Who's Really in Charge?

Rebecca Sheridan
Sunday, May 29, 2022
Acts 16:16-34

    Recently, one of our members, Jennifer Wu, shared an inspiring book with me about her uncle, Harry Lee. He was arrested for trying to leave China in order to attend a Christian seminary in Mao’s Communist China and was not released from prison for eleven years.  During that time in prison, he was not allowed to visibly pray or even sing Christian songs because those activities were considered proselytizing.  He found creative ways to pray and praise the Lord in secret, and while carefully not being explicit, bore witness to his faith in Christ in the way he conducted himself all those years in prison. The book describes how he found hope and could still express gratitude to God in horrific living conditions.  After Mao’s death, Harry was able to leave China and graduate from seminary in Oregon in his fifties, having spent the prime of his life in prison.  He made up for lost time by spending the rest of his life telling his story and how his faith in Jesus gave him strength during those difficult years.
    I’m inspired by stories like Harry’s, and I often wonder when I hear stories of Christians who have faced persecution for their faith, “Would I have the same strength of faith?  Would my life bear witness to Christ even in such difficult circumstances, or would I succumb to despair and bitter resentment, feeling that my life had been unfairly wasted?”  We hope and pray that we would never have to go through what people like Harry Lee or Paul and Silas in our Acts reading for today have gone through.  As we continue reading through chapter 16 of Acts, we are inspired by Paul and Silas today, who are unjustly imprisoned in Philippi.  Notice, however, that Paul and Silas may be the ones in physical chains, but they are not the only ones bound by oppressive forces in this story.  
At the beginning of the passage, we learn the reason they get put in prison in the first place:  a slave girl follows Paul and his companions.  She is being exploited by her owners to make money for them by fortune telling.  Using a fortune teller like this was a common Roman pagan practice, and sometimes these young women were given drugs to induce visions to enhance their fortune telling abilities.  We can only imagine the kind of horrible abuse this poor girl has had to endure during her short life: drugged, sold, used for others’ gain, her life is not her own.  She, like others possessed by demons in the New Testament, understands that Paul and his companions are guided by a different kind of Spirit and belong to a different kind of Master, the Most High God, and that giving their lives over to this Most High God leads to salvation – to a different kind of freedom.  Not out of compassion but out of annoyance, Paul casts the spirit out of her, freeing her from her spiritual demons.  We do not know the rest of her story.  Her owners direct their anger toward Paul and Silas because now they can’t use her fortune telling to make money anymore; she is worthless to them and it’s Paul and Silas’s fault.  Out of fear of retaliation, political or legal ramifications, the magistrates have Paul and Silas beaten and put in prison in the most secure place in the jail.  The story of Paul and Silas’s arrest gives us a glimpse into the social, political, and economic forces that hold people captive metaphorically, if not literally, and we see how even people with some power are threatened and fearful of losing money or of losing political power in the first century Roman Empire.  Fear keeps people in chains.
    The jailer also is in bondage to his employers and the Roman government.  He is so terrified when he thinks of what will happen to him because all of the prisoners have escaped after the earthquake.  He would rather kill himself, so again, we can only imagine what those consequences might have been.  He is eager to learn more about Jesus.  “What must I do to be saved?” he asks on his knees.  He quickly learns that salvation for Christians is more than saving your own skin.  The powers of this world may threaten us with violence and even death, but our faith in Christ frees us from that kind of power’s hold on us.  When we know we are the Lord’s, nothing else can keep us down.  When we know who is really in charge, and that we, like Paul and Silas are servants of the Most High God, created to serve only God alone, we can weather whatever challenges, no matter how great we face in life.  Our faith gives us a greater purpose, and a higher calling.  Jesus, our Savior and Lord, breaks the chains that would otherwise hold us back from living life to the fullest, regardless of our circumstance.
    So I wonder, what or who do you put in charge of your life?  Who or what has tried to put you in metaphorical chains, and in what ways is Jesus seeking to free you from those chains?  What things do you give too much power?  Thanks be to God, especially on this Memorial Day weekend, we can give thanks to the many who have given their lives protecting our freedoms in this country.  Most of us have not had to face the challenges that Henry Lee did in the 1960s in China or that Paul and Silas face in being unjustly imprisoned for their faith.   Most of us are free to worship and serve God without fear.  However, it’s easy to find ourselves serving other masters than Jesus as our Lord.  Most of us walk around with one in our pocket or purse – our smartphone.  We live by our calendar, others’ opinions of us on social media, or the need to always be available to keep other people happy by text, email or phone call.  These days, it’s easy to give too much power over to the stock market or our bank accounts, worrying about what will happen with rising prices and sinking rates of return.  For those of us who are not yet retired, we give over much of our lives to our work so that we can make enough money to support our family and then some, only to find we have little time for anything or anyone else including our families or for God.  And sadly, this week once again, we are reminded of a particular American bondage to gun violence; an inability to work across party lines for common sense reform to stop senseless killing from happening at churches and grocery stores and schools and the list goes on.  Just like the first followers of Jesus in the book of Acts, to be sure we are surrounded by forces that try to overpower us, hold us down, or keep us from living life to the fullest – the kind of life promised to us by Christ. 
    Thanks be to God that even in difficult circumstances like we see in Acts 16, God in Jesus Christ has power to defeat all that would keep us down.  Like the slave girl, like the jailer, may the Holy Spirit help us understand what Jesus’ way of salvation offers us:  a kind of freedom that helps us live with less fear and more confidence and hope.  Because of our faith in Jesus, we know we have a home with God always.  Because of our faith in Jesus, even if we are literally imprisoned or unjustly persecuted, we know we are truly free.  God has broken the chains.  We know who is really in charge – as our psalm for today proclaims, “The Lord reigns!”  Not the Roman government, not the U.S. government, not the voices in our own head that try to tell us we’re not good enough – Jesus is Lord and Savior; for us to know this is MORE than enough!  Thanks be to God.  Amen.