Proverbs 8:1-4, 22-31 "Dancing with God"

        This first Sunday after the Festival of Pentecost, which we celebrated last week, is known in some religious circles as Trinity Sunday.  It is a day that churches may set aside to acknowledge the doctrine of the Trinity – God in three persons, blessed trinity (as the old hymn goes)….Father, Son, and Holy Ghost…Creator, Christ, and Holy Spirit. 

         Interestingly enough, the doctrine of the Trinity is not Biblical in origin.  There is no place in our Holy Scriptures that describes these three personifications of God in such closely interwoven terms.  In fact, the word “trinity” is never used in the Bible.

         However, through Old Testament stories, we are introduced to Yahweh, Elohim, the one God, the Creator.  Likewise, in the New Testament, we follow in the footsteps of Jesus and come to understand his unique relationship to God.  And finally, most dramatically in the story of Pentecost, but prominently in the Gospel of John as well, we become acquainted with the Holy Spirit.  However, it was not until the Council of Nicea in the 4^th century that this notion of the three personages of God – the Godhead - was codified in the Nicene Creed as orthodox Christian doctrine.

         For most of us growing up in the church, the trinity was pretty much a done deal.  It was assumed that we believed in it – in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost – remember? 

         Looking back on it all, the Father part was pretty easy to fathom.  All we had to know was what the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel looked like.  God was the old man with the beard residing in the white puffy clouds of heaven – rather like Father Time, Cecile B. DeMille’s Moses, and the ancient prophets all rolled into one. 

         And if we did not know what the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel looked like, that was all right because we could just listen to the language used to address God in worship.  The images handed down to us were overwhelmingly masculine – father, king, lord, bridegroom, master. 

         The common language of worship conveyed a simple, straightforward, and limited (if not completely unimaginative and one-sided) message about who God was.  You see, it was not often that we were told that, in addition to being bridegroom and king, God was also like a mother hen shielding her chicks from the fox who preyed on them, like a woman in labor, a midwife attending to a birth, a mother nursing her child, a seamstress, or a bread baker (all Biblical images as well). 

         The Jesus Christ part of the trinity was also pretty simple for us to conjure up in our minds – dealing with an historical figure as we were.  His gender was pretty straightforward.  After all, he was a first century Jewish rabbi.

         And then there was the Holy Spirit – that most nebulous part of the trinity and so difficult for us to adequately describe.  It swirls.  It flows.  It envelops and surrounds.  It comforts.  It protects.  It somehow is all around us in an amorphous gossamer winged type way – and it is completely genderless.

         Father, Son, and Holy Spirit: it is not hard to understand how, in the process of morphing and refining itself, Christianity became buried under layers and layers of patriarchal (male-centered) influences.  And so it is not hard to understand how down through the ages – even today - our sense of the divine has become steeped in masculinity as well. 

         After all, we had God as the old man on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel, Jesus as the young upstart Jewish rabbi, and the Holy Spirit as a sexless entity that we could not really put a finger on anyway.  If majority rules, then two out of three is not bad.  God is clearly a man.  No doubt about it!

         Several years ago, shortly after Dan Brown’s novel, The Da Vinci Code, was published, the Portland Art Museum offered a Sunday afternoon program about the artwork associated with the novel.  As many of you know, at its core, Brown’s book deals with the role of the sacred feminine in Christianity.  Joe and I decided to attend the lecture – even though it was mid-January and the wind chill was well below zero – not a great afternoon to be out and about. 

         We had to park quite a few blocks from the museum, and as we walked – all bundled up - toward Congress Street, we realized that people in their scarves, hats, and mittens from every direction were converging with great determination on the museum as well.  In fact, when we arrived 20 or so minutes before the scheduled start time, the atrium was already filled.  Now that in and of itself was remarkable because we all know that anyone can walk into any event here in Maine two minutes before it begins and always find a good seat.

         Not that particular day, however!  Joe and I ended up watching the presentation from the top floor of the museum overlooking the atrium.  It was also simulcast in the museum basement.  All in all, over 1200 people came out that frigid Sunday afternoon. 

