Sermon: "Left Behind" (Acts 16: 16-34)

Keith Allen Harward spent 33 years in prison for a crime he did not commit.

On April 8 – just four weeks ago – he was released, after DNA testing revealed he wasn’t the one who committed the crime.

All this, according to an article in the Richmond Times-Dispatch.

What’s it like to get your freedom back after 33 years? Harward said: “You take your first car you ever have, you take your first girlfriend, first kiss, first dog, first house, first child. You know how excited you are in that moment. You put all those together and ramp it up about 10 times. That’s what I feel.”

The first thing Harward did was go to a restaurant and order a big $10 cheeseburger. Then he went home to Greensboro North Carolina. He had to get an I.D. card, and open a bank account. He had to learn how to use a cell phone and look up stuff on the internet. At a public bathroom, he was amazed that the toilet didn’t have a handle.

And he’s enjoying pleasures that were denied to him in prison – like relaxing in the shade of a big tree. “It’s a great day,” he says. “It’s Monday, and I’m in a park!”

Freedom. That’s what it’s about. The Christian faith is about finding freedom.

Freedom – from whatever chains are binding you. Freedom – from whatever burdens are keeping you from living life to the fullest, living the life God wants you to live.

Sometimes we need to be set free from the chains others place on us: Racism. Oppression. Homophobia. Economic injustice.

Sometimes we need to be set free from the chains that come from within: Guilt. Regret. Fear. Greed.

Last week, some of our youth got to look through the giant telescope at the Griffith Observatory, and see Jupiter and several of its moons. Afterward, one of the youth asked, “Why are we here?”

Gazing into space through a giant telescope does prompt those kinds of questions.

There are many ways to answer that question. Here’s one: Why are we here? We are here to be free.

When we find our freedom, we call that salvation. The Greek word that appears in the Bible over and over again is sozo. Sozo means healing and wholeness. When the Bible talks about being saved, that’s sozo. It means being made whole, being made well, being restored to the fully-human, fully-alive person God intends you to be.

It’s freedom to be who you are, freedom to be who God made you.

There is, of course, a future component to salvation. Jesus talks about “the life eternal.” But that life is something that begins now. The salvation Jesus offers starts now. It is freedom now from the chains that bind us.

Paul and Silas worked to bring freedom and salvation to as many people as they could. That’s what it means to spread the gospel. “Gospel” is good news, and the good news sets people free.

This work took Paul and Silas all over the known world. Travel was long and difficult, but that didn’t stop them.

Philippi was about 1,000 miles from Jerusalem. When they arrived there, they intended to go to a place of prayer.

They never made it.

As Paul and Silas were making their way, they met a slave-girl, someone who obviously lacked the freedom they were teaching about. Her owners kept her as a slave because she could tell fortunes, and the owners made a lot of money off that.

The scripture says Paul was annoyed. Was he annoyed because this slave-girl kept following him and harassing him? Or was he annoyed that it was perfectly acceptable in that city to keep a girl as a slave so that her owners could profit off of her?

Maybe both. I think it was both.

So Paul cast out from her the spirit that made it possible for her to tell fortunes.

I have no idea what that means. Some of you want to believe there are spirits and demons in the world, and that stories like this are to be taken literally. Others of you surmise that these are just ancient descriptions and explanations for things like mental illness. I don’t know what the right answer is.

 I do know that when Jesus cast demons out of people, there was something really powerful going on. And the same can be said here. Paul cast the spirit out of this slave-girl, which everyone recognized as something really powerful.

You can tell that something really powerful happened here by the reaction of the people. Her owners were furious. They immediately seized Paul and Silas. (I’m not sure what Silas did here; I guess he was guilty by association.) And they dragged Paul and Silas before the authorities, claiming that these men were “disturbing the city.”

Disturbing the city? All they did was cast one spirit out of one slave-girl. But in doing so, they had challenged an entire culture that said it’s ok to enslave innocent girls just to make a profit; they had challenged a culture that said making money is more important than human freedom and well-being.

A crowd joined in attacking Paul and Silas. The magistrates had Paul and Silas stripped of their clothing, beaten with rods, flogged, and thrown in prison.

