University Christian Church

After a long month in life and here in the church, this past week, I hit a wall. Yes, after two incredible memorial services, after a stewardship campaign, after working on our vision of where we are going, after preaching and hospital visits and meetings and connections out in the community, my body finally said, “That’s enough.” And even though I stumbled in here last Sunday and shared my message, I was sick and tired, quite literally.

What happens when I get sick is that this negative spirit comes over me - telling me that I should be ashamed that I am sick. That it’s my fault. That I’m wasting time. That I should be accomplishing more. That other people, other pastors in particular, are healthier than me and never take a day off. I should be more productive. I should power through this. I should go into work anyway. That if I rest, everything in the church and in life with fall apart - or worse, the church will realize that life without their pastor around isn’t so bad.

It is truly a negative spirit - I feel guilty for being sick, like my body is the only body in the world that gets worn down, that gets weighted under heavy loads, that sometimes is held back by my own limits or frailties.

Truly, I think any of these kinds of things, often which I call narratives - they are sort of stories that come from our culture and society and expectations of who we should be or how we should measure up - are truly demonic things. They do not come from God. Certainly, God doesn’t want any of us to be lazy and do nothing with our lives - but God also doesn’t want us to skip our days of rest.

But this is hard in this world in which we live. Some jobs and vocations are so competitive - some circumstances are difficult. Many immigrant families work almost everyday to try to get by on minimum wage or support several family members who can’t work. I remember a friend of mine who felt compelled to not leave work until her boss/supervisor left, afraid that her job would be in jeopardy. And even more, some people in our own communities are quite literally held hostage by their job - threatened to have their immigration status revoked, threaten by violence or abuse - if they do not work.

One of our partners here at our church that uses our space on occasion - the University of Maryland Safe Center, meets with individuals who are in human trafficking situations, who are forced to sell their bodies or denied freedom to leave abusive workplaces against their will. This is modern day slavery.

And I raise this all today - not to equate all the situations as equal - but to help us prepare ourselves for what our scripture speaks to us today and have us think about the chains, the bonds, the narratives, the mental pressure - that keeps us locked up, all in their various forms, and wonder together why God, God who came to us in Jesus, would desire us to be free - to hear the good news that we deserve a break.

In our scripture, Paul and Silas have come to the bustling, cosmopolitan city of Philippi.

Paul and Silas in the early days of the Christian movement like to move incognito - careful and strategic how they announced and presented their faith. Their Christian faith created lots of drama - for one, it was new and new stuff almost always makes everyone uncomfortable. Two - it challenged the status quo of temple worship. Followers of Jesus no longer partied like everyone else - they lived differently. They didn’t follow the Roman holidays or the practices of the bosses and those in charge. That made them stick out. It made them a target.

Paul and Silas are apparently minding their own business - they had just as they arrived to the city, shared the good news with a group of women who received it with excitement. The good news almost always goes to women first - to those who are on the bottom - to those who are struggling. And this new blossoming community of people who were loving each other, hearing more of the stories of Jesus, and praying together was growing.

Until this… girl - scripture says a slave-girl - but I’m trying to follow how some historians encourage us to talk about this, a girl, a beloved child of God, who was enslaved. Not by luck or by chance - but men who were using her and exploiting her for their own wealth. She was being trafficked.

Sometimes, those who are the most stressed, the most worn out, the most bound up by society recognize freedom. We recognize a glimmer of hope in the midst of our bonds. We recognize it in others - others who have that freedom - and we go, I want some of that. Often, that is how the first century church grew and how a lot of churches grow in our communities these days.

This girl had a gift - a gift of divination - which is a gift to see. To see Paul and Silas not just as ordinary men, trying to keep a low profile on their way to prayer - but as men who knew a way to freedom. She shouts at them, time and time again, as they pass through the marketplaces, “These men are slaves of the Most High God, who proclaim to you a way of salvation.”

I think we should always be uncomfortable about slave talk in the bible, because in American history, we have a lot of baggage and history there, most of which we have not really dealt with. Being a slave of God is described as the opposite of being enslaved - it is freedom. It is release. It is rescue. It is hope.

Paul gets tired of her shouting - and maybe in a bout of frustration - he calls the demon out of her. And suddenly, the girl is freed. She is freed in such a way that she no longer has value to her bosses, to her slave-masters, who cannot control or rake profits from her. Suddenly, she is not a product to exploit but a fully human being, a full child of God, who cannot be manipulated or abused or used. I am always amazed at the way the New Testament stories remind us that liberation was not really good news for those on top with all the power - but for women, children, low wage laborers, those who were exploited, those who were seen as a means to an end. Salvation was a pathway to freedom in all aspects of life.

