Acts 16:16-34 "The Really Bad Day...."

You are welcome to use parts of this sermon, but if you do, please attribute them properly!  

         The Gospel message is spreading, according to the writer of the Book of Acts.  The fledgling Christian church is growing by leaps and bounds.  Women and men are converting right and left to what was then called “The Way,” the Way of Jesus, the way of compassion and reconciliation, the way of justice and non-violence. 

         And those new followers often came from the most unexpected places and in the most surprising ways.  This morning’s story about the adventures of Paul and Silas in Philippi illustrate this ongoing theme.  Let’s take a look at it. 

         For the two traveling apostles, it all started out as a really bad day.  First there was the slave girl.  To be blunt, she was the kind of person that it was terribly hard to be nice to, to be a Christian toward.  Simply put, she was weird.  Her clothes were dirty, and she had this musty odor about her.  Her long dark hair was tangled and unkempt, and she had this kind of wild and unbalanced look in her eye.  She definitely had some mental health problems. 

         Back in her day, everyone called it being demon-possessed.  It was like there was a foreign being living inside of her, causing her to shout out predictions and strange prophecies.  She was a diviner of the future, a fortune-teller.  Had she had her own place and been a  bit more in control, she would have hung out a shingle proclaiming just that – or she would have had a neon sign in her front window that flashed on and off in red: “Psychic Readings – Tarot Cards.”

         But she had none of those things because two savvy businessmen owned her.  In order to keep down their overhead, these handlers (or pimps because that was what they really were) just turned her loose in the busy marketplace.  They directed her here and there if she started to get out-of-hand.  But mostly she read palms and tealeaves, and they collected a tidy little profit. 

         And so it was on that day that turned into the really bad day that the slave girl latched on to Paul and Silas.  She started following them around, calling everyone’s attention to them by yelling out embarrassing and totally inappropriate things, “These men are working for the Most High God. They’re laying out the road of salvation for you!”

        Now that behavior can be pretty annoying when you are just trying to get the lay of the land, come across as good upstanding “normal” Roman citizens, and ease yourself into the community before you started doing a lot of preaching and evangelizing.  And so it was only a few days before she really started to grate on Paul, and he finally got fed up with her buzzing around behind him like a mosquito that just would not give up.  So, at his wit’s end, he turned and commanded the demon spirit that possessed her, “Out! In the name of Jesus Christ, get out of her!” And it was gone, just like that.  And the slave girl was free. 

         And that was the start of the really bad day.  You see, the slave girl’s pimps were furious – and no wonder.  Their profit margin collapsed the instant she was healed and the door to a new life was opened to her. 

       As one blogger I read this week wrote, “It was fine to give a donation to the Mental Health Association last fall when they passed the bucket at the highway intersection. But now religion has gotten mixed up with economics, so the owners do what vested ones tend to do. They tried to protect their interests.  And when that failed, they attacked the preacher who robbed the slave girl of her money-making ability.

         Oh, they didn’t come out and say, “Paul is interfering with our profits.” They’re not dumb. You never talk about money. You talk around money.

         They are saying, “Look, we’re not against a little religion, as long as it’s kept in its place. They can preach and sing and worship all they want to in that little white clapboard building down the street.” (And so they say instead) “These men are Jews and they are throwing our city into an uproar by advocating customs unlawful for us Romans to accept or practice.”

         They want to alert the people…that these weird religious (folks) from another country are infiltrating their city….And so they say  (while doing a bit of fortune telling of their own, I might add ):  ‘Paul and Silas are throwing the city into an uproar.….The city is threatened. The nation is threatened. We’re losing jobs. If this girl loses her job, she’ll go on welfare. More taxes. But since we’ll be making less money, we’ll pay less taxes (and someone else will have to bridge the gap). Can’t you see this is a national, economic disaster?’”