So now, by trying to free the slave-girl, Paul and Silas had lost their own freedom. Instead of going freely on their way to the place of prayer, they were locked in an innermost cell, with wounds bleeding, chained and fastened in the stocks.

However, Paul and Silas believed that not even chains and locks could take away their freedom. Their desire had been to go to a place of prayer, and nothing  was going to keep them from doing that. They began praying and singing hymns to God, right there, in that innermost prison cell. That prison cell became the place of prayer.

I don’t know what the place of prayer was that they were intending to go to, but prayer can take place anywhere. You don’t need a building to worship. A lot of struggling congregations today think that if they lose their building, their place of worship, they lose everything.

Paul and Silas knew better. They may not have reached the place of worship they were trying to get to, but they knew that you don’t need a big, fancy place of prayer in order to worship and pray.

And then, as they were praying, something powerful happened. This is the second time in this story that we’ve seen this incredible power, the power of freedom and salvation. The first was when Paul and Silas cast the spirit out of the slave-girl. Now, that power appeared again, in an extraordinary earthquake that shook the foundations of the prison and somehow opened all the doors and unfastened everyone’s chains.

It’s the power of God that brings freedom to those in chains!

So Paul and Silas, and apparently other prisoners as well, had received the power of God’s freedom. Against that power, no chains or locks could hold them back.

They were free! Of course, with the power of God, they always had been free in their minds. Now, they were free of their chains.

Imagine how relieved they must have been! How excited! Consider the joy of Keith Allen Harward upon his release from prison.

However…

There was a jailer… and the freedom of the prisoners meant a loss of freedom for him.

He was responsible for the prisoners. If they escaped, it would be his fault. I’m not sure what would happen to him if his prisoners escaped, but whatever it was, he didn’t want to face it.

In fact, he was about to kill himself to avoid that consequence, when Paul called out to him, “Wait!”

Here’s the thing about the Christian pursuit of freedom: It’s not just about one’s own freedom.

A lot of Christians get that wrong. They think, “I’m personally saved by Jesus, and life is good. I’ve got a personal relationship with Jesus, my personal Lord and Savior…”

Do me a favor: stop using that word “personal.” It’s not about a relationship between you and Jesus. Because that completely ignores the neighbor who appears again and again and again in scripture.

The most important commandment is to love God and love your neighbor as yourself, to do unto others as you would have them do unto you. Scripture says “how can you love God if you don’t love your neighbor?” The prophets instruct us to care for our neighbors.

And “neighbor” is broadly defined. The scriptural definition of “neighbor” means your next-door neighbor, but also the far-away neighbor. It means your immigrant neighbor. It means your Muslim neighbor. It means your atheist neighbor. It means your homosexual neighbor. It means your transgender neighbor. It means your addicted neighbor. It means your friendly neighbor. It means your hostile neighbor.

Loving one’s neighbor is what it means to be a Christian. And to love your neighbor, you need to help your neighbor on the road to freedom, the road to wholeness.

Clearly, if you are only seeking freedom and salvation and wholeness for yourself, you’re not living a Christian lifestyle.

Toni Morrison, the author of books like Beloved, told her students this: “When you get these jobs that you have been so brilliantly trained for, just remember that your real job is that if you are free, you need to free somebody else. If you have some power, then your job is to empower somebody else.”

That’s exactly what Moses did, if you recall. He found his freedom when he fled from Egypt and was welcomed into the house of Jethro. But God sent him back to Egypt, because even though he was free, his people were not. His people were left behind, still in slavery, crying out for freedom.

Some years ago, a series of books called “Left Behind” were written, and a lot of Christians read those books and loved them.

They’re awful. And they were made into even more awful movies. Yet they were popular, and when many Christians hear the phrase “left behind,” it’s those books and movies they think of.

I think we need to change that. Because for Paul and Silas, the phrase “left behind” referred to those who were being left out of the freedom and salvation that God desires for all people.

Even though Paul and Silas walked into Philippi as free men, they could not leave behind the slave-girl; they had to work to set her free as well.

And even though Paul and Silas gained their freedom when the earth shook and the chains broke, they could not leave behind the jailer; they had to work to set him free as well.

Back to the question: “Why are we here?” “To be free” is a good answer. But it’s incomplete. We’re not just here to be free; we’re also here to help others find their freedom. Because we are only truly free if our neighbor is also free.

