The Reformed Church of Locust Valley Easter VII May 27, 2001 Acts 16:16-34
“Sudden Impact”
Christianity is nothing but trouble. Ever since Jesus started his work he has done nothing but cause trouble. The leaders of his day were aghast at him. Jesus was a threat to them and it seemed to them he was threat to all that was godly. The only solution for someone who spoke and acted like him was the death penalty.
But getting rid of Jesus did not solve the problem at all. In fact, it just made matters worse. Jesus had gathered a bunch of followers, and when Jesus was finally killed and put out of the way, they were just as bad as he was. All they did was create problems.
They finally had to be thrown out of the Temple, and out of synagogues. The followers of Jesus themselves were an incredible nuisance and they were thrown in jail time and time again. They were beaten repeatedly. But it did no good at all. Finally, most of them had to be sentenced to death too.
But that didn’t solve the problem either, because today Christians number in the hundreds of millions. Christianity is nothing but trouble.
Or is it? I’m pleased to report to you that many, many Christians have been tamed. Churches, which used to stir things up, have become very respectable. In many places, Christians have learned to behave themselves. In many places, the church doesn’t go against the culture, or the government, or public opinion. In fact, in many places, the church just puts some sort of a holy stamp of approval on whatever society deems is right, or the government, or public opinion.
If we want to check and see how authentic our faith is, here is a good test. Have we stirred up any trouble lately? Has society been called to account for what it does by our churches? How would we stand up in the test? Are we counter-cultural, or are we just more of the same?
If you want you see troublemakers, look at the apostles. Everywhere they went, they made a mess.
So they went to Philippi. And they were looking for a place of prayer. That’s nice. Prayer is fine. Just don’t interfere with anyone else. Or as I like to say, “Your religion is just fine – you pray YOUR way, and I’ll pray God’s way.”
On the way, a slave girl accosts them. She could tell fortunes and her masters made lots of money from her. And brother, if that’s sounds ancient and far-fetched to you, then you haven’t been watching TV with all the displays of the strangest people – “Teenaged men who date married women who look their best friend.” You know the type of program. Then there’s Judge Judy and divorce court. Watch enough of that stuff and you might long for the days when men owned soothsaying slaves!
Anyway, this girl is following the apostles wherever they go and saying who they are, “These men are servants of the Most High God, who proclaim to you the way of salvation.” They start to annoy Paul. Just between the two of us, I don’t think it was hard to annoy Paul. I, on the other hand – unlike Paul, would have loved the free publicity. Go figure. Anyway, Paul casts out the demon that causes this problem, and in the process ruins her ability to tell the future, thus depriving her owners of their livelihood.
Do you see what’s wrong here? If the apostles had gone around asking for donations for Mental Health, no one would have minded. But instead, they start messing with the economy. They deprive some people of their way of making a living.
So the owners of the slave girl go to the police, who come and arrest the disciples. They beat them with rods, and not lightly either, then throw them in the pokey.
“Come on, Paul. You SHOULD have met with girl’s owners first, tried persuading them to let you heal her. They might have listened. You probably could have worked it out. But you rush in there and just heal her, and now everyone is mad, your in jail, and what good do you think you’ve done your cause?”
“Do you have to disturb the peace?”
How many churches would ever be accused of disturbing the peace because of their work? Or of being rash in service?
Well, as much of a mess as they made of things, at least one person comes out ahead – the slave girl is now freed of her mental illness. I guess that’s something.
So they go to jail and they do what the church always does – they sing hymns and pray. In jail. Singing hymns and praying. In deepest part of the prison they are together, feet and hands in stocks, singing hymns.
Then, as often happened in that part of the world, there was an earthquake, and the jarring of the prison sets the apostles free – doors open, stocks separate freeing limbs. Hallelujah!
But the jailer moans. You see, in ancient Rome, if you are the guard and if the prisoners get free on your watch, it’s all over. Rather than face court martial and the humiliation of being killed by one of his friends in the guard, he draws his sword to take his own life.
But Paul, seeing this, cries out, “Whoa, whoa, whoa! Don’t kill yourself, we’re all here man. See for yourself!”
And the guard, overcome by this unnatural behavior, falls at their feet and asks, “Men, what must I do to be saved?” “Believe in the Lord Jesus and you will be saved, and your household.” And they baptized him.
Two saved. The girl and the jailer. Not a bad day’s work all in all. And all it cost was a public beating, trial and imprisonment.
Maybe Christians all need to ask, “What would be different about me if I didn’t belong to Jesus Christ?” How long would my list be? What has changed about me because God’s Spirit now lives inside me?