         And so, after generating a frenzy of economic doomsday, the two pimps (I mean, businessmen) see to it that Paul and Silas are beaten up, hauled them off to court, and thrown into jail.  Not a surprising turn of events.  After all, that is what happens when religious and economic convictions collide.  As Presbyterian pastor Clover Beal notes, “When religious conviction moves beyond innocuous concern to real action, people take notice. When we move from sending a few dollars to the charity of our choice to saying NO MORE to the unjust treatment of others, people notice. When economic boycotting dries up income streams, people notice - and they often get really angry.” 

         And so the bad day continues on into an equally bad evening – in a dirty jail cell – smelling of bad food and aged urine.  Our two apostles, however, make the most of their stint there.  Rather than bemoaning the doors that have closed behind them – the prison doors most literally – they pray and sing hymns and before you know it, there is a whole chorus of jailbirds robustly harmonizing “How Great Thou Art” and “Amazing Grace.”

        It was about that time that the earthquake came.  And we find ourselves well into a really bad night.  An earthquake, no less! It came out of nowhere, rocking and rolling like the prisoners’ chorus.  It shook the jail to its foundation until the cell doors flew off their hinges, the walls collapsed, and the chains were broken, and all the prisoners began to run free, singing at the top of their lungs:

My chains are gone, I've been set free

My God, my Savior has ransomed me

And like a flood His mercy reigns

Unending love, amazing grace

         How the jailer – the prison guard - could sleep through the music and the earthquake, I do not know.  But when he awoke and saw that the prison was a pile of rubble and presumed that the prisoners had all escaped, he knew his goose was cooked, and so he pulled out his sword, preparing to fall upon it and finish the job.  It was turning into a really bad day for him too.

         However, no one had actually escaped, which was what Paul and Silas told the jailer when they intervened.  As The Message Bible translation puts it:  “Badly shaken, he (the jailer) collapsed in front of Paul and Silas. He led them out of the jail and asked, ‘Sirs, what do I have to do to be saved, to be free, to really live?’ They said, ‘Put your entire trust in the Master Jesus.  Then you’ll live as you were meant to live—and everyone in your house included!’

         They went on to spell out in detail the story of the Master—the entire family got in on this part. They never did get to bed that night. The jailer made them feel at home, dressed their wounds, and then—he couldn’t wait till morning!—was baptized, he and everyone in his family. There in his home, he had food set out for a festive meal. It was a night to remember: He and his entire family had put their trust in God; everyone in the house was in on the celebration.”  They took the cup of freedom, and the doors to a new life were opened.

         And when all was said and done, it turned out to be not such a bad day after all, but rather a really, really good one.  My - God does work in mysterious ways!

         The theme that connects all the details of this story, drawing its many threads together, is the notion of opening – figurative and literal doors opening to a new life.  There was the slave girl whose mind was healed and who was free to start again.   A new future was opened to her.  There were the prison doors that literally opened, freeing Paul and Silas. 

There was the jailer who was not only freed from the death he was ready to impose upon himself but who also opened himself and his family to the healing grace of Jesus Christ. 

         This idea of opening is one that we might ponder as well.  Did you know that last Thursday was a festival day on the liturgical calendar?  It was Ascension Day.  It is a day that is recognized more in the Catholic Church than in most Protestant congregations, perhaps because it falls on a weekday rather than a Sunday and does not get the hype of Maundy Thursday or even Ash Wednesday. 

         Ascension Day celebrates the day that Jesus left his disciples and ascended into heaven, as the story goes and as the Creeds proclaim – “ascended into heaven to sit at the right hand of God the Father.” 

         Depending on the Gospel you read, it is the day that Jesus sent his disciples out into the world to preach and to heal and to not be afraid when they did not see him walking beside them every step of the way because, he tells them, even if I am no there, the Holy Spirit will be there – wild and unpredictable as it is.  It will lead you to places that may not be the most comfortable places to go – lead you toward slave girls with mental health issues and jailbird choruses and suicidal prison guards. 

