"God Wants To Free Us For Discipleship" May 20, 2007 Easter 7

(First read the text for this sermon: Acts 16:16-34)

What a story we read this morning from the Acts of the Apostles. (Do you know that Acts is written by the same anonymous author of the gospel of Luke? Luke tells the Jesus story, and the Acts of the Apostles carries the story into the first years of the Jesus movement. Acts can be seen as “Part 2!”)

I’ll bet you’ve never encountered such drama, while approaching a building for worship, as in this morning’s story! We read, One day, as we were going to the place of prayer,…

That not only provides the setting for the rest of the story. It also tips us off to something we often forget: that the first followers of Jesus continued to be practicing Jews for generations after Jesus’ death and resurrection. The daily practice of the faith included set times for prayer. The typical schedule included daily prayer in the morning, and at noon, and in the evening. (There are many references to these set times for prayer each day! To give a few of the many passages, see Daniel 6:10; Daniel 9:21; Psalm 55:17; Psalm 5:3; Psalm 59:16; Psalm 88:13; Psalm 141:2; 1 Kings 18:36. St. Benedict based his teaching for monks to pray seven times a day on Psalm 119:164.)

The place of prayer was important, too. In this story, the place of prayer was probably the local synagogue. But when there was no synagogue, the pray-er was to create his own sacred space, orienting his body to face towards the holy city of Jerusalem.

Obviously, this is the basis for the Christian church’s tradition of daily prayer. We’ve simply adopted it from Jewish practice! And so, in our worship books past and current, there are orders for prayer at morning, noon, evening, and also just before bed. This regular, scheduled daily prayer is a fundamental practice of the faith. Without such prayer, many of us are confused about who God is and have a hard time seeing what God is up to in our lives! That’s because without prayer, there is no openness to God.

The story from Acts begins as the Jesus people are approaching the synagogue for one of the daily times for prayer: morning, noon or evening. Here’s what happens: 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. While 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." She kept doing this for many days.

There’s interesting stuff happening here. The girl is “a slave-girl.” And she describes Paul and the narrator and the other Jesus people as “slaves of the Most High God.”

Slaves are held captive, right? Certainly, the girl is held captive by this spirit, or demon that’s possessing her. (Is it old fashioned to speak of demon-possession? You and I are so enlightened! Today, a trained psychiatrist would make a diagnosis of this girl: schizophrenia or paranoia. Today there are wonderful medications to control mental illnesses. But still – ask anyone who has struggled with a mental illness, such as depression. Ask anyone who has fought to become free of an addiction. They will describe the disease as if it’s something possessing them, something that’s imprisoning them!)

This story from Acts is full of the themes of imprisonment and freedom, even in the language that’s used. There’s the “slave-girl.” Paul and the others are “slaves of the Most High God.” When Paul heals the girl of this most annoying spirit, he frees her of it! (The Holy Spirit is stronger than any lesser spirit!) But, still, the girl is a slave. And her owners are not pleased by what Paul has done. You remember the story. The girl’s owners take Paul and the others to the middle of Duke of Gloucester Street in Merchant Square and make all kinds of loud anti-Semitic accusations. A crowd of people gathers and the people get all worked up, because they themselves are imprisoned by their racist attitudes and by their fear of outsiders. (What if these foreigners are even terrorists?!) And so the magistrates order the Jesus people to be beaten up and thrown into jail. So, as the story has proceeded, Paul and the others are imprisoned, literally.

The theme runs all through the Hebrew Scriptures and the New Testament: slavery and deliverance, imprisonment and freedom. In the greatest story of the Hebrew Scriptures, Moses led the people out of slavery, into the freedom of the promised land. The center of Jesus’ ministry and Paul’s proclamation is freedom from the religious law of their day that had become so convoluted and restrictive.

In all these Bible stories, why does God want to free God’s people? It is so they can become servants of God. In the New Testament stories, it is so people can become disciples, as Jesus calls them to be. It is so followers of Jesus can be freed from what enslaves them, so they can instead become “slaves of the Most High God.”

What is it that enslaves you? What is it that prevents you from following, from discipleship? Is it a fear that imprisons you – that others will see you to be “too religious?” Is it a standard of living that imprisons you – so that you feel trapped in a job that’s not fulfilling, but which pays the bills you’ve become entangled in? Is it a confusion that imprisons you – that you can’t conceive of how God could use your gifts and talents? (Remember: discipleship does not necessarily mean dropping everything, leaving it behind! Usually it’s a matter of having our eyes of faith opened, to see that God has in fact placed you where you are for ministry!)

God wants to free us for discipleship!

Look at what happens next in the story from Acts. Paul and the other Jesus people are not only in prison. To add to the drama, they are in the innermost cell, and their feet are fastened in the stocks. Remember what happens? About midnight Paul and Silas were praying and singing hymns to God, and the prisoners were listening to them. Suddenly 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.

What a story! Remember how the jailer, enslaved by his sense of responsibility and honor, is about to kill himself (because he feels that the earthquake is his fault, I guess!) – but that Paul and the others assure him that they’re still there; they haven’t escaped? As the story ends, the jailer is so impressed by the Spirit that is motivating these Jesus people that he and his entire household are moved to be baptized!

God wants to free us for discipleship. For some, freedom for discipleship comes as suddenly and as dramatically as an earthquake. It can be a serious illness that causes you to stop spending so much time worrying about things that don’t matter, allowing a new openness to the work God calls you to do! Freedom for discipleship can come through another instance of sudden life change.

For most of us, though, God frees us for discipleship slowly, gradually, as we practice the faith. I think it happens, particularly, through that practice of daily prayer, over time, in openness to receive what God will give. It is in prayer, while listening, that God opens us to what God is doing with us. It is through conversation with a trusted spiritual guide that those insights are tested. And in the process, God frees us from what imprisons us.

God wants to free us for discipleship. What a joyous thing!

In the name of God who is Father and Son and Holy Spirit. Amen.


Pastor Andy Ballentine
St. Stephen Lutheran Church
Williamsburg, Virginia