Sermon for St Margaret’s, Belmont, Centenary, 16 May 2010
by Graham Redding
Text: Acts 16:11-40

Celebrating centenaries and similar milestones are things organizations do. They’re important. They’re occasions for honouring the past and acknowledging with gratitude the influence the organization has had on people’s lives and the contribution it has made (and continues to make) to the local community.

Jeremiah principle (Jer.29:7): Seek the welfare of the city, and pray to the Lord on its behalf, for in its welfare you will find your welfare.

Many dimensions to this. St Margaret’s Church in Belmont: Meeting spiritual needs, providing community facilities, Girls and Boys Brigades, community service, etc.

Actually, there is one more bit to the Jeremiah quote: Seek the welfare of the city, “where I have sent you into exile…”
The Church, like Israel of old, might be described as an exilic community. An exilic community is characterised by a sense of displacement and dislocation. It sounds a warning to the settled, establishment Church: Don’t get too comfortable; you serve a larger calling, a different narrative.

I want to illustrate this with reference to our Reading from the Book of Acts.
Acts 16:11-40 is truly remarkable story. Summary: Paul and Silas are tried, flogged and thrown in prison for allegedly disturbing the peace, but in reality depriving the owners of a spirit-possessed slave girl of income derived from her exploitation. But their physical captivity does not stop them praying and singing hymns to God late into the night. Then suddenly, around midnight … an earthquake … so violent that the doors and chains of the prison spring open. Freedom beckons. But instead of seizing the moment, Paul and Silas and their fellow prisoners remain in their cells much to the astonishment of the jailer. He falls down trembling before P & S, and at their urging gives his life to the Lord.

Did you notice the interplay between captivity and freedom in this story? The physical captivity of Paul and Silas is emphasised – Luke tells us they are put in the innermost cell, their feet fastened in stocks. But in the act of praying and singing hymns they are the epitome of freedom, giving voice to an irrepressible joy that defies their physical circumstances.

Some year ago, a Latin American theologian, Gustavo Guttierez, coined the phrase “subversive joy” to describe this sort of joy: Joy that is not dependent on one’s emotional state, but rather wells up from a deep and abiding confidence in what God has done and continues to do. Subversive because it sees things differently, unsettles the status quo, and cultivates a fresh imagination. The biggest earthquake in this story is not that which shakes the foundations of the prison, but rather that which shakes the foundations of people’s lives – Lydia, the slave-girl and the jailer. The real freedom in this story is not the capacity to walk out the prison gates, but rather the decision to believe in the Lord Jesus.

Here’s the challenge: Being church is not just about serving the community; it’s also about identifying those aspects of our culture and ways of living that need subverting and liberating in the name of the Gospel.

Question: Where does that process of subversion and liberation begin? Where is it given most profound expression?
In the act of worship. This whole story begins, Luke tells us, as Paul and Silas are going to a place of prayer.
For us, it is in the act of worship, as we listen to, and reflect upon the scriptures, that imaginations are recalibrated. It is here, through the waters of baptism and in the act of gathering around the Table, that we glimpse and experience a new way of being-in-community. It is here, as we pray and sing hymns (songs of praise), that we give voice to the irrepressible joy of the freedom we have been given in Christ. It’s not confined to this place of course, but it is centred here – in the act of worship, in this place of prayer.

Henri Nouwen describes the experience of attending an Easter service for a community of severely disabled people and their caregivers. At a certain point in the service, he says, the cry went up, “The Lord is risen!” accompanied by bells, alleluias, smiles and laughter. Nouwen writes: “While all this joy filled the chapel, I saw that Nathan stood up with Philippe in his arms. Philippe’s body is severely distorted. He cannot speak, walk, dress or feed himself and needs help every second of his waking hours. When I saw Philippe in Nathan’s arms I suddenly realised what we were proclaiming on this Easter vigil. Philippe’s body is a body destined to a new life, a resurrected life. In his new body he will carry the signs of his suffering, just as Jesus carried the wounds of his crucifixion into his glory. And yet he will no longer be suffering, but will join the saints around the altar of the lamb. What a faith! What a hope! What a love! The body is not a prison to escape from, but a temple in which God already dwells, and in which God’s glory will be fully manifested on the day of the resurrection.”

To discern all this is an ordinary service of worship requires a powerful act of imagination – not imagination as mere wishful thinking or a flight of fancy, but a biblically shaped imagination that can see things at a deeper level and discern God’s Spirit at work – much as Paul and Silas did that day in Philippi.

So … what are those aspects of our culture and ways of living that need subverting and liberating in the name of the Gospel?
I want to respond to this question by keeping the spotlight on the slave girl and the jailer.

Slave girl: She is twice enslaved. Firstly to a social system that defined her status and kept her in physical servitude; secondly to a spirit that kept her in spiritual servitude.

The dynamics of her servitude are not entirely unfamiliar to us, even though we might describe them differently: Economic and social forces that define a person’s status and so easily render them powerless; bureaucratic systems that dehumanise; internal demons with which people struggle, whether these be defined in terms of addiction, dysfunctional patterns of behaviour, or unresolved issues from the past. Even in the so-called Free world, freedom is partial and at times illusory. The forms of captivity which we experience may be more nuanced than those which oppressed the slave girl, but they are no less real.

Jailer: Radiates fear and anxiety, even to the point of drawing his sword to take his own life. Circumstances beyond his control have plunged him into despair.

A few months ago I read a book with a most apt title: “Following Jesus in a culture of fear”. Fear is pervasive and takes many forms. Current events (Flu pandemics, global warming, recession); political (Cold War, 9/11); personal (opinions of others, mortality, crime). The name of a recent reality TV show, “The Fear Factor” constituted a very accurate description of the human condition.
What Paul had experienced personally and what he proclaims to the slave girl and the jailer is that in the company of Jesus and at his command, fear gives way to faith and captives are set free. “Believe on the Lord Jesus,” Paul declares to the jailer, “and you will be saved, you and your household.”

There is an interesting Postscript to this story: The jailer takes Paul and Silas to his home, whereupon he and his family are baptized, and he sets food before them. The transformation of the jailer, his coming to faith, concludes with an act of hospitality. Time and again in the New Testament we see mission and hospitality entwined. The missional church is the hospitable church.

There are multiple lessons for the church in this story: Yes, the church exists, at least in part, to serve the community and to seek its wellbeing. It is part of the community. But in its life and witness it also seeks to be something more, to be an agent of transformation, to display radical hospitality, to identify and confront the myriad forms of oppression and fear that weigh people down, to exhibit signs of subversive joy, to point to the life and freedom that is found in Jesus Christ, and to render prayer and praise to God without ceasing.

To the extent that St Margaret’s has done precisely these things over the years, we give thanks; to the extent that it can identify new opportunities to do so, we pray for the strength and guidance of the Holy Spirit. Amen.