7th Sunday of Easter
Acts 16: 16-34. Two stories of deliverance from
bondage. A girl is set free from demonic possession and Paul himself is set
free from human bondage in a jail. It is the “name of Jesus” that is the active
agent in the girl’s case and more ambiguously an earthquake in Paul’s case.
Both the girl and the jailor would have been slaves in Philippi whilst Paul is
a “slave of God”. Freedom is understood by Paul not as licence to do whatever
you like. He understands humans as always being slaves to something, either sin, another human being, society or God.
Revelation 22: 12-14,16-17,20-end. When all is said and done,
apocalyptic literature like revelation is not about predictions of times and
events but about the certainty that the God who existed before creation will
also exist after it comes to an end. The power of God who raised Jesus from the
dead is the guarantor that whoever is suffering now will one day be vindicated.
The dualism of works like Revelation serves to bolster the suffering and
oppressed Christian communities at the time it was written whereas modern
Christians would be much more generous in deciding who was included and who was
excluded.
John 17: 20-end. A piece of Mystical writing so deep
as to make the church slink away in shame at its triviality and misdirected
energy. Though this piece does carry implications for how we direct ourselves,
John did not have ecclesiastical institutional unity in mind when he wrote this.
This is about salvation being the mystical incorporation of human beings into
the Godhead and operates at a far deeper level than church unity.
Standing symbolically
at least between the Ascension of Jesus – His return to the Father - that we
celebrated on Thursday, and Pentecost when we mark the gift of the Holy Spirit
to guide and direct the church next Sunday, we are given three pieces of
scripture that tell of the deep mystical nature of the Christian faith.
The themes
are eternal salvation, freedom, and mystical union between a believer and God –
themes so big that I feel myself wilting when attempting to address them.
But let us
concentrate on freedom because that is the most pressing and perhaps the most
misunderstood subject especially in relation to God’s grace.
The passage
from Acts has two stories whose spiritual message is that God’s motivation and
purpose is to free us from bondage. A girl is set free from spiritual
oppression in the first story and Paul is released from physical imprisonment
in the second story.
The girl we
are told was a slave, and it would have been understood that the jailor who was
eventually converted and baptised would have also been a slave. Paul was
imprisoned, so everyone in the story is enslaved in some way. The power of God
frees them all though only in the case of the demon possessed girl is “the name
of Jesus” specifically invoked. The fortuitous earthquake frees Paul and seeing
that event and Paul’s example of faith frees the jailor.
As I have
said before, it is the result that matters rather than the medium that achieves
the result. The deeper message is that God’s Grace frees us from our mental
chains which requires physical freedom as well.
But what
does freedom mean? Is it the freedom to do whatever we like, good or bad,
simply because we can? This was a live
question in the early church which Paul was required to address which he does
in Romans 6.
Some people
thought that because the law had been abolished and replaced by Grace, you
could do whatever you liked because no law could be broken.
Paul
explains why that is not what Christian freedom means in terms of slavery. We
wouldn’t do that today, but these are things that would have been readily
understood in Paul’s time. Paul’s point of view is that human beings will
always be a slave to something. “Something” always directs the way we feel and
act. In a sense pure freedom, you could say is an illusion. What Paul says is
let that something that directs our
thoughts and actions be God. A slave of God is how Paul describes the
Christian, or a slave to righteousness as he also puts it in Romans.
The
advantage of being a slave of God, as Paul puts it is that the free gift is “eternal
life in Christ Jesus our Lord” (6:23)
Which brings
me to the other two offerings; Revelation offers a glimpse of the eternal glory
of God who lies outside time and will offer to anyone who wishes the water of
life as a gift. The water of life is God’s Spirit and on reflection, being a
slave to the beginning and the end of all things, the one ultimate reality, is no
hardship at all for all things rest in God’s hands.
The gospel
story in John 17 brings all that mysterious glory and presence of God into the
present for every believer.
In becoming
a Christian, we have personal unity with God. The Glory of God the Father, and
the human intimacy of Jesus Christ are both present when the active and life
giving Spirit of God lives in our hearts.
This is a
mystery in the truest sense. That there is always more to be revealed and
understood and experienced than we can possibly comprehend at any one time.
The enormity
of the claim made in John’s gospel articulated by Jesus is so deep that as I
wrote during the week, as to make the church slink away in shame at its
triviality and misdirected energy.
But we don’t
have the spiritual energy or imagination to operate at those spiritual heights
for long. But our faith tells us that this is the reality that undergirds all
life no matter what pressing prosaic concerns may tell us.
Seeing and
living this reality more and more is what we call discipleship or following in
the way of Jesus.
Incorporating
this reality into our lives we become attuned to the witness of Julian of
Norwich when she wrote in “Revelations of Divine Love” of the overwhelming
benevolence of God and that ultimately “all will be well and all manner of
things will be well”. As I have quoted recently, This is the music of the
future and faith is the courage to dance to it today.