         Clearly, something about the book had struck a deeply personal and spiritual chord in a lot of people.  Catholics and Protestants alike seemed to have come searching for something they had not found in their church experiences – a place to look, a direction to follow, a shred of evidence, not that God was not a man, but that there was more to God than masculinity. 

         And here in the Old Testament book of Proverbs, in the passage we just read, we find, clearly drawn, this additional, much needed perspective on God.  As Presbyterian pastor, Sarah Segal McCaslin, notes, “This is a magnificent passage, and the female voice resonates majestically. The masculine is, for a moment, set aside and the feminine steps into the spotlight. Not quietly or passively, but with the grand confidence of one who knows that she is close to God, close to the very source of all things, and herself the means to access closeness with God.”  The Greeks call her Sophia.  In “The Message” Bible translation, she is Lady Wisdom or Madame Insight.  And she is most definitely a woman, a tantalizing peek at the divine feminine.

         Who is this female entity that is trying to wedge her way into the masculine Godhead we all grew up with?  Well, first of all, Lady Wisdom is not the product of the human mind.  If we had to connect her to anything human, it would be better to say that she is of the heart, fostered in intuition.

         However, more accurate still would be to proclaim that she is part of who God is.  As theologian Frederick Buechner wrote, “It was as if (God) needed a woman's imagination to help him make (everything), a woman's eye to tell him if he'd made them right, a woman's spirit to measure their beauty by.”

         Perhaps echoing ancient goddess worship, this passage in Proverbs describes Lady Wisdom as a partner with God in the beautiful drama of creation – an architectural associate. 

Madame Insight is perhaps the Word (with a capital “W”) about which the Gospel writer of John wrote – “In the beginning was the Word, and Word was with God, and the Word was God.”  Wisdom is the breath – the pneuma – the sacred Spirit that inspires all creatures to come to life.  She is part of who God is – and she was there at the very beginning of it all, putting her stamp of order on everything. 

         As Presbyterian pastor Jeffery Howard writes, “Wisdom decided that two atoms of hydrogen should be joined with one atom of oxygen to form a molecule of water, and God said that it was so. Wisdom ordained that every action should have an equal but opposite reaction making rockets possible, and God made it happened. Wisdom established the rules of evolution, which has produced the biological diversity of the earth, and God created the plants and animals and the DNA that made this happen. The author of Proverbs described God’s creation as a dance where God and Wisdom whirl and twirl and rejoice in each other’s arms.”

         In Lady Wisdom, an alternative view of who God is unfolds, and it is an exceedingly different view than the one most of us grew up with.  Lady Wisdom is not staid and serious.  Rather she is playful, merry, gamboling.  One Biblical translator describes her like this:  “ I was daily his delight, dancing and frolicking before him always.” Here in Proverbs we find that it is Lady Wisdom who drags God the father out on the dance floor to do the jive, the two-step, and the cha-cha.  It’s like Dancing with the Stars at the moment of the Big Bang. 

      However, Lady Wisdom did not simply disappear after the dawn of creation.  She still roams the world and is ever-present – though maybe not always on her best behavior.   As the author of the Book of Proverbs notes, sometimes she can be loud and boisterous – that Holy, cranky, noisy, troublesome Spirit whose coming we celebrated just last week.  The author tells us that Lady Wisdom stations herself at that most public of places, the city gates. She is in the thick of life itself.

          “She’s taken her stand at First and Main, at the busiest intersection. Right in the city square where the traffic is thickest, she shouts, “You—I’m talking to all of you, everyone out here on the streets!
Listen, you idiots—learn good sense!
You blockheads—shape up!”

        As UCC pastor Kirk Moore describes her;

•   She speaks the truth and hates deception

•   Her advice is wholesome and good

•   She gives instruction

•   She lives with good judgment

•   She attains knowledge and discretion

•   She has good advice

•   She has insight

•   She has strength

•   She loves those who seek her

She walks the way of righteousness and along the paths of justice.

         Because we tend to be so bound by those male pictures of God that we grew up with in church, Lady Wisdom is frequently an unacknowledged image of divinity.  However, we forget about her at our peril because when we fail to acknowledge her, our perspective of who God is becomes severely limited. 

