Sermon for the Seventh Sunday of Easter, Year C (6-1-25)

Imagine with me you've taken into your home two strangers. They'd caused trouble in your streets. They'd rabbled and roused, if you will. They'd been arrested, jailed, and placed under your guard. Then they'd seemingly been set free by earthshaking means you cannot explain. And now, here they are in your house. 

Paul and Silas are their names. Jews. An unpopular lot by your Roman estimation - or so you've been taught. But they come baring a reputation as preachers - and not just any preachers - but preachers in service of a new kind of God. Not a God who needs to be placated by burnt offerings, whose ego needs to be stroked, whose rage and wrath needs to be staved off by acts of devotion - but a God who has become one of that same God's creation. A curious idea. A God who has deigned to stoop down to human nature - to draw near to a beloved creation. And not just simply to rule tyrannically over it.

Imagine with me being so transformed by meeting these men, and by hearing their story, and by being introduced to their God that instead of carrying out your own death sentence for punishment for their own kind-of-but-not-really escape - you invite them into your home. Introduce them to your family. And decide that life can actually be different. That it can be about life even in the face of death. And that it can be bigger than what life seemingly is this day. And that it can change everything.

And now imagine with me that all of this happens. But then the jail wardens - you bosses - find out that these two inspiring men have indeed escaped. And imagine with me, that they kill you anyway.  We don't know that this is the fate of our unsung hero from today's passage from Acts. But we also don't know that it's not. He was willing to fall on his own sword initially because he knew it would be the only outcome for a prison break on his watch. As an agent of the empire whose peace - the Pax Romana - was only possible with the underwriting promise of death one way or another.

But this is such a grim prospect for someone who our scriptures would lead us to believe was saved; he and his household. But saved from what?

If we're being cynical we might say something like "no good deed goes unpunished". Or if we're thinking in terms of the Good News of Jesus we might say something in line with our collect of the day: "Do not leave us comfortless [oh God], but send us your Holy Spirit to strengthen us, and exalt us to that place where our Savior Christ has gone before.

You see, if we rewind this whole story we see a string of right actions that - if we're being honest - lead to immediate crappy outcomes. We see no immediate gratification. What we do see is an arc of God's loving and saving power working through clunky, willful, inspired - if not recklessly hopeful - human action.

During our visit to Savannah, GA last week Charlie and I had the great privilege to be in the presence of a warm, brilliant, and quietly formidable black woman of Gullah Geechee heritage. And who is known by everyone as Sister Pat. Born and raised in the GA Lowcountry Sister Pat then spent a career as a paralegal and then wildly effective lobbyist at the American Civil Liberties Union. A self-proclaimed truth-teller, she now runs the Slavery to Freedom tour in Savannah - one of the most nuanced, sobering, and compelling experienced I've had in a very long time.

On the tour Sister Pat told us about her very first day of work at the ACLU. A young, excited lady looking to fight for the rights of all. Who then took her first appointment with none other than the local leader of the KKK.  You see, the Klan had been denied a permit to protest - in all honesty - on unconstitutional grounds. And this Klansman came to the one place he knew would fight to see that right reinstated. As you could image every jaw on that bus was already agape. Because, can you imagine? First day for this descendent of enslaved West African people and this is what is presented to her. So, what did she do? Or more importantly: what was the next right thing to do?

She met with that man and decided to defend his case. Not because she liked it, or agreed with what this hate group stood for, but in her own words "because the ACLU was established to defend the civil rights of all Americans. And all means all." And now imagine how quiet that bus was while we were hanging on every single word.

So she did defend it. She went to city hall, pressed them to give the permit to lawfully protest, and protest the KKK did. And Sister Pat went to watch it (and I'd imagine to keep a very close eye out for the slightest act of lawlessness just in case). But what she shared next changed everything. I'm paraphrasing here but she said something like: "and I went to that square to looked around. And on one corner was the Klan, yes. But on the other was a women's rights group, and on the other was a church group demonstrating for equal access to education for marginalized children, and on the other corner was a demonstration bringing attention to the growing AIDS crisis. And it was only at THAT exact moment - that I truly knew, deep down - that we were gonna be alright"

So what happened here? Sister Pat did what she determined in her own estimation was the next right thing to do. Did she personally profit from this act. If she did, it was only after seeing how it was part of something bigger. Bigger than her, bigger than the Klan, bigger even than some of the broad lofty goals that she had set for herself and people like her. And mind you this was nearly 50 years ago.

But as Deacon Rob reminded us several months ago: it's always the right time to do the right thing. Today I'll add that it's always the right time to do the next right thing that you can determine, with God's help. Even if the ultimate outcome is still known to God alone.

I think Sister Pat, Paul and Silas could hang. And I'm pretty sure they will, in the fullness of time. 

Amen.