Too often lines get drawn, enemies assigned, and we don’t treat people on the other side as people. In the name of freedom, whole nations and nationalities and religions get labeled enemies. In the name of safety, we often shun those who are most in danger themselves: refugees, people without homes. In the name of a just society, we can easily demonize those who don’t agree with our definition of justice. Making enemies is normal, but it is not inevitable. It is possible to recognize and respect the humanity in each person we encounter, whether they are a jailer, a political adversary, a predatory lender, or just a crazy driver. But it isn’t easy. It takes great power, and great love.
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Brea Congregational United Church of Christ
June 2, 2019
Jailbreak
Acts 16:16-32 One day, as we were going to the place of prayer, we met a slave girl who had a spirit of divination and brought her owners a great deal of money by fortune-telling. 17 While she followed Paul and us, she would cry out, “These men are slaves of the Most High God, who proclaim to you a way of salvation.” 18 She kept doing this for many days. But Paul, very much annoyed, turned and said to the spirit, “I order you in the name of Jesus Christ to come out of her.” And it came out that very hour.
19 But when her owners saw that their hope of making money was gone, they seized Paul and Silas and dragged them into the marketplace before the authorities. 20 When they had brought them before the magistrates, they said, “These men are disturbing our city; they are Jews 21 and are advocating customs that are not lawful for us as Romans to adopt or observe.” 22 The crowd joined in attacking them, and the magistrates had them stripped of their clothing and ordered them to be beaten with rods. 23 After they had given them a severe flogging, they threw them into prison and ordered the jailer to keep them securely. 24 Following these instructions, he put them in the innermost cell and fastened their feet in the stocks.
25 About midnight Paul and Silas were praying and singing hymns to God, and the prisoners were listening to them. 26 Suddenly there was an earthquake, so violent that the foundations of the prison were shaken; and immediately all the doors were opened and everyone’s chains were unfastened. 27 When the jailer woke up and saw the prison doors wide open, he drew his sword and was about to kill himself, since he supposed that the prisoners had escaped. 28 But Paul shouted in a loud voice, “Do not harm yourself, for we are all here.” 29 The jailer called for lights, and rushing in, he fell down trembling before Paul and Silas. 30 Then he brought them outside and said, “Sirs, what must I do to be saved?” 31 They answered, “Believe on the Lord Jesus, and you will be saved, you and your household.” 32 They spoke the word of the Lord to him and to all who were in his house. 33 At the same hour of the night he took them and washed their wounds; then he and his entire family were baptized without delay. 34 He brought them up into the house and set food before them; and he and his entire household rejoiced that he had become a believer in God.
“Good Omens” is a comedy about the end of the world. It’s in the absurd style of Monty Python. It has been a favorite book in my house for many years. It’s just been released as a miniseries. Good Omens is a ridiculous parody of the kind of literal Christian beliefs that say God has everything planned in advance, and that the world ending in a great battle between good and evil, real soon, is the final page of that plan.
In Good Omens. demons want to have a great battle and end the world. This seems in character. What’s uncomfortable to watch is sterile, corporate-suited angels lining up for battle, savoring the end of the world… and being unmerciful to one poor angel who has been on earth from the beginning, Aziraphale. Aziraphale is soft. When Adam and Eve got kicked out of the garden of Eden, he gave them his flaming sword for protection from wild beasts. Aziraphale can’t imagine killing anything, and he really loves human musicals, and gourmet food, and old books.
Aziraphale has a buddy Crowley, a demon who’s also gone native. Out of love for the earth and all that is on it, the demon talks the angel into breaking free from the normal thinking that they must be enemies, enemies collaborating on destroying the earth. They have no idea how to stop the end of the world, but they are open to possibilities. Good Omens is British comedy, so the possibilities are ridiculous. Babies are switched at birth. This is how you stop the end of the world: instead of being raised by an American politician, the antichrist is raised in the paradise of an English village named Tadfield.
Aziraphale’s efforts to save the world involve trying to decipher the accurate but cryptic prophecies of Agnes Nutter, a 17thcentury witch. Here is one of Agnes’s predictions. “In December of 1980, an apple will arise that no man can eat.” Agnes’s descendants got very good at deciphering her predictions. They bought stock in the first public offering of Apple Computer and made millions.
