Have you noticed how much of our life is occupied with the telling and hearing of stories? We can’t seem to get enough of them … especially if they are about ourselves. The meal is over, the dessert plates long since pushed aside, but you and your dinner guests stay around the table, telling stories. Your family has gathered for a funeral and, when the shock of the loss begins to melt, there is a flood of stories about the one who is gone.
Mary Cate loves to hear me tell her stories about her childhood … about how she would pull off her tiny shoes every time I took her to the mall and pitch them at who ever was in range. The kid had a great arm! John loves to regale anybody within earshot about the time I took our car to be serviced and the attendant asked if I was Mr. Biggs mother. I don’t find that one so amusing. The other night at our 40 Days potluck Renny Sorenson got quite a kick hearing that after I told my friends in Texas that I was going in to the ministry that they would have been less surprised if I had told them I was going to be a stripper.
There are stories we tell to our children at bedtime. There are old worn stories that good friends will listen to just one more time. There are stories that are briefly captured in the newspaper before they are brushed aside by the next day's news, and enduring stories that have been read by generations. The stories that fill our lives are not just ways to pass the time, mere diversions. They have a meaning and power beyond anything we usually recognize. All stories reveal underlying assumptions about the way the world works, what is important in life and what is not.
Listen to our stories. Who is the villain and who is the hero? Who succeeds and who does not? What is the object of life and how does it all turn out in the end? The stories we tell give an answer to all of those questions, and more. And so, we live by stories, all of us do—not by creeds or by principles, as much as by stories.
In our time, the stories that most occupy us, and may most influence us, are the stories that come to us through the media, particularly television. These are the stories of our culture, the stories that tell us who we are and what we value. The news programs and soap operas, the sporting events and situation comedies—they have become the default catechism for our children. There may be some good things on television and some bad things on television, but, in the end, they are all the same in this respect—they are brought to us by people who are trying to sell us things. The underlying story that unites them all is the message that we are supposed to learn how to be good consumers. That seems to be the purpose of life. That shopping is our duty and our joy.
Rarely is it stated this bluntly. But sometimes it is, as in the bumper sticker which reads: "The one who dies with the most toys wins." It is both shocking and somehow refreshing finally to see it spelled out so starkly. "The one who dies with the most toys wins." Sometimes that does seems to be the dominant story of our culture. As a recent ad campaign has it: "Drink a lot of Pepsi, get a lot of stuff." What is the story? Life is a contest, a game, in which the play involves the accumulation of entertaining and diverting possessions. Life is our chance to get a lot of stuff.
The question to ask of such a story, or any story we live by, is this: does it hold up in the end? Does life really work that way? Does getting and spending really produce satisfaction? Let's be honest: it does, up to a point. For instance, if I have had a particularly difficult day, sometimes I can be cheered by simply walking into a store and acquiring a few more items. It seems to work—for a time. I recently read that the average young person spends an hour and a half and more than twenty-six dollars every time he or she goes to a shopping mall. Why? Because it is an enjoyable diversion that kills the pain of boredom. But is it a story that is big enough to live by, especially when the tough times come? Can it hold the weight of a human life? In a moment's reflection we all recognize that it cannot. That is why, finally, it is another story that saves.
In the Book of Acts, the Biblical
account of the early church, we read a story today about the Apostle Paul and
another follower of Jesus named Silas. They are in
But how do they react to this experience—the damp stone, the chains, the bruised limbs, the rejection, the defeat of their plans? They hold choir practice. They sing. Their voices echo off the stone walls, fill the jail and spill over into the street outside. Would we do that? Would we sing under those circumstances? Paul and Silas can sing because they live by a story that can be set to music. Their hymns are love songs that tell the story of God's love, a love that can reach into any place and circumstance, even to condemned prisoners chained to the wall of a jail cell.
John and I worked for many years in prison ministry and I can assure you that those men and women who turned to Christ and accepted the love and forgiveness of God sang out with voices that sounded like an angelic heavenly choir. They sang the story of Jesus who enters the dark corners and prisons of our lives so that we all might join him in freedom and victory. That seems to me a good test of the stories we choose to live by: Can I take this story to prison with me? Would it sustain me even then? Many other stories may be sufficient when life is gentler and brighter. But what story will hold up to reality when life is really, really hard?
