"Whose Are You?" May 8, 2016

Acts 16: 11-15 John 17: 20-26 Last Sunday's reading from the Gospel of John and this morning's identify something that we have misconstrued. Christianity is routinely described as special and difficult to fulfill, which the command to love as we have been loved, is. But what Jesus here describes is that all the world, all people and all Creation... already belong to God, what Jesus has given has been to make relationship with God easier for us than it is for the rest of humanity, by giving us a foretaste of what relationship with God is all about. In both of the Memorials we shared this weekend, I named that life is going to be different, in as much as in the one case sons will want their Father at their HS Graduations, and College Graduations, and Weddings, and birth of his Grandchildren... He cannot. In the other, as much as a husband wants his wife beside him, as much as their grandchildren want their Baba to be there at their weddings and birth's of their children as she has always been... She cannot. What is the most important in all of that, for each, is that they WANT their Parent, their Grandparent. In a world where we know how many children are unwanted, where the father is not known, where harsh and hurtful words have been said in rejection of one another... here, both recognize that the relationship they took as routine, was actually a blessing and all they want is to feel that relationship for another moment. Jesus names in this morning's prayer in the Garden, that God formed Creation to be completely interdependent and in harmony, but we re-created the world in our image, we tried to be Masters of our Universe in control of life and doing so created death. Jesus has recreated his followers, as Adams and Eves anew. We fit with God's Creation of Reality, we do not fit with the balance the world has adopted. So the question is as Nature seeks balance, as we seek stasis, which reality will win out? Whose will we be? Children of Adam, following in the context and culture of humanity's past; or Children of God as we had been created to be, and now are again but out of cinque with the world around us? Many of us this morning have sent our Mothers or our Spouses: a “Hallmark Mother's Day Card.” You know the ones, dripping with sentimentality, perfume and lace. One, at the Post Office, had a drawing of SuperWoman flying through space, with a briefcase in one hand and a bag of groceries in the other. While I am convinced that this congregation is filled with “Hallmark Mothers” who are highly educated professionals, who do everything, and do so with elegance, grace and love; I know from listening that many did not have Mothers cut of that mold. A miraculous shift of DNA occurred, that you chose to not repeat the mistakes inflicted upon you. Refusing to be so Chauvinistic as to attribute the whole of this change of Maternal identity, behavior, relationships to your Fathers and Husbands, I believe that for many, an act of faith occurred, a conscious / intentional act claiming who you wished to be when in relationship, as more and different than whose you were. Being a parent does not come with an instruction manual. It was the height of irony that when Dr. Spock's Baby Book was published, simultaneously Mr. Spock became the well-known character on Startrek, who while part human tried to overcome his humanity with logic. Relationships, particularly those that provide role identity of whose we are, are based on responsibility, and whether we realize or not an implicit power. When the parents come home from the hospital, suddenly in addition to being partners, husband and wife, they have become Mom & Dad not in an abstract sense but to this child, and the child looks to them for safety, food, support, hygiene and life. When ordained and installed as your Pastor, I suddenly had the ability to Pray and Preach and officiate at the Sacraments for this church, but that also came with Trust and Context for being the pastor of this congregation at this time. Perhaps it has happened before, but for the first time this week, I heard Mario introduced not only as Rev. Bolivar our Associate Pastor, but also as Mel's Husband and as Dante's Dad. Identification of relationship, is an identification of power through responsibility. Our first acquaintance with Paul had been as a Persecutor of the faith, one who had been given arrest warrants by the Roman appointed leaders of the Jewish Council, with chains/ropes to bind any he may find belonging to The Way. Yet here, we see Paul on a journey, like Homer in The Odyssey or The Iliad, in the same region 800 years later, but instead of chaining and binding prisoners, now Paul is setting every person free, and protesting the indignity of his arrest for the Gospel. So much is compacted into this one Chapter of Acts, I wanted only the first verses read, so you might hear the development and relationships. Missionaries Paul and Silas set out bringing Christianity to Europe for the first time. They arrive, and not only can they find no Christians, because of persecution there is not even a Jewish Synagogue or Temple in the place. Typically, if there was not a house of worship, or a school of learning, believers gathered at the Water's edge to pray. So many of the stories of faith revolve around the water: Creation, Noah, Baby Moses, the Liberation of Israel, Thirsting in the Desert, Jonah, the People Weeping at the Waters of Babylon, John the Baptist, Jesus and the Fishermen, Calming the Storm, Walking on Water, etc. Sure enough, as Paul and Silas are praying at the Water, Lydia overhears them and becomes so moved as to be baptized, set free from the identity of her birth: as a woman in a world where women could not speak publicly, set free to believe and to speak as a disciple of Jesus Christ. Now Lydia, the first European Convert to Christianity is not only a Woman, she is a woman of means as a Seller of Purple. We can interpret a great deal about her wealth and position because, before the age of Nylon and Synthetics, all thread, yarn, wool and cloth came in various shades of gray, white, brown and black. Fabric of the color purple was expensive, because the dyes