Sermon June 23, 2019

When the kingdom of God comes, then we are set free. Only a free person can worship and obey God. 

Sermon Easter 7 - June 2, 2019

Acts 16:16-34

16 One 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.

19 But when her owners saw that their hope of making money was gone, they seized Paul and Silas and dragged them into the market-place 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.

25 About 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.

‘Where the spirit of the LORD is, there is freedom.’

This word from Paul’s second letter to the Corinthians

is not in our lessons today,

but I can’t think of a better accompaniment

to the first reading,

which is one of my favorite readings from the book of Acts.

‘Where the spirit of the LORD is, there is freedom.’

For we have a division in our first reading

between those who are unfree and those are free;

a division between those who are animated by the Spirit of freedom

and those who are enslaved to a spirit which keeps them in bondage.

We have what our translation calls ‘a slave-girl with a spirit of divination.’

This is not an ability she has, but it is a curse.

First of all, she must say whatever the evil spirit wants her to say.

Secondly, the spirit makes her profitable to others.

She works for others, to make them money.

She is neither free to say what she wants to say

or do what she wants to say.

Neither is he free who holds the keys to the jail.

He has the power to keep people in chains,

but he must work for a system

that is not interested in what is right or what is wrong,

but only in what is expedient.

He must follow the instructions of those who are in charge,

and if he does not follow them to the letter,

it is he who will be jailed or worse.

And finally, we have Paul and his assistant, Silas.

They are very much annoyed by the slave-girl with the spirit of divination

and eventually find themselves in prison.

And yet, they are the ones who are free in this story,

for they are the ones with the spirit of the Lord.

‘Now the LORD is the spirit,

and where the spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom.’

We so easily assume that external circumstances define our freedom,

but if we listen to Scripture,

we see that those with the Spirit of the Lord

are free wherever they go.

For what is freedom?

Freedom is to have a soul able to praise and serve God.

Even people who have the most freedom

according to external circumstances

may not be free to praise and serve God.

They are the most blessed in the external circumstance,

but perhaps the least in the spiritual circumstance,

for they are least able to see that they have no freedom.

But those who have the Spirit of the Lord, which is freedom,

take the Spirit of freedom with them even into the places of bondage.

And when the Spirit of freedom invades the places of bondage,

there the breath of God can do its work of liberation.

For the last time this Easter season,

remember again the story of Jacob DeShazer,

the US Navy flyer imprisoned by the Japanese

who was given a Bible midway through his captivity,

and found himself liberated from the hatred and bitterness

that had haunted him throughout his imprisonment.

After his external freedom was restored,

he went back in the Spirit,

to proclaim freedom in Christ to those of the nation

whose army had tortured him,

and to liberate those whose spirits were crushed

by their defeat in war.

Think of our reading in Acts,

when the girl with the spirit of divination

could think and speak not as a slave,

but as a free person,

and because of this,

could no longer be exploited by others.

Think of the jailer who,

expecting death at the hands of his captives or captors,

was instead offered his freedom by Paul,

his physical freedom and his spiritual freedom.

For Paul and Silas stayed in the jail and did not escape,

for their purpose was not to secure their own physical freedom,

but instead to live in the freedom of the Spirit

and to bring others into that freedom.

Perhaps we can see now that freedom is not primarily political freedom,

freedom to do what we want,

freedom to live how we choose,

but freedom is primarily freedom in the Spirit.

‘Now the Lord is the Spirit, and wherever the Spirit of the Lord is,

there is freedom.’

When our political freedom serves life in the Spirit,

then we as individuals use it wisely and for its intended purpose.

When it does not serve life in the Spirit,

then we cannot pretend that it does any good for us.

Though it is good, it may not be good for us.

More importantly for us,

do we recognize our need for freedom,

the freedom of the Spirit

which liberates us from bondage

both self-chosen and inflicted upon us.

Do we recognize our need for freedom from envy,

which drives us to spend our money on things we don’t need

and to spend our time watching stories of those with glamorous lifestyles?

Do we recognize our need for freedom from anger and hatred,

which shows us no mercy even as we show others no mercy?

Do we recognize our need for freedom from lies,

which alone we trust to keep us free from responsibility?

Do we recognize our need from freedom from fear,

which causes us to serve the powers of the world,

the powers of the world which countenance no contradictions

and who stand to profit handsomely when we are not free to live in the Spirit?

We are in desperate need of liberation.

We are the ones who are both slave-girl and jailer,

we are those ground beneath the wheels of our systems

and we are their unwilling servants.

Where shall we receive this liberation?

‘The Lord is the Spirit, and where the spirit of the Lord is,

there is freedom.’

We must wait for the Lord.

For ‘we are in bondage to sin and cannot free ourselves.’

But the promise of Jesus ascended into heaven

is the promise of Pentecost,

and Pentecost is the promise

that the Spirit of freedom is active in the world.

That Spirit is active

when we read the Scriptures 

and pray in the name of Jesus. 

When Paul prayed in the name of Jesus,

the Spirit set the slave-girl free.

When Paul spoke the word of God to the jailer,

he believed in the Lord and was set free from fear.

If there is anything we can 'do' for ourselves,

it is to name the name of Jesus

and to come to the place where the Word is spoken.

And the Spirit of God will set us free.