         Though Jesus may not have said it in so many words, I think his followers knew that he was telling them that they would need to open the door to that Spirit and let it enter their lives if they were to stay on the Way – the path – that Jesus had set out for them. They simply could not do it alone. They might not have Jesus, but they would have the Spirit and, in the long run, that would be better, because, with the help of the Spirit, they would learn to depend on themselves to transform the world around them – and not just presume that Jesus would do all the work. They would learn to trust that God believed they could be more than they thought themselves to be.

       Ludwig van Beethoven was born in 1770 and was raised in the home of a poor musician His father was described by one biographer as a "drunken tenor." Beethoven was gifted, but troubled. At age 30 he began to experience a hearing loss. By age 49 he was totally deaf. A portrait of Beethoven at his piano, painted during his deaf period, depicts the piano as something of a wreck. Apparently, he pounded it into submission in an effort to play it loud enough to hear the notes.  Yet, four years before he died, he composed his ninth symphony, closing with the memorable melody we now refer to as the "Ode to Joy" (“Joyful, Joyful, We Adore Thee”).

       Who knows what happened to free Beethoven to be all God meant for him to be?  Who knows how he went from beating his piano into submission into creating the music by which we remember him?  I like to think that the Holy Spirit  - in a way I certainly cannot fully understand but can only trust – that the Holy Spirit offered him the freedom to open himself to his gift. 

       I like to think that is what Jesus was trying to tell his disciples when he left them – and maybe us who wait for him all these thousands of years later.  Wait, wait for the Holy Spirit to come to you.  Open yourself to that Spirit, and it will lead you to the one you seek. 

       But understand that it will not lead you to comfort and security.  It will lead you to the hungry and the lost and lonely.  It will lead you to the least of these but, take heart, because when you find them and share with them, you will have found and shared with the one you are looking for.  You will see him in the eyes of the lonely, the loony, the lost, and the unloved. 

       Wait, wait for the Holy Spirit to come to you – and when she does, she will offer you the cup of freedom – freedom to open yourself to God’s love and grace, freedom to open yourself to her working in your life and guiding you on the Way.  She will offer you the cup of freedom.  Take it, and the doors of new life will be opened to you.

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

John 5:1-6 "Poolside"

You are welcome to use parts of this sermon, but if you do, please attribute them properly!  

        Where were you 38 years ago?  That would have been 1978.  A gallon of gas cost $.63, and a dozen eggs were $.48.  Jimmy Carter was President, and the Camp David Accords were signed, bringing an end to the decades long war between Egypt and Israel.  At the movies, John Travolta got us all disco dancing in “Saturday Night Fever”, “National Lampoon’s Animal House” introduced us to John Belushi on the big screen, and we romanced to Debby Boone singing “You Light Up My Life.”

         Where were you 38 years ago? Now, for a few of you, I know that question is rhetorical because you were not even born yet.  So – for you, 38 years is more than all the years you have lived thus far.  For those of you around 50, you were just on the edge of puberty – gawky, pimply, hormones on parade.  If you are now nearing retirement age, you were on the cutting edge of your career and your work life back then.  What if you are in your mid-70’s or 80’s now?  You were probably in the midst of raising a family, maybe gearing up for your children’s teenaged years.  Thirty-eight years ago, for you, would have been more or less half your life.

         But no matter how you parse it out, thirty-eight years is a good long time.  And that is how long, according to the Bible story we just read, a nameless paralyzed manlay on his mat by the waters of the Beth-zatha Pool in Jerusalem. 

         This popular pool was located in a complex of pools close to the Temple.  It was near the Sheep Gate, the entrance to the Holy City that shepherds used when they brought their lambs to be sacrificed.  You see, it was required that, before the shepherds entered the Temple with their flocks, they would stop at a certain one of the five pools and bathe the animals, thereby purifying them. 

         The Beth-zatha Pool in particular had the reputation of having amazing, truly miraculous healing powers – much like the present day thermal springs of Guadeloupe.  It was no wonder then that the halt, the lame, the blind, and the sick gathered round the special waters on a daily basis. 

