No One is Free until We All are Free

Today is the last Sunday of the Easter season.

Next week is Pentecost so don’t forget to wear your red.

We’re still primarily focusing on the lessons from Acts.

And, in the Acts passage, I think our tendency might be to skip right over Paul’s casting out the spirit of divination from the slave girl and focus on the miracle of Paul and Silas’ liberation.

If we do that, I think we’re missing some important parallels in the lesson.

Now, while I really like the language of the Inclusive Bible most of the time, in today’s lesson, it does us a bit of a disservice.

You see, the girl possessed by the spirit of divination wasn’t just a “household worker”.

She was a slave.

And she—or perhaps more accurately, her demon—doesn’t just say Paul and the disciples are “faithful followers of the Most High God”, she says they are slaves of the Most High God.

At least that is how the NRSV renders the Greek.

She draws a parallel between herself and the evangelists that she follows.

The difference, of course, is that her servitude is not voluntary.

The girl follows Paul and his disciples, shouting after them about how they are slaves of the Most High God proclaiming the way of salvation.

Out of frustration from her repeated presence, Paul casts out her demon.

When he does so, he frees the girl from her spiritual torment.

There’s a good chance that he may also have freed her from her physical bondage because he removed the thing that made the girl valuable to her owners.

So, she was made free—definitely spiritually, and perhaps physically as well.

Then, in a twist of fate, Paul is made a prisoner for his action.

Now, it’s probably safe to assume that Paul was spiritually free because of his faith.

But physically, he was no longer free.

Paul and Silas make their presence known to God by their praise and their singing—much as the slave girl made her presence known to Paul.

And God responds to Paul’s imprisonment—just as Paul responded to the girl’s possession.

And Paul is made free—first from his chains, and then from his prison.

And then, there is the jailer.

He is a slave to his position—so much so that he is willing to kill himself for failure.

And—in a broader sense—he is a slave to sin.

So he makes his presence known to Paul, “what must I do to be saved?”

And Paul responds—as God responded to Paul and Paul responded to the girl.

He preaches to the jailer and his family.

He baptizes them—and he frees them sin and death by bringing them to God.

Three very different stories of bondage.

And three different stories of liberation.

But there is a thread that runs through all of them.

There are all kinds of ways to be a slave.

But freedom begins with our faith in God.

And because everyone in today’s lesson is freed from their individual bondage, I would add that the following adage also holds true:

No one is free until we all are free.

Last week, Rich told us that 12 Rutgers students had their visas canceled.

Unfortunately, this is happening all over the country.

Foreign students are finding themselves imprisoned by uncertainty.

They are uncertain whether they’ll be allowed to stay in this country.

They are uncertain whether they’ll be able to complete their degrees.

Some find themselves in this situation for daring to speak out about the injustices occurring in Gaza.

Others are undoubtedly the victims of xenophobia, Islamaphobia, or racism.

We are all slaves to the uncertainty of what in the world is going to happen next.

And I’m gonna say no one is free until we all are free.

There is economic disparity in this country.

The wealth of this country was built on the backs of African slaves.

And—while it may have started with slavery—the economic disparity didn’t end there.

Emancipated slaves received no compensation for lost wages, nor were they given land to homestead—although white settlers from Europe got plenty.

Emancipated slaves started in a financial hole that was almost impossible to climb out of.

It led many to a life of sharecropping—which wasn’t much different from slavery.

Emancipated slaves were freed from one type of bondage—only to find themselves subjected to another.

The concept of tip wages was developed to pay black waitstaff, domestic workers, and railroad porters less than minimum wage.

Redlining prevented people of color from purchasing homes—where they could accumulate wealth.

Instead, they were forced to rent—an expense that further enriched white landowners and continues to widen the wealth gap between white and black people.

Black soldiers were denied GI Bill benefits that would have allowed them to attend college—leaving them at a disadvantage in the workplace.

And then there are the various “poor taxes” that continue to adversely affect low-income families.

Food deserts force families to buy more expensive groceries at small neighborhood stores.

