"Waiting for an Earthquake"

Acts 16: 16-40
May 16, 2010 – 7th Sunday of Easter
First United Church – Sermon by Rev. Caela Simmons Wood

My son, M, will be three months old tomorrow. He’s officially moving out of his “fourth trimester” – that time during infancy where a newborn is busily adjusting to life “on the outside.” As I’m sure you can imagine, David and I have been reading all kind of research about parenting and child development and – as near as we can tell – these first couple of months are really important for babies. Having just gone through the trauma of coming into the wider world, they rely on their parents to provide stability and comfort. They come to us totally helpless and need constant nurturing if they are to develop a general trust in the world that will serve them their entire lives.

David and I see parenting as one of those God-given gifts and responsibilities that we have been blessed to receive. M, like all children, is a beloved child of God. Now sometimes, at three in the morning, this is all a bit much to remember, but we do our best. As his parents, it’s our duty to take care of him to the best of our ability – to make sure he’s well-fed, warm, safe, and surrounded with love.

A few weeks ago, I was talking with a group of mothers about the surprises that come with being a parent. One of the women said that what surprised her the most after she became a mother was how angry she felt whenever she heard that someone had mistreated a child.

I couldn’t agree more. Sure, I’ve always shook my head and wondered aloud how people could hurt a child, but there is something about being a parent that makes it even more incomprehensible. There is something about being in a relationship with just one child – a relationship that is so filled with wonder and mutual delight – there is something about that relationship that makes me think about all children in a different way.

I feel a new responsibility and care for other children – complete strangers, even – that I never felt before.

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The scripture reading from Acts today is one of those that is just filled to the brim with plot.

I can image at least 20 different directions you could take a sermon on this one small passage. It is filled with characters – you’ve got the slave-girl who is possessed by a spirit that enables her to tell the future; you’ve got her owners who are taking in tons of money by using this girl; you’ve got Paul and Silas and their friends who the slave-girl proclaims to be “slaves of the Most High God,”; you’ve got the magistrates who make no secret of their disgust for Paul and Silas – calling them outside agitators and sneering at their Jewish heritage; and then after the scene shifts to the prison there are still more characters!

There are other prisoners – we don’t learn much about them; there is the jailer who becomes suicidal upon learning that the prison has been broken open by the earthquake; and finally, you have the jailer’s family who are all baptized alongside him after he accepts Paul’s offer of salvation.

I mean, really – how many sermons could you find in this one story? It is absolutely rich with characters, images, plot, and plenty of ideas about what it means to be a follower of Christ.

One of the threads that I see running throughout this story is the overarching theme of enslavement and freedom.

The story opens with an enslaved girl who follows around Paul and friends calling them slaves. After freeing her from her possession by a spirit, Paul and Silas becomes captives themselves – shut up in prison because they have pushed up against the power structure in Philippi and because they are Jews.

And it’s not just the obvious places that this theme trickles through the story, either, we also see that even the jailer – the one who holds the keys and keeps Paul and Silas in prison – is not free himself. He is bound up by his fear that he will be killed if his prisoners escape. Even the jailer – the one holding the keys – asks for freedom in the end, coming tentatively to Paul and Silas and saying, “what must I do to be saved?”

It seems that everyone in this story is seeking freedom. Freedom from demons and captors, freedom from anti-Semitism, freedom from a brick and mortar prison, freedom from expectations, freedom from fear and oppression in general.

Paul and Silas may have been the only ones praying and singing hymns to God at midnight, but it’s easy to imagine any character in this story singing that they want to break free.

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And in this story, there is one character that breaks in time and time again to offer that freedom.

The author of Acts makes it clear to us that God is the source of freedom for everyone in this story. God breaks into their world in weird and wonderful ways to offer liberation.

It turns out that the enslaved girl had it right all along, “These men are slaves of the Most High God, who proclaim to you a way of salvation.” God offers salvation – freedom from captivity – and….this is the really amazing part…God offers it to those who are in jail and those who put people in jail.

Now, many of us sitting in these pews today might not know someone who is in jail. And you might not know any jailers, either. But that’s not because imprisoned folks aren’t out there.

In fact, there are over 2.3 million people in the United States that live in a prison and about 5 million more who are on probation or parole. [1] The number of people imprisoned in the U.S. has increased – get this – 500% in the last 30 years.[2]

This is a major moral, theological, and human issue sitting right on our doorstep. And, I don’t know about you, but I don’t think about it that often. And I think that’s a problem.

I have a feeling I would be thinking about it more often if I wasn’t white.

