy of the calling to which you have been called, with all humility and gentleness, with patience, bearing with one another in love, making every effort to maintain the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace.”[2]
This is freedom, true freedom. It is not the shallow temptation to whatever we want, but “bring every thought captive in obedience to Jesus Christ.” (2 Cor. 10:5)
Let me sum it up by saying all of us are captives to something or someone. The question for today is this: who yanks your chain?
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