Lack of preventive care means more expensive medical and dental problems in the future.

Lack of local branches and restrictive bank policies, force people to use check-cashing operations, whose exorbitant fees eat away at their wages.

If you think the Emancipation Proclamation or the Civil Rights Act of 1965 or the election of Barack Obama means that economic disparity, rooted in racism, is a thing of the past—you are sadly mistaken.

We are all slaves to the financial apparatus of this country.

And no one is free until we all are free.

I had a family come to the church on Thursday.

There were three women of three generations.

And they were homeless.

They said there were seven people in two families, living in a single apartment.

They had income.

Several of the adults had jobs.

And they were evicted.

I didn’t ask why.

When I worked for Family Promise, I heard all the reasons.

The landlord raised the rent above their means.

Or perhaps the landlord wanted to cash out and sell the property.

Maybe even the families were evicted for non-payment.

But there are so many reasons why that could be.

The household breadwinner left—or died.

An unexpected expense—hospital bill, car repair, death of a loved one—meant there was no money for rent.

We live in a society where a stable place to live is seen as a privilege, not a right.

We are slaves to a system where any number of circumstances could threaten your shelter.

And siblings, hear me when I say no one is free until we all are free.

I have the privilege of knowing a good many transgender and gender nonconforming people.

Some I consider close friends.

Two of my friends are in stages of transition.

Now, to be clear, they are not transforming into something new.

They are transitioning to the gender that they deeply know themselves to be.

It’s not something new and different.

It’s not a fad or a whim.

After years of consultation with doctors and therapists, after years of hormone therapy, and after years of socially presenting as their gender—FINALLY, they will have bodies that match their identity.

It has not been without anxiety.

Both have had to deal with the uncertainty of what the administration’s “two gender” executive order means for their medical care.

And their insurance coverage.

And their ongoing medical care.

We are slaves to a system where healthcare is seen as a privilege, not a right.

Now my friends are both strong and resilient adults.

Imagine what it must be like for children and young adults—who haven’t been tested and strengthened by adversity.

Who may not have supportive communities around them.

Or what it’s like for the parents of those children who want nothing more than to protect their children—knowing full-well that gender-affirming care is suicide prevention.

We are slaves to a culture that feels empowered to dictate who we are.

God as my witness, I’ll say it again—no one is free until we all are free.

So, where does that leave us?

First, like the slave girl AND Paul AND the jailer, we must make our presence known.

We make our presence known to God through worship and prayer.

We lament oppression when we see it.

We celebrate freedom when it is won.

We make our presence known to the world through our acts of love.

Serving the least of these.

Speaking out against false witness against our neighbors.

And refusing to accept anything that diminishes the freedom that is God’s justice.

Second, it means that we have work to do.

We must continue building the Kin-dom.

We must plant the seeds of freedom wherever we can.

We must nurture freedom whenever we find it—protect it from whatever threatens it.

We must love God—the God that we know loves us—ALWAYS.

The God that loves us unconditionally.

The God that casts out the demons that hold us back from the Kin-dom—fear and hate and greed—all the things that prevent us from loving our neighbor as Jesus loves us.

The God that breaks the bonds of whatever is preventing our imago dei from shining forth and reflecting God’s love out into the world.

Last week’s gospel talked about peace.

Rich rightly pointed out that Jesus’ peace is enduring—it’s permanent—not like the peace that the world gives.

In the biblical context, peace also means wholeness or flourishing—specifically the wholeness or the flourishing that we would anticipate in the Kin-dom.

The wholeness or flourishing that we would experience under the justice of God’s Kin-dom—where we all are free.

Free from everything that limits us from living into our divinity within.

In today’s gospel, Jesus says we are one—he in us and us in him—and that we are made perfect in that unity.

May we recognize the Jesus within us—and act as we know Jesus would.

May we live into that perfect unity—with each and every one of our human siblings.

Good and gracious God, I pray that it may be so!

May this meditation on God’s word keep our hearts and minds on Christ Jesus. Amen.