Readings for the Second Sunday after Pentecost, June 23, 2019

• 1 Kings 19:1-4, (5-7), 8-15a and Psalm 42 and 43  
• Galatians 3:23-29  
• Luke 8:26-39

"Carrying Demons," Pastor Kinsey
By healing the one man who had demons, Jesus heals the entirety of the city and country of the Gerasenes,.
 
When Jesus arrives there, he doesn’t go to the town doctor or Surgeon General to consult about healing.  He doesn’t go to the local magistrate or to visit the Roman shrines of worship.  Jesus meets the man who has a legion of demons, and immediately ‘commands the unclean spirit to come out of the man.’  It sounds like a chance encounter, but as we listen to the detailed account of the healing, it is revealed how the people of Gerasene all play a part in this man’s condition! 
 
“What have you to do with me, Jesus, Son of the Most High God? I beg you, do not torment me.” 
 
If you remember the story just before this, you kind of have to laugh!  Jesus has just come from calming the storm on the Sea of Galilee, so that the boat he’s in with the 12 Disciples doesn’t capsize in the wind and raging waves.  And after saving them, what’s the response of the 12?  ‘They were afraid…’ whispering to one another, “Who then is this, that he commands even the winds and the water, and they obey him?” 
 
The Disciples, who have been with Jesus for some time, still aren’t sure who he is!  But, when the man with the demons first meets Jesus, immediately he recognizes Jesus as the Son of God! 
 
So, it is the demons who possess the man who understand how he has power over them.  “What is your name,” Jesus asks the man living in the tombs?  “Legion,” he says; for many demons were possessing him.  In fact, a Roman legion was 5-6,000 soldiers.  And they begged Jesus not to order them to go back to the abyss, where they came from, and would be powerless once again.  And they quickly – and they think cleverly – suggest that Jesus let them go into the large herd of unclean pigs on the hillside nearby, so it would at least preserve them in some material way, to continue to reside in this world.  But perhaps they should have been suspicious when Jesus so easily agrees, and gives the legion of demons permission to do so. 
 
For, what could be more satisfying to the first Jewish-Christian readers of Luke’s story than to hear that the whole herd of un-kosher swine, rushed down the steep bank, off the edge of the cliff, and into the Sea of Galilee, and were drowned!  Though to us Gentiles, that’s just a lot of wasted bacon! 
 
But what’s obvious to all, was that the problem was solved!  A legion of demons is destroyed; the man is de-possessed and healed.  And Jesus has demonstrated his powers as the Son of God.  It’s all good! 
 
But, that’s not the end of the story!  Something more is going on, something beyond, the miracle of healing.  For now there are three groups of Gerasenes, in ever increasing numbers, that come to interact with, and question Jesus.  For them, it’s not over!  These are the people who have consented, and even ordered that the man be bound with chains and shackles, and kept under guard.  And their apple cart has been upset!
 
First, the herders of the swine, who witnessed the exorcism and the stampede of their pigs into the lake – they ran off to tell it everywhere, both in the city and the country.  They are part of the outrage the people have for what Jesus did.
 
Then there was a faction of all those people who heard the news, who raced back to the cemetery, knowing full well who the man was that lived there.  And when they arrived, they saw him, but ‘he was in his right mind,’ as Luke says.  And he was clothed for the first time, since he began carrying all the demons in him. 
 
And their reaction to seeing him like this, gives the biggest clue to understanding this second part of this incredible story.  As they recognize the man now healed and sitting at the feet of Jesus, “they were afraid!”  Shouldn’t they be joyful?  Elated?  Pleased and amazed?  But no!  Feeling something like the 12 Disciples sitting in their boat on the calmed sea, they are afraid. 
 
Then, thirdly, ‘all the people of the surrounding country of the Gerasenes’ show up, and the second group tells them the whole story of how the man who had been possessed by demons had been healed.  And the 3rd group, all the people, ask Jesus to leave them; ‘for they were seized with great fear!’ it says.   
 
