Saved From What?

Based on Acts 16:16-34

    “What must I do to be saved?” This question asked by the jailer as he falls to his knees trembling before Paul is one of the big questions asked through the book of Acts and down through the ages. Isn’t this what the Christian faith is all about, to be saved? We say that Jesus is our lord and savior. People have said that the church is in the salvation business.

But there is a follow up question we may want to ask, “Saved from what?” Are we saved from hell? From death? From the consequences of our sins? That’s part of it. Salvation does have something to do with what happens to us after we die. This season of Easter we are in is all about celebrating the resurrection of Jesus and the promise that we too will experience resurrection and enjoy eternal life. But is salvation only about what happens after we die? The story we heard this morning helps us understand what we are being saved from. We will see that salvation is something we can experience while we are still living in this world.

The story begins with exploitation, prejudice, mob justice, and false imprisonment. These are life experiences that are all too common in our own day. Human nature has not changed over the centuries, only the means and methods. As the story proceeds, we see a shift. In the back end of the story we hear of freedom, hospitality, and celebration. We experience this as well. Which kind of life do you prefer? Is it a life of exploitation, prejudice and mob justice? Or is it freedom, hospitality, and celebration? That’s a rhetorical question. And yet, for some reason, we continue to experience plenty of the first kind and not enough of the other. I wonder why? I wonder if the answer to this perplexing question comes when we consider what it means to be saved? Let’s look closer at this story and see what we find.

There was an enslaved woman who had a spirit of divination. For a price, people who are desperate for answers would come to her and receive a prophecy revealing to them what will happen in the future. This spirit has a name by the way. In the Greek we read that the woman was possessed of a pneuma pythona, a spirit snake. This may be a reference to the famous Delphic oracle, a place where people could go to hear their fortune, that had been guarded by a python that the god Apollo killed. In Greek myth, the snake was a source of wisdom and insight. Regardless, the main point here is that she had this spirit and was being exploited by her owners who would take the money people paid to receive their fortunes from her.

The woman starts tagging along with Paul and Silas as they make their way through the town. She follows them for days. As Paul and Silas try to engage people in conversation the woman keeps telling them that Paul and Silas are slaves of the most high God who offer a way of salvation. When she says the most high God, is she referring to Zeus? Probably. She says they offer a way of salvation. Saved from what? Does she even know?

The thing that gets me though is that Paul puts up with her for days until, annoyed, Paul has enough and casts the snake spirit out of her in the name of Jesus. This act proves the truth of what the woman has been saying about Paul. She has been saved from possession of this spirit. But why didn’t Paul cast that spirit out sooner? The only reason he does it is because he is annoyed. Not exactly the greatest motivation. Nevertheless, she is freed from this spirit.

Not only has she been delivered of the spirit, now she has no benefit to her owners. They can no longer exploit her. What’s the point of keeping her? I wish we knew what happened next. Did they just let her go? Was she no longer a slave? We can only guess. But maybe she was set free not only of the spirit but also of her servitude. At least she isn’t being exploited anymore. Is this also being saved?

The exploiters though are not happy about this turn of events. They grab Paul and Silas and drag them to the agora, the marketplace, where the magistrates are. But look what they do. They don’t accuse Paul of making their slave useless. Instead, they intentionally rile up the crowd by accusing them of being Jews, which they are, and also saying that they teach customs not proper for Roman citizens to perform. In other words, Paul and Silas are outsiders, foreigners, who are undermining the culture, the moral order. It’s nothing but base anti-Semitism, raw ethnic supremacy and bigotry. And the crowd turns into a mob.

Caught up in the mob mentality the magistrates strip Paul and Silas and severely beat them with rods. Beaten and bloodied they are then thrown into prison. Not once are they given an opportunity to speak for themselves. They have been dehumanized, demeaned, victims of injustice and Roman supremacy. And the crowd probably laughed at them and thought to themselves that those Jews deserved it. They shouldn’t be here anyway. They should go back to wherever they came from. They don’t belong here. Sound familiar?

But here is the turning point of the story. In that prison cell, chained to the floor, beaten and broken, in the darkest hour of the night, Paul and Silas are praying and singing while the rest of the prisoners listen in. No moaning. No cursing. They pray and sing. What a powerful witness! They do not let their circumstances break their spirit. They maintain their dignity. They know that in that moment they cannot plead their case. They cannot get out of the jail cell. There’s not much they can do. But they can pray. And they can sing. In the darkest hour of our lives, when we find ourselves in situations where little of anything is in our control, we can pray and we can sing.

