May 16, 2010 - Easter 7

Singing in Prison
Acts 16:16-34
Easter 7 – May 16, 2010

Well, today is the 7th Sunday of Easter. Next week is Pentecost, & we'll hear the story of how the Spirit descended on the disciples in Jerusalem. But all through these weeks since Jesus' resurrection, we've been looking at what happened after Pentecost, hearing the stories of how the Spirit inspired and enabled those early apostles to carry out God's work. Mostly what we've seen them doing is sharing the good news, witnessing to what God has done, reaching out across social and cultural boundaries to different kinds of people, telling the story of their faith in Jesus & doing some amazing things themselves while they're at it, despite the challenges and obstacles they faced.

And today is no exception. Once again we turn to the book of Acts and hear this story of Paul and Silas. We pick up where we left off last week, with Paul & his companions in the Roman colony of Philippi, continuing their mission to spread the gospel everywhere they went.

Now, Paul has a way of getting himself in trouble wherever he goes. He was not a subtle man. Just by being who he was, he made his presence known. Buy here they are, not trying to draw attention to themselves, but this psychic slave girl won't leave them alone, following them around & calling out after them wherever they went. So finally Paul's had it, and he casts out the spirit that had possessed her, which opens a whole new can of worms. Because her owners don't much appreciate losing a steady source of income, and they come gunning for Paul & Silas, dragging them into the marketplace, accusing them of causing a disturbance. The crowd gets in on it too, and before you know it, the men in charge have Paul & Silas stripped and beaten and locked up securely – in the innermost cell, with their feet in shackles so there would be no chance of escape.

It's kind of enough to make your head spin, it all happens so fast. And if it were any of us, we'd be bemoaning the injustice of it all, or worrying and afraid of what will happen next. But not Paul & Silas. Somehow, someway, their faith in this same God they have been teaching & preaching about kicks in, and come midnight, they are praying and singing to God – and all of their fellow prisoners were listening to them, probably amazed that anyone could sing and pray in such a desperate time & place.

This story got me to thinking about a more contemporary disciple I once knew. Her name was Tanya. I met her when I was on internship. And while she probably never would have compared herself with Paul, I think she had an awful lot in common with him, in this story at least. You see, by the time I met her, Tanya was deep in the grips of MS – multiple sclerosis. She was still pretty young, maybe in her 40s, with a husband and 2 kids in middle school. Her battle with MS was particularly severe; it had taken over her body very quickly. At that point, Tanya was basically a prisoner in her own body. She was confined to a big motorized wheelchair, but she didn't even have enough control in her hands to operate it herself. She had to be fed by others, food that didn't take too much effort to chew and swallow. Even her speech was affected. It was sad, a modern tragedy. And most people in the same situation would be angry or depressed, lamenting and accusing God, or maybe losing faith altogether. Don't get me wrong, I'm sure that Tanya went through anger and doubts and questions and sadness. She was human after all. But when I would go to her house to visit her, what always struck me was the depth of her faith. Everywhere you looked, hung on the walls, were handmade pages with Tanya's favorite Bible verses, psalms rejoicing in God's goodness, passages of praise and trust. Tanya loved music, loved to sing, and once organized a gathering of folks from the church to come for a hymn-sing at her house, where together we sang hymns and songs of faith and courage and hope. Tanya wasn't a preachy woman, but her whole life was a testimony to God's love, to God's presence in the midst of her darkest days, to the power of God to lift her up and give her that peace that passes all understanding. Whether she knew it or not, whether she meant to be or not, Tanya was a witness to all of us who were prisoners in our own ways – prisoners of fear and anxiety over our own health issues or financial struggles or families that were falling apart. Tanya became a light for us in our own darkness, just as Paul and Silas were for their fellow prisoners, and even for the jailer responsible for keeping them locked up.

What I take away from Tanya's example and the story of Paul and Silas singing in prison is that even when people are held captive, even when we feel trapped, God has the power to set us free – free from whatever holds us down, free to see God at work even in the most disastrous of circumstances, free to sing and to share the good news of God's love with those around us.

And I know that we don't always feel this kind of faith. When we're in the middle of the muck and the mire and hurts of life, when we're feeling imprisoned by our circumstances, we may not feel like singing and praying. We may have a hard time seeing the good news of what God has done and is doing and will do, let alone think about sharing that good news with others. But let me tell you, even if you don't feel like you have it on your own, you're part of it just by showing up here on Sunday morning – even when you're not sure your faith is strong enough, even when you're not sure what you believe anymore, even if you come here not knowing why, hardly daring to hope – just showing up is a witness to someone. As we gather to sing and pray and praise, bringing our questions and our doubts and our fears along with our hopes and our joys, we are witnesses to each other and to the world, witnesses to the Spirit of God who somehow draws us here, who sings to us in the darkness of our souls, reminding us that in our captivity, there is One with the power to set us free – Jesus, who promises never to leave us or forsake us. Jesus, who meets us each week in this holy meal, who feeds us with his very self in the gift of bread and wine, who speaks to us through the words of the Bible and each other. Jesus, who died on a cross and rose again, so that we might know that there is no prison, no power that can hold him down – and that in him, there is nothing that can hold us down forever either. He is the one who stands with us in the darkness of our prisons; he is the good news we bring, and he is the one who inspires us to sing. Thanks be to God!

Amen.