6/2/19 Easter 7C
All We Can
Do Is Trust
Rev Dr Rebecca L. Kiser
Pre-Scripture -
This morning’s text is rather lengthy and has several moving
parts. We’re going to dig into it and
see where the Holy Spirit speaks to us - like usual with the Scriptures, there
are plenty of places, actions, and characters that the Spirit may use to capture our imaginations and speak
to our hearts about being and doing church.
I began work on this passage through imagining myself there with Paul and
Silas, and imagining what I’d be feeling, seeing, hearing and smelling. That’s one method of letting the Spirit speak
through the written words. Of course I
also studied it regarding theology; then, in the method recommended from way
back, ie reading the Scripture alongside the news of the day, one in each
hand. So this outcome is a little
different for me today.
After
Scripture:
The text starts out with a
character, a young slave girl, nameless, who only appears as a character to set
up the story of Paul and Silas’s event while sharing the good news of Jesus
among the Gentiles. They have been sent
out by their community as evangelists.
This nameless slave girl crosses their path and gets into this narrative
because her healing occasions their being beaten, thrown in jail, and held in
chains. Their good deed in what the text
calls casting out the spirit of divination from her, rebounds on them in
calamity. It happens! It still happens
today.
See, her owners were using her to make money, like people
who think they can own other people do …. they exploited her for their own
profit, ignoring her humanity, her needs, her thoughts and feelings. As a slave, she was an object in their eyes,
a means to wealth for them, while she got no part of it. She had no value or worth to them other than
this questionable gift that the Scripture says comes from a spirit who had
taken her over. Like other characters
that the scripture called possessed who recognized Jesus as the Messiah of God
that he was, the spirit in this girl recognizes Paul and Silas as servants of God
who are proclaiming God’s great acts of forgiveness and restoration for
people.
So when Paul casts out that spirit, ie when he heals her,
her owners are NOT pleased that she has been restored and healed … what they
care about is that she can’t tell fortunes and make money for them. She is now worthless to them, her worth
having been based on their profit. And
she disappears from the story.
(ASIDE - Its weird to
me that Paul heals her because he is annoyed with her calling out what is
actually the truth about him and Silas, saying that they are bringing God’s
truth and salvation. I guess she’s a
distraction to their work or something; whatever his motivation, he does see
her as a suffering person and heals her.)
The reaction to his healing her in response to her human
need, is that her owners start to lie and slander Paul and Silas to the
government people they have in their pockets, another technique we are familiar
with throughout history and even today, and have Paul and Silas made the bad
guys. They are beaten (or tortured) in a
humiliating way, then, untreated, they are thrown into an inner prison and put
in chains. All for healing a person -
and therefore causing these corrupt guys to lose money. I was amazed at how a simple act of healing
turned into an occasion of slander, arrest and great punishment in no way
proportional to their act, upon these two men speaking and acting the gospel of
Jesus Christ. But it happens. When your Christian actions get in the way of
money and power, money and power take revenge.
So these attitudes and outcomes aren’t particular to their
generation - its a common result of how thinking we own people demeans the owners, and leads to callous
behaviors. Even today the story is
repeated in how some nationalities and persons are demeaned and devalued by the
more dominant peoples. When we treat others
as objects, our own characters are damaged.
We can see this in our ongoing issues around immigration, especially on
our southern borders, which is in the news almost daily. This country that we love and have been proud
to be in, has failed to consider the humanity and personhood of those seeking
refuge in our country - they are nameless, like the slave girl. And we’ve actually been making much money off
of them when they have come in illegally, as they do jobs others don’t want to
do. Instead of seeing their needs, they
are being dehumanized, callously labelled as criminals and bad, scapegoating
them as evil - not seeing the common human motives and needs that drive
them. If we did this, we’d have to be
more just in our treatment of them.
Notice that I’m not commenting on having good borders to our
country, nor am I commenting on caring about the good of our current citizens - I’m commenting only on how people
are being depersonalized and made to seem worthless, so that we then feel
justified in treating them without humanitarian care. They, like the slave girl
in this story, are unnamed, and disappear into the ongoing story of our
country.
I’ve seen many stories online and on TV about Presbyterians
and others trying to do humanitarian work at our own southern borders. This past Wednesday, a trial began for Dr.
Scott Warren, an archeology prof at Aho, Arizona, for putting water, food and
clothing in the deserts for migrant people.
He’s not sneaking them across our border, he’s not helping
them enter the country illegally, he’s not trying to hide them from the
government - he just provided some humanitarian aid to people who risk of dying
from dehydration in their desperate attempt to get here. He is on trial this week for 3 felony counts
of aiding migrants, and faces up to 20 years in prison, in what Amnesty
International is calling a “criminalization of human compassion.” Its not the only story like this,
either.