For me, it helps to have at least a working knowledge of Family Systems Theory, to understand this reaction of the people.  The recognizable order of their lives had been completely over-turned.  The Gerasenes, one big happy family, was ordered and held together, by agreeing to cast all their inter-personal issues, their failings and unresolved conflicts – that is, their sins – onto the one man living in the cemetery, so that they could go on with their day to day lives.  That’s how the system worked, and kept everything in balance.  Except of course, the life of the one man who had to carry all the anxieties and demons of the Gerasenes.  His life was ruined.  He was the scapegoat that was sacrificed for the rest of the people of the town and country. 
 
So when Jesus comes and heals the one man who had the legion of demons, he released the entirety of the region of the Gerasenes from their bondage.  He had to change the system, in order to do it.  Jesus casts out the unhealthy system, and points them in the direction of the God-given system, or, a new life in Christ. 
 
But, where will the Gerasenes cast their sins now?  Will they choose a new scapegoat, as so many of us are tempted to do? 
 
When the man healed of his demons asks Jesus, to ‘be with him’ – to be one of his followers – Jesus understands why, but he has a different vision for him.  Jesus already has all the followers he needs for his mission to spread the good news.  What he needs the healed man to do is to ‘return to his home, to the Gerasenes, and declare how much God has done for him,’ as Luke says.  Jesus needs him there, in Gentile territory across the Sea of Galilee.  The Christian mission begins with healing relationships, wherever we are, in our home towns.
 
How would you feel if Jesus asked you to do that?  To take responsibility for a life of forgiveness, for yourself, and others?  Might we reply, “What have you to do with me Jesus, Son of the Most High God?”  How do we feel when we are tasked with Christ’s message of healing and salvation? 
 
Even for ‘the man from whom the demons had gone,’ it seems at first glance, like a daunting task.  But isn’t this exactly the mission we are on as the baptized people of God?  We are the forgiven ones, who have died and risen with Christ.  Now we are tasked with taking responsibility for our own newly-gifted lives.  We can no longer hold on to the excuses we once harbored, or claim that we are not responsible for our failures and sins.  Though we are sinners – we are now forgiven!  And this is the beginning of the healing of the world.  The beginning of a life of non-retaliation.  The beginning of loving your neighbor as yourself. 
 
‘The man from whom the demons had gone, now in his right mind’ was clearly a new man.  Though not easy, he knew what he had to do.  At home, with the Gerasenes, he had to forgive, even if he couldn’t forget.  He needed to invite those who had demonized him, to live a new life, one that took responsibility for themselves.  He would invite them into the baptized life of Christ, and to love their neighbors – but first to love themselves, the selves that God had given them in their new life of baptism. 
 
Who do we chase our demons onto, that we need to repent of?  Not too long ago it was fashionable to heap them on to those who identified as lgbtq, and before that women and people of color were scapegoated as second class citizens.  Our President is hell-bent on demonizing immigrants and locking them up in detention centers.  Sometimes it’s just the weakest one at the office, or living on our block.  Anyone who can make all the rest of us feel better, and help us get through the day. 
 
But Jesus died that we might be cured of our sinful scapegoating, that we might accept ourselves as we are, and then rise up with him to discover the new life that is a mission of healing and loving – and never ends! 
 
Let us, return to our homes, and declare how much God has done for us. That the entire system we live in, may be healed and made whole.  Amen. 

Readings for Trinity Sunday, June 16, 2019

• Proverbs 8:1-4, 22-31 and Psalm 8  
• Romans 5:1-5  
• John 16:12-15

"Sharing One Triiune God"
In the name of the Father, and of the Son, + and of the Holy Spirit.
 
When we cross ourselves in the name of the Trinity, we are remembering in our bodies that we are God’s people, who have died and risen with Christ, and live now a new life in the power of the Holy Spirit. 
 
When we cross ourselves, we are saying that our bodies, our whole lives, are made in the image of God, a cruciform image of our salvation, branded on our heart’s, forever. 
 
