June 2, 2019
Scriptures: Acts 16:16-34 and Luke 4:16-21
I’m going to begin with a story, and it’s probably going to seem like this story has absolutely nothing to do with the scripture readings that we just heard, but I ask you to have patience with me!
Many of you probably
know that I am a bit of a bookworm. I
like to read. I like to read novels –
novels of many many different genres.
And one of the series of books I have enjoyed are the Inspector Lynley
books by Elizabeth George – British mystery novels written by an American author. I have read this series in order because the
main characters – the police detectives and their families and neighbours –
carry over from one book to the next, and you get to see them grow and change
over the series.
But part-way through
the series, one of the books felt very out of place. Not a single character was familiar. I had to keep checking the book to make sure
that it was actually part of the series, and not just a stand-alone book by the
same author.
It is the story of
Joel, the middle child in a family in inner city London. Their father has been murdered and their
mother is in a psychiatric hospital, and the children, ages 15, 12, and 8 end
up literally dumped on their aunt’s doorstep since their grandmother has moved
home to Jamaica. Joel spends the whole
book trying to do the right thing – protecting his older sister from violence,
and protecting his younger brother from a world who doesn’t understand his social
and learning difficulties. Joel, in
trying to decide how to do the right thing aligns himself with one of the
street gangs in his neighbourhood since that seems to be the only way to keep
his family safe.
It is a book that
deals with the reality of inner-city London life – there is racism, there is
violence against women, there are gangs, there is poverty, there are education
and social security systems that are not equipped to deal with the challenges
that are presented to them every day.
As I was reading the
book, my heart was breaking for Joel as he tries to do the right thing in a
world that seemed to be so broken. But
as I read the book – I was probably about half-way through – a realization
gradually dawned on me that filled me with horror. At the very end of the previous book in the
series, one of the key secondary characters – a much beloved character – had
been shot, seemingly out of the blue, and had died shortly thereafter in
hospital. And I realized, part way
through this book (which is titled What
Came Before He Shot Her), that I was reading the story of the shooter from
the previous book. That 12-year-old
Joel, trying to do the right thing for his family but caught up in a world of
violence and racism and gangs, was the one who had killed the beloved
character. I was reading about the
series of events that had led to the heartbreaking moment in the previous
book. And even though I knew how this
book was going to end, I kept trying to figure out a way for it to end
differently, for the shooting not to happen.
But I couldn’t. It was an
inevitable and heartbreaking chain of events involving forces outside of any
one person’s control that led to a moment of tragedy.
So that is the story I
wanted to share – a story of tragedy and heartbreak and forces of
violence. I invite you to hold on to
this story as we turn to our scriptures for this week.
In our story from
Acts, we have a story of multiple layers of release, of liberation. We have a young girl who is possessed by a
“Spirit of Divination,” a spirit that allowed her to predict the future. And she is able to see that Paul and Silas
were apostles, disciples, followers of the Most High God. And while it might have been good that she
was proclaiming this fact to the world, Paul became annoyed with the constant
disturbance and ordered this spirit of divination to leave the girl. She was liberated from the spirit that
possessed her.
And because they cast
out the spirit, Paul and Silas are thrown into prison; but in the middle of the
night, an earthquake shakes the foundations of the building, breaking the locks
on the doors and the chains of all of the prisoners. They were released or liberated from their
literal captivity in prison.
Now the jailor is
terrified at these events. The prison
doors are going to be opened and he’s going to be out of a job as soon as
anyone finds out. But again this becomes
a story of liberation – a liberation from fear and a liberation from his
dependency on empire. He and his
household are baptized, and they join Paul and Silas and the others as slaves
of the Most High God.
But as I read this
story this week, as a powerful story of liberation, of multiple layers of
liberation, I noticed one liberation opportunity that was missed. The unnamed girl who was liberated from the
Spirit of Divination was a slave. When
the story ends, she is still a slave, held captive by her owners as just a
piece of property. And not only is she
still enslaved, but because she can no longer earn money for her owners through
her gift for fortune-telling, she is a much less valuable piece of property
than she was the day before. Not only is
she still enslaved, but she is likely in a much more vulnerable position than
she was before.
Jesus, the one whom
Paul and Silas followed, the one whom we who are gathered here today follow,
this Jesus proclaimed a message of release, of liberation, of freedom for
everyone who is held captive. Those of
you who were at our study session last Tuesday might have recognized our
reading from Luke as one of the places where Jesus talks directly about who he
is and what he is called to do: “to
proclaim release to the captives… [and] to let the oppressed go free.”
And so while the story
from Acts is a powerful example of those held captive being liberated, the
unnamed slave girl who opened the story has not yet been liberated, has not yet
been fully freed. She is held captive by
the systems at work in her world that couldn’t fathom a world without slavery.
And if you think about
it, we too are held captive by systems in our world that we have no control
over. Turning back to the story that I
began with – the story of Joel in the book What
Came Before He Shot Her – that is the tragedy of this book. All of the forces at work in Joel’s world –
racism, poverty, violence – these forces lead to the heartbreaking conclusion.
The United Church of
Canada has named the first Sunday in June as Pride Sunday – a day in which we
can celebrate the diversity of God’s creation, a day in which we can celebrate
that all people, regardless of gender identity or sexual orientation, all
people are created in the image of God, a day in which we can proclaim loudly
that all
people are God’s beloved children.
And yet we don’t have
to look much further than the statistics to know that homophobia and
trans-phobia and bi-phobia, and the fear of anything that is different are
forces that still hold so many people captive.
These are systems that oppress some people, while holding others captive
to fear.
And there are other
systems in our world that we are captive to.
Patriarchy is still a real thing in our world, forcing people of every
gender or gender identity into specific roles, and causing violence. Patriarchy affects and controls all of us,
whether we realize it or not, and holds us captive to its systems.
Another force in our
world holding us captive is our fossil fuel dependency. In a world that is warming with climates and
weather patterns that are changing rapidly, most of us acknowledge that things
need to change. We know that we need to
stop burning fossil fuels. And yet the systems
of our world that currently depend on fossil fuels for heating and
transportation hold us captive, and make change or liberation from this way of
being impossible.
I could go on… racism
and white supremacy hold us captive to that system where those of us with white
skin are treated differently than our siblings with darker skin. Able-ism and a world that is set up for those
with able bodies and minds means that the world often loses out on the
contribution of those who are differently abled.
All of these systems
in the world holding us captive.
And yet Jesus Christ
continues to proclaim liberty and freedom and release to all who are
captive. And we, the church, the Body of
Christ continue to proclaim liberty and freedom and release to all who are
captive. We continue to proclaim that a
time is coming when the world will be released from all of these systems of
domination that hold us captive. We
continue to proclaim that a time is coming when God’s vision of love and
justice will rule; that a time is coming when there will be no more homophobia,
no more trans-phobia, no more bi-phobia, no more patriarchy, no more
destruction of the earth, no more racism, no more able-ism, no more of any of
the other –isms that separate and control us.
We continue to proclaim that a time is coming when all of God’s children
will live in harmony with one another, and with the rest of creation.
And as we wait for
this day, and as we proclaim that it is coming, we can live as if it is already
here, in harmony with all of God’s children, and in harmony with all of God’s
creation.
A time is coming.
May it come soon.
Amen.
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