Sunday, May 8, 2016 | 8:00 a.m.

Unshackled

Matt Helms
Associate Pastor, Fourth Presbyterian Church

Psalm 97
Acts 16:11–34

To be free is not merely to cast off one’s chains,
but to live in a way that respects and enhances the freedom of others.

Nelson Mandela

Some of you may know that I recently went to Cuba on a mission trip with other members of Fourth Church. There were nine of us total, folks from a wide range of ages and backgrounds, and we spent the entire week staying at the First Presbyterian Church of Havana. Fourth Church and First Church Havana have had a long partnership—one that dates back about fifteen years—and it was an honor to continue that partnership and friendship between our two congregations. Members of our congregation sung in worship and shared prayers; I had the unique experience of having a sermon live-translated into Spanish; and we all got a chance to explore the many sights and sounds of Havana during our week there.

All of the previous mission trips that I have been on have involved building, whether it be constructing new homes through Habitat for Humanity or repairing damaged properties through local efforts in those communities. This trip, however, was different: rather than spend time doing, we were asked to spend time being. Being with our hosts over meals. Being present in learning about the complex history and culture of the Cuban island and people, even beyond that of our governments’ own complicated relationships. Being invited into prayer services and homes and enjoying the hospitality and graciousness of our hosts, even though language was sometimes a barrier to communicating. I had never been asked to be a part of a trip like this, and in many ways it helped to open my eyes beyond a focus on just doing, whether fixing up a home or a neighborhood. Instead, the harsh realities of daily life and the contrast between the haves and the have-nots at least in economic terms, came to the fore.

This isn’t, of course, a problem unique to Cuba. Developing countries all over the world are struggling with the widening gap between rich and poor. And we do too, both here in the United States and in this city of neighborhoods and invisible boundaries in which people are forgotten and divisions run deep. There were problems in Cuba that were hard to fathom, such as the lack of business and commerce that prevents goods we take for granted—from printer ink to vitamins—from making their way to those who need them. Or that money from tourism is the primary way to make a living; where cab drivers can make four times more than Havana’s top brain surgeons. We are often wary about being under the eye of Big Brother here in the U.S., but that watchful eye is very much a daily reality for the Cuban people, even as the country’s leadership slowly begins to pivot away from Castro’s regime. And yet even amidst these problems that feel foreign to us, the problem of a widening gap between those who have and those who don’t is all too familiar for us—and that gap would have been just as present in the time period of the early church, as Christ’s message of love began to spread.

In this season of Eastertide, as we explore the early church, we often tend to look back at leaders like Peter, Paul, and others with an air of awed reverence. Yet it’s worth remembering that the vast majority of those in the early church would have fallen into the category of the have-nots. These were people whom Roman society and culture would have looked down upon. Though Christianity had not yet reached the point of persecution under the Roman Empire, Paul’s visits to cities often were met with deaf ears from those in the highest classes. Instead, it was those whom Roman society had cast to the side that became some of Christianity’s earliest champions. Lydia, from our first lesson today, was presumably a successful businesswoman, but she was also a woman living and working in a very patriarchal world. Paul and Silas meet a slave girl on their travels, and many believe that slaves or former slaves were some of the earliest members in Christian communities. And later in our lesson, Paul and Silas sing praises to God amidst their fellow prisoners, before eventually converting their jailer as well.

Each of these scenes, taken on their own, may not seem to add up to much, but when they are viewed as a whole, we begin to see a radical vision emerging from Paul and the members of the earliest church about what their community would and should look like. A person’s value would not be tied into how that person’s culture understood them. Their value would instead be independent of what that wider society said. In the sixteenth chapter of Acts, we are seeing Paul’s famous words to the Galatians brought to life: “As many of you as were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ,” he says, “there is no longer Jew or Greek, there is no longer slave or free, there is no longer male or female; for all of you are one in Christ Jesus.”

That textual frame is pivotal for understanding our lessons today, particularly since there are times when it seems that Paul and other biblical authors struggle with the implications of what this new unity in Christ Jesus means. In this sixteenth chapter of Acts, we see Paul interact with all three of the dualities he wrote about: Paul, a free ethnically Jewish male, speaks to Lydia, a free Greco-Roman woman; he speaks to an unnamed female slave; and he speaks to a Greco-Roman jailer who maintains a barrier between those who are free and those who are not. In each case—although to a far more ambiguous extent with the unnamed female slave—these individuals are invited into this early Christian community: both Lydia and the jailer through baptism, and the unnamed slave through healing.

