Acts 16:16–34 Matt Mardis-LeCroy Des Moines, IA May 8, 2016

“Who’s the Boss?”

I.

Who’s the boss? And why does it matter? That’s what baptism is all about.

I love baptisms. I love the way babies smell, the way they squirm. I even love it when they cry.

(It means their lungs are healthy!) It is just about the most fun I get to have in this job.

But I wonder if we realize what we are doing here. The baptismal liturgy uses some

words…words we do not often use around here, words with weight; words that might give us

pause. Did you hear what I asked of these parents this morning? Let me read it again:

Will you endeavor, God being your helper, to guide and instruct your child that your child may

be led to the confession of Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior?

The confession of Jesus Christ as Lord. That is what is at stake when we bring our babies for

baptism. Who will be in charge of this life? Of all of our lives? Who’s the boss?

That is what baptism is all about.

II.

That is also what this reading from Acts is all about. Who’s the boss? Why does it matter?

We pick up this morning right where we left off last week: Paul and his companions are trying—

mostly failing—to do their missionary thing in the Roman colony of Philippi. They have had a

hard time of it. And things are about to get much much worse. It’s a story about who is in charge

and why that matters. The story unfolds in three scenes.

I find the first scene terribly sad. On the streets of Philippi, Paul encounters a slave girl

Possessed by spirit of divination, she tells fortunes and makes money for her owners. This girl is

twice a slave: owned by the men who exploit her and afflicted by the voices in her own head.

Look how bad things can get when the wrong people take charge of a life.

But her madness gives her a kind of genius. The voices in her head offer insight that others do

not possess. She knows exactly who Paul and his companions are: “These men are slaves of

the Most High God.” That’s what the slave girl says. Guess it takes one to know one.i

How does Paul feel about all of this? Annoyed. “Very much annoyed.” So annoyed that he turns

to her and drives the demons out. Now, that might seem like a good outcome. But I’m not so

sure. Her owners are not happy. Their hope of making money from her is gone.

So we come to Scene Two. To be slaves of the Most High God puts Paul and his friends on a

collision course with the Roman authorities. Angered at their financial loss, the slave girl’s

owners drag Paul and Silas into court. But they don’t accuse them of interfering with commerce.

Instead, they charge them with several vague sounding somethings: “disturbing the peace,”

“advocating foreign customs.” The charges are kind of nebulous.ii

And they’re not actually convicted of any crime. The kangaroo court in Philippi has them

stripped, beaten and “placed in protective custody,” which is to say, shackled in the deepest

corner of the darkest dungeon.iii For their own good, of course.

Hard to say what they did wrong, but this much is clear: Paul and Silas’ allegiance to God Most

High renders them suspect in the eyes of Rome.

And that brings us to Scene Three. Right around midnight in the Roman jail, Paul and Silas

make a holy nuisance of themselves—praying and singing hymns to God. But suddenly a

violent earthquake shakes the foundations of the prison. Every door flies open. Every chain falls

off. Free at last!

But one man’s jail break is another man’s career disaster. The jailer is having a bad day.

Waking up, seeing what has happened, he prepares, quite literally, to fall on his sword. Think

about this: in response to a situation he could not have prevented—a literal act of God—this

jailer would rather take his own life then talk it over with his supervisor.

You think you have a bad boss? Try running a Roman jail.

But before he can do the deed, Paul calls out: “Do not harm yourself. We are all here.” The jailer

calls for light, rushes in, falls down trembling at the feet of Paul and Silas. “Sirs, “he says, “what

must I do to be saved?”

Except…that isn’t what he says. Not exactly. Like Spanish or French, in Greek the word for “sir”

and the word for “lord” are the same word. So look what happens here: His old boss has treated

him badly. So he submits to Silas and Paul, figures maybe they can be his new bosses. “Lords,”

he says, “what must I do to be saved?” Maybe you can be the boss of me.

But Paul and Silas don’t want to be the boss of anybody. The jailer calls them “lords,” but they

talk to him about “The Lord, Jesus Christ.” Believe in him, trust in him and you will be saved.

And then they speak the word of The Lord to him.

So the jailer takes them home, washes their wounds, receives baptism at their hand. Then they

gather around a table, share some food.

Rome does not run his life anymore –but neither do Silas and Paul. In his life, from now on,

Jesus Christ is Lord.

The jail will be closed indefinitely. The jailer is under new management.

III.

Who’s the boss? And why does it matter? Always good questions to keep in mind.

Historians believe that the very first Christian creed—the earliest confession of Christian faith—

consisted of three little words: “Jesus is Lord.” Doesn’t sound like much, but these words are

dangerous. These words could land you in prison or cost you your life.