This was a source of comfort for me this past week after the massacre in Texas. I’m sure this broke the hearts of all of us. It filled me with sorrow. But also anger that these keep happening. And then the feeling of despair that nothing will change, that the rest of the world will look on at our country baffled that we are incapable of preventing these massacres. I felt hopeless. But then I was reminded that there are things I can do, that all of us can do, when our hearts are broken and we feel hopeless that anything will get better. We can pray. I know the phrase “thoughts and prayers” is getting old. But prayer is no small thing. And we can sing. Or we can listen to others sing. Music has the power to heal. Music can lift our hearts and give us strength. In these difficult days, when so much is wrong, we can pray and we can sing. And others are watching us as we grieve and navigate through these hard times.

Then the earthquake. Was it divine intervention? Maybe. In previous jail breaks an angel appears to release the chains and open the jail doors. But this time it is an earthquake, which was a common occurrence in those days. Divine intervention or natural occurrence? It is uncertain.

But the jailer is certain that the prisoners have taken the opportunity to run away. Why wouldn’t they? It’s common sense to run away. He immediately despairs and prepares to fall on his sword, to get it over with quickly rather than face the torture and death that would await him from the hand of an unforgiving magistrate. But Paul, with compassion toward the jailer, calls out to him so he doesn’t fall on his sword. What amazing grace! What a witness. The one who has been beaten and broken prays and sings and cares for the jailer. Paul and Silas are opposite of how most people would act in those days, and in these days. Their dignity, their integrity, their grace and compassion is incredible. It is undeniable. They are different. They are not like everyone else.

And the jailer runs to them, falls to his knees and trembling asks the question, “What must I do to be saved?” Saved from what? From hell? I don’t think that’s what the jailer was thinking about. What did he want saved from? Maybe he wanted to be delivered from living in a society where people were exploited, where bigotry led to mob violence, where people could be unjustly beaten and thrown into jail while everyone else laughed at them. He wanted to be set free from a society that is dehumanizing, violent, cruel and unjust. He wanted saved from that.

Paul tells him to believe on the Lord Jesus and he will be saved along with his household. To believe in the Lord Jesus was to no longer believe in the Lord Caesar and all that Caesar represents, a society of exploitation, ethnic superiority and brute force. Instead, he was to believe in the Lord Jesus, who represents a society of dignity for all people, integrity, compassion, and grace, which Paul and Silas demonstrated in that prison cell. By believing in Jesus as your lord, this changes the way you live.

And look what happens. The jailer who is an agent of that corrupt system of mob justice, washes the wounds of Paul and Silas. Just sit with that image. Can you picture it? An incredible act of compassion this jailer shows. See how quickly he has been converted, from just doing his job, to almost killing himself, to now washing their wounds. Amazing. And then Paul and Silas baptized the whole family, ritually bringing them in to a new society, a new way of living together. And then to top it off, food is brought out, they all gather around the table, no one is left out, and they eat and celebrate together, Jews and Greeks, slaves and free, women and men as they celebrate that the jailer had come to belief in God. Salvation.

Saved from what? We have seen in this story that salvation has to do with freedom, compassion, grace, hospitality, and celebration. Peter tells us in Acts 2:40 what we are to be saved from: “Save yourselves from this corrupt generation.” The corruption Peter was referring to was exploitation of others, prejudice, mob rule, cruel violence at the hands of state authority. We need saved from this corrupt generation, where there is exploitation of the vulnerable, ethnic superiority, cruelty, violence, where a young man can impulse buy an assault weapon and hundreds of rounds of ammo but can’t buy a beer or rent a car and the proposed solution is to arm teachers and make our schools like prisons. We need saved from this corrupt generation.

So, we believe in our Lord Jesus. We follow his way of life. We live under the reign of God. When times are hard, we pray and sing. We live in our freedom and in our dignity. We are merciful. We are compassionate. We aim to heal and not kill, to be merciful and not judgmental, to unite and not divide, to be hospitable, to make room for everyone at the table, and to celebrate life. And what I have come to realize is that when you and I live this way, with open heartedness, with freedom, with dignity and integrity, that people are watching. And sometimes they will approach you and say, maybe even with a little tremble in their voice, “What must I do to be saved?”

