2 Kings 5:1-14 "Naaman's Story"

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

         Naaman was a great man.  At least that is how the writer of his story in the Old Testament (or Hebrew) part of our Bible put it.         

         You see, Naaman was a five star general and his King, the ruler of Aram (which is modern day Syria) thought he was the cat’s meow.  In addition, his soldiers would walk through walls for him.  They loved and admired him that much, and the everyday people would line the boulevards whenever his motorcade passed through – cheering and waving their cloaks and palm branches.

         Naaman was rich, powerful, and respected.  He had everything going for him – except for one small thing – always spoken of in a whisper and mostly behind his back. 

         Naaman had a skin disease – and a pretty disgusting one it was too.  Some Biblical translations call it leprosy.  Whatever its name, it was most likely grossly disfiguring, and it probably itched like the dickens.  All in all, public appearances were difficult for him, and the rash did nothing for his self-esteem and psyche. 

         Naaman lived in his own private hell – as we all do from time to time. He had consulted with countless doctors and quacks and had tried every cure in the book. 

Then one day a young Israelite slave girl mentioned to Naaman’s wife that the great general ought to go to Israel.  There, the young woman said, he would surely find a prophet who could make short work of something as superficial as a skin disease. 

         Now the writer of Naaman’s story implies that he was at the end of his rope, the reason for which kept repeating itself every morning when he looked in the mirror to shave.  He was desperate for a cure.     So the great and powerful one (Naaman) took the advice of the small and powerless one (the unnamed slave girl).  He implored his king to dash off a quick letter of introduction to the King of Israel, then packed his bags, and headed to said country – along with ten talents of silver, six thousand shekels of gold, ten sets of garments, and a whole retinue of his most able-bodied soldiers, cooks, personal dermatologist, and some general purpose servants.  In short, it was quite the parade led by a great man ever so willing to purchase his health – his salvation – at most any price. 

         The King of Israel, however, powerful though he may have fancied himself to be, was a bit taken aback with the presumptuousness of Naaman’s request as it was funneled through the King of Aram. "When this letter reaches you, know that I have sent to you my servant Naaman, that you may cure him of his disgusting skin disease."

         Yikes!  When the King of Israel read those words, we are told that he tore his clothes, and you have to wonder if that was why Naaman had brought those ten extra garments – anticipating the worst.  At any rate, the King of Israel shouted out, "Am I God, to give death or life, that this man sends word to me to cure a great general such as Naaman of a skin disease – disgusting or not?"

         The King’s ranting and raving reached even the outskirts of the city where the Jewish prophet Elisha lived in simplicity and solitude.  Apparently the King of Israel had no clue that a prophet of any reputation lived nearby.  Hard to believe, but judging from other Kings of Israel both before and after, one really would expect little else from this particular King. 

         However, when Elisha heard about the garment shredding, he sent the king a message, and so the one believed to have no power (Elisha) approached the one who thought he had all the power (the King).  "Why have you torn your clothes? Let Naaman come to me, that he (and you too, bonehead,) may learn that there is a prophet in Israel."

         So Naaman – and his ten talents of silver, six thousand shekels of gold, ten sets of garments, and a whole retinue of his most able-bodied soldiers, cooks, personal dermatologist, and some general purpose servants – set off for Elisha’s home.  Reformed Church pastor Scott Hoezee describes the scene beautifully:  “I like to picture Elisha living in the Ancient Near Eastern equivalent of a run-down looking mobile home out in some overgrown field somewhere. Today you would not expect the presidential motorcade to come roaring up to such a trailer in the middle of nowhere replete with police motorcycles, flashers flashing, sirens blaring, Secret Service cars, and the presidential black limo itself.  

         But that’s kind of what we see….Elisha lives in a hovel in front of which suddenly roars up Naaman’s whole entourage of horses and chariots and what-all-not.   Probably he had some trumpeter herald his arrival even as servants unrolled a strip of red carpet for Naaman to walk on after regally disembarking from his chariot.

        But then—just to keep this interplay between the lofty and the lowly going a bit more—we are told that Elisha just sends a messenger to tell Naaman what to do. The trumpet blares to announce the great man’s arrival, he walks to Elisha’s front door on the red carpet, but then . . . the door opens a crack and some lowlife servant peers out over top of the door’s security chain to tell Naaman to go to the river to wash seven times.  And no sooner does the mealy-mouthed little servant say this, he quickly re-closes the door.”

         Naaman is furious at this unexpected reception.  The nerve of him:  Treating me – me! – with such disrespect.  Does this prophet fellow not know who I am?  That I am a great man?  A five star general, no less? 

         Hoezee continues his description:  “He (Naaman) is the one who is supposed to send intermediaries to people on the lower rungs of the social ladder.  The folks down there are not supposed to send him second-tier messengers and servants.  