were expensive. Imagine how many lilac flowers you would need to gather, to boil and to strain, to create a concentrate that was not simply gray or light blue but rich purple? Also, Lydia invites Paul and Silas to her home, not the home of her father, or husband, but to HER Home. In contrast to Lydia (this Woman of means who quietly overhears their prayers and seeks to be Baptized), the following day and every day after, they are sought out by a Slave-girl who is owned by two men for their profit, as she has the gift of fortune-telling. Every day, wherever Paul & Silas go she announces to all the world that “They are Slaves of God Most High, they are a source of Salvation!” Sort of like an ancient form of Caller ID, would you allow yourself to enter into a conversation with Paul or Silas if you knew they were Slaves of God, and that everything that was said or done would be advertised by this young woman, that they were speaking with you to offer you Salvation? Finally, according to the Bible in frustration, Paul exorcises the Spirit enslaving the Girl. There are wonderful contrasts here between whether what enslaves us are the gifts inside us, or what is outside. The Slave-girl was enslaved, both because she had this Spirit which gave her this ability, and because these men profited from her affliction; and when the Spirit within is gone, her worth to them was gone as well. Historically, the legal system has been based on objective laws being applied to subjective cases; the difficulty being that when a human being gets angry, when one feels wronged, all objectivity goes out the window, as they seek vengeance and retribution, not justice. The two un-named men, whose business was prostituting this girl's affliction, when deprived, sought Criminal Charges against Paul and Silas, having them publicly whipped and beaten, then thrown into the darkest cell, at the center of the jail. How we react describes a great deal about our faith and life. When these un-named men lose their profit, they seek litigation, they seek Paul and Silas to be thrown in jail until what they perceive as the debt owed is paid. When Paul and Silas have been arrested, the Magistrates and Town leaders have them stripped and beaten, put in chains and marched off to jail, their feet put in stocks so they cannot get up and move or use the bathroom, they are forced to sit on the ground in the dark, in Jail, and their response was to sing hymns and to pray to God. The Slave-girl had named power by identifying relationship. Paul and Silas were no ordinary men. Just as she had been owned by these men, the lives of Paul and Silas were owned by God, Creator of all Creation. So by praying and singing, do Paul and Silas feel better? Do we expect them to come to new understanding? Do we expect when we pray for the skies to part, or the waters to open? An Earthquake ought to be an awesome experience, as the ground beneath our feet trembles and shakes with all the power of Creation. Instead, we often freeze immobile waiting for the world to pass. Growing up in St. Louis in addition to Fire Drills, we had regular Tornado drills in which we marched into the hall away from windows and crouched against the cinderblock walls. If you are as old as I am, you may recall we also had Practice drills for what to do if there were a Nuclear bomb, where like Ostrich we opened our desks and put our heads inside, until we were told it was over. I mentioned at the outset that Power is related to our Identities and Relationships. The Jailer's total identity had been keeping prisoners locked away. When the earthquake happened, he no longer had any means of keeping the prisoners locked away, the locks and chains are broken, the doors and walls smashed, there was no means of putting the prisoners back as they were. With a break in his responsibility, this becomes a break in his identity, in his reality, and all he can think to do is end his life. Which Paul stops by telling him that all the Prisoners are still there though there were no locks or cells, Walls and Chains were not why they were here. At that point, there is a parallel between the Jailer and the Slave-girl, each had their perverse power, which by faith Paul asked God to set free. Different from Baptism, they simply were set free, no longer having their former ability, no longer having their former identity, not yet being part of something with new relationships or responsibilities. This can be the failure of Retirement or Job Change, or our kids moving out, or the end of a marriage, that we feel as though we have lost our identity and purpose. Having just been rescued by those whom he imprisoned, the Jailer asks what we routinely forget to do: “What must I do to be saved?” We can fill in the blank what we are saved from. The question changes our perspective from loss to new possibilities. The reply of Paul is simply “Believe, trust in the the Lord Jesus Christ and you will be saved, you and your whole household.” Did we know the jailer had a family? When we feel at a loss in one part of our lives, we often ignore everything else, as if when one of our identities is changed everything was lost. The Jailer takes Paul and Silas into his home, where he washes and cleans their wounds, and they Baptize him and his family. The following day, the Magistrates gave orders for Paul and Silas to be released without further trial. But Paul again responds, “They condemned us, beat us and whipped us, stripped us, locked us in Jail as having no rights, when we are Roman Citizens, Citizens with rights, among which is to not be imprisoned without charge. AND NOW they wish to send us away without public trial? We will not leave the Jail, until the Magistrates come and apologize.” And they did, and Paul and Silas and the Jailer and his household ALL went to the House of Lydia. We are aliens in a foreign world, a world of mortal creation. But we choose to be who we are and whose we are. We can view faith as a burden, that we have to go to worship, we have to take responsibility for the Church, we have to be true and ethical; or we can recognize all of that actually makes life easier for us, because we know we belong, we know we are loved.