In a former church, a young couple worked in the same manufacturing plant. They had good jobs – well paid, especially for that part of the country. But they struggled with their work. They made guidance systems for missiles. They said often that they had a hard time reconciling how they earned their livings to what God expected of them. Eventually they quit and found other work. A cynic might say, “How foolish to give up those good paying jobs. Someone else will just take your place and there will be just as many missiles.” “Yes, but, I have to answer to God for my life and how I use it. I cannot answer for anyone else, only myself.”
I knew a man who was a manager in the vast postal plant in Secaucus, NJ. I am proud to say that man, though only occasionally coming to church then, is now an elder in a Presbyterian church. His supervisor offered him a major promotion and a big raise. The only catch was that he would have to help his supervisor with his scheme. The scheme involved ordering replacements for expensive defective parts of the big machines used in processing mail. The supervisor would certify expensive parts to be in need of repair, send them out, and they’d come back supposedly fixed, because there was nothing wrong with them in the first place. The supervisor would then get kickbacks. Though it meant less money and prestige, and maybe even the loss of job and pension because of the anger of the supervisor, this man declined to be part of the deal. Thou shalt not steal.
Sudden impact. When Christ comes into contact with the world, things change. Sometimes the change hurts. It hurt the income of the owners of the slave girl. It hurt for Paul and Silas and the others. Their backs were covered with welts and cuts from their beating with rods. The humiliation surely hurt them too. But they could look at that slave girl, now in her right mind, now free, and say, "God used us for that."
They could look at a jailer whose life added up to nothing, who now had a relationship with the ruler of the universe and for the first time in his life be truly alive.
The truth is, that the trouble Christianity causes is nothing compared to the mess the world makes when it ignores God. Two weeks ago, I visited the Vietnam Memorial for the first time. I stood there, sunken in the ground, reading names (John S. Anderson, Thomas E. Campbell, Alfonso R. Castro), trying to think what their lives might have been like, (Willard Clemens, Jackson Barnes, Sharon Ann Lane, Douglas M. Smith), thinking of the families who mourned them still and just as much today. A young man standing nearby said, “What a waste.” He spoke those words with sadness. With regret. With a note of despair that what had been lost here could never be regained.
The usual hoopla accompanied the release of the movie Pearl Harbor. The NY Times panned it. It’s about Ben Afleck and about romances and about special effects. The dialogue is contrived, said the article. 19 year old sailors don’t talk like that. Right. How could it? If you want to know, watch the other shows where they interview the real survivors. Watch a man 75 years old cry while he tells you his best friend, Jimmy, died in his arms. Or he saw his good friends floating dead and torn apart in the water. Watch the 75 year old man closely, and you will see something. You will see through the wrinkles and gray hair and bald spot, the loose skin around the neck, the brown spots, and the paunch, you’ll look through and see a boy of seventeen, he’s still inside there, in that old man; he’s still alive. And you’ll see that he’s still back there, still in Pearl Harbor, and he can still feel the cooling flesh of his buddy Jimmy; a boy, dying in the arms of another boy. And the 75 year old man is saying how it’s with him every day. And you know he’s telling you the truth. Part of his life never moved beyond those moments on December 7, 1941, and part of him never grew old beyond that day. Because even though he wrote home to tell his mother that he was not one of the boys who was killed, part of him will always be behind, in Pearl Harbor, on the twisted deck of that warship. And as he tells you, he cries. And you cry too.
And it’s all a waste, all a waste, these boys dying, if today we don’t try to find the way of peace. Christ’s way.
The world with its bullets and bombs will make hell. It’s our job with Christ to make heaven, even if the world doesn’t like it.
Christianity is nothing but trouble. And God will continue troubling the world until he has reclaimed the whole thing and every one. No matter what it takes.
Fred D. Mueller
Read hymn 332, “Lead on O King Eternal” for the prayer
“Lead on, O King Eternal, the day of march has come
Henceforth in fields of conquest, Thy tents shall be our home;
Through days of preparation Thy grace has made us strong,
And now O King Eternal, we lift our battle song.
Lead on, O King Eternal, till sin’s fierce war shall cease,
And holiness shall whisper, the sweet amen of peace;
For not with swords loud clashing, Nor roll of stirring drums,
With deeds of love and mercy, the heavenly kingdom comes.
Lead on, O King Eternal; we follow not with fears;
For gladness breaks like morning, wheree’er thy face appears;
Thy cross is lifted over us; we journey in its light:
The crown awaits the conquest; Lead on O God of might.