This is a radical blurring of lines between those whom Greek and Roman cultures would have defined as the insiders and outsiders of a community. There was no place at the tables of the powerful for foreigners, slaves, or females. Yet around the table that Christ set and continues to set—we are told again and again—all are invited. In this sixteenth chapter of Acts, Paul (who was following the example set forth by Jesus) is breaking down long-held boundaries and living out the idea that there is no longer Jew or Greek, slave or free, male or female. It is a bold break from the past, and in the early church we see a reimagining of what it means to be a part of God’s people. But as is so often the case when a movement becomes institutionalized, the church began to struggle with its relationship between the prevailing culture of the day and God’s expansive vision around the unity of the church. Paul may have voiced “there is no longer Jew nor Greek,” but Constantine’s adoption of Christianity as the official state religion of the Roman Empire laid the groundwork for ties between Christianity and nationalism, often at the expense of the “other.” Paul voiced that “there is no longer slave nor free,” and yet sadly many Christians throughout history have been slave owners, sometimes even using the Bible to defend that practice. Paul voiced that “there is no longer male nor female,” and yet later church authorities began to remove women from leadership in the early church. All of these practices contradicted Christ’s open arms to come to his table, and yet so many Christians were swayed by the cultures they were born into.

It’s tempting to believe that we’ve moved onto new divisions today. We readily acknowledge economic disparities within our country today, and divisions like race are still rooted within us as well. But we are still wrestling to make Paul’s words to the Galatians a reality, too. We may not use the language of “Jews and Greeks” to describe divisions, but we live in a time of resurgent nationalism—and a culture of “us against them”—that has been stoked by demagoguery. We hope for a world where slavery no longer exists and that all are free, and yet there are more slaves today than at any point in human history. We hope for a time when there is neither male nor female, when women are indeed treated equally to men both in this country and around the globe, and yet we know we are not there yet, hard as we and those before us have tried. But in those times when I am feeling discouraged, I find myself turning back to these stories from Paul.

Although we often associate Paul with lengthy letters and eloquent speeches, in each of his three encounters—with Lydia, the female slave, and the jailer—his words and actions are relatively mundane. Sometimes the most radical of actions are the simplest, from Rosa Parks refusing to give up a seat on the bus to Jesus welcoming all to his table—even the one who would betray him. These encounters that Paul has show us that extending Christ’s love is not beyond our reach—indeed, that though we are just one person, we can do more than we could ever imagine to break down long-held walls and barriers solely through the ways that we live our daily lives.

On the cover of your bulletin is a quote from Nelson Mandela, a man who, like Paul, was very familiar with imprisonment and a man who fought to create a sense of shared unity in a deeply divided country. Mandela was once quoted as saying “to be free is not merely to cast off one’s chains, but to live in a way that respects and enhances the freedom of others.” In Christ, we believe that we are a part of something that is bigger than ourselves and that, indeed, calls us to live in a way that respects and enhances the lives of others.

Looking back on the mission trip to Cuba, there were many times when I was craving the opportunity to do something—to help rebuild homes or something else tactile. Yet sometimes the most radical of actions are the simplest: it was reaffirming the shared relationship between our two congregations no matter what the political climate of the day was; it was worshiping side-by-side with our brothers and sisters in Christ as a reminder that our country’s pasts don’t need to define their future; it was receiving the church’s warmth and hospitality as a reminder that we are all the body of Christ together.

So, friends: where might God be calling you to break down old divisions and live in a way that respects and enhances the lives of others? Next Sunday, we will celebrate Pentecost—often referred to as the birth of the church, but just as significantly a reminder that God’s Spirit is with each one of us and that each of us, not just a small set of leaders, are called to carry that Spirit out towards others. There are many places and ways in which our city, country, and world are divided, but our trust and our hope is that in Christ “there is no longer Jew or Greek, there is no longer slave or free, there is no longer male or female; for all of [us] are one in Christ Jesus” and that it will take each of us acting out of that belief, sometimes even in the simplest of ways, to make God’s love known. Thanks be to God for that challenge to each of us. May it indeed be so. Amen.