Our denomination has been aware of immigration issues since
back in 1894, when issues arose about the treatment of Chinese. In 2004, our
PC(USA) established an Office of Immigration Issues. We now have the Presbyterians for Just
Immigration that is joining most major Christian denominations for calling for
a reworking of immigration policies, and compassion for recognizing all humans’
worth. Most of the work of this arm of
our larger church is education to help those who are interested to get more
involved; and legal resources to local presbyteries who have become involved.
Presbyterians, Baptists, Methodists, Unitarians (and more), are all involved in
trying to reunite children who’ve been separated from their families. We know this is severely damaging to the
children and the parents. Many people of
faith have tried to visit the detainment centers for children, and been turned
away or arrested. Not to steal
children out, not to attack the soldiers guarding the places, not to
do any violence or destruction - simply to offer Christian charity and compassion
to suffering humans. Like Paul and
Silas, they have brought down trouble own their own heads.
So what happens to Paul and Silas for healing this unnamed
slave girl isn’t an anomaly in our world today.
Lying and slandering those who interfere with the making of money off
such suffering people is not an anomaly, either. Nor is government support for the harsh
retaliations of these “owners” of people.
What happened to Paul and Silas has way too many parallels to unjust
systems through all the years. It is difficult to call out injustice, and
interfere with the making of money or the power of those who hoard such power.
Usually this story of Paul and Silas is presented more as a
“look what faith they had and look how God took care of them” type of
sermon. I tried to go there with it, but
kept being pulled in this other direction as I lived with this text. The stories I saw in the news kept “pinging”
on the story in this Scripture.
However, this aspect of the story is also truth for us to
know. Can you imagine being lied about
and slandered, being humiliated by a beating and being thrown in prison just
for doing good - and then praying and singing praise to God? Paul and Silas trusted that God had not
abandoned them, nd that God was with them through it all. Imagining myself in the text, I’d have been
praying more like, “God, what happened?
What in the world are you thinking? How are we ever going to get out of
this mess?”
Actually, though, this is a form of praying, isn’t it? We are taking our feelings and thoughts to
God - we aren’t throwing out everything to do with God as nonsense, but are
asking God how to cope with loss, anger, trouble, and whatever. We still go to God, there is still an
assurance deep down that God cares and listens.
At some point, our prayers get to the place of reaffirming our trust,
because in the end, that’s all we can do.
Now, not every time we suffer for doing good is as obvious
and violent as these examples. In fact,
much of it is more silent, the reactions of those made uncomfortable more like
continual water drops on our head - which can and do add up. Nor is every calamity in our lives caused by
doing a humanitarian or compassionate act - some is our own fault. Then also, some calamities seem to just
randomly drop out of the blue. What
is important for us to note, in whatever kind of calamity we find ourselves in,
is the faith of these two believers that God has not abandoned them, that God
is with them even in the midst of adversity.
We keep coming to church, even if the hymns make us
cry. I’ve done that, maybe others here
have, too. Songs and hymns touch us,
express our feelings and needs; they often speak to us at a heart level. All of
us probably have hymns or other songs that are comforting and inspiring to
us. I have a Facebook friend who is
going through some rough times, who posts many links to the songs that are
meaningful to him during this time – he finds comfort in the songs. Some of the
hymns I’ve cried in are, “God of Compassion in Mercy Befriend Us,” “Spirit of
God Descend Upon My Heart,” and found
inspiration from “How Can I Keep from Singing,”
I bet if Paul and Silas knew “Amazing Grace,” they’d have been singing
that.
When calamity befalls us in our lives, whether its a random
tornado or flood, whether its an unjust result of a good and compassionate act,
or whether we brought it on ourselves by our actions, faith assures us that we
go through it with God. God does not
abandon us. Its right and good to bring
all that we think and feel to God, and seek understanding, or at least rest
there knowing we are not abandoned. It
is faith that keeps us putting one foot in front of the other, seeking to be
the person God knows us to be in every action, working through this seeming
disaster.
In Paul and Silas’ case, their release from the calamity was
rather miraculous - an earthquake shook the prison doors open and shook the
chains free. The man who had been their
jailer and guard heard the word of God, took them to his own house and treated
their welts, and his whole family turned to God. Again, a very dramatic ending. Coming through our own calamities aren’t
usually so dramatic, although often they include miracles - miracles of love,
sharing, and good people. Often it takes
some years to work through calamities that fall on us, yet when we persevere
with God, there will be blessings. Often
in my life, I’ve been changed deeply inside, whether the outside changes much
or not. My eyes have been opened to see
grace, and see God. Our perspectives
change, our attitudes change - these are miraculous, too.
God is making a way, we read from our texts only a few weeks
ago. And not jut in individual
lives. For example, our own Indiantown
Church went through its own calamity a few years back, and persevered, and
worked to keep this church alive - and were successful. Despite the hurt and
loss, we trusted that God does not abandon us, God continues to be with
us. All we can do is trust and keep
moving into God’s future.
May we remember this story of Paul and Silas as we deal with
the troubles and calamities of our own lives, and may we call on that same
trust to see us through to the time when we are blessed. AMEN.
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