Doing Life Together

Based on Acts 9:36-43

Mother’s Day is a tricky day to celebrate. For those of us who are mothers or whose mothers are still alive and we have a relationship with, then this is a nice day to be appreciated or to appreciate. It’s nice to have a day where your children let you know how much they appreciate you. And it is a nice prompt for us to let our moms know how much we appreciate them.

The tricky part is if you are not a mother. Or your mother is no longer alive. Or you don’t have a relationship with your mother. If this is your situation, then Mother’s Day can bring up some difficult emotions, maybe some grief, some bitterness, a feeling of being left out. It’s the same with Father’s Day next month. These days of appreciating moms or dads are nice for those who are moms and dads. But not for everyone. It is important to be sensitive to this reality, that Mother’s Day does not bring warm and positive feelings to everybody. Mother’s Day for many people is bittersweet.

Today we hear about a woman who was being honored, but it was bittersweet. Tabitha was deeply loved by the community. We learn that she was known for her many good works. She was a pillar in the community. When there were needs in the community, people looked to Tabitha. She was always giving of herself. Apparently, she especially used her talent for clothes making, having made garments for the widows who were in the community. But Tabitha fell ill and passed away. The community was shaken. Everyone felt the loss.

I want to say a quick word about widows. In those days in the Christian community widows had a special calling all their own. Actually, this was the case among Jews, not just Christians, who had been instructed by God of the need for the community to care for widows and orphans. I Timothy 5 gives us some insight on the special place that widows had in the community. They are to be supported by the community and in return widows are to pray continually for their community. I suspect that the widows had been praying hard for Tabitha who perhaps was a widow herself, we don’t know for sure. We can imagine that as Tabitha was drawing her last breath, she was surrounded by these widows as they prayed for her healing.

Having heard that Peter was in a nearby town, two men were sent to him to ask him to come right away with them so that he could see Tabitha. Did Peter know who Tabitha was? Maybe. Did they want Peter to hurry to see Tabitha because they wanted him to maybe perform a miracle? If that was their motivation, they kept it to themselves. If we take the story at face value, this was a situation where a pillar of the community had died and it is appropriate for Peter to come and see, to simply be present and share in the grief of the community.

By the way, there are a couple other details in this story that stresses how special Tabitha is. For one, she is known by two names, Tabitha, which is Aramaic, and Dorcas, which is Greek, a word that means “Gazelle.” Only a few other people in the New Testament had two names: Peter who is also known as Simon, John who is also known as Mark, and Saul who is also known as Paul. But here is the kicker. Tabitha is the only woman in the New Testament who is explicitly identified as a disciple. Her status is high. It was right for Peter to come quickly to see Tabitha before she was placed in a tomb.

That was at least one of the reasons why they wanted Peter to come quickly. The clock was ticking. They had washed her body and laid her out on a bed in the upper room. But she had not yet been anointed or had her body wrapped and prepared for burial. This was a narrow window of time where people could see her body, to see her face, before they had to place the body in a tomb. If Peter was going to have an opportunity to see Tabitha it had to be now. So, Peter goes with the men, and they hurry to Joppa to see Tabitha.

Can you picture the scene? Peter is led to the upper room where Tabitha’s body is laid out. The widows are still gathered around the body. They show Peter the clothes they are wearing that Tabitha had made for them, surely clothes that were made with love for each one of those women. A part of Tabitha was woven into those garments. How precious those clothes must have been for those widows, so much so that they wanted Peter to see them. It must have been an emotionally charged moment.

Perhaps this scene brought to mind an experience that Peter had with Jesus. A father’s girl was dying, and he rushed to Jesus pleading for him to come to his house and heal his daughter. But before they got to the house, the father received the word that his daughter had died. But that didn’t stop Jesus. They went on to the house filled with the sounds of weeping and moaning. Jesus sends everyone out of the room where the girl was except for the parents, Peter, James, and John. They got to see Jesus bring the girl back to life. Bringing this experience to his mind, Peter ushers the widows out of the room, closes the door, and falls on his knees praying that through the power of the Holy Spirit Jesus might bring Tabitha back to life.

While the widows and the other disciples were gathered on the other side of that door wondering what was going on inside that room, suddenly, Peter opens the door holding the hand of Tabitha who was standing beside him. The grief and sorrow are instantly turned into joy. And many people in the community came to belief in Jesus, the one whom Tabitha had been a faithful follower, the one who had given her life purpose to love this community. It’s a happy ending. The whole community is filled with celebration. They will have more time with Tabitha.