Because here’s the deal – my son, my dear, sweet, innocent M who is three months old tomorrow – he has a one in 17 chance of going to jail at some point in his life. Now that number seems pretty high to me. High enough that it makes me wonder if I should be thinking about our prison population more often.

But if M were Latino, he would have a one in six chance of going to jail. And if M were black – it would be one in three.

A one in three chance that he would end up in jail. Just think about that for a brief second. Think about our kids playing and learning down the hallway right now. Imagine the little boys you just saw up here on the steps for children’s time a few minutes ago. And imagine that if we were a black church, instead of mostly white, we would live to see a full one-third of those little guys behind bars someday.

I don’t know about you, but I’m starting to think that these are things we should be pondering more often. If the God we worship and the Christ we seek to follow make promises of salvation – and salvation in this story sure looks a lot like freedom – how can we sit around and not care about the more than 6,000 children in this country serving life-sentences….almost 2,000 of them with no possibility of parole?

What is our responsibility to these children? How should we relate to them as fellow humans? As gifts from God? What is our calling, as Christians, as we come face to face with the realization that our nation imprisons more children than any other? How do we proclaim a religion of freedom in the face of this stark reality?

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The Children’s Defense Fund is a non-profit organization, founded by Civil Rights activist Marian Wright Edelman. The mission of the CDF is to leave no child behind – and they have been a consistent source of advocacy and research on child welfare since 1973. I had the privilege of hearing Ms. Edelman speak a few years ago at the United Church of Christ General Synod. She spoke about the “cradle to prison pipeline” that exists in this country.

Due to pervasive poverty, inadequate access to health coverage, gaps in early childhood development, disparate educational opportunities and myriad other problems, there are some children in this country who are never given a fair shake. [3]

There are some gifts from God that we – as a society – do not treat as small creatures filled with sacred possibility.

There are parents who – just like me – want nothing more than to feed, clothe, shelter, and protect their children….but – unlike me – are unable to do so. And it’s impossible to ignore the harsh reality that most of these children don’t look much like M because most of the kids in the cradle to prison pipeline are children of color.

Faced with the reality that our country is still racist – despite the election of a president who has one white parent and one black – I often feel totally overwhelmed. The enormity of our communal sin drives me into despair.

Just in the past few weeks we’ve seen the state of Arizona pass legislation that forbids teaching ethnic studies and a classy television gubernatorial ad with a candidate proclaiming proudly, “This is Alabama, we speak English.”

Like Paul and Silas, we seem to be stuck in a dark prison cell and it feels like there is nowhere to turn but prayer and quiet humming of songs that might lift our spirits. As we wait for an earthquake from God – a earthquake that will shake the very foundations of cultural assumptions and social norms – what else are we to do? Like the jailer we cry out, “What must we do to be saved?”

Some of us await salvation from un-asked-for and sometimes unexamined membership in the ruling class. Just because we were born white we are granted enormous privileges that others don’t have. M didn’t do anything special to earn a one in 17 chance of going to prison instead of a one in 3 chance – he just happens to have two white parents.

Others of us are working to deal with deep-seated stereotypes and ways of being that were taught to us as children. We await salvation from racist ideas that creep into our hearts unexpectedly, shocking and shaming us.

And still others of us struggle daily in the face of racism because it is directed at us. Like Paul and Silas, we are seen as outsiders simply because of who we are as people.

Racism is one of those cruel sins that just keeps on giving – it harms those who have power and those who have had it taken away.

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And as I sit in the cold dark reality of the prison cell that is our culture and our racist heritage, I quietly pray and sing hymns to God.

I am waiting for an earthquake.

I know that God is active in our world through the work of people. Big, important people like Marian Wright Edelman. People like Candace Kuby who studies and observes the way young children experience racism and Lanier Holt who examine the way racism and the media interact. People like Norm Overly who work as CASA volunteers – helping children on that cradle to prison pipeline bust out before it’s too late. People like Chris Clouse, Sara and Micah Mobley, Chad Nunley, Linda Plaford, and other teachers who work with children in our public schools each day.

I am waiting for an earthquake.

I know that God is a character in today’s story just as God was a character in Paul and Silas’s story. God is the one who comes to offer salvation – and let’s not forget that salvation in this story looks a whole lot like some unlocked chains – God comes to offer salvation not just to those who are in prison but those who put them there.

I am waiting for an earthquake. And I know that one day, the very foundations of our racist society will shake and be broken.









[1] Source: www.thesentencingproject.org


[2] Ibid.


[3] This list comes form the Cradle to Prison Pipeline Campaign report from the CDF. http://www.childrensdefense.org/helping-americas-children/cradle-to-prison-pipeline-campaign/