SCRIPTURE: Acts 16:16-34
TEXT: 16One 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. THEME: Compassion lives out our faith in adverse situations. INTRODUCTION On this Memorial Day weekend, we remember those who have served in defense of our country and have died. Anne Wakamatsu always remembered her brother whose life was lost in the WWII. But along with our remembrance is our grieving for those we have lost to COVID, over a million people in the United States alone. Worldwide this number is at 6 million. And then recently we have had the killings at Tops Grocery Story and this week at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde Texas due to gun violence. We mourn as a nation. We mourn because we are human, we mourn because we empathize with their loss. SCRIPTURE Paul is in Philippi. Last week he met Lydia, the dealer of purple cloth. This week, as he and his friends walk through the town towards a place to pray, they are continually hassled by a slave girl who is possessed by a fortune telling spirit. The spirit identifies Paul and his friends as servants of God and mock them. After a few days of this Paul, turns and casts the spirit out of the slave girl. Much to the horror of her owners who are now drained from all of the money they could have made from her, as she is freed from that spirit and useless to them. They have Paul arrested and bring them before the magistrate for charges; disturbing our city and are Jews. They rial up the fears and prejudices of the crowd and claim a nationalism to Rome. These are supremist tactics. Before the Magistrate, the laws are enforced to protect the rights of the merchants. Their beliefs in Jesus make Paul and Silas odd ducks in Philippi and to Judaism. They were going to a place to pray. What could be so wrong in seaport, bustling with tourist and merchants demonstrating all of the newest things and ideas. They are foreigners in Philippi, but because they threatened the economic lively hood of rich slave owners the law came down and shut them up, beat them and threw them into prison as a lesson to anyone else who would try to upset the balance of privilege that is afforded to a few and not to all. The triptych of this passage is first with the enslaved girl, the second is the with the magistrate and the third is with the Law Enforcement Officer. Falsely accused, wrongly beaten, Paul and Silas are thrown into the innermost cell and fastened with leg shackles. In the stillness of the night, they are heard, praying and singing. ♫ Jesus loves me this I know…♫, ♫ My God is so great, so strong and so mighty there’s nothing my God cannot do. ♫ “Dear God, we have come to Philippi to share your Good News of love. You have shown us that this is where you want us to be with Lydia and her household. You love us so much, that you sent Jesus to show us how to live with you and with others. And then when he died at the hands of those who tried to silence him, he suffered in loving us, like how we are suffering now, but to your glory was resurrected to life. This is what you have in store for all of us. You love us so much.” Then an earthquake busted open the shackles and prison doors, but no prisoners escaped. The Jailer who had failed at keeping his prisoners secured was ready to kill himself, but Paul calls out that they are all here. Paul’s words, actions, kindness, and concern even for this jailer brings him to his knees and to Jesus. What we believe about Jesus, what we know about Jesus, what we have experience about Jesus, needs to inform the way with live and how we treat others so they can begin to see Jesus for themselves. APPLICATION This passage addresses many of the issues that are being discussed today. There is the issue of human trafficking. A woman’s right over her own body. How the laws are written to protect the privilege of the rich and not about justice for the poor. Of how the accusers ignite the fears of the people with immigration and prejudice, accusing the ‘other’ of the very thing that they are doing. About law enforcement officers following orders or thinking for themselves and acting with humanity. What difference does the Resurrection make when we choose between humanity and money? In a very simplistic way, we can almost see most of the issues today as a choice for humanity or a choice for money. Jesus spoke about money a lot because when we choose money over humanity, we failed to see the image of God in each other. Often times the rich who came to Jesus were challenged with opening themselves up to humanity, by giving what they had to the poor, or anyone they cheated and then to be dependent upon the compassion of others to survive. Relationships are needed in the resurrection, not money. Our focus on money can represent our greed, our selfishness, our pride. Focusing on humanity opens us up to another’s suffering, their wounds, hurt and pain. Then we can become people who are compassionate. There is no place for slavery in compassion. There is no place for gerrymandering laws in compassion. There is no place for semi-automatic firearms in the hands of civilians in compassion. Compassion is representative of the suffering we have endured and God who loves us. CONCLUSION Because we are human, we mourn, even the deaths of people we don’t know. The sheer numbers that COVID has claimed. The Families that have been permanently disrupted because of this virus is overwhelming. NPR has been playing the favorite songs of some of those who have died to COVID and tell a bit of the person’s life. These songs strike chords of the loss. The young lives struck down at school. The futures that ended. The hopes silenced. A potential never reached. And yet God embraces us in our deep sorrow. And meets us in our grief as we carry their memory into the future shaping who we are and informing the rest of our living. Compassion is one way that we consider the suffering of others and humanize them so we can come along side that journey, our faith in Jesus’ resurrection is the food of compassion we are fed for us to live.
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