         As your pastor, I believe that part of my role here is to deepen and broaden and generally enrich your understanding of the divine – and to challenge you not to limit your perspective of who God is because of archaic church language and images you grew up with.  Some of you may have noticed that I try very hard not to refer to God as male – or for that matter as female.  To put one consistent gender - either gender – male or female - on God diminishes the Holy One.  And so, until I feel that you appreciate my referring to God as mother (and I am not sure that some of you would), I will not refer to God exclusively as father either.

         Oh, do not get me wrong!  There is still life and spirit and truth in all that male imagery – to be sure.  However, without a complementary affirmation of the sacred feminine, it is a closed off life, a boxed in spirit, and a partial truth. 

         That being said, even as your pastor, I am not asking you to give up your masculine mental pictures of who God is.  I know that it is hard to change what has been ingrained since childhood.  However, I do encourage you to, as Sara McClaslin urges, “re-imagine God beyond gender categories; it remains a personal and internal exercise to read between the lines as we encounter the stale language of patriarchy in parts of our tradition.”

         And I would challenge you to embrace Lady Wisdom – she who was there with God since the very beginning of time, her presence adding a dimension to the Holy One that is so enriching.  Why embrace her?  Because she who stands at the crossroads of life itself – beckoning to us, bringing us into relationship with the divine in new and startling ways, is the one grabbing us by the wrists, pulling us onto the dance floor, urging us to dance, to dance with her, to dance with God.

 by Rev. Nancy Foran, Raymond Village Community Church, Raymond, Maine

        

         

Acts 2:1-21 "One Toe In"

         A wealthy family from Massachusetts had a month’s vacation every summer on the coast of Maine, taking their nanny with them.  On her first day off, the nanny would enact what had become an annual ritual at the beach.

         She wore an old one piece bathing suit, a little white sun hat, and she carried enough paraphernalia to stock Wal-Mart. The nanny would settle herself on a beach chair, then cover every inch of her exposed flesh with sunscreen, and, after a good deal of preparation, journey down to the water’s edge.

         There she would hesitate while taking deep breaths, flapping her arms, and generally working up her courage to enter the icy-cold water. Finally, she would daintily extend one foot and lower it slowly into the water until she barely had her big toe submerged. Then she repeated the act with the other foot. Having then satisfied her annual urge for a swim, she would retreat to her chair and umbrella and spend the remainder of her vacation time curled around a book.

         That, I think, is how some of us, at least, have been conditioned to approach the Festival of Pentecost, this celebration of the coming of the Holy Spirit.  We are a little leery of it and certainly do not want to just leap right into it. 

         From the Biblical images of the Holy Spirit of Pentecost symbolized in a mighty wind and tongues of fire, our brains seem to move almost effortlessly and often very uncomfortably to revival tents in the Deep South and snake handlers in Appalachia.  And this paradigm shift from Pentecost to Pentecostal is all the more pronounced if our church experience has been grounded in good old, always in control, not too much emotion, whatever you do don’t rock the boat New England Protestantism.

         If that is your perspective, if you approach Pentecost and the Holy Spirit warily and somewhat at arm’s length, well, at least you do not live in 10^th century Rome.  There, according to UCC pastor, Carolyn Reynolds, “the Pentecost liturgy involved not only anthems, but church architecture.  (You see), the heavenly scenes painted on the domed and soaring ceilings of so many cathedrals served not only to inspire and transport the congregation. They also disguised trap doors, small openings drilled through cathedral ceilings to their rooftops.

         At the appropriate moment during the Pentecost mass, servants would ascend the rooftop to release live doves through these holes. From out of the painted skies and clouds, swooping, diving symbols of a vitally present Holy Spirit would descend toward the people below. Simultaneously, choirboys would break into the whooshing and drumming sound of a windstorm. And, finally, as doves flew and winds rushed, bushels of rose petals would shower down upon the congregation like red, flickering tongues of flame.”

         All those theatrics were employed, of course, to convince the congregation that the Holy Spirit is not given to conformity and control.  As Episcopal priest Mark Harris so rightly notes, “ the Spirit is somewhat cranky and given to its own thing.”

         It is like the writer of the Gospel of John notes, "The wind blows where it wills, and you hear the sound of it, but you do not know whence it comes or whither it goes.” If the Holy Spirit makes us a wee bit nervous – well, it should – because when the Holy Spirit shows up, you just do not know what will come next.