For Paul, this must have been another realization that the power that Christ made available to him and to all who followed after Jesus was powerful stuff. Anne Lamott describes as a reminder when we gather to worship, to love each other, offer blessings to each other, to do this mysterious gathering around the table that we are playing with dynamite.

But the slave-masters, those with a lot of power, those who had a nice setup going on, those who liked the status quo and the money they were making off of this girl who they had enslaved to their whims, were not happy with these two rabble rousers. Who dared to give freedom to someone who did not deserve it. 

Paul and Silas are beaten and tortured, tossed in jail, the jailer gloating over his newest charges. That image of Paul and Silas, two innocent men in jail, draw us to think about this era of mass incarceration - of so many people locked away in prisons in our country, their records and their bodies and their minds altered forever. We think about movements - of civil rights - of leaders protesting for change, making those in power so scared that they lock them up to prevent them from upending status quo.

But Paul and Silas do a remarkable thing in jail - rather than become afraid, they rely once again upon the liberty that comes through Christ and they turn this place of oppression into a place of worship. Their jail cell becomes a sanctuary to lift their praises to God. And in the midst of their singing and praying, God brings the thunder - shakes the very foundations of that prison and rips open that jail cell that dares to keep captive God’s trusted servants.

In my imagination, God literally brings down a divine fist to smash open those prison bars to free his beloved.

And in God’s peculiar good news, the jailer, who once was there to torment and torture Paul and Silas, sees and discovers liberation too - a way of life that no longer involves locking people up but experiencing freedom in Christ. Notice that the scripture says - “everybody’s chains came lose”. Prisoners and jailers alike. What an image of the kingdom of God - of God’s way for us! Freedom for everyone!

The good news for us in our internal narratives, in our broken relationships, in our workplaces that make us sick and tired, and in this world where injustice and imprisonment and enslavement are still far too common, especially for women, children, and the poor - God proclaims a break. Christ announces liberation for all who feel jailed. We join with Paul and Silas and gather together in our jail cells and sing in response to this liberty and freedom discovered in our loving Creator. We sing for a new world. We sing for love. We sing for healing. We sing for abundant life to begin in us and spread in every corner of our community.

Why do we sing? We sing because we’re happy - we sing because we’re free. For the eye is on the sparrow, and I know God watches me.

God’s disruptive love offers us freedom each day and hands us the reigns, like Paul, to smash the injustices we see - if we dare.

This morning, as a church, I want us to give ourselves permission to smash those things that are binding us up and holding us back.

What do you need to go home and smash today in your life?

It might be a small thing - it might be a large thing. It might be going home to cut up credit cards that you don’t need and tempt you to buy more. It might be breaking off a relationship that is unhealthy and causing you no end of trouble. It might be shutting down your twitter or facebook to focus more on what is going on right in front of you. It might be to prepare the courage to tell your boss that you can’t stay late for your own health and your need to breathe. It might be something else in your life that is keeping you locked away.

Today, your pastor, your church, and God gives you permission to take that step. And we will back you up.

It might be that you need to ask God to do some of that work today - to step in and shake your world with a holy earthquake that breaks open prison doors. God is countering the narratives that make you feel guilty or ashamed to take a break or a day off or stay in bed under your covers as you grieve or as you hurt. You are enough. You are loved. You are worthy of that day off. You were not made to only work. You were made to love and be loved.

After worship today, we are setting up a piñata - maybe to continue our celebration of our 60th birthday as a church - but also to do some therapeutic fun self-care. If you need to smash something today, take a broomstick or whatever, imagine that piñata being that thing that needs to get smashed, offer it to God, and then whack away.

Finally, church, we have a mission in this work culture and in this world to proclaim freedom. To practice freedom. To honor freedom. To proclaim this day of rest for all who can hear. We have a mission to proclaim this and even shape the places where we work and the communities in which we live. We have a mission to offer rest to those who don’t believe it is possible in their lives. I want to be a church like Paul and Silas that other people see and say we need some of that. It might take risk - it might mean we need to go into marketplaces and business places and in halls of power and proclaim liberation and release.

Aboriginal leader and activist Lilla Watson wrote, ““If you have come here to help me, you are wasting your time. But if you have come because your liberation is bound up with mine, then let us work together.”

If one of us in our neighborhood is not free, then none of us are free.

God says to us all, “You deserve a break.”

Thanks be to our God of liberation for this good word!