Aziraphale does finally speak a word of wisdom that helps avert the apocalypse. But by that time the antichrist has already broken free of the script he’s been given. The antichrist is eleven years old and his name is Adam. Adam doesn’t want to destroy the world. He just wants to be a human kid, love what he loves, be with his friends and family and his English countryside, and his sweet little dog. His sweet little dog was originally a giant hellhound, sent to help the antichrist destroy the world. But when this hellhound overheard Adam saying he wanted a little dog, the kind of dog you can have fun with, it became a little, playful, loving dog, that reminds Adam of his humanity at a crucial moment. Good Omens is a corny overblown romance. People who would normally be destroying one another and the world discover they are rather fond of one another and the world (“rather fond” is an understated British way of expressing love.) So they refuse to fight. And the world is saved. Good Omens is still a very ridiculous show, though. Consider yourself warned.
This is the seventh and last Sunday of the Easter Season. We end the season of Easter as we began it Easter morning, with the story of a jailbreak. Eastern Orthodox Christians picture resurrection as a jailbreak, ours. Jesus breaks open the gates of Hades, rescues Adam and Eve, in other words all of humanity, from death and into life with God. In the Orthodox view of Easter, Jesus went to hell and back to show us that love wins in the end.
In our bible reading, we are traveling with the author Luke himself. We know this because the story says, “we were going to the place of prayer.” Luke shows us the casual injustices of the Roman world, injustices that probably seemed normal to him. On the road to prayer each day they encounter a woman, a slave—that much is normal, in Paul’s time. This slave woman yells at them every time they pass. She is possessed by a spirit that sees the future, like Agnes Nutter. Unlike Agnes, this slave has no control over how she deals with the information. We might dismiss her visions. But her affliction was real. We might call it mental illness. Paul doesn’t free her from slavery, but he does free her of her illness, from possession by a spirit that annoys him and robs her of her humanity. That spirit had been making her masters a lot of money, so those ‘businessmen cheated of their property and livelihood’ get Paul and his sidekick Silas put into the town jail. This injustice is also normal: nobody is surprised. This is the kind of inhumanity people have always inflicted on each other.
Then comes an act of God, as they say. An earthquake breaks open jail cells and all the shackles of all the prisoners. But it’s the miracle that happens next that interests me. Instead of escaping and leaving the jailer to his plan of suicide to escape some awful punishment, the prisoners promise not to run away. This is not normal. It is normal to regard your jailer as your enemy; his fate is not your problem. Paul and Silas see their jailer’s humanity, and sacrifice their freedom out of compassion for that man.
The earthquake convinced their jailer that the God they were worshipping was powerful. But their willingness to give up their own freedom to protect the life of a man who should have been their enemy? That is what made that jailer want to be a part of their community, to pledge to follow Jesus. We watch the impossible happening: the jailer washing the wounds of his prisoners, and then the prisoners washing the jailer in the waters of baptism. Bodies and souls receive tender care. Then the jailer, instead of locking the prisoners away, invites them to dinner at his own home. These first Christians have broken free of the narrative of “us and them,” good guys and bad guys. They treat their supposed enemy as they would a friend, and he becomes a friend and co-worker for the gospel. That is the miracle that hits home to me.
Too often lines get drawn, enemies assigned, and we don’t treat people on the other side as people. In the name of freedom, whole nations and nationalities and religions get labeled enemies. In the name of safety, we often shun those who are most in danger themselves: refugees, people without homes. In the name of a just society, we can easily demonize those who don’t agree with our definition of justice. Making enemies is normal, but it is not inevitable. It is possible to recognize and respect the humanity in each person we encounter, whether they are a jailer, a political adversary, a predatory lender, or just a crazy driver. But it isn’t easy. It takes great power, and great love.
When Paul and Silas were in jail, they were singing and praying. They were immersed in the love and power of God. That immersion made it possible for them to show compassion to their jailer. I have seen the power of God, not breaking metal locks, but breaking down human barriers. Whether it goes by the name of Christian or not, this power transforms. I have seen restorative justice that brings a perpetrator of violence to true repentance. I have seen people divorcing, and treating their ex with kindness and consideration. I have seen people working for social justice by building relationships with people on the other side of the issue. May we be so filled with prayer, and song, and the love and power of God, that we break free of what binds us, to see new possibilities for caring, to make an enemy a friend. Amen.
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