Easter 7c

Acts 16:16-34

¹⁶One day, as we were going to the place of prayer, we met a slave girl who had a spirit of divination and brought her owners a great deal of money by fortune-telling. ¹⁷While she followed Paul and us, she would cry out, “These men are slaves of the Most High God, who proclaim to you a way of salvation.” ¹⁸She kept doing this for many days. But Paul, very much annoyed, turned and said to the spirit, “I order you in the name of Jesus Christ to come out of her.” And it came out that very hour. ¹⁹But when her owners saw that their hope of making money was gone, they seized Paul and Silas and dragged them into the marketplace before the authorities. ²⁰When they had brought them before the magistrates, they said, “These men are disturbing our city; they are Jews ²¹and are advocating customs that are not lawful for us as Romans to adopt or observe.” ²²The crowd joined in attacking them, and the magistrates had them stripped of their clothing and ordered them to be beaten with rods. ²³After they had given them a severe flogging, they threw them into prison and ordered the jailer to keep them securely. ²⁴Following these instructions, he put them in the innermost cell and fastened their feet in the stocks.

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.

We live in a land of freedom. When compared with almost any other nation on earth those who live in this country have a wealth of freedom. There are many of our brothers and sisters in the faith who cannot gather publicly for worship for fear of repercussions from either their neighbors or from the authorities. They live in places where the news that they hear is only that which has been green lighted by the government. A simple trip to the grocery store or to work can mean crossing through multiple checkpoints with armed guards at each one. But we can live where we want, work where we want, spend our money the way that we want. There is no place on Earth that I would rather live than in this country.

Yet, I have to wonder, what sort of freedom do we really live in? We say that America is the greatest, free-ist country in the world, but how much freedom do we really have? I guess that depends on what we mean when we talk about freedom.

When I head back to my apartment, I park my car in the special lot that is designated only for students of the seminary. As I cross the parking lot, I greet the security guard who patrols campus. I enter the secret pass-code to open the exterior door, then use my individual key to unlock the door to my own little room. But all of this does more to illustrate my need for safety and security than it does to talk about my level of personal freedom.

Is this really what freedom looks like? Could there be more to freedom than the Declaration of Independence and the Bill of Rights?

Even with all of this personal freedom we are still in a different sort of bondage, a bondage which blinds us to all the God has given us, and causes us to see only the despair of the world around us. We see only a world around us that is hurting, crying in pain – not a community of neighbors who travel through life unaware of the love that the Creator has for them. We see people scurry from appointment to appointment, filling every moment with activity as they try to fill a hole in their own heart. But what we miss is the opportunity to tell them about God’s overflowing love. We see our neighbors so caught up in other’s impressions of them that they have no idea just how much God cares for them. There is a world around us in need of God’s love and yet in our blindness all that we see are our own problems and shortcomings.

In today’s text from Acts, Paul and Silas are faced with a very real problem. They have been thrown into prison for casting the demon out of a woman. And not just prison, but the biblical equivalent of maximum security, the innermost part of the prison. They are in the deepest, darkest part of the prison, legs bound, behind lock and key. They have been beaten with rods, and now there they lay, with no way to tend to their wounds.

Yet, in spite of their circumstances, God put a song in their hearts. Even as they lay bleeding in prison Paul and Silas praise God. Though there were shackles on their legs binding the body, no one could bind their spirit. Their circumstances were difficult, yet they saw in the world around them opportunities to share God’s love and bring true healing.

On the other hand, even though he was the one holding all of the keys, the guard was very much in prison. He could come and go as he pleased, and yet he was far from free. His prison was made not of bars and chains, but of fear of retaliation. He was so enslaved that death was preferable to facing the repercussions from his superiors if they found out that prisoners escaped under his watch.

With God’s song in their hearts Paul and Silas exercised their freedom by staying in jail – because by staying in jail, they were able to bring freedom to the guard. They were able to see in him, the difference that God can make. When he saw Paul and Silas’ faith, the jailer was drawn to the source of their strength. That very night he and his family were baptized.

Our greatest freedom comes not from the land that we live in, the size of our bank account, or even the Constitution, but from Christ. The freedom that counts comes from our citizenship in God’s kingdom. With that citizenship comes the ability to see the world in a new way. We can see the world not as a set of problems to be solved or pains to be avoided, but as God’s own creation – a creation that needs to hear the song that God has placed on your heart.

So brothers and sisters, sing out! There is a world out there that is dying to hear you. You need not worry about the prisons of this life, because God has given you a greater freedom, the freedom to sing in all circumstances. The freedom to dance in spite of the shackles. And the freedom to take this joy with you no matter where you go in life. Amen.