         I mean, look what happened to the apostles and their believer friends in Jerusalem.  The last time they had seen Jesus, he had told them to wait, just wait for the Holy Spirit to arrive.  It will be my gift to you, he said, and, with it, all will be well. 

        What was that supposed to mean?  The gift of the Holy Spirit?  Really, most of them still had not completely given up on the idea of a political Messiah who would overturn Rome and finally restore the kingdom of Israel. In fact, when Jesus departed through the clouds right before their very eyes, they had stood staring at the sky as though there had been some mistake. It is said that angels had to come and shoo them away.  

         The gift of the Holy Spirit?  Exactly what that meant, how, or when it would occur no one knew.  However, rather than blundering out on their own as Peter had been known to do in the past, apparently they really did wait – and what a surprise they were in for! 

         First, it sounded and felt like a hurricane was whipping through the house where they were staying.  The walls shook.  Candles were snuffed out.  Hair was blown in all directions.  Dust from the marketplace swirled in through open windows, stinging eyes and tickling noses, causing Andrew and James to both have sneezing fits. 

         When the power of the wind had subsided, and the dust had settled a bit, surely they thought – wow, what a divine intervention. This Holy Spirit business must be the gift of power.

        It was then, however, that those little tongues of fire began to shoot out of the tops of their heads – burning and burning with seemingly nothing to fuel them.  It could not help but remind them of Moses that first time he had met God.  The flames were like a bunch of little burning bushes.  Wow – what a divine intervention! This Holy Spirit business must be the gift of energy and excitement – or so they figured.

         Unable to contain themselves or keep any of these strange events secret a moment longer, they streamed out of the house and into the market place.  They poured into the streets and babbled on and on about wind and fire. 

         And all the pilgrims from all over the ancient world, who had gathered there in Jerusalem for the Jewish Festival of Pentecost, they all understood what the apostles were talking about, even if they did not speak Aramaic.  It was as if the apostles were speaking in Arabic or Latin or Greek – whatever language each person who listened could understand. 

         And, almost like icing on the cake, Peter suddenly hurtled himself onto the topmost step leading into the house and began to preach.  Peter – once an illiterate fisherman and most always a bumbling, stumbling follower – Peter who had doubted and denied and in a way betrayed the rabbi he so dearly loved – Peter got up and preached the sermon of a lifetime.  The more cynical in the crowd thought the whole lot of them was drunk – even though it was only 9:00 A.M.  The rest, however, seemed content to be part of this miracle of the coming of the Holy Spirit.  

         Tradition has it that 3000 people were baptized that day, and in an instant the tiny band of Jesus followers became a movement within Judaism to contend with.  And so, we say, the church was born – there in the midst of the gusting, roaring, and burning of the Holy Spirit.  In a nutshell then, on Pentecost, God “jump started” the church. (Robin Fish)

         What an astounding story, but it is a story we need in the church today.  It is not some ancient tale to hear and forget – because, you see, without Pentecost, over time, Easter would fall flat on its face.  What do I mean by that?

         As Disciples of Christ pastor, Fred Craddock has noted, “Without Pentecost, Easter (only) reminds the church that Jesus has now gone to be with God, and his followers are left alone in the world.  Without Pentecost, Easter offers us a risen Christ (who) leaves the church to face the world armed with nothing but fond memories of how it once was when Jesus was here.  But with Pentecost, Easter’s Christ…has returned in the Holy Spirit as comforter, guide, teacher, reminder, and power….With Pentecost, the risen Christ says hello and not good-bye to the church.”

         Yes, we need this astounding story of Pentecost in the church today, and we certainly need the Holy Spirit that is part and parcel of it.  We need to be reminded time and time again that it is the Spirit that lies at the core of what we are able to do as the church, as the Body of Christ. 

         The Holy Spirit is the source of our power in the church.  As Shane Claiborne writes: “Maybe we are a little crazy. After all, we believe in things we don’t see....We believe poverty can end even though it is all around us. We believe in peace even though we hear only rumors of war. And since we are people of expectation, we are so convinced that another is coming that we start living as if it were already here.”  Such Spirit-inspired dreams give us the power to untangle the threads of poverty and to beat our swords into plowshares – in spite of the world telling us that transformation is too big, too complicated, to much work: we can never make a difference.