And, this is the life that the Apostle Paul talked about in his letter to the Romans.  It’s the last letter he wrote of all his New Testament epistles.  And it’s by far the longest letter, and also the most theologically mature of his writings.  Paul had not yet visited Rome when he wrote to the fledgling church, but he’d been hoping to go there for some time. 
 
Rome was the seat of the Empire of which Paul was a citizen.  Paul’s identity was clearly, first as a Jewish person, but more than once, he invoked his citizenship to good use, when he was in trouble with the authorities.  Citizenship had its benefits, and when Paul was attacked in Philippi by the owners of the slave girl/slash/ fortune-teller, and the owners whipped up the crowds into a frenzy, and Paul and Silas were beaten by the authorities – they were thrown in jail so fast, that Paul had no chance to explain. 
 
And only after prayer and a hymn-sing in jail, and then an earthquake that shook the foundations of the jail so severely that all the prisoner’s chains were loosened, did Paul have a chance to defend himself.  First, as you may recall, he had dinner with the Jailer and his family, and Paul shared the good news of the Triune God with them, baptizing the whole newly believing household. 
 
But the next day, Paul spoke to the local authorities, shaming them for the treatment he received, as a fellow Roman citizen! Beatings were illegal, and, it could have cost the local magistrates their jobs.  Paul and Silas get a public apology, and the magistrates, shaking in their boots, beg them to leave town.  Paul is in no hurry, however, and he visits Lydia at her home, and the little congregation that they formed at her, now, house-church.  He spends some time encouraging the brothers and sisters in the faith, before he calmly walks out of town. 
 
So, Paul was steeped in two worlds, the world of Judaism and the world of the Roman Empire.  He was born in the Jewish Diapora, in Tarsus, a fairly cosmopolitan town of present day western Turkey.  And there’s no doubt that this was an advantage for Paul’s mission.  Paul continued to think of himself as a Jew, but a Jew who knew Jesus as the promised Messiah, the anointed one of God, and whatever town he visited in his travels across the Roman Empire, he always preached to Jews first, as well as to Gentiles. 
 
As a Roman citizen then, Paul understood the polytheistic gods they worshiped.  And he knew his mission, was to bring the good news of the One God – Father, Son, and Holy Spirit – to a people who were unaware that there was a living God. 
 
And Paul knew how the life of Roman citizens was a mixed bag.  Many people were made slaves when they were conquered by Rome.  Many worked hard for a daily living.  Only a few elites lived lavish lives, but they modeled a fairly immoral life-style that was the norm for everyone.  Since the pantheon of gods represented a disembodied life – a life that as Socrates and Plato had taught, was invisible, though more real – they thought of the body as something to be discarded, unimportant, and thus could be used and abused. 
 
The Jewish tradition, Paul knew and shared, was that God created the world and everything in it “Very Good!”  God honored the creation.  God loves us, and wants to be in loving relationship with us, and has ordered creation in an intricate and beautiful way, charging us to care for it and to be responsible for it.  This ‘very good’ world, is the most ‘real life’ we have. 
 
When the chosen people disobey God and God finally sends them into exile in Babylon, their salvation is not in dying and rising with the Platonic-like gods of the parallel disembodied netherworld.  But God redeems them by bringing them home to the Promised Land, to the land of Palestine and kingdom of Israel. 
 
The Judeo-Christian, One God, is known through a God of enfleshed presence, in Jesus the Christ, who enlivens us, our bodies, our whole selves, through the Holy Spirit, as we await the full redemption of earth coming down out of heaven. 
 
So, Paul writes to the Romans:  “…we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have obtained access to this grace in which we stand.”  In other words, we experience the benefits of God’s love and grace, already, here and now.  God loves the world that we are co-creating together! 
 
And Paul says, it’s okay to boast about this!  Not boasting in a prideful or self-promoting way, but boast, or rejoice, in what God is doing by including us as new chosen peoples, in this extraordinary promise of ‘sharing the glory of God.’ 
 