         The universally believed legend was that periodically God would “trouble” the waters.  That is, ancient tradition had it that an angel would come and stir up the still pool. 

When the waters began to move, it was said that the first person – and only the first person - to enter the water would be cured.  Kind of like a competitive Lourdes, the famous healing center in France.

         As the Bible story goes, Jesus came to the Beth-zatha Pool, certainly not to be healed himself but more to minister to those who anxiously waited, their eyes glued to the glass-like pool, ready to leap, roll, pull themselves into the waters, praying to be first, hoping to be cured once and for all of whatever ailed them. 

         We do not really know why Jesus zeroed in on the man who had been lying on his mat poolside for 38 years, dropped off each morning by his caretaker and picked up again when the sun went down.  Maybe it was because he just looked as stagnant as his life must have been:  Every day the same.  Waiting.  Watching.  Hoping.  Nothing changing. 

         Jesus ambled up to the man and engaged him in conversation, starting off with a simple question, pointblank:  “Hey, buddy, do you want to be made well?  Do you want to be healed?” 

         One would think that after lying around paralyzed for 38 years, the man’s answer would have been a simple and resounding “yes!”  However, it is a strange question, when you think about it. And we should know Jesus well enough by now to realize that he never asked a foolish question in all his days of ministry.  Even the most direct questions he throws out there are heavy-laden with deep meanings and are never as simple as we might first think them to be. 

       Though the man in question was paralyzed and could not easily move his body, in contrast, his mind was agile and quick on the uptake.  He caught on immediately and sensed both the gravity and the many layers of Jesus’ query. 

       So, he thoughtfully tried to avoid answering, thinking it best to leave his options open.  Therefore, when Jesus asked: “Hey, buddy, do you want to be made well?  Do you want to be healed?” – the answer was not a straightforward and resounding “Yes!” Instead, the paralyzed man pondered for a fraction of a second:  Did he want to be healed?  Deep down inside, did he want to change?  Did he really want to choose life?

       And so, as one blogger wrote: “The man immediately starts in with his standard line, saying ‘Master! Sure! I want to be healed! But – poor me – someone always beats me into the pool!’ That’s been his line, and people have been buying it for thirty-eight years.”

      However, Jesus does not let the man off the hook so easily. Our blogger continues:  Jesus “doesn’t tell him, ‘Why, you unfortunate man. Curse these wicked and hard-hearted people for not having compassion and helping you.’ No. And Jesus doesn’t say, ‘My heart goes out to you. I’ll leave old Peter with you here and he’ll make sure you get in the water next time it’s troubled.’ Not at all. Neither does Jesus command those around the pool to let the man get into the pool nor does he volunteer himself to help the man down to the waters.

         Jesus cuts through the set attitude the man offers up. He interrupts him. He’s rude. It’s one of the classic interruptions in all the New Testament….Jesus simply says (in essence, “Quit your grouching!”) Stand up! Take your mat and walk.”

         Tough Love?  Maybe, but it worked.  The man got up and walked.  He left behind 38 years of excuses, 38 years of seeing himself only as a victim, and stood up a cured, a different, a new man. 

         Interestingly enough, the word that Jesus speaks - “stand up” – when translated is a word that is also used to describe resurrection. 

So, on another level of interpretation, after 38 years, the man chooses resurrection.  He chooses transformation.  The victim chooses to be a victim no longer.  He chooses life.

         There is a fable about an eagle and a chicken.  A baby eagle became orphaned and was stuck in his nest when his parents never returned to feed him. Soon his instinct for survival kicked in.  He knew he could not just remain tucked away where he was, and so he glided down to the ground because he was not yet able to fly.  A man happened to find him, picked him up, looked him over, shook his head, and took the baby eagle to a nearby farmer.  He said knowingly to the farmer, “This is a special kind of barnyard chicken that will grow up big.”

         The farmer said, “Don’t look like no barnyard chicken to me.”

