Eyes on the Prize
Acts 16:16-34
May 12, 2013
The lectionary still has us along for the ride with Paul in Acts, and this morning’s text is the story of Paul and Silas, bound in jail. As the song and story tell us, they began to preach, to sing, to shout and the jail doors open.
The song has
them walking straight on out, but the text is even more interesting. Listen for
a word from God in this story:
25About
midnight Paul and Silas were praying and singing hymns to God, and the
prisoners were listening to them. 26Suddenly
there was an earthquake, so violent that the foundations of the prison were
shaken; and immediately all the doors were opened and everyone’s chains were
unfastened. 27When the
jailer woke up and saw the prison doors wide open, he drew his sword and was
about to kill himself, since he supposed that the prisoners had escaped. 28But Paul shouted in a
loud voice, “Do not harm yourself, for we are all here.” 29The jailer called for
lights, and rushing in, he fell down trembling before Paul and Silas.30Then
he brought them outside and said, “Sirs, what must I do to be saved?” 31They answered, “Believe
on the Lord Jesus, and you will be saved, you and your household.” 32They spoke the word of
the Lord to him and to all who were in his house. 33At the same hour of the
night he took them and washed their wounds; then he and his entire family were
baptized without delay. 34He
brought them up into the house and set food before them; and he and his entire
household rejoiced that he had become a believer in God.
Paul
and Silas don’t just walk out. Instead, they turn the entire situation upside
down and inside out. That’s more or less the pattern of the whole of Acts:
taking customary expectations – about the way of the world and the ways of God
– and turning them upside down and inside out.
You would
think that prison would be the last place that such expectations would be
turned around. After all, when the jail doors do open you’d think that walking
right on out would be the only impulse one would feel. But Paul and Silas
understand that the patterns of life-as-it’s-usually-lived are not the prize
they are after. Walking out, in that moment, would be giving up on that prize;
it would be surrendering to expectations. It would be saying, in effect, “the
powers that be have the right to control our coming and our going.”
Instead,
they stand up and say, “you truly have no power here. God is in charge.”
The
good news that they share from the prison cell insists that the powers that be,
the ones that keep you shackled in fear, have no power. God’s love – for you
and for all – is a force more powerful. Sharing that good news is all that Paul
and Silas care about.
The
powers that be – whatever they are and whoever embodies them – never want to
hear their presumption questioned. Indeed, they will silence all dissent.
That’s why running away seems like a perfectly viable option. That’s why hiding
out seems like a decent choice. That’s why the wilderness seems to beckon.
But if
your prize is overturning the powers and principalities, then running away is
not an option. That part of the story the song gets exactly right.
*****
So what
imprisons you? What powers and principalities hold sway over you? What fears
shackle you?
Often
we construct our own jail cells: we fear that we do not have enough, so we
shackle ourselves to the pursuit of a more perfect balance sheet. We fear that
we do not look good enough, so we shackle ourselves to the pursuit of a more
perfect appearance. We fear that we have not achieved enough, so we shackle
ourselves to the pursuit of a more perfect resume.
What is
the purpose of prisons? Literal or metaphorical, whether built by ourselves for
ourselves or by the government or a contracting corporation for those deemed
criminals, prisons serve two ends: punishment and separation.
We
punish ourselves for failing to live up to the imagined expectations of the
idols we’ve been accustomed to worshipping: affluence, appearance, achievement,
to name the three major gods of American consumer culture. Shackled in these
jail cells, we separate ourselves from one another and from God.
Friends,
the good news is this: the jail door’s open so come on out. You are loved by
the God who created you just as you are. So much of what we pursue in life we
simply don’t need. Let the chains go.
Around
the table of grace, and in these waters of baptism, we are made free.
Paul
and Silas share this good news, and next thing you know they are breaking bread
with the prison guard and baptizing his whole family. That’s what the gospel of
liberation is all about.
What is
the prize, then? There are various ways of describing it, but not surprisingly,
Wendell Berry names it simply and well. The chain of hand in hand, the prize we
are to keep our eyes focused upon is simply this: kindness.
Writing
in Christian Century last month,
Berry concludes, “the wealth of this idea of kindness is not exhausted by
kindnesses to humans. It is far more encompassing. From some Christians as far
back as the 12th century, certainly from further back in so-called
primitive cultures, and from some ecologists of our own time, we have the idea
of a great kindness including and binding together all beings: the living and
the nonliving, the plants and animals, the water, the air, the stones. All,
ultimately, are of a kind, belonging together, interdependently, in this world.
From the point of view of Genesis 1 or of the 104th Psalm, we would
say that all are of one kind, one kinship, one nature, because all are creatures.
Much
happiness, much joy, can come to us from our membership in a kindness so
comprehensive and original.”[1]
This is
the good news that’s breaks down prison doors. This is the good news that Paul
and Silas proclaimed. This is the good news that binds us hand in hand. Keep
your eyes on this prize.
For everyone
born, then, membership in this kindness. For everyone born: let justice roll
down like these waters and righteousness like an ever flowing stream. For
everyone born: let there be a place at this table. Amen.
posted by David Ensign at
12:18 PM
<< Home