And so it was in this way, that Paul sought to reach out and transform the whole pagan world, one church community at a time, with the good news of the gospel of Christ Jesus! 
 
But Paul also knew that the world was not yet fully redeemed.  The promise of salvation was a present, and a future, one.  There was still pain and dying and death that ruled here, that power of evil capable of producing fear, anger, jealousy and violence.  In fact, telling the truth about the gospel good news, as Paul knew first hand, could get you in the thick of trouble, faster than most anything else – and still can. 
 
So the last thing Paul tells the Romans in our reading today, is that those powers have now been fundamentally conquered in Christ Jesus.  So, not only do we ‘boast in our hope of sharing the glory of God, but we also boast in our sufferings,’ he says, ‘knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not disappoint us, because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit that has been given to us.’ 
 
Paul had ‘character ‘when he ‘suffered’ a beating and was thrown in prison.  And you have ‘character’ when you look for ways to emulate, for others, what is right, in your work place – based on your faith – and what is right in your family life, and right-and-just with your friends, in private or in the public square.  It takes ‘endurance’ and ‘perseverance.’  But that ‘character’ produces ‘hope.’  Not a disembodied, ethereal-elitist or baseless hope.  But a hope built on the promise of God, that will not fail. 
 
Because:  we are created, and redeemed, and sustained by the living power, of the Father, the Son + and the Holy Spirit.  Our bodies are God’s, and God pours God’s love into our hearts.  We are animated and alive today and every day, by the Trinity.  Our lives are lived for God’s created ‘Very Good’ world, and we pour just a little of that divine love we have in our hearts, out to the world, sharing it with people, and pets, and the social structures of our making, who all need God’s life-giving Grace. 
 
And we do this, in the name of the Father, and of the Son, + and of the Holy Spirit. Amen. 

Readings for the Day of Pentecost, June 9, 2019

• Genesis 11:1-9  
• Acts 2:1-21  
• John 14:8-17, (25-27)

"Greater Works than These," Pastor Fred
“Very truly, I tell you,” Jesus said to Philip, “the one who believes in me will also do the works that I do and, in fact, will do greater works than these…”
 
These words are from the beginning of Jesus’ Farewell Discourse in John’s gospel, which is addressed to the disciples at the end of the Last Supper.  Jesus is promising the gift of the Holy Spirit, which will be given to them, and to all his followers. 
 
Jesus knows he is about to leave them.  His Passion is at hand, but it is also just the beginning of something new.  Through his death and resurrection, God’s promise of forgiveness and redemption will be renewed in Christ Jesus, enabling all the nations to receive this gift of life.  The Chosen People have been carrying the Promise, ever since Abraham and Sarah first became the believing faithful parents of many children – as many as the sands of the sea, and the stars of the heavens.  Through years of faith and faltering, courage and failure, God stuck by the children of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob.  And now Jesus, in the line of all these leaders, and anointed by God in his baptism, promises to pass on this gift of the Holy Spirit that will raise up new children around the world, in every nation.
 
“Very truly, I tell you, the one who believes in me will also do the works that I do and, in fact, will do greater works than these…” 
 
And so it came to pass on the 50th day, what we call Pentecost, at Shavu'ot, the Festival of Weeks, in Jerusalem, when the 11 Disciples and other women followers, were waiting, as Jesus had instructed them, and “suddenly from heaven there came a sound like the rush of a violent wind, and it filled the entire house where they were sitting.  Divided tongues, as of fire, appeared among them, and a tongue rested on each of them.  All of them were filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other languages, as the Spirit gave them ability.”
 
And what was that ability?  They didn’t speak in tongues, at least not the glossalalia St Paul describes in his letters to new congregations, like the Corinthians, that were ecstatic in their speech, a babbling language of unrecognizable words, a spiritual language that only God and the possessed could understand.  But on Pentecost, the ability given to the Disciples was to speak in every foreign language of all the pilgrims who were visiting Jerusalem, and bringing their first fruit offerings to the Temple. 
 