That’s why we at Bixby Knolls Christian Church feel called to work on behalf of all oppressed and vulnerable groups in our city and in our world. It’s why we feed the homeless. It’s why we speak out on issues of racial prejudice, and homophobia – It’s why we voted to be an open and affirming congregation.

Because the freedom we have is not enough if others lack that same freedom. We continue the work of ensuring that all God’s children are free, because their freedom and our freedom are tied together. Only when all are free will we be free. Only when all are free will the kingdom of God is present.

Song in the Darkness (Acts 16:16-34)

Anybody have a particularly bad day this week, a day when nothing went right? 

That’s the kind of day Paul was having.

On his way to “a place of prayer,” he was followed by a girl who was a slave.  And she annoyed the heck out of Paul and his companions. 

She did this non-stop, and it drove Paul crazy.  Although, as the scripture puts it, it was a spirit of divination within her that was really doing it.  The spirit was keeping her mind enslaved just as her owners were keeping her body enslaved.  She was doubly-oppressed, doubly-enslaved. 

Was Paul annoyed because she was pestering him?  Was he annoyed because this poor girl was doubly-enslaved, something that was contrary to Jesus’s mission of ending oppression and captivity? 

Probably a little of both.

So finally Paul turned and said to the spirit, “I order you in the name of Jesus Christ to come out of her.”

Unfortunately, if Paul thought that getting rid of the spirit would allow him to continue uninterrupted with his schedule, he was sorely mistaken.

The slave-girl’s owners had relied on the spirit of darkness.  That spirit kept her mind enslaved, and once one’s mind is enslaved, it’s all too easy to keep one’s body enslaved. 

Modern slavery relies on this; human trafficking is rampant.  It even takes place here in Long Beach.  Chains and whips are not normally used, however.  Instead of chains of metal, modern slave traffickers use chains of fear, control, and intimidation.

With these mental chains broken, the girl’s owners now had several problems.  They could no longer use the girl to make money.  They could no longer control her.  They realized that, now that her mind was free, it would be harder to keep her body enslaved.

So they had Paul and his companion Silas arrested.  Paul and Silas were stripped of their clothing, beaten, and flogged.  They were put in prison, in the innermost cell where no light reaches, with their feet fastened in stocks so that they could hardly move.

Now that’s what I call “a bad day”…

Now Paul and Silas were the ones who had lost their freedom.  Now it was they whose bodies were held in captivity.

And yet…

Though their bodies were chained and imprisoned, their minds were free.

Their minds were free, and in that pitch-dark innermost cell, in the middle of the night (because who could really sleep under those circumstances)…

they began to sing.

A song can be an incredibly powerful thing.  Sometimes, when an infant child is upset, the sound of a mother’s voice singing is what soothes and calms the child. 

One of the things that’s so special about coming to worship is that here we get to experience live singing; not songs recorded in the past and electronically, digitally played back, but real, live singing.  And not only that, but we get to help create the music.  There aren’t many places in this 21^st century world where that happens.

During WWII Viktor Frankl spent three years in concentration camps.  Despite the horrors he endured, he was somehow able to hold on to hope; he was somehow able to keep his mind free, to not allow the Nazis to enslave his mind even as his body was kept in the most horrible captivity.

He later explained that “Everything can be taken from a man but one thing: the last of human freedoms - to choose one's attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one's own way.”

For many prisoners, the one thing that allowed them to stay free in their minds was music.  They sang; and not only that, they composed.  They composed music in their minds, songs of hope.  When they could, they put their compositions on paper, using whatever they could find; one upbeat song about the railway was discovered written on scraps of toilet paper.  Other songs, they simply sang so that others would hear the melody, which would be passed on from person to person without the use of any paper at all.

Most people find it very hard to not let their attitude be influenced by their current circumstances.  Buddhist practices emphasize accepting each moment without judging it.  Each moment, each experience, is.  It is neither good nor bad, it just is. 

At least, I think that’s how a Buddhist would describe it.  But I do know that mindfulness meditation helps Buddhists learn how to maintain a level of inner peace no matter what’s going on around them. 

I wonder if singing could be considered a form of mindfulness meditation?  Maybe it depends on the song.

