Kahu's Manao
Keawala‘i Congregational Church
United Church of Christ (USA)
Sixth Sunday of Easter
Seventh Sunday of Easter
Sunday, May 16, 2010
The Rev. Kealahou C. Alika
“Breaking Chains”
Acts 16:16-34
Hurricane Katrina formed over the Bahamas on August 23, 2005 and crossed southern Florida as a moderate Category 1 hurricane, causing some deaths and flooding there. As the hurricane moved west it was upgraded to a Category 5 storm and it was at that time a mandatory evacuation was ordered for the residents of the city of New Orleans.
By the time the storm made its second landfall it was downgraded to a Category 3 storm. But we all know that the destruction which followed was beyond catastrophic once the sections of the levee system holding back the surging waters of the Gulf collapsed.
I had been to New Orleans many years prior to the hurricane. I stayed in the French Quarter and had a chance to visit with a friend who was attending medical school. We met as seminary students.
He received a Master of Arts degree in theology and after graduating, he and his wife moved to New Orleans. I came to appreciate the city and its history and it was while I was staying in the French Quarter that someone pointed across a courtyard and said, “See that door. That’s where the slaves were held.”
It was in New Orleans that I saw the chains that were used to bind the hands and feet of slaves. It was in New Orleans that I began to see for the first time what I had only read about in history books. But hearing the stories and seeing the artifacts and remnants of things from the past made me wonder how it was that we gloss over the tragic stories of the system of slavery that we find in the Bible.
It was that system that plunged our nation into a civil war from which we have yet to fully recover. There are those who want us to believe that the institution of slavery was a necessary evil; that the subjugation of one race by another was necessary for economic reasons.
But our reading from The Acts of the Apostles will not let us brush aside the devastating consequences of slavery so easily. The owners of a slave-girl are troubled when Paul heals her of her illness.
The girl brought them a great deal of money through her fortune-telling. The slave owners had no empathy for her suffering and so when Paul heals her, they become incensed because they see that their hope of making more money disappears before their eyes.
The slave owners seize Paul and his traveling companion Silas, and bring them to the officials of the Roman government and accuse them of breaking Roman laws and causing their loss of financial gain. They collude with government officials, an unruly crowd and the police to strip, beat, and jail both Paul and Silas.
Yet despite being stripped of their clothing, beaten with rods and chained to their cells, they do what any good law-breaking citizen would do – after all Paul is a Roman citizen – they pray and sing. The other prisoners around them hear Paul and Silas pray and sing.
Soon after that a violent earthquake strikes and the prison doors are flung wide open. The jailer, fearful of what will happen to him as a result of what he was sure had become a massive escape of prisoners, draws his sword. He is about to kill himself because he is convinced that all of the prisoners have escaped including Paul and Silas.
But all of the prisoners including Paul and Silas remain behind and it is Paul who convinces the jailer to do no harm to himself. Aware that the fate of his own life lay in the hands of the prisoners, the jailer turns to Paul and Silas and asks, “What must I do to be saved?”
They respond by telling him to believe the good news of God’s love in the risen Christ. The jailer then cleans and washes Paul and Silas’ wounds and after having done so, he is baptized along with the members of his household.
Noah BenShea is a poet, philosopher and teacher who wrote the book “Jacob the Baker.” In the book Jacob – the Baker – becomes known not only for his ability to bake but also for his ability to listen and to dispense words of wisdom to those who come to him with their share of problems and difficulties. Danny Brown reminded me about one of the stories from the book (Jacob the Baker, Noah BenShea, Ballatine Books, New York, 1989, pages 71-74) and it goes like this:
“Samuel stood patiently in the morning shadows of the bakery waiting for
Jacob and wanting to talk. As soon as Jacob entered, Samuel came to life
And the two men worked together, quickly finishing the tasks in waking a
bakery after its rest.”‘I miss these times,’ admitted Samuel. ‘I’m not sure I didn’t like it better
before people discovered your wisdom.’‘The wisdom isn’t mine,’ said Jacob, hunching his shoulders as if he were
retreating from the very thought of it.‘Don’t you see, Jacob? That is the attitude which draws people to you.’
Jacob exhaled but said nothing.
‘Look, Jacob!’ continued Samuel, ‘to this community, you are their tzadik,
their holy man.’Jacob actually shuddered when he heard this.
‘Are you afraid of this power, Jacob?’ asked Samuel.
‘No,’ said Jacob. ‘Doubt picks a man’s own pocket. Fear is the pain
before the wound.’Silence drew its hood around both men and pulled them closer together.
‘Samuel', said Jacob, placing his hand on his friend’s shoulder, ‘for someone
to be a true tzadik he must wake others so they know themselves as their own
tzadik because each of us is a reflection, a refraction of the Original Light.’Samuel pursed his lips and shook his head, ‘People don’t have the character
to live like this!’His voice jumped with emotion. ‘You expect too much of them, Jacob.’
Then Samuel confessed, ‘I’m afraid to believe this?’
‘Don’t be afraid to learn from fear,’ said Jacob. ‘It teaches us what we are
frightened of. Look carefully and you will see we are all orchards hiding in
seeds. You will see inside each of us is the Pharaoh. And inside every Pharaoh
is a slave. And inside every slave is a Moses.’Jacob was swaying back and forth as if he were praying, his eyes shut, his
voice filled with a clear cadence.‘We must lead ourselves out of the enslavements we have constructed and called
Pharaoh. We must be the Moses in our Egypt. We must be the mountain in our
Desert. And . . . ’‘And,’ Samuel interrupted, chorusing Jacob’s rhythm, ‘we are the border we
must cross over to enter the Promised Land.’‘Ah,’ said Jacob, ‘see what a tzadik you are, Samuel.’
The story of the slave girl and the jailer may cause some of us to see ourselves as the slave girl or the jailer or in Paul or Silas. Some of us would insist that we are not like the owners or the magistrates or the authorities or those who were in the crowd that day who joined in attacking Paul and Silas. But Jacob the Baker reminds us that a part of each person or group is in us because we are all held captive in one way or another to the things that enslave us.
Our salvation comes through our faith in the risen Christ. As this season of Easter comes to a close we affirm the words of Paul and Silas: “Believe on the Lord Jesus and you will be saved.” The chains will be broken and we will be set free.
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