If we have the right story, the songs will come. After all, only some stories can be set to music. I doubt, for instance, that the line, "The one who dies with the most toys wins," will ever become a song lyric. We will not soon hear hymns to self interest and rising net worth. Don't look for a new hymn, "Joyful, Joyful, We Adore Ourselves," any time soon. The true anthems of our lives reflect the words of Paul to the church at Philippi … “whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is pleasing, whatever is commendable, if there is any excellence and if there is anything worthy of praise,” (Ph 4:8) these are things worthy of song.
The story we heard today exemplifies
all of those things. About midnight they were praying and singing hymns. Calling
on the presence of God is the way they knew to stay sane. Then suddenly without
any warning there was a great earthquake so that the foundations of the prison
were shaken and immediately all the doors were opened and everyone's chains in
the prison were unfastened. One would think that their initial reaction would
be, “Let get out of here!” --a good strategy to
have, no doubt. But what Paul and Silas show us… through their actions
…was not in their own self-interests.
There was
the appearance of an open door, but
in reality, the door was really not open to them because of the law. According to Roman law, the jailer was
responsible for Paul, Silas, and the rest of the prisoners. So when the jailer
woke and saw that the prison doors were open, he knew at that moment his life
and work were at stake. Paul knew the
law. He clearly understand that if an open door for him meant that the door
would slam shut for another then the door was really closed to both of them. An
incredible and compassionate insight on Paul's part that boggles my mind and at
the same time breaks open my heart. It shows empathy that moves beyond
individualistic wants and comforts--even possibilities of individual
freedom. It is life-changing. For what we
believe in our faith and how we choose to act in faith must be one
and the same. Painfully and dutifully,
not seeing any other way out, the jailer draws his sword and is about to kill
himself when we hear Paul cry out "Do not harm yourself for we are all
here." Alone, death seemed inevitable. Together, in looking out for each
other, new life is possible.
Paul stood
for what he believed, and because of the
system he was thrown into prison. But take note. Paul would not allow his
freedom to come at the expense of another human being's life. Opening doors for
someone else means seeing the beauty, sacredness, and worth of another human
being's life as we see the beauty, sacredness, and worth of our own life, a
mutual love of self and neighbor. Paul
saw his liberation interwoven with that of another. Paul and the prisoners had
been beaten, attacked, and inflicted with many blows, mentally and physically,
by the magistrate in power. They used
that horrible circumstance to bring others to Christ and to speak truth to
power. After feeding Paul and Silas, the
jailer reported a message he had received to Paul, saying, "The
magistrates sent word to let you go; therefore come out now and go in
peace."
But Paul
replied, "They have beaten us in
public, uncondemned, men who are Roman citizens, and
have thrown us into prison; and now are they going to discharge us in secret?
Certainly not! Let them come and take us out themselves." The police reported these words to the
magistrates, and they were afraid when they heard that they were Roman citizens; so they came and
apologized to them.”
As people of faith, I believe we are constantly called to open doors for others who are used to doors slamming shut in their faces. From Paul's example, we are to see that we cannot be free or make full use of freedom if we know our neighbors and our international brothers and sisters around the world are in fear of losing their lives and thus not free. All too often we have seen freedom used under the auspices of profit which leads to the oppression and exploitation of other women, men, and children and their countries in the name of national security and self serving interest. But we must not allow ourselves to believe that that is our story because that story is not big enough to sustain us.
Gratefully, the story by which Paul and Silas lived was big enough to take to prison with them. It is a story that could be set to music, because it is a love story. But it is a special kind of love story, a story of God's fierce and tireless love for God's children. It is the story of a God who, through the fire of internal anguish and the high water of external disaster, is with us still.
Now that is a story you can take to prison with you!
May we pray?
O God, unite your church in our day. Show us ways of crossing over boundaries of certainty into the fields of loving openness to each other. Help us to see the good that each of us do and the wonder of who we could be in witnessing to your gospel if only we would unite in humble hope.
Amen.
Mary Anne Biggs, Pastor
Nekoosa United
Nekoosa