And Luke makes a point of spelling out those nations which represent the most far flung peoples of the empire known to them at that time.  The Spirit was announcing the amazing story of Pentecost in an ‘open broadcast’ of every language known to every people.  Something like the careful planning at the U.N. to have translators available for the many languages of participants from around the world today, only without human preparations, but instead, God directed and Spirit inspired. 
 
If we contrast this, with our First Reading, the story of the Tower of Babel from Genesis, on the threshold of Hebrew history, it can be illuminating.  The unity of ‘one people and one language’ appears as a mirrored image, and threat, to the Resident of the heavens, that is, God.  And the tower that the ‘one-people, one-language’ build, is reaching for that home of God.  The Tower of Babel is a story of a unified people, but their purpose is to take over the oneness of God – to be God – even in their flawed fallen-ness. 
 
Jesus promises to his followers that they will be able to do the things he did, as God’s anointed Son – and even greater things than he did.  But his purpose is clearly that his followers, the faithful ones, who are believers in his mission, will live in communities of forgiveness and love, with an eye toward the redemption of all creation.  
 
The Tower of Babel story is in some sense the opposite – a cautionary tale.  That power for power’s sake, is not God pleasing.  The brick building that they are in some phase of constructing – and, perhaps cost over-runs are a good thing in this case! – was the same style of construction as the Mesopotamian Ziggurat, those ancient massive structures, built as the place of the presence of the gods, though not as a place of worship. 
 
And the ‘one people, one language’ builders of the Babel Tower, are reaching to the skies to assimilate, to grab hold of, the power of the gods for themselves – they are prideful and filled with their own glory, they are unbent and not worshipful! 
 
So God, in order to save them from themselves, must scatter them, ‘and they leave off from building the city,’ it says.  This is the last of the preface stories in Genesis, a foundational story and moral tale of how any people can abuse their freedom, and desire absolute power. 
 
Kingdoms throughout history have attempted this, to greater or lesser effect.  Babylonia and Rome, used one language to impose a dictatorial unity and tight-gripped conformity.  More recently, the British and American empires have benefited by the world’s adaption of the English language. 
 
Dictators impose on their own people – whether speaking Russian, Korean, or any other language – the worshipfulness of the one leader who is god-like, up above, and beyond reproach, much like the mischief and misguided mission of the Tower of Babel. 
 
But if we might imagine ourselves sitting with the faithful disciples and followers of Jesus on the Day of Pentecost, waiting in the Upper Room in Jerusalem, perhaps shaking in our boots with them, wanting to go back home to a simpler life in Galilee, waiting without a clear vision since the death of our Lord, despite the 40 days of appearances to Peter and Mary, and the Eleven, to Cleopas and her friend, and to many other larger groups here and there – we are still hopeful.  ‘Wait for the Advocate, the Helper, the Holy Spirit, to come to you, Jesus had told them.  And they did! 
 
Like a tornado and the sound of a freight train, with the fearful beauty and chaos of flames of fire, as if in the midst of a battlefield, the Holy Spirit blew in and ignited the believers, overwhelming their narrow-minded expectations, and empowering them as never before.  “Very truly, I tell you,” Jesus said, “the one who believes in me will also do the works that I do and, in fact, will do greater works than these…”
 
And Peter started, the first to be lit on fire!  And the first thing that popped into his mind was the prophecy of Joel:
'In the last days it will be, God declares,
                that I will pour out my Spirit upon all flesh,
                and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy,
                and your young men shall see visions,
                and your old men shall dream dreams.
  Even upon my slaves, both men and women,
                in those days I will pour out my Spirit…
 
God has passed on the gift of the Holy Spirit, from Jesus to us.  We are the chosen people of God.  We are the believers who can share the good news, and build up the assembly, the church.  We are empowered to call bull-oney on the purveyors of false news, who want to build towers to the heavens and make a name for themselves.  By the gift of the Holy Spirit, we are empowered to shout it out – that, only the one true God is worthy to be worshipped and glorified.  No other name on any tower will suffice.
 
The gift of the Spirit is that we have a dazzling array of languages, and cultures, and peoples, and that through us – Christ Jesus is alive as a unifier of this diversity.  “Very truly, I tell you, the one who believes in me will also do the works that I do and, in fact, will do greater works than these…”   We don’t need to build a tower – we need to build community. 
 
Let us give thanks for the gift of the Holy Spirit, and receive it as the empowered children of God!  

Readings for 7th Sunday of Easter, June 2, 2019

• Acts 16:16-34  
• Psalm 97  
• Revelation 22:12-14, 16-17, 20-21  
• John 17:20-26

"Paul Goes to Jail," Pastor Kinsey
“Slave Girl gets Freed! Apostle Paul goes to Jail!”  That might be one of the Headlines from the exciting day the young Evangelist and his partner Silas have in the city of Philippi!  It certainly wasn’t how any of them imagined their day would go when it began.  But then, God moves in mysterious ways!  Which is exactly what Luke sets out to prove to us, over and over again, in his book, The Acts of the Apostles! 
 
For Paul and Silas, their day began, no doubt, on the sunny side!  They were warmly welcomed by Lydia, and the other women worshippers, Paul and Silas had met at the “place of prayer” by the riverside upon reaching Philippi. 
 
After a dreary trip through the NW territory of present day Turkey, traveling a number of weeks by foot, for over 300 miles, without making a connection to any new believers that whole time, Paul, Silas, and Timothy are ‘puzzled and weary.’ (N.T. Wright, Paul pg 174)  But just when they hit this seeming dead-end, Paul has a dream that night, in which the Spirit invites them to cross the sea into northern Greece, and their fortune changes. 
 
Of all the women worshipers, it was Lydia, listening eagerly to Paul’s teaching, who responds.  There is no formal Jewish synagogue in Philippi, but this outdoor ‘place of prayer’ is similar, especially for those times.  Except that, in this case, it’s been formed for, and by women – formed by women who were both Jews, and the Gentile believers wanting to worship with them.  Lydia, as her name indicates, was a seller of purple clothe, an unmarried business women and Roman citizen.  At that time there had been a new production process in purple cloth-making.  The old process made purple dye from shellfish, a difficult and expensive proposition, giving purple clothe its valuable and royal connotations, as it was sold to, and wore only by, the rich and those in authority.  But it’s likely that Lydia was in on the new manufacturing process which was recently developed in the city she came from, Thyatira, a new plant-based dye, that was all the rage, and made Lydia independently well-off. 
 
So, when Lydia heard Paul’s preaching on how God had anointed and raised up Jesus as the Messiah, she was smitten!  Lydia was baptized on the spot, and proceeded to invite Paul and Silas to her house to stay as her guests. 
 
This, is where the Spirit had directed Paul to!  Paul’s mission flourished in Philippi, and throughout northern Greece, built thru this bond of common ministry and friendship; a most unorthodox ‘church planting’ with a woman as its leader.  And Paul’s letter to the Philippians would later illuminate how much Paul loved the congregation he started there, the assembly that Lydia had embraced and nourished, and to Paul’s pleasant surprise, the only congregation to take up an offering for Paul when he was imprisoned again, in Ephesus. 
 
We’re not sure how many weeks Paul may have stayed there in Philippi developing this relationship.  The only other incident that Luke reports is this topsy-turvy, in and out of prison experience Paul and Silas have – freeing the slave-girl, which puts him in prison, and ultimately, baptizing yet another family in Philippi. 
 
The slave-girl who taunts Paul is actually doubly oppressed.  She is possessed by “a spirit of divination,” as Luke calls it, but she is also in bondage to “her owners,” that had been using her to make “a great deal of money by fortune-telling.” 
 
The evil spirit that possessed her was drawn to the power of the divine in the Apostle Paul, and the girl kept yelling out that ‘these men are slaves of the Most High God!’ which described a budding movement of Romans moving away from polytheism.  And so, she was on the right track, as Paul and Silas, were truly representatives, of the One God.  And Paul often described himself as “a slave of Christ Jesus.” 
 
Yet the way she did it was provoking.  Paul was very much annoyed, Luke says, and her clairvoyant persistence was no doubt, very obtrusive on the ministry Paul was embarked on in the public square.  Everyone would have noticed how out of the ordinary it was, how possessed-like.  So finally Paul turns to her and does the only thing he knows how.  In the very tradition of Jesus and many other healers, Paul addresses the evil spirit in her directly, saying, “Out! In the name of Jesus Christ, get out of her! And it was gone, just like that,” says Luke.  (trans. The Message)
 
I’d like to think that Paul was planning to address the little girl, once she was freed from her possession, to offer her a new home, a new community, and baptism into Christ’s church there at Philippi.  But he hadn’t calculated that the owners were so ticked-off at losing their means of income, that they dragged Paul and Silas into the market place before the authorities, accused them of disturbing the peace of the city and advocating unlawful customs, so that the whole crowd joined in in attacking them.  Without allowing a word in their defense, Paul and Silas were stripped, beaten and thrown into prison.  Another parallel to the Passion story of Jesus.
 
Much is made of the responsibility of the jailer to keep them secured in the prison.  He puts them in the innermost cell, and also clamped leg-irons on them.  He doesn’t want them even thinking of escaping – because then, his life would be on the line, and the crowds might be after him! 
 
But for all the mistreatment Paul and Silas receive, they are a picture of forgiveness and hope.  ‘About midnight,’ Luke recounts, they were praying and singing a robust hymn to God – which perplexed the other prisoners – when a well-timed earthquake – God moving in a mysterious way – rattled the prison foundations so severely that it loosened all their chains and opened the doors! 
 
Of course, if it were you or I, we would have taken the opportunity to escape.  And that was exactly the fear the jailer had, who pulled out his sword with the intention of ending his life, ‘figuring he was as good as dead anyway.’  But Paul, again reaching out, as his faith had taught him, cried out to the Jailer to reassure him that all was well, and no one had escaped – please, he says: don’t harm yourself! 
 
The Spirit had shook and taken hold of the Jailer, in that moment, in a new way.  When he relit the lights and went in to check on Paul and Silas, ‘he fell down trembling before them,’ feeling the power of the change in his life.  The jailer brought them outside – perhaps as a sign of their freedom, as well as his! – and asked them what he must do to be saved? 
 
Now, we have a hard time understanding the richness of the Greek word ‘saved.’  It was not a one-dimensional word about Christian salvation, as seen thru our Protestant lens, though of course that is a part of it.  Paul used the same word when being saved from drowning when he was shipwrecked.  And it was in common use by the Romans in at least 3 ways, to describe i) a rescue from war, ii) a rescue from the social upheaval of the nations, conquered and having to live under Rome’s new order, and iii) sometimes a rescue from destitution, the poverty most people endured, but was lessened by Roman progress in aqueducts, roads and trade. 
 
When Paul offered the jailer and his family the gift of salvation in baptism, he meant they would be saved by, and born into, a new life of forgiveness and forgiving, by being joined to the Philippian community that was being formed in celebration of Jesus’ victory over sin and death.  And ultimately, Paul believed the Jailer and his family were dying and rising into the promise of the salvation of the whole world, and all of creation, that God was starting now, and would be bringing into fullness. 
 
I believe Paul wanted that salvation for the slave-girl too. But unfortunately, we don’t know what happened to her exactly.  Paul saved her from a life of exploitation by her owners.  And we know God saved Paul and Silas from prison, who rescued and freed the Jailer and his family too. 
 
But we also know that salvation is not complete until all are rescued and freed.  As Fannie Lou Hamer declared, that fierce Mississippi civil rights leader: “Nobody’s free until everybody’s free.”
 
So let us follow the example of Paul and Silas, who prayed and sang hymns in the face of great opposition, as a sign of their fearlessness to stand up and share the Good News of Christ’s liberating salvation for all, in all its unorthodox and amazingly boundary-crossing ways!