         Naaman wanted Elisha himself to come out and do a little song-and-dance routine, recite an incantation or two, make a big show of it all. But instead Naaman gets dismissed from the premises without even seeing the prophet in person and is told to do the unlikely-to-be-helpful thing of taking a bath in a muddy river.  Naaman could feel the multiple infections setting in already once that mucky Israelite river water seeped around his open sores.”

         Naaman was about to stomp off in righteous indignation at not being able to buy his health and his salvation – taking his ten talents of silver, six thousand shekels of gold, ten sets of garments, and a whole retinue of his most able-bodied soldiers, cooks, personal dermatologist, and some general purpose servants with him.

         However, once again, the powerless ones (the servants) approached the powerful one (Naaman).  “If the prophet had commanded you to do something difficult, would you not have done it?” they asked.  ‘How much more, when all he said to you was, 'Wash, and be clean?’” So Naaman went down and immersed himself seven times in the muddy Jordan River. 

         And, as Episcopal priest Laura Everett writes, Naaman “swallows his pride, leaves his clothes and his riches and his comforts by the shore side and plunges into the water.

He leaves behind the money and the armor that couldn’t heal him and plunges into the deep. Did it work yet? Two times- Why am I doing this? Three- look at all the people staring at me. Four- this is ridiculous. Five- I could have done this at home in my own rivers. Six- I have nothing to lose. Seven, he throws up his hands and acknowledges, “I can’t save myself.” And - guess what?  His flesh was immediately restored like the flesh of a young boy, and he was clean.”

         This story is so delightful and multi-faceted.  In it we find the trauma of disease, the drama of the King shredding his clothes, the comic relief of Naaman setting off with his carts filled with untold wealth to buy a cure, and the irony of the powerless ones (the servants, slaves, and a no name lo-life at Elisha’s door) directing a story so populated with people who thought of themselves as so great and powerful. It leaves us with loads to think about!

         First, there is where we think we will find healing and salvation.  Like Naaman, we want to believe in the things that our culture says will save us. That would be so easy!  We are all tempted by the magical fixes for whatever ails us. 

         As Everett writes, “Face cream made from diamonds, water from bucolic springs, work out videos from famous people. And we’re willing to pay to be saved. We want to believe and we’re willing to pay. Sports drinks that will give us back our energy, razors with five blades to make us into football players, scents from canisters that magnetically draw people to us….

         Naaman is prepared to buy his salvation….(He) is flush with material wealth, but this is not the economy of God’s salvation. Healing is not bought with talents and shekels and garments, or cars or investment portfolios or gadgets…. But the temptation is high to pack our bags heavy with the things we think could save us - our houses, our credit cards and our stuff.
         But God has other plans – for Naaman and for us.  As Everett concludes, “Naaman is an extreme version but his impulses are familiar.  (We too are) fairly sure we know where God’s healing will come from and what it will look like.”  But, you know what, Naaman could not save himself, and, in spite of our wealth, privilege, and presumptions, in the end, we cannot either.

        Second, there is our propensity to look for God in all the wrong places.  As one blogger I read this week wrote, “Now, the Bible is full of dramatic stories and God certainly has been known to do big things in big ways. God spoke to Moses through a burning bush and later allowed him to part the Red Sea in order for the Hebrews to escape Egypt. The plagues against Egypt included locusts and frogs and a bloody river. Elijah was taken up to heaven in a whirlwind…God works in magnificent and mysterious ways.” 

         However, more often, God works through the little people, the ones with no power, the ones we are most likely to overlook or trample.  God works through the least of these:  the young man and his dog with a cardboard sign on a Portland street corner who makes us think twice about what it means to be homeless, the child who sits up here with me and softly repeats the words I say in prayer who helps us remember that to be part of the kingdom we will need to be like Clare and Eamon, Bobby, Aubrey, and Gavin too. 

         Third, there is the revelation that those who seem to have no power often wield more than they presume, and those who figure they have all the power discover in sometimes hard and humiliating ways that they do not. On this Independence Day weekend, in between the BBQs and the fireworks, we might take a moment to ponder how the seemingly powerless ones (you and me) in fact determine the fate of the powerful ones (like Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump). You see, this nation whose birth we celebrate is great not because of its wealth or its military presence.  It’s greatness lies in the fact that we the people have both the right and the privilege to vote, to elect our leaders, and so, together, to determine our national vision.  We the people – who these days often seem to have no power - in the end hold all the power to keep America great - as it has been all along.

         There you have it.  This story of Naaman is one we may not read very often, but it is one filled with lots to think about – not the least of which is the complicated but rich relationship between the low and the lofty, the powerful and the powerless – and what that means for us today.