But we don’t always get those happy endings. We are happy for Tabitha and her community. Good for Tabitha. She will get to live some more years until she dies a second time. But we have not had that experience. For those of us who have lost our mothers to death, we didn’t get more time. Especially for those of us who have lost someone they love recently; this story is bittersweet. We can be happy for Tabitha and her community but there is a pang in our hearts and maybe even a little bitterness. Why did Tabitha get to have more life but not my mother? It almost feels a little unfair. I wonder if there were those in the community who, although were celebrating and happy that Tabitha was alive again, also had a tinge of longing that this could have happened to the one they loved. Even in that moment of celebration, for some, it may have been a little bittersweet.

What stands out to me most in this story though is how the whole community was engaged. They participated in the grief as well as the rejoicing after Tabitha was brought back to life. Tabitha had given all she had for the community through her love and good works. She provided beautiful garments for the widows. The widows were gathered around her when she died. When people heard that Peter was over in Lydda, two men went right away to find Peter and tell him he needed to come. When Jesus, not Peter, restored Tabitha’s life, Peter brought her out before the community so they could see for themselves. The whole community rejoiced. Many came to belief in Jesus because of this event. The only thing that happened in this story that didn’t involve the community was when Peter kicked everyone out of the room, so it was him alone with a lifeless body and the presence of the Holy Spirit. Other than that, this was a communal experience.

This is where I think we can draw inspiration from this story. It is highly unlikely that any of us will experience someone we love being dead for several hours and then through prayer be brought back to life. But this story reminds us that life is done in community. When someone dies, it affects all of us. We can be assured that the good works we do in this life are appreciated by the people we touch, that we can and do make a positive difference in the lives of others. It is a good thing to celebrate, honor people, and grieve together as a community. Attending public celebrations, public events that honor people, pubic prayer vigils where the community can grieve together, this is where the experience of life is enriched. It was our journey through the pandemic when we were reminded how much we need to be gathered. It is good for us to be together. Whether we are all feeling joyful, or feeling sad, or a combination of both, we are meant to do life as a community. Life is so much better that way.

Come to Jesus Moments

Based on Acts 9:1-6

Any way you cut it, Saul was a hothead. He had no tolerance for fellow Jews who had fallen for the line the followers of Jesus were saying, that God had raised Jesus from the dead and that there is forgiveness of sins in his name. Absolute blasphemy. The miraculous signs, the growing popularity, had no impression on Saul. As we read in Acts 9:1, Saul is storming through Jerusalem breathing curses and murder against the disciples of Jesus, going straight to the high priest to get his blessing to go all the way up to Damascus, a 135 mile journey, just to find more followers of Jesus to bind and bring back to Jerusalem for punishment. Saul was not playing. He was determined to do everything in his power to rid the world of followers of the so called Way.

I don’t think any of us can relate to Saul’s level of disdain for any group of people. But, if we are honest, there are times in our lives when we may have breathed a curse or two at certain people or groups of people we didn’t agree with. As a matter of fact, for a long time now, if you turn on talk radio or watch the political shows on TV you hear a good deal of cursing at those people on the other side of the political or cultural divide. We may have had some thoughts about people with different political or religious views among friends that we may not have said in public. We aren’t hotheads like Saul. But we do know what it is like to have at least a degree of disdain toward people or groups of people that we don’t like. Biases, prejudices, ignorance, we all have at least a little bit of that in us. It’s just that for Saul, he had an extra helping and it was driving him at a dangerous level. Actually, it was a little scary.

Saul was acting out from his bias, prejudice and ignorance in a very aggressive and public way. That’s not the case for most of us. For the rest of us, our bias is not obvious to us, our prejudice unexamined, our ignorance unaware of. It is so easy for us to make assumptions about people, stereotype, pre-judge and then hold those assumptions to be true when they aren’t. Here’s an example. People often assume and stereotype that people who are homeless are likely abusing substances and/or mentally ill. But people become homeless all the time due to unfortunate life events that has nothing to do with their mental health or drug use. But when people assume that those who are homeless are mentally ill or substance abusers, then this tends to cause us to have less sympathy for their plight. We say, “why don’t they just get a job.” When society looks at people who are homeless as those who are somehow at fault for their predicament, that helps maintain a society that can be incredibly harsh and even dangerous for folks who have found themselves pushed to the margins due to a series of unfortunate events.