This whole episode in Acts began when Paul and his companions were on their way to a place of prayer.  Perhaps one of the things Paul prayed for, repeatedly, was the ability to have inner peace in the face of difficult circumstances, to be able to accept each moment and not let what was going on affect his attitude; to let his attitude be shaped by nothing but God’s love in Christ; to focus on that love which is greater than anything that can happen around him or to him.

This is certainly something I should be spending more time praying for and meditating about.  I find that it’s so easy to get annoyed, frustrated and upset by something as trivial as being cut off by another driver on the freeway; or by having to wait in a long checkout line at Target.  Doesn’t the store manager realize that the popsicles I bought for my kids are melting in my cart? 

If my mental state can’t handle minor inconveniences like these, how will it ever remain free and at peace if and when I come face-to-face with serious trials and tribulations?

Like Paul, I need to find my way to the place of prayer.  And maybe that place of prayer isn’t a physical place or location, but a mental place.  Whatever it is – where-ever it is – I need to get myself there, and stop letting my mind be enslaved and held captive by my current circumstances.

I think that Paul’s mind was in that place of prayer in that prison cell.  That prison cell had become for him a place of prayer.  And he and his companions sang.  They sang songs of freedom, songs of hope, songs of comfort.  They refused to let their circumstances enslave their minds.  Indeed, as long as they sang, they were free.

The jailer, on the other hand…

The jailer is sitting outside the prison cell.  He holds the keys to the stocks, the bars, and the chains. 

But he does not hold the keys to freedom.

Because the jailer himself is not free.

The jailer’s mind belongs to Rome.  He is captive; captive to a belief system that obligates him to commit suicide when he fears that his prisoners have escaped; because a guard who lets his prisoners escape will face a punishment even worse than suicide.

But when that earthquake broke the bonds of the prisoners, they did not need to escape. 

They didn’t need to escape, because they were already free.

And the jailer, realizing this, wanted nothing more than to have and experience that freedom for himself.  He realized that his prisoners were actually the ones who were free, and that he – even though he was outside the cell and held the keys – he was the one who lived in captivity.

So he asked: “What can I do – what must I do – to experience the freedom you have?  What must I do to experience the kind of life you have, to be saved from the captivity I’m living in?”

Paul’s answer?   “Believe.”  And then, the scripture says, Paul spoke the word of the Lord to him.

With our modern understanding, we hear Paul’s instruction to “believe,” and we think that it’s a very simple thing, that all we have to do is affirm that Jesus is who he says he is. 

But, as scripture points out elsewhere, even Satan does that.

For Paul, to believe means much more than that.  It means to devote oneself to the teachings of Jesus, to focus one’s mind on him, to meditate on him and the love of God that comes through him. 

This “believing” is a life-long journey.  It involves daily practice.  It involves focusing one’s mind on the Spirit that sets you free, rather than the spirit that keeps you enslaved.

It involves learning how to sing in the darkness, even on a day that has gone horribly wrong.

Last year, Los Angeles Times Pop Music Critic Randall Roberts visited Central City Community Church of the Nazarene, located on L.A.’s skid row.

He went for karaoke night.  He heard a guy sing “Rainbow Connection,” and wrote that the guy even enunciated each word just like Kermit. He also heard a woman “yowl” her way through Christopher Cross’s “Ride Like the Wind,” and a group of people sing Queen’s “Bohemian Rhapsody.”

Anthony Stallworth, known in the community as Pastor Tony, came up with the idea.  Randall Roberts article quotes Pastor Tony as saying: "We're a place where the homeless can come, they can sing a song, they can feel like somebody after being rejected everywhere else, get a free cup of coffee — and people applaud for them."

Rage Against the Machine guitarist Tom Morello donated the karaoke machine. 

He said:  “[The people on skid row] are completely erased from history in a way.  You fall below this certain poverty line, you no longer have any voice — certainly no voice in electoral politics, and no economic voice to buy a lobbyist to serve your cause. One small way that these people maintain a voice is through song."

A woman who likes to come and sing LeAnn Rimes' version of "I Hope You Dance" had this to say:  "When I perform this song, it opens up my heart, and allows me to know that doors may close in my face, but another one opens. And no matter what, I'm not ashamed. I cry when I cry, but to know that I can get up there and do what I do knowing that you're not looking down on me, or through me, or around me, but you're looking at me."

I’ve no doubt that there are a lot of bad days when you’re living on skid row; a lot of days when things don’t go the way you want them to.  But if you can find your way to a place of prayer, a place where you can sing a song in the darkness, sing in the midst of the most difficult circumstances, then your mind will be free and you will find peace.

And only then will you be ready to help others find their freedom – freedom for the body and the mind.  Only then will you be able to take part in the work of Christ, to proclaim release to the captives and to let the oppressed go free.

Free to Follow (Acts 16: 16-34)

I don’t know about you, but when I heard this Bible story, I got confused. I got confused, because I couldn’t quite figure out who is a slave, and who is free.
Now, I know: it does seem quite obvious: the slave-girl is the slave. It can’t be much plainer than that. She was a slave to a master whose interest in her was for her ability to make money for him. Through what the scripture calls a “spirit of divination,” she told fortunes. No doubt her primary customers were the tourists, folks passing through Philippi on their way from one place to another, people like Paul and his companions.

But as I heard this story, I became unsure. Paul cast out this spirit of divination, and as a result, he and one of his companions – a man by the name of Silas – were accused by the girl’s masters of depriving them of their livelihood. Well, that’s not quite the way they worded it; such a thing would be hard to prove. So instead they said that Paul and Silas were “advocating customs that were not lawful” for Romans to adopt or observe. In other words, they were making converts out of Romans, something that was against the law.

Is that any easier to prove? I don’t know; but really, it doesn’t matter, because the slave-girl’s owners were rich enough and powerful enough that they could have sent Paul and Silas to jail, no matter what they said.

So Paul and Silas were in jail, in the innermost cell of the prison, their feet fastened in stocks that tortured them by keeping their legs apart, their backs blistered and bleeding from the flogging they had been given.

Who’s free, and who is not? Clearly, Paul and Silas are not free; they are chained up and in prison. But wait. What’s that sound? Can you hear it? It’s coming from that innermost cell, and yet it seems so out-of-place, coming from there.

It’s the sound of singing.

Do people sing in prison? We sing because we’re happy. We sing because we’re free.

See what I mean about not being sure about who’s free, and who is not?

Suddenly there was an earthquake; the prison doors were opened and all the chains unfastened. When the jailer saw this, he drew his sword to kill himself. He knew that he would be held responsible for the prisoner’s escape; better to die now than later, he figured. At least if he killed himself now, he could avoid any torture or beatings.

But wait: the prisoners were still there! Upon this discovery, the jailer rushed to them and pleaded with them, asking what he needed to do in order to be saved, and by saved he meant what he needed to do to find wholeness, to get his life back.

But doesn’t the jailer already have a life? He has a job … and the prisoners haven’t gone anywhere, so “no harm no foul,” right? But the jailer is acting like he’s the one who is enslaved. He’s acting like he’s the one trapped in a corner, the one who needs to be rescued.

Could it be that there are different kinds of enslavement, some more visible than others? Could it be that there are different kinds of freedom, some more true than others? Could it be that the jailer is living a life of enslavement, a life of captivity, and Paul and Silas – even though they are in prison – are the ones who are truly free?

Last week, I read a story about a woman who went snowshoeing, and it got me thinking. All her life, this woman had wanted to go snowshoeing, to be able to walk and hike in the snow. Finally, she got her chance. She got some snowshoes, and ventured out to explore a snowy-white landscape.

However, she hadn’t gone very far when some cross-country skiers came up behind her and passed her by. She watched them ski on by, slush up a low rise, coast down the other side, and continue on their way.

All of a sudden, this woman found herself envying the way they looked on their skis. She envied the way they got a free ride every time they went down a hill, the way they could coast effortlessly, enjoying a little rest on their trek.

After seeing them pass by, all of a sudden it seemed to her that trodding along in snowshoes wasn’t all that much fun. In fact, the whole time she was snowshoeing, doing that one thing that she had always wanted to do, all she could think about was how much she wanted a pair of skis.

She had expected to be satisfied to get the snowshoes she wanted, but what she discovered is that that wanting, that longing within her, was not going to go away. As soon as she had what she wanted, she found herself wanting something else.