         The Holy Spirit is the source of our energy and excitement in the church.  Once a large downtown church building caught fire. Fire and rescue workers from surrounding towns were called in to quell the blaze.  As the building was engulfed in flames, a crowd of people gathered to watch the spectacle. 

         One gentleman turned to the man next to him and remarked, “I’ve never seen you at church before.” 

         Not missing a beat, the other responded, “I’ve never seen the church on fire before.”

         With only 17% of the population thinking that the local church is important for spiritual development and over half saying that they are not religious anyway, that offhanded remark is one that we who do come to church ought to take most seriously. 

         The Holy Spirit is God’s gift to us here at the Raymond Village Community Church (United Church of Christ).  It is God’s gift of power, God’s gift of energy and excitement.  And, as Presbyterian pastor Thomas Long noted, it is God’s “gift of something to say, a Word to speak in the brokenness and tragedy of the world that is unlike any other word.” 

         Celtic Christians, who originated in the British Isles, symbolized the Holy Spirit as a goose – squawking, flapping, assertive, obnoxious, and with a mind of its own. 

I like that symbol because it reminds me that the chances are good that we are clipping the wings of the Spirit when we only want to sing the hymns we grew up with, when meeting our budget becomes more important that realizing and activating our mission, when we convince ourselves that it is OK to stay within these four walls and not reach out to welcome, embrace, and care for those we do not know, those we fear, and those we may not even like.  We are caging the Spirit when we have the attitude that if they need us, they will come.

         If the Holy Spirit is in this place, may we realize that it is not swirling about solving our problems.  Rather, it is creating them.  It is not shielding us from failure. 

Rather, it is inviting it as we figure out how most effectively to follow the Way of Christ, asking us not to make assumptions about what we can or cannot do but rather challenging us to dream and vision. 

         On Pentecost Sunday, we are reminded of all those attributes of the Holy Spirit – its power, energy, excitement - and once again, to see it for what it is – unpredictable, surprising, and eminently capable, if we let it, of leading us as the church to places we never thought we would ever go, and always – always – urging and challenging us to put more than just a big toe in as we venture together deeper into the waters of faith by really being the church, really being the Body of Christ in this crazy jaded world so in need of our ministry. 

         That is what Pentecost is all about – the coming of the Holy Spirit – God active and alive now, God still speaking, today, in our time, and , if we let the Holy One, even in our little church. In short, Pentecost is a festival to be taken as seriously as Christmas and Easter, and the Holy Spirit is nothing to be trifled with. 

         The call of Pentecost is simple, but can we say it – and really believe it – and really want it to happen to us?  Can we face the mighty wind?  Can we look unafraid into the shooting flames?  Dare we speak like the apostles – even like Peter - so that all who hear us will understand? 

         The call is simple, but can we say it?  Come, Holy Spirit, come!
by Rev. Nancy Foran, Raymond Village Community Church, Raymond, Maine

Acts 16:16-34 "Behind Bars"

         I am not a particularly big fan of Elvis Presley.  I was never inclined to make a pilgrimage to Graceland, his mansion estate in Tennessee.  I have never been particularly drawn to Elvis impersonators, and I certainly never wondered whether the King of Rock and Roll in any way lived after his death in 1977. 

         However, I must admit that, when I hear this particular passage we just read from the Book of Acts, I always think of that Elvis classic, “Jailhouse Rock.”  As I listen, I imagine Paul and Silas, shackled to the wall of their prison cell, raising their voices in glorious song.  I can almost hear the hymns and praise tunes reverberating off the floor and ceiling.  Come to think of it, the acoustics in that inner jail cell were probably terrific!!

         However, to focus only on the nighttime hymn sing would be to reflect on only part of this passage.  You see, these verses are not only about the role of music in troubled times.  They are not only about the earthquake that rocked and rolled the prison, shattering the locks and flinging open the doors to freedom. They are not only about Paul and Silas’ opportunity to escape, which the two missionaries threw away in a heartbeat in order to minister to the jailer. 