Back to Saul. As he and whatever group of toughs he has pulled together are making their way along the great North road toward Damascus, all of a sudden Saul sees the light. He is blinded by the light, even. He hears a voice calling his name and asking him why Saul is persecuting him. All of a sudden, Saul is having a “come to Jesus” moment. The truth of what he is doing out of his bias, prejudice and ignorance is being thrown at him with that simple question. And all Saul knows to do in his confusion is to ask, “Who are you, lord?” And then Jesus lays the hammer down by saying, “I am Jesus, whom you are persecuting.” There it is. Saul is confronted with the truth. Jesus is not dead after all. He is alive and talking to Saul right there in the middle of the road. Right there and then Saul is being confronted with his bias, prejudice and ignorance. The whole foundation of his persecution of the followers of Jesus was their talking about Jesus having been raised. Lo and behold, he was.

We all have “come to Jesus” moments in our lives. Someone confronts us with a perspective, some new information, some truth telling, that shines a light on our unknown bias, prejudice and ignorance. We see the light. I told you the story a few weeks ago about the politician who ran into an old friend who was living in a homeless shelter. In that encounter, the politician saw the light and realized that not everyone who ends up homeless are receiving the consequences of poor moral choices. When have there been times in your life when your views about someone or a group of people shifted when you had an encounter that enabled you to see them in a new light? You weren’t struck blind like Saul was. But the assumptions you once held are revealed to have been wrong. And you are left confused and disoriented. I used to have certain assumptions and prejudices toward gay people until I became friends with people who are gay. Same thing toward people of color until I became friends with people of color. Same thing toward people who practiced a religion other than Christianity until I became friends with people who practice other religions. It has been my experience that the assumptions we carry with us as we walk through life can get upended when we come face to face with the people we hold those assumptions about.

Now this, to me, is the most amazing part of the story of Saul’s Damascus road experience. Here he is, blinded by the light. Jesus has named the truth, that Saul has been persecuting him. And the next thing Jesus says is to give Saul directions on where he needs to go and what he needs to do. Jesus says, “Get up and keep walking to Damascus, and when you get there you will be told what to do next.” No scolding. No shaming. No demand for an apology. Jesus skips all that and just tells Saul what he needs to do now. I just find that amazing. It’s as if Jesus doesn’t have time to lay a guilt trip on Saul or make sure he feels bad about what he has done. Jesus has a job for Saul to do. Jesus is focused on the mission. Stuff needs done.

This is helpful for us. When we come to those moments in life where realize that our assumptions were wrong, we can feel guilty about that. Especially when racial bias and prejudice is revealed to us as white people, we can feel that guilt and maybe even feel ashamed of ourselves. That guilt and shame can then have the effect of freezing us. It can become overwhelming. And sometimes in order to deal with the pain of guilt people can become overly sensitive, even fragile, so that anyone who even suggests there is racism in our society has to be shut down or silenced. People will say, “I don’t see color” or, “Why do you have to make everything about race,” in order to avoid being confronted with the lived experience of people who have been on the receiving end of racial bias.

But here’s the thing. Burdening ourselves with guilt or shame is not helpful. And it’s not what Jesus is about. Look again at what happened to Saul. Jesus confronted Saul with the truth, that he had been persecuting Jesus. How? By seeing to it that his followers were arrested, beaten, and hopefully stoned or crucified. People had lost their lives because of Saul. He was a dangerous man. But Jesus tells Saul the truth about what he did and then he tells Saul to keep walking to Damascus because he has work for him to do. No scolding. No shaming. Because there is work to do. What does this teach us about how we can respond when we are confronted with the truth about ourselves, about our biases, prejudices, and ignorance?

We have opportunities to find out. Come to Jesus moments happen throughout our lives. Out of nowhere, we can get blindsided with the truth of something that reveals our bias, prejudice and ignorance. I have to believe that when Saul realized what he did, that he felt a lot of remorse, guilt and maybe a good deal of shame. In fact, Paul would say that he is the least of all the apostles because he persecuted the church. He probably truly believed that. But Jesus had a mission for Paul. He had work to do. It is normal for us to feel bad when we come to realize that what we held to be true wasn’t true. We can acknowledge that we have been humbled. And we have to keep going, keep living our lives, but with a different perspective. Saul was still going to Damascus. But for completely different reasons. In fact, he didn’t even know what he was going to do when he got there. He was going to have to wait for Jesus to tell him. That’s true for us as well. When our perspective changes, we have to keep moving forward with our lives, but for different reasons, and wait for Jesus to have someone tell us what to do next.