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

Luke 7:36 – 8:3 "Alabaster Jars and Churches"

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

         Here she is again:  That woman.  The party-crasher. The brazen hussy.  The one who sports long, thick, sensuously flowing hair.  The one who holds the alabaster jar filled with that expensive ointment.  The one who is simply called “a sinner”.  The one who, because of that label, is just like us. 

         She shows up in all four of the Gospels, you know, and in all four accounts people have issues with what she did.  In some versions, she was unforgivably wasteful.  In this version in the Gospel of Luke, folks accused her of overstepping her bounds and ignoring accepted social conventions – sinner that she was – and crashing the party in the first place.  Whatever made her think that she would be the least bit welcome?

         At any rate, in all four accounts, the woman interrupts Jesus at dinner and is judged severely for her actions by everyone except for Jesus.  In short, the other invitees are quite taken aback, if not downright horrified. 

         She washes Jesus’ feet with her tears, wipes them clean and dry with her hair, and finally extravagantly anoints him with her sweet-smelling oils. In three of the Gospels, the writers locate this story at the very end of Jesus’ life, so that the woman’s action is associated with his death and so becomes a metaphor for the anointing that was done as part of Jewish burial customs. 

         However, the version of the story in the Gospel of Luke  (that we just read) has a different place in the overall narrative, occurring much earlier in Jesus’ ministry.  As Lutheran pastor Mary Anderson notes, “In (this Gospel writer’s) portrait of Jesus, he paints with a color of his own creation. He fashions a new color by taking this story of anointing, placing it in the house of a Pharisee, mixing it with a parable and other teachings, to give us a startling image of”…what?  I would say an image that points to something that lies at the heart of Jesus’ ministry – forgiveness, grace, and radical hospitality.

         Jesus was a guest that night at the home of Simon, who was a Pharisee.  It was most likely no ordinary dinner.  Gathered around the table were many of the prominent religious leaders in town along with this young upstart rabbi who seemed to be gaining quite a following and whom the religious hotshots needed to better understand and get a handle on. 

         And during the time of noshing and intellectual conversation, in barges this woman – this sinner – interrupting the party between the fish course and the bit of sherbet that followed to clear the palette.  And to make matters worse, she does the foot-washing thing, leaving the dining room smelling like an explosion in a perfume factory.  The other guests were – not surprisingly – aghast and very uncomfortable with the whole experience.

         “It’s disgusting,” they whispered. “I’m shocked!  Look at that:  He’s talking to that brazen hussy and allowing her to touch him – touch him – in public.  Why, the two of them are breaking every standard of respectable social behavior.”  Pick a little, talk a little, pick a little, talk a little…

         And then, the deeply religious guests could not help it.  They retreated into the comfort zone of their own theology.  Simon grumbled just loud enough for everyone to hear:  “If this man was the prophet I thought he was, he would be downright more perceptive and sensitive to the nature of this situation.  He would have known what kind of woman this is who is falling all over him….Why, she is a sinner, a known sinner.” 

         The others picked up on his tone and inference.  “She's a sinner. Prophets are in the business of identifying, naming, and denouncing sin. Jesus calls himself a prophet and doesn't know what to do with sin and sinners?” (F. Funk)

         As Uniting Church in Australia pastor Avril Hannah-Jones writes, “Any proper man would have reacted with outrage and anger at her behavior. A respectable man would have rejected her for touching him in public. By allowing this behavior Jesus is tainted by the woman’s sinful reputation and brings dishonor on his host.”

         The woman’s performance left a terrible vibe around that dinner table, turning the whole event into a totally unpredictable and downright uncomfortable occasion.  However, dinners with Jesus seldom turned out as planned and more often than not became fodder for a teachable moment where someone would be left squirming. 

         And so we find that Jesus said, “Simon, I have something to tell you.”

         “Oh? Tell me,” replied Simon huffily.

         And Jesus slipped into rabbi mode and fired off a quick parable.  “Two men were in debt to a banker.  One owed five hundred silver pieces, the other fifty. Neither of them could pay up, and so the banker canceled both debts. Which of the two would be more grateful?”

         Simon thought for a moment and answered, “I suppose the one who was forgiven the most.”

         “That’s right,” said Jesus.

         Then turning to the woman, but speaking to Simon, he said, “Do you see this woman? I came to your home, and social protocol dictated that you provide a servant to wash my feet and oil my hair, so that I could come to your table entirely clean.  But Simon, you provided no water for my feet.  What am I?  Chopped liver?” 

         Simon said nothing, and Jesus continued, “However, this woman rained tears on my feet and dried them with her hair. You gave me no greeting, but from the time I arrived she hasn’t quit kissing my feet. You provided nothing for freshening up, but she has soothed my feet with perfume. Impressive, isn’t it? She was forgiven many, many sins, and so she is very, very grateful.”

          Then he spoke to the woman: “I forgive your sins.”

