Liberation, Conversion, Salvation
Acts 16:16-34 • John 17:20-26
Through the written word and the spoken word, God help us to hear your living Word, our Savior Jesus Christ. Amen.
Liberation. Conversion. Salvation. That’s what we hear in our readings today.
First there are encounters with unjust systems—the systems of slavery and the carceral system. Paul and Silas encounter a young, enslaved woman whose masters have made her practice divination for their profit. In his annoyance, Paul casts the Spirit of divination out of the woman, thus liberating her tongue and removing a source of profit from her enslavers. That’s liberation number 1.
But now Paul and Silas have really made some people mad! They could have come through town and laid low, but instead they disrupted the control of capitol and the money-making ventures of high-status people. For this, Paul and Silas are placed in the innermost cell of the prison and bound in stocks. Maximum security, some might say.
Still Paul and Silas pray and sing loudly, until an earthquake comes and shakes the foundations of the prison. This is liberation number 2. “The foundations of the prison were shaken and immediately all the doors were opened, and everyone’s chains were unfastened.” For so many, that alone is the good news.
And there is more good news to follow. Paul and Silas do not leave the prison quickly after its destruction. They do not use that earthquake as their immediate jailbreak. Paul and Silas connect with the jailer who is shocked and scared.
The jailer asks, “What must I do to be saved?” His life is transformed in the Spirit. The same spirit that has brough the earthquake and the same Spirit that has crumbled the prison comes to the guard in this moment. As the prison is shaken, his whole life is shaken.
That is both conversion number 1 and liberation number 3. In his conversion, he is turning toward God and turning away from sin. This is what we do in our baptismal vows, we turn toward what is good and turn away from and renounce what keeps us from God. The jailer is released from a pattern of thinking that assumes our wellbeing is dependent on our oppression of others.
His whole family is baptized and brought into the Body of Christ, into the community of disciples. His family comes to know the salvation and liberation that comes in Jesus Christ. He is loosed from the bonds that held him down and loosed from his fears.
We are all bound and imprisoned in some way. All of us feel trapped at times and feel bound to sin. And people are literally bound and imprisoned in our society and the world. They are bound by us and for us.
Our liberation is the liberation of our neighbor. Their liberation is our liberation. Our oppression is their oppression. Their oppression is our oppression.
In the words of Fanny Lou Hammer, “Nobody is free until everybody is free.”
That is solidarity. That is the Body of Christ.
That is the gospel truth we hear today as well. John recounts Jesus’ prayer for the disciples. Jesus asks, “As you, Father, are in me and I am in you, may they also be in us, so that the world may believe that you have sent me. […] so that they may be one, as we are one, I in them and you in me, that they may be completely one.”
Jesus’ desire is that we, his disciples, can be made one. The same sort of oneness Jesus has with God our Parent. We are one in the same. We are made one body. He asks for this because it will be a witness to the fact the God sent Jesus. Our oneness is a witness to the salvation we receive through Christ.
So how do we act as one. How does our oneness, our interconnected and intersectional identity, witness to the life of Jesus?
To answer that, we might ask how we seek liberation for the full body. We might ask where corruption can be converted to justice. And where salvation is in the midst of that.
How are our siblings of color liberated from the bonds of racism, xenophobia, and bigotry? Where is our complicity in the hatred that kills our siblings of color?
How are children made free to learn, play and grow? How do we create a safer world for and with our children? How do we keep our babies fed?
How are our wombs liberated from outside control? How are transgender bodies cared for with dignity in our medical systems? How do each of us have bodily autonomy for all our health care decisions?
How are people facing poverty able to access the resources they need to live liberated and sustainable lives?
We could go on and on with the ways that our communities are in need of liberation. It is constant. For so many, our compassion fatigue has set in. Our ability to hold the news, even in its fast cycles, is limited. So much is happening in the world around us.
I do not claim to have all the answers or claim that there is one clear solution to any of these problems. There is no easy solution to any of these!
What I do know is this:
Jesus is the great liberator, the author of our salvation, and the guide for all we do.
Jesus was bound, imprisoned, tried, and killed by Roman authorities. Our knowledge of his innocence does not change the actions of those officials, but it does remind us that sometimes the systems intended to protect us end up hurting the righteous. If Jesus was killed by unjust systems, we know that the vulnerable today are harmed by our systems as well.
If Paul and Silas were imprisoned for liberating a woman held in slavery, we know that holy actions have a cost. And we know that systems are often unprepared for disruption and change.
An earthquake shook the prison where Paul and Silas were cast away from society. It took the Spirit shaking the ground for them to be freed, for the jailer to be converted, and for his family to learn the goodness of salvation in Christ.
At Jesus’ death there was an earthquake as well. Matthew writes, “At that moment the curtain of the temple was torn in two, from top to bottom. The earth shook, and the rocks were split. The tombs also were opened, and many bodies of the saints who had fallen asleep were raised.”
Liberation shifts the foundation beneath us. It is hard work. Our hearts and minds will be converted again and again as we seek to see the troubles of our neighbors and as we share our worries and hurts as well.
This earth shaking and earth-shattering work manifests the oneness we have with God and with one another. The Kin-dom of God will not come quietly or in stillness.
Jesus prays for all the disciples to be one. To be one body. To truly be one is to acknowledge that the issues we see on the news are our issues. They are not abstractions or problems for other people to confront. They are ours. It is our siblings being killed. It is our children in danger. It is our bodily autonomy being restricted.
Let us join in earthly liberation knowing that our ultimate liberation and salvation is in Christ. Because we are one in and with God, we are one here and now; we are connected. This body needs freedom, and this body must work together and with God to achieve a world where the kin-dom bursts open. A world where all are welcome, loved, and freed. Where all are respected, cared for, and treated with dignity.
May we be liberated from harmful systems. May we be liberated from the patterns of thinking that distance us from the other. May we be converted in every fiber of our being—converted continuously to new life in the Spirit. May we rest in the truth of our salvation through Jesus Christ, the great liberator.
Amen.
© 2022 The Rev. Adelyn Tyler
St. Paul’s Episcopal Church – Fayetteville, Arkansas