         Though the passage is certainly about Paul and Silas’ jailhouse rock and roll, it is really more far-reaching than this overnight stay in a first century prison.  We have here a real adventure story, complete with “an exorcism, a mob scene, a kangaroo court, a flogging, a prison-cell, a prison-church, an act of God, an altar call, a conversion, a few baptisms - and it concludes with new friends gathered around a dining table sharing good food and hospitality in the name of Jesus.” (www.fhcpresb.org). 

         You see, if we look carefully at this passage, we will find that, though it is clearly about prisoners and those who imprison them, it is not just about Paul and Silas.  They were not the only ones in this story who were imprisoned.  There were 3 others as well.

         Let’s go back to the beginning of the narrative.  It starts with a slave girl, a young woman who is described as being in the clutches of an abnormal, if not evil, spirit.  It seems that she rants and raves quite a bit in public and, in doing so, spouts a lot of fortune telling jargon.  She mesmerizes the crowd when she picks out an individual and predicts his or her future. People pay good money to have their fortune told.  She was a psychic, and, in our story, she has decided to focus on Paul and Silas. 

         One gets the feeling that she had been stalking our two missionaries for several days.  Even without benefit of palm reading, tarot cards, or a crystal ball, she has them pegged and does not hesitate to make a public announcement – over and over again:  “These men are slaves of the Most High God, who proclaim to you a way of salvation.”

         No wonder Paul got a bit annoyed and tried, to no avail, to brush her off.  She was a crazy lady – and so did not leave anyone with a particularly positive feeling about the Christian message that he preached or the evangelizing that he was up to. After all, people could not help but presume that this wigged out woman was with Paul. 

         It would be like having someone on a soapbox in front of our church on a Sunday morning passing out pamphlets proclaiming that the moderate church was alive and well right here at the Raymond Village Community Church (United Church of Christ): 

In my opinion, promoting that sort of activity is not exactly the best way to grow our congregation.

         And so Paul did what I could not do in a similar situation.  Paul said to the spirit: “I order you in the name of Jesus Christ to come out of her.” And, as the author of the Book of Acts tells us, the spirit came out of her that very hour.

         And so we have the slave girl:  Prisoner #1.  Not only was she the property of her exploitative owners (though that was quite commonplace at the time), she was imprisoned by a spirit that haunted her.  Hers was at least partially a physical prison from which Paul released her.  Whatever his initial motives, at the core was his sense of compassion grounded in the love of Christ, which he both professed and now acted upon. 

         One would have thought that freeing the young woman from the so-called spirits that controlled her would have resulted in a whole bunch of oohs and ahs amidst enthusiastic applause.  One would have thought that, just as Jesus had made a big impression with his dramatic healings, so Paul would have garnered some big points on the evangelical front as well.  Surely such a healing would be appreciated as good news.

         However, that was not the case.  In fact, the slave girl’s owners were furious at Paul.  You see, the slave girl made quite a bit of money for them.  She was a lucrative income stream.  As long as she was ill, they prospered because they were investors and shareholders in a profitable psychic network.  The slave girl was a great little side business for them.  And so when Paul unshackled her – freed her from the prison of her own mind – her owners were apoplectic.  By healing the slave girl, Paul afflicted her owners where they would hurt the most – their bank accounts. 

         And so we have the owners:  Prisoners #2.  They who imprisoned the slave girl by misusing her own imprisonment were themselves spiritually imprisoned by their own selfishness, which allowed them to look the other way and exploit the slave girl for their personal gain.  With their pocketbooks pinched, they also became shackled by greed and by an overpowering fear of scarcity. 

       In this part of our story, Christianity has come up against economics – and it is not a pretty sight.  When religious convictions and money matters collide, the consequences are most often unsettling, even dangerous.       

       What those consequences were in our story are these:  The now out-of-business slave owners seized Paul and Silas, marched them unceremoniously into the marketplace, and insisted that they be put on trial, right then and there before, as Presbyterian pastor Nick Benson writes, the entire Philippian “Chamber of Commerce. The rulers appeared with their rulebooks; the magistrates came forth in their magisterial garb; and the citizenry showed up with rocks at the ready to stone any rabble rousers threatening the status quo.”