It wasn’t because the snowshoes weren’t what she had expected; they were exactly what she had expected. However, she didn’t know how to transition from being in a state of wanting to being in a state of satisfaction. Satisfaction, she found, was elusive. It was hard work to be satisfied. A state of wanting seemed much more natural. A state of wanting, in fact, seemed inescapable.

To watch her, snowshoeing through the trees, one would think that she was as free as a bird. But inside, she felt enslaved to a never-ending stream of wants. Inside, she was captive to a never-ending flow of desires.

The jailer in today’s scripture story: Could it be that he was the one who was enslaved, bound by chains less visible but more real than the chains which, for a time, kept Paul and Silas in their cell?

The jailer’s life had been shaped by the kingdom of Rome; and in the kingdom of Rome, true freedom was in short supply. The owners of the slave-girl also lived in the kingdom of Rome. It was all they had ever known. It was what shaped their life. It was what taught them to believe that more power and more money led to more enjoyment and more satisfaction.

The problem is that “more” is always a relative term. “More” can never be achieved. Once you get “more,” there will always be another “more” that you don’t have. And so you become stuck in a pattern – a never-ending pattern – of always trying to get more. What you have now is not enough. You need to have more.

When the jailer saw that Paul and Silas did not escape when they could have, he realized that they had somehow overcome this rat-race lifestyle. They had learned to break the cycle. They had learned to beat the system, or at least, not let the system define who they were and how they lived. They were free to find satisfaction with whatever situation they were in. They were able to be content and at ease. They were able to be free.

No wonder the jailer pleaded that they might show him how to find salvation and freedom.

Our society today is not that much different than the ancient kingdom of Rome. Even more so than ancient Romans, we have been trained to want what we don’t have, and to never be satisfied with what we do have. In fact, “trained” is, I think, too soft a word. “Brainwashed” might be closer to the truth. If there’s something that we want, and we do get it, are we able to sit back in enjoyment and gratitude? How often do we say to ourselves, “I got what I wanted, now I’m happy?” How often are we truly satisfied, content with what we have?

As soon as we get what we want, we immediately find something else to want. We replace one longing with another, so that we are always living in a state of unfulfilled desires, always wanting something, always saying to ourselves, “if only.” “If only had had this. If only I had that.”

We are enslaved by this way of thinking. Perhaps we are even possessed by it. It is the paradigm that guides the way we live. And we’ve been living with this spirit of wanting since we were infants. It was drilled into us every time someone asked us, “What do you WANT for Christmas? What do you WANT for your birthday?”

My birthday comes one month after Christmas, and I can remember as a child that I had hardly got the wrapping paper off the Christmas presents when I would be asked by well-meaning relatives what I wanted for my birthday. I hadn’t even had time to enjoy the gifts I got for Christmas yet. There was no time for satisfaction. No time for enjoyment. Almost no time for gratitude. Life, I learned, is about wanting.

The brainwashing continues throughout our lives. Every day, we see hundreds of messages that reinforce the importance of wanting, messages that convince us that our lives are incomplete unless we get more. That’s why the car we have is never good enough. That’s why the TV we have is not good enough. That’s why the spouse we have is not good enough. Because no matter how good things are, we know that there’s something better out there – there always is – and we’ve been brainwashed to want something better, something different, something new.

That’s our enslavement. With all these wants programmed into us, it’s like we’re not even living our own lives, that we are possessed, that we are trying to live somebody else’s life: the life our society, through advertising and other media, tells us we should be living.

But look again at the Bible story. Look again at the gospel. There is freedom. Through Jesus, God sets us free. When we live in the kingdom of God, we are free from the spirits and demons which possess us.

When Jesus talked about the kingdom of God – and he talked about the kingdom of God a lot – he was intentional about describing it as an alternative to the kingdom of Rome, the kingdom by which all lives were shaped. The kingdom of Rome was about power and status; the kingdom of God is about service and community. The kingdom of Rome was about accumulating wealth; the kingdom of God is about sharing. The kingdom of Rome was about scarcity, never having enough; the kingdom of God is about abundance. The kingdom of Rome is about fighting one’s way to the top of the food chain; the kingdom of God is about lions and lambs lying down together.

