Message:
What a narrative! If you chose to watch the video clip of the Acts story you will have seen these: human trafficking, slavery, the exploitation of vulnerable young women and girls, populist braying mobs, false imprisonment, a brutal flogging and cