This sermon departs from the lectionary on this day because I need to preach from Acts as an assignment for my Doctoral studies.
Audio Acts 16:25-34
Sunday September 8
I love a baptism. You all know that. I love the celebration. I
love throwing the water around, I love the scent of the oil. I love that
together, in the midst of community, we acknowledge that each and every one of
us is a precious child of God, and that in some mysterious way that none of us
can describe or imagine, God shows up with us, God makes us into community and we
are made into a new creation. And I love the party, because, there’s always a
party, with cake.
In this story from Acts baptism and hospitality are the response
to many things that come before. Paul and Silas are wrongly accused and thrown
into prison, they sing hymns, a miracle earthquake frees all the prisoners, the
jailer contemplates suicide rather than face the dishonor of having allowed the
prisoners to escape, Paul and Silas share the good news, and in response, the
jailer and his entire household is baptized and the jailer takes everyone home
and tends to their needs, including feeding and healing.
So much is happening in this story, but what I’d like to focus on
today are two things, what did the jailer hear and see that caused his
transformation and subsequent baptism, and what does that have to do with food
and healing.
This jailer lived in a world in which his career and professional
prestige are based in his job performance, and this thing that happened that
set all the prisoners free, laid all of that to ruins. As far as he was
concerned, he was already done for and was contemplating suicide. Paul stopped
him, and the jailer asked Paul and Silas what he could do to be saved. Most
likely, he wasn’t asking about eternal salvation, he was asking them how he
could get out of this disgrace alive. But Paul and Silas must have answered him
with a compelling story about Jesus, because at its conclusion, the jailer
chose for himself and his entire household to be baptized.
What do you think that jailer heard?
Just imagine Paul, inviting the jailer and all who were related to
him, to sit down, and listen. And then Paul tells them everything about Jesus.
Maybe Paul’s story went something like this. “There once was someone who did
such amazing things and said such wonderful things that people followed him. As
they followed him, they heard him talking about a kingdom, but it surely wasn’t
like the kingdom that they lived in. It wasn’t like any kingdom they had ever
visited. It wasn’t even like any place they had ever heard of. So, they
couldn’t help it, they just had to ask, what is this kingdom of heaven like?
And Jesus said, it’s a kingdom in which people love their neighbor and even the
one’s they do not know. And it’s like when we all sit down at table together,
and everyone gets enough to eat and to drink. And Jesus said, share this meal
of bread and wine and know that I am with you and among you, do this in remembrance
of me, and know that in this meal, in this bread and this wine, in my broken
body and blood which is raised up, you are healed.”
We can’t ever really know what Paul and Silas said to the jailer.
But surely it was about God’s power and God’s faithfulness. It is a story that
changed Paul. It is a story that Paul tells that changed that jailer’s life. He
was freed from the shackles that held him prisoner. He heard the good news that
the value of his life did not depend on the manner in which the Roman
government regarded it. For this jailer life was all about honor and prestige,
not anymore. He heard the good news that includes the freedom to be obedient,
to be authentic, in spite of all that society may expect of him.
How do we hear the story of Jesus, who is God in the flesh, who
lives and dies and rises from the dead? Does it change us, as it changed Paul,
as it changed the jailer in this story? Because what Acts narrates for us is a
story about being freed to live an alternate existence as an alternate society,
today we call that the Jesus movement. Acts shows us that the Roman empire does
not offer a community of care, and of healing, of mercy and justice, only this
community of followers of Jesus does that. And this new community is a
community of rejoicing.
Hospitality, in Acts, is a response to the glory and love of God,
and hospitality includes everyone, citizen and foreigner alike. Hospitality
here, in this place, in this community, is a response to the glory and love of
God and includes everyone. Not only is there body and blood, bread and wine,
there is enough for all who come, all who come from the ends of the earth, and
from the neighborhood that surrounds us.
This good news caused the jailer and his whole household to receive
Jesus. What a great thanksgiving that party must have been. Baptism and
hospitality, thanksgiving, sacrament, healing. They are linked. Rejoicing is a
response to the gospel. The word Eucharist means thanksgiving, and so what we
do together, in this community, every time we gather and even when we are far
apart, is to be thankful that we are transformed, made new, in our relationship
with Jesus and with others. And we give thanks that we are made in God’s image,
that we are baptized into the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus. And we
are freed to dine at the table of hospitality, to eat the broken bread which is
broken body, and the spilt wine which is blood poured out, the body and the
blood, the bread and the wine that makes us whole, that puts the fragments of
our lives back together again, that heals us. What other essential activity
could be more profoundly sustaining and healing?
Peter and Paul, in the book of Acts, were called to proclaim the
Good News of God in Jesus to the ends of the earth. And there was much
rejoicing, eating, feeding, healing, and even partying in response to that Good
News. Peter and Paul were some of the earliest Jesus followers, they were some
of the first of the Jesus movement. You and I are part of that Jesus movement,
2019 years later, and as followers of Jesus, we too are called to proclaim the
Good News of God in Jesus. Inside these walls, we proclaim that Good News by
welcoming all to this table, to be fed, to be healed. And, outside these walls,
where being church is actually lived out, we do the same. We feed people, we
feed them with meals delivered, we feed them with meals cooked and served, we
feed them with our donations to ECHO and Salvation Army. And we feed them with
love, and care and compassion. And in the feeding, we are all made whole once
again, our broken lives are put back together, our broken hearts mended. Thanks
be to God.
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