When we choose to break free from the kingdom of Rome and to live in the kingdom of God, we learn to see that much of how we were living was how society told us to live. We were living our lives on the basis of needing to prove ourselves, and the primary way we did that was through the accumulation of material wealth. In order to constantly prove ourselves in the eyes of society, we had to have more, and we could never be satisfied with what we had.

But in the kingdom of God, there is freedom. In the kingdom of God, we are free. Free to follow our passion. Free to live our own lives, the lives to which God calls us. Free to ignore the judgmental stares of society when we go against conventional wisdom, and dare to be satisfied and grateful. Free to dwell in the love and grace of God. Free to sing hymns of praise, even in the darkest prison cell.

"On the Road Again" (Acts 16: 9-15)

This week, I received news updates via various websites and NPR radio stations about the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, and the efforts that are underway to aid in the recovery following this terrible ecological catastrophe. This week, I saw facebook updates from friends in Tennessee (including Andra Moran, whose song we just sang) regarding cleanup efforts following last week’s terrible flooding. This week, I received email updates that keep me up-to-date on what’s going on in our region and denomination, including the work of our missionaries, people like Gloria Vicente and her family, currently serving in Guatemala. This week, I talked with a young friend in Brazil, a man who, when he was a teenager, lived with my family as an exchange student, about an important career decision he was facing. And, this week, I received twitter updates from an organization called Discover the Journey, which works with former child soldiers in the Congo.


It is so easy to stay connected these days, to know what’s going on in the world. Telephone, email, facebook, twitter, news websites and NPR radio stations… In fact, sometimes it’s too easy. Sometimes, if I’m working in my office, I will struggle to resist the temptation to keep checking for updates from these various sources while I go about my other work. After all, how much could things have changed in the ten minutes since I last checked?

Thank God for my day of rest, when – more often then not – I don’t even turn the computer on at all. Our connections to the world around us are a blessing … but sometimes it is also a blessing to disconnect for awhile.

The apostle Paul started or helped start communities of believers in many cities scattered throughout the Roman Empire. One day Paul decided that he should check up on these groups, see how they were doing. Too bad for him, though: he couldn’t call them, he couldn’t send them an email or facebook message; he couldn’t even send them a text message to say, “Yo. Wassup?” So he embarked on a journey, on foot and by boat, to visit every city and see how the followers of Jesus were doing in each place.

The scripture doesn’t say how much preparation was involved. In fact, it doesn’t seem that there was much preparation. Paul just chose some people, and “set out,” with the blessing of other believers who sent him on his way.

If I had been one of those chose to accompany Paul, I think I would have been frustrated. For much of my life – and my parents will confirm this – I have been the sort of person who wanted to see and know what was going to happen, before it happened. I want the itinerary all laid out. I want to know where we’re going, and when we’re going to get there, and how.

Paul, on the other hand, seemed to have enough faith in God to just trust that he would get to where he needed to be, when he needed to be there.

Jesus seemed to work the same way: he said “follow me,” and people did, with no hesitation or time for preparation. And when he sent his disciples out to minister in his name, he told them to take nothing with them: no purse, no bag, no sandals; but to instead rely on the Holy Spirit and the hospitality of the people they met. He told them to not worry about what they would eat, what they would wear. He told them to not worry, not be afraid, not be anxious.

Well, the way I overcome anxiety is to figure everything out all in advance, but Jesus says no – the way to overcome anxiety is to have faith. I read just this week that the opposite of faith is not doubt; it’s fear. We think of faith and doubt as opposites, but no, that’s not true; the opposite of faith is anxiety and fear. Scripture tells us: “Have faith! Do not fear!” Scripture does not say: “Have faith! Do not doubt.” I had heard and read this before, but given my own anxieties, it’s something I need to hear again. And again.

If I had been with Paul – if I had been Paul – I probably would have wanted everything all figured out in advance. But that’s not the way Paul rolled. Called to take a journey, Paul “set out” before taking the time to finalize the details. As a result, Paul was able to be more flexible with his plans, and more open to the leading and guiding of God’s Spirit.

Which reminds me: have I ever told you about the Blank Bulletin Incident? It happened at my last church, when I began to feel that we were overplanning everything, figuring out all the details, and leaving little room for the Spirit to work among us. And so, one week, I told the secretary to leave the inside of the bulletin blank. That Sunday, the worship bulletin listed no hymns, no scripture readings,… nothing; because none of those things were prepared in advance. Not even a sermon. I told no one, except one or two who were scheduled to lead in worship that Sunday.

