‘May I speak in the name of the Living God whose power can open our hearts and minds’ Amen.
Today’s readings are about God reaching out to us in love and power throughout history. He’s still doing this.
On 18 May three years ago I was reading the account we’ve just heard of Paul and Silas’ release from prison on a Jesuit prayer site. Before I reached the end the words ‘Your chains are gone my child you are free’ came from nowhere into my head.’ I was shaken to the core. Never ever did I think that I’d be preaching on exactly the same passage almost three years to the day. I’m still awe struck - scarcely able to take it all in.
God is always active in our lives. He can reach us at any time anywhere. For Paul, Silas and the jailor nearly 2000 years ago it was in prison in Philippi.
Scholars believe Paul preached in the Roman city of Philippi sometime in AD50. Scripture tells us the Holy Spirit led Paul to Philippi soon after the start of his mammoth second missionary journey. Paul quickly made converts but was then involved in a confrontation with a slave girl whom he freed from the influence of demonic spirits. Subsequently he and Silas ended up in prison.
This could be Paul’s story.
I had no alternative really. That poor girl was not only enslaved by her owners but tormented by demonic forces – I had to set her free. So I said ‘In the name of Jesus Christ I command you to come out of her.’ Instantly she was at peace – not so her owners who were enraged. Silas and I were dragged off before the magistrates and accused of causing ‘uproar’ in Philippi. The rent-a-crowd mob joined in. We stood no chance. We were stripped, beaten and severely flogged to within an inch of our lives. It didn’t matter to me for ‘to me to live is Christ and to die is gain.’ But that wasn’t the end of it. We were hauled off to prison, heard the jailor being told to keep a special eye on us and passed other prisoners before we were thrown in the innermost prison cell. It was pitch black and stinking. We were made to sit, our feet jammed in the stocks and chained to a pole. I knew my back was bleeding – could feel the blood running down it – feel the agony. There was no escape from this. Yes we were locked up but we were still free. Free in Christ – how could I ever forget that day he’d reached me on the road to Damascus. We were alive. In joy and gratitude we sang. We sang as if we’d never sung before – wanting everyone to know the joy we felt. It was a very very special time. In the squalor, in the darkness – we knew we weren’t alone. Somehow I felt there must be a reason we’d been brought here.
I was still reflecting on the amazing ways in which God had been guiding me when the walls shook, a deafening roar ricocheted around, doors opened and the chains on my feet ‘came loose.’ Everywhere was bathed in the white light of God’s glory. I saw through into the second chamber – all the doors were open – everyone was free. But then I saw the jailor with a sword – ready to kill himself. That was quite quite unthinkable. I yelled out ‘Don’t harm yourself! We are all here!’ The next thing I knew he’d fallen at my feet asking ‘what must I do to be saved.’ Now I knew WHY we’d been brought to this place. I told the jailor it was simple – really simple – all he had to do was believe – believe in the risen Lord – that everyone had sinned and fallen short of the glory of God – and that we’d all been freed from our sin by Christ.
The Spirit was powerfully at work late that night and early into the next morning. I’d never have predicted any of it. But I’d learned time and time again I couldn’t outguess God. The jailor bathed our wounds and invited us to eat a meal with his family – all of whom we baptised in the name of Jesus. It was tremendous. The man changed before our eyes – from seeing no way out – from wanting to die – he was ‘filled with joy.’
Let’s think a little more about freedom. The jailor here was the real prisoner – so fearful of his employers that he ‘was about to kill himself because he thought the prisoners had escaped.’ Throughout the world men and women are in prisons – deprived of liberty – some are guilty of the crimes for which they’ve been put there – some are innocent. Many are indeed captive – broken, demoralised, with no hope but not all are. Nelson Mandela spent 27 years in prison – but although locked up – he remained spiritually and psychologically free – no individual or political power was able to annihilate his spirit. Brian Keenan was captured by the militant group Islamic Jihad and spent four years as a hostage. For months he was held in isolation and complete darkness and deprived of all belongings and for 2 years allowed no access to radio, TV or newspapers. He remained sane – and free in spirit.
Freedom isn’t to be equated with personal liberty then because some people remain free whilst deprived of this.
What about enslavement then? The state of being not free? What causes this? Jesus and Paul both taught we are all enslaved by sin. Sin – estrangement from God and others – focuses our attention on ourselves. Some are trapped by addictions – to alcohol, drugs, gambling, pornography, spending, work. Some are sucked into the advertisers’ spin, the must have gadgets, the work harder, earn more – to buy more stuff syndrome. Some are trapped by physical disability, some by fear, guilt, depression. Some are trapped by others’ rejection, by ostracism – because they’re different in some way and don’t fit in. So some of us make our own prisons – some of us allow ourselves to be imprisoned by others. But what all of these enslavements have in common is inner conflict – turmoil – an absence of peace – an absence of joy.
The key message from today’s reading from the Acts of the Apostles is about the freedom which Christ brings. A famous theologian has stated ‘no one is free who is unforgiven.’ He’s right. If we can’t forgive ourselves and forgive others we are not free to love, to live. Jesus told us ‘I have come that (you) may have life and have it to the full.’ How then can we be set free – how can we find this peace?
This story gives us the answer
There was a sculptor once, so they say, who sculpted a statue of our Lord. And people came from great distances to see it – Christ in all his strength and tenderness. They would walk all round the statue, trying to grasp its splendour, looking at it now from this angle, now from that. Yet still its grandeur eluded them, until they consulted the sculptor himself. He would invariably reply ‘There’s only one angle from which this statue can be truly seen. You must kneel.’
Only then bowed and broken before the cross; ransomed, healed, restored, forgiven – only then can we be set free. Then in God’s strength – in God’s power – we like Paul will be ‘compelled’ to share this good news – that there is nothing, nothing at all – ‘neither death nor life …… nor anything else in all creation which (will) ever be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.’
In the name of Christ – our Living Lord: Amen
Reading Acts 16 v. 16 - 34
© Christine M Shilling UK 2007