Sermon for Sunday, October 10, 2010
Primary Text: 2 Tim. 2:8-15
Remember Jesus Christ, raised from the dead, a descendant of David--that is my gospel,
for which I suffer hardship, even to the point of being chained like a criminal. But the word of God is not chained.
This is one of those sacred moments when the lectionary—a list of scriptures, appointed for a given day years in advance—just happens to coincide poetically with current events. All week I had been contemplating the lives of those who, like Paul the apostle, suffered imprisonment for what they believed about God, and freedom, and life.
Our pilgrim ancestors jailed in England for seeking the freedom of conscience to worship as their conscience directed them.
Deitrich Bonhoeffer, jailed in Germany for his resistance to Hitler.
Martin Luther King Jr, jailed in Birmingham for having the audacity to insist that he was a man, with rights equal to any white man’s rights.
Steve Beko and Nelson Mandela, in South Africa, Tebetan monks and nuns in China, Roxana Saberi in Iran, Mary Benson and others in the US.
All of these people jailed for seeking freedom from oppression, freedom of conscience and freedom of speech. But the chains and the prison bars could not stop the power of God, which is always a liberating force.
And then on Friday came the announcement that lifts up another hero of freedom—Nobel Peace Prize winner Liu Xiaobo, currently in prison for resisting the restrictions on free speech in China.
The word of God is not chained. The power of God that was in Jesus is not chained to a historical moment, not chained to one particular nation, not chained even to a particular religion because the power of God can not be contained in one box, and commodified.
The power of God is unchained, even when those who are chained for asserting God’s power are killed—as was Bonhoeffer and King and the apostle Paul himself. Because you can not kill God’s power. Everything we do for good, for setting the oppressed free and lifting up the lowly, for pulling the mighty oppressors down from their thrones, is eternal. The deeds of the righteous will stand long after the chains that bound them have rusted away.
Jeremiah proclaimed God’s power to the exiles: The exiles are encouraged to live as if they were not in chains. Jesus proclaimed God’s power to the lepers: The lepers are unchained from their leprosy.
Paul was in chains but even from his prison cell he could live as a free man because the word of God is unchained.
The truth is we are all
Simultaneously:
Imprisoned and Free
Alcoholic and Recovering
Stranger and Saint
Dying and Alive
And we are called to live a life unchained.