         Not wanting to keep the baby bird himself, the man replied with great confidence. “Oh, yes, it is.  You will be glad to own it.”  So the farmer took the baby eagle and placed it with his chickens.

         As the baby eagle grew, he learned to imitate the chickens. He soon could scratch the ground for grubs and worms.  To make a long story short, he grew up thinking he was a chicken.

         Then one day an eagle flew over the barnyard. Our fledgling eagle looked up and wondered, “What kind of animal is that? How graceful, powerful, and free it is.”

         So he asked another chicken, “What is that up there soaring so beautifully in the sky?”

         The chicken replied, “Oh, that?  That’s an eagle. But don’t worry yourself about it. You will never be able to fly like one of those.”

         And so the eagle went back to scratching the ground. He continued to behave like the chicken he thought he was.  Finally he died, never knowing the grand life that might have been.

         Now – that story is a fable because its point is something that we all should take to heart, just like this Bible story has something to say to us lo these millennia later.  Both the fable and the Bible story raise questions that we are destined, in one way or another, to answer.

         How often do we live our lives less fully than God intended, like chickens instead of the eagles we were meant to be?  How often do we give up our passions and instead allow what seem to be the realities of life take over, chip away at our dreams until we see no alternative but to settle for less – for just surviving rather than authentically living?  How many of us live like the paralyzed man did for 38 long years, live what Episcopal priest Michael Marsh calls an “as soon as” life.

         “As soon as the water bubbles then I will get up off my mat. As soon as I get to the water my life will be better. As soon as I get into the water my problems will be fixed.”

         (But guess what, folks?) The pool of Beth-zatha is an illusion. It convinces us that our life is nothing more than our circumstances…. As soon as this or that happens everything will be better. I’ll be happy. My problems will go away. I’ll be satisfied. All will be well.”

         “As soon as ….” You can fill in the blank with most anything. The problem is there will always be another pool of Beth-zatha. Meanwhile life has been put on hold. The pause button has been pushed. We sit on our mat, self-imprisoned by the circumstances of our life.”  We live like victims – and miss a lot of what life was meant to be. 

         Otto Kroeger, Lutheran pastor as well as expert, pioneer, and author in the field of personality preference, once knowing said that when you are paralyzed, overcome by a fear of the future or simply by the chaos of papers on your desk: “Just do something.”  Do not be a victim of your circumstances. 

         Instead, be like the paralyzed man lying by the pool.  All it took was one moment of clarity when he believed that maybe, just maybe his life could be different. He took a leap of faith.  He gave up the most fundamental story he told about himself and chose to believe another story, the one that Jesus told, the one that read that he did not need to be a victim.  And in that moment, this broken ailing man was able to leave his excuses behind and with Jesus’ hand in his, attempt to stand. 

       As Presbyterian pastor Jon Walton wrote, “Into the emotional, spiritual, moral and relational quagmire of our lives, God asks just one question, “Do you want to be healed?” And you know, you don’t even have to have a coherent answer because life may be so confused at that point that even you don’t know for sure.

      But with some encouragement to get up, if you put one hand beneath you and push yourself up, before you realize what’s happening you may actually find that you are standing up and able to take your mat and walk. And it’s not your strength that really gets you up, because it’s God’s strength within you that does it.”

         Do you want to be healed?  Do you want to change? Do you want to let go, forgive, restore yourself, and mend the brokenness that is tearing you apart? What do you still have to hang on to – even if whatever it is diminishes you?  Do you want to be whole?

         Then get up, discard the old story that you tell about yourself, and start to tell the new story, the one that begins by saying that you do not need to be a victim, the one that continues by saying that you need not rely on your strength alone, that the Holy Spirit itself will be the wind beneath your wings, the one that challenges you to get up, do something, take up the Cup of Freedom – freedom to heal – and choose life, real life.
by Rev. Nancy Foran, Raymond Village Community Church UC.C., Raymond, Maine