In the context of the 1st century Roman Empire, “Lord” means something specific. Lord is a title

reserved for Caesar, an indication of his absolute authority over the Empire. But if Jesus is Lord,

then Caesar is not. And that is a dangerous thing to say. The earliest Christians face prison and

torture and sometimes even death because they insist on this point: Jesus is Lord and Caesar is

not.iv

Who’s the boss? You better believe that Caesar cares about that question.

IV.

But we do not live in the 1st century Roman Empire. Outside of this room, we don’t really use the

word “Lord.” And a lot of us have a hard time with the concept.

My predecessor, David Ruhe, is fond of saying that the unofficial motto of the United Church of

Christ—the unofficial motto of Plymouth Church—is really “You’re not the boss of me.”v We cling

to the idea that we are in charge of our own lives, that we make our own choices, that no one is

the boss of us.

But what if that isn’t true? What if I am not in charge of my own life? What if I can’t be?

Bob Dylan went through a regrettable phase during which he regarded himself as a “born again”

Christian.vi Now, in his defense: it was the late 70’s, it was California, everybody was gettin’ born

again. But Dylan made a couple of records while he belonged to Jesus. Probably the best

known song from this phase is Gotta Serve Somebody, from the 1979 album Slow Train

Coming. The song, which won a Grammy that it did not deserve, is not exactly subtle:

It may be the devil or it may be the Lord

But you’re gonna have to serve somebody.

I believe Brother Bob’s point is this: I may say I am in charge of my own life, but saying it don’t

make it so. All of us serve some one or some thing. Maybe it’s a parent whose expectations still

haunt us. Maybe it’s a spouse, a partner, a friend whose needs always trump our own. Maybe

it’s the relentless climb up the corporate ladder. Maybe it is the endless search for pleasure.

Maybe it’s fear that drives us, or resentment, or grief.

I don’t know what it is, but I know this for sure: some thing or some one always sets the agenda.

It may be the devil or it may be the Lord, but you’re gonna have to serve somebody.

V.

So, who’s the boss? That is the question we need to answer. Actually, we’ve already answered

it this morning.

We bring our babies here, to the center of this sanctuary. We wash them in the waters of

baptism. And when we do this, we make a bold claim: we are not the bosses of these babies.vii

Jesus is Lord. Jesus is Lord, and every one else is not. Jesus is Lord and every thing else is

not. We may cherish our children, but we cannot control them. And neither can anything else.

Fear will not drive the lives of our babies. Addiction will not set the agenda for them. Money and

power and pleasure and all the seductions of the empire will not call the shots in the lives we

have claimed at the font today.

Jesus is Lord. Jesus is Lord and nobody else. Jesus is Lord and our children are free.

Who’s the boss? Not me. Not you.

Jesus Christ is Lord.

Thanks be to God.

Plymouth Congregational Church United Church of Christ 4126 Ingersoll Avenue

Des Moines, Iowa 50312 Phone: (515) 255-3149 Fax: (515) 255-8667

E-mail: mmardis-lecroy@plymouthchurch.com

Notes

i As Lawrence W. Farris observes, everyone in this story is enslaved. The Lectionary Commentary: Theological Exegesis for Sunday’s Texts. The First readings: The Old Testament and Acts. Roger E. Van Harn, Editor. (Grand Rapids, MI: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 2001). ii David L. Tiede takes it a little farther. He says the charges are “spurious.” See his comments in The Access Bible. New York, NY: Oxford University Press, 1999), pp.201-202. iii I owe the “kangaroo court” line to Texts for Preaching: A Lectionary Commentary Based on the NRSV –Year C. (Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox Press, 1994), pp.332-333. iv See Larry Hurtado’s massive study Lord Jesus Christ: Devotion to Jesus in Earliest Christianity. (Grand Rapids, MI: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 2005). v John Dorhauer, the General Minister and President of the United Church of Christ, draws extensively on the wit and wisdom of David Ruhe in Beyond Resistance: The Institutional Church Meets the Postmodern World. (Chicago, IL: Exploration Press, 2015), pp.45-62. vi See this bemused Rolling Stone article to get a sense of Dylan toward the end of this period: http://www.rollingstone.com/music/news/bob-dylan-recovering-christian-19840621 vii I am thinking here of the poem of Kahil Gibran, set to music by Sweet Honey in the Rock. See Mary Benatar’s Huffington Post blog for the text and a reflection: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/may-benatar-phd-lcsw/your-children-are-not-you_1_b_6571248.html