Let me tell you, it was very difficult for me to have faith that week, and not fear. When the day came, I began worship by saying that we were going to let the Spirit lead us that morning, and that we’d figure things out as we went. And we did. We sang hymns. We read scripture. We did a lot of things following the worship format that we knew by heart, but we also did a few things differently. Most importantly, we learned to let the Spirit lead us.

Anyway, Paul did have a mission; he did have a general roadmap of where he wanted to go, the places he needed to visit. But he didn’t worry too much about the details. As we know, setbacks can occur. The map doesn’t tell us when a bridge is closed for construction. The map doesn’t tell us about the place that serves the best hamburgers which is located, as it always is, some miles off the main road. Paul knew that a lot of the details of the journey would have to be worked out on the way, and that the important thing was to get started. Paul didn’t want to get stuck in what Martin Luther King, Jr., referred to as the paralysis of analysis. So he didn’t spend an excessive amount of time worrying about the details.

It all reminds me of Abraham, the patriarch of three religions, who followed God’s call to a new land. I’m not even sure that he knew exactly where he was going, or how he was going to get there. One thing scripture is very clear about is that his journey took place by stages. He didn’t get there right away; this suggests to me that the journey was at least as important as the destination.

It also reminds me of the Hebrews, when Moses led them out of Egypt. Yes, they had a destination, but good grief, it took them forty years to get there. And scripture tells us that God was leading them. Maybe if they had found someone else to lead them, it wouldn’t have taken so long. But with God, the journey itself was important. It began suddenly, with little time for preparation; not even enough time for the bread to rise. But once they started on their way, there was no hurry to get to the end.

On his journey, Paul had a vision, which led to a detour through Macedonia. Had he planned out his itinerary and insisted on sticking to it, he might not have allowed himself this little detour. Then he would have missed out on the wonderful hospitality of a woman named Lydia. He would have missed out on the opportunity to share the gospel to some people whose hearts were open and yearning for good news. And possibly he would have missed out on some good food – maybe even the world’s best hamburger.

A lot of people set goals for themselves, and those that don’t probably should. Some, working by themselves or with their families, even come up with their own mission statement, a process which allows them to focus on their values, and on who and what God is calling them to be.

A lot of churches have also set goals. A lot of churches have come up with identity statements and mission statements and have even developed a roadmap of sorts to guide them in their ministry.

But you can’t think about such things forever. At some point, you need to start the journey. You need to start moving those feet, and go where God is calling you.

You know, over the past five or six years I’ve heard a lot about church transformation; and most of what I’ve heard is good, really good. You probably know that the Disciples of Christ is working to establish 1,000 new congregations, but did you know that we are also working to transform 1,000 existing congregations?

As a result I’ve been to a number of transformation workshops and conferences and summits and forums. I’ve read a whole bookshelf of books on church transformation, and I’ve heard dozens of “experts” speak on transformation. It was a diverse group of readings and speakers, and they all said stuff that was good and useful.

But there was one thing they all said. They all said that, in order to transform, in order to revitalize, you need to do something. At some point, you need to stop talking, stop planning, stop reading, stop going to conferences, stop brainstorming, stop preparing … and start doing.

That, it seems, is the key to transformation. Churches that are transforming, churches that are growing, churches that have found new life – they’re all doing something different; God has called them to different forms of ministry, and the way one church is doing ministry may not be right for another church.

But the point is that they are all doing something.

Maybe everything you do won’t succeed. Maybe – like Paul – you will find your way blocked at times, and forced to take a detour. Maybe, like the Hebrews leaving Egypt, you will hear people saying “Wait! We’re not ready! We don’t know where we’re going; we need to go back!” And maybe you’ll decide that perhaps you do need to think about things a while longer.

But, as Ashleigh Brilliant said, “Unless you move, the place where you are is the place where you will always be.” Think about that for a moment.

And consider these words from Barbara Brown Taylor: “The practice itself will teach you what you need to know.” The only way to know what God wants you to do is to start doing it, and learn as you go. The practice itself will teach you what you need to know. The journey itself will show you where you are to go.