       “These men are troublemakers.”  That was the gist of the accusations, and the monkey court did its work quickly.  Paul and Silas were stripped and whipped and sent to the local maximum- security cell for their crime of compassion.  The jailer was under strict orders to properly shackle them (which he did) and to lock them up tight (which he also did).

       It was that night in the inner jail cell that the hymn fest and prayer service occurred.  It was that night also that the earthquake shook the very prison walls and rattled the doors right off their hinges.  It was that night that the jailer was so distraught over the certain escape of the prisoners that he seriously contemplated suicide.  It was that night that Paul and Silas could have flown the coop but did not for sake of the jailer.

       And so we have the jailer:  Prisoner #3.  Though he held the keys to the jail, he was imprisoned by his job, by the people who dictated its demands, and by the fear all those things engendered.

       And it was that night that the jailer realized his imprisonment, realized that Paul and Silas held the real keys, the ones to the kingdom, and so was baptized.  And it was that night that he transformed from fear-filled jailer to God-filled Good Samaritan, washing the wounds of the two missionaries, clothing them, and eventually feeding them in his own home.

       Though this dramatic story is one full of twists, turns, and surprises, it is also one of deep spiritual significance.  At its roots, it is a tale about those who are prisoners and those who imprison. 

       There was Prisoner #1 - the slave girl imprisoned by her haunting spirits as well as by the abusive nature of her owners. 

       There were Prisoners #2 - the owners themselves, imprisoned by the dollars in their wallets, by their greed, and perhaps most of all by their fear-filled assumption that they needed to grab all they could at whatever cost to others because there will never,

never be enough to go around. 

       And finally there was Prisoner #3 - the jailer imprisoned by fear both of his job and for his job. 

       What these assorted prisoners remind me is that, even in this story, the true prisoners are not always obvious.  That being said, perhaps we – you and I - need to look beyond the ones who live behind actual bars to the ones whose bars are more hidden. 

       We are all prisoners of something, you know.  Maybe it is a job like the jailer, or perhaps it is a relationship.  Maybe we are a prisoner of time.  Who knows – but it is worth asking ourselves this question:  What are we imprisoned by?  And also asking a corollary question:  What bars does the person next to me or behind me or in front of me live behind?

       Of course, the most obvious prisoners in our story were Paul and Silas.  They were the ones stripped and flogged and thrown into jail.  Yet, in a curious theological twist, they were also the ones who freed the prisoners. 

       Paul healed the slave girl.  He liberated her from her physical ailment and, as a result, presumably from the exploitation of her owners.  

However, we do not know for sure what happened to her after this incident. The author of the Book of Acts leaves us nary a clue.

       Though we hope that everything turned out well for her, that niggling omission ought to remind us that we do not always know what the consequences will be of our acts of compassion.  In all our efforts to do good, do we ever in the end do more harm?  It is worth pondering, I think, because sometimes there are more gray areas in life than we like to admit.

       Paul also freed the jailer from what appeared to be certain suicide.  Paul’s compassion ignited a similar spark of compassion in the him.  And you just have to believe that the jailer got it about the keys of the jail and the keys of the kingdom. 

       And finally there were the slave owners.  It does not look like they were freed from much of anything.  And maybe they were not.  So, I think a question that theologian Frederick Buechner once raised is worth reflecting on: “When you find something in a human face that calls out to you, not just for help but in some sense for yourself, how far do you go in answering that call, how far can you go, seeing that you have your own life to get on with as much as he has his?”      

       Perhaps in the end, we can only say that transformation and emancipation are sometimes bittersweet.  Perhaps, in the end, we can only say that it takes time to sort it all out.  Perhaps in the end, we can only say that sometimes we never see the results of our attempts to be Christ-like. 

       But maybe that is part of being a Christian – trusting that our well-thought out (and that is a very important qualifier), our well-thought out acts of compassion will somehow impact the unknotting of all the tangled threads of humanity, trusting that the little acts we do in Jesus’ name can profoundly change lives, trusting that the world as we know it – through our ongoing efforts - will one day collapse as if shaken by a mighty earthquake, and in the rocking and rolling, the prison doors behind which we all reside will open, open to the tune of songs of compassion and justice, and we will realize that we have, in our own hands, held the keys of the kingdom all along. 

by Rev. Nancy Foran, Raymond Village Community Church (U.C.C.)