         Well, you can imagine how that set the dinner guests back.  They could not help but talk behind Jesus’ back now, spouting their own brand of theology: “Who does he think he is, forgiving sins!”

         Powerful and vivid story, don’t you think?  And there are many ways we could take it this morning.  However, I would like to have us reflect for a moment on what this tiny tale says to us about the church – specifically about this small church with the big heart that we say it has.  What does this story say to us about those we really choose to welcome?  What does this story say to us about insiders and outsiders – and about radical hospitality?

         As one blogger I read this week wrote, “Herein lies the message. We have two religious leaders (Jesus and Simon) with two distinct and divergent understandings of how to receive the sinner….There are those standing in judgment of those who have sinned and there are those who are standing to receive the sinner with open arms.”

         Now, the problem with dichotomies like that is they are so black and white.  Given the stark contrast, who among us would say anything other than that we side with Jesus? 

Come on, we are a church, and we sang our stance at the very beginning of worship – God welcomes all, strangers and friends – and, by inference, just as God does, so do we. 

         However, if we were really honest, we would have to admit that we all stand in judgment of each other in one way or another.  Not in big ways, of course.  Pick a little, talk a little, pick a little, talk a little….Worship is too chaotic when the children are here.  She’s a little too talkative for my comfort.  His wheelchair takes up a lot of room.  I’m sure someone will talk to them at coffee hour, but anyone with a tattoo creeps me out.  God welcomes all, strangers and friends…..

         Maybe you have heard the story about the pastor who was having difficulty with his assigned parking space at the church. People kept parking there whenever they pleased, even though there a sign clearly stating, “This Space Reserved.”

         The pastor thought, Okay, maybe the sign just needs to be a little clearer. So he had one made up that said, “Reserved for the Pastor Only.” Didn’t work. People still parked in his spot.

         All right – maybe the sign needs to be more forceful. So he had another sign made, “Thou Shalt
Not Park Here.” That didn’t work either.

         Finally the pastor hit on an idea. He had another sign made up, and nobody ever parked in his spot again. It said, “Whoever parks here preaches on Sunday!” 

         We all keep people out – in one way or another - even when we have the best of intentions.  And we do it in church – even though we are not really being the church when we do.

         You see, the church is not a place for us, safe and secure within its walls, safe and secure in the territory we have carved out for ourselves here.  The church is a place for everybody outside of these walls – outside of our claimed territories – the lonely, the lost, the unlovely, the sinners, the ones who are so sure they are unlikeable and unforgiven.   The church is for the party crashers, the ones who disrupt the natural flow of things.

         The pastor of a large church was about to begin the Sunday service. Just as she approached the pulpit, a young man entered from the back of the sanctuary.

He was dressed in torn jeans, a ratty tee shirt, had tattoos peeking out from under his shirtsleeves, and piercings on his face.

         He scanned the room and saw that no one was making room for him, so he proceeded down the center aisle and sat on the floor directly in front of the altar. Members of the congregation murmured to themselves and sat staring at the strange young man.

         The pastor was about to speak when a well-dressed, elderly gentleman seated in the back stood up. He was dressed in a three-piece suit, shined shoes, a gold pocket watch draped over his vest, and he walked with a mahogany cane topped with a gold figure.

         He proceeded down the aisle and, with much effort and the help of those seated on the front pew, sat down on the floor next to the visitor. The church members sat in stunned silence.

         The pastor, upon finding her voice, said, “Most of you will not remember the message spoken here today.  However I am sure that none of you will forget what you just witnessed.”

         We need to be a place for the misfits, the oddballs, the ones who make us squirm – if we are truly the church. 

We need to be a place where we recognize that we are neither perfect, nor do we have all the answers.  And we need to be more than some sort of celestial Walmart greeter on a Sunday morning. 

         We need to be that sort of place in here because a lot of folks out there are hurting.  They are sinners – just like us – and, at our best, this church can offer comfort, community, and a hand to hold as we journey together – side by side, of course – not us before them leading the way. 

         We need to be such a place because each one of us, at one time or another, stood outside the doors too, and we know what it feels like – to have once been an outsider but now accepted even though we are still sinners, even though we still fall short of who God has called us to be. 

       The church, at its best, is such a precious gift – and such a well-kept secret. The church at its best sends a strong message that no matter who we are or what we have done on our life’s journey, we can start over here, in this place.  As the Psalmist long ago sang, “You get a fresh start; your slate's wiped clean; God holds nothing against you, and you are holding nothing back from God.”

         The church, at its best, is like a dinner party that a brazen hussy crashed and then did outlandish things but was accepted not only for who she once was but also, more importantly, for who she might be, accepted by the one who mattered most – Jesus the Christ – the one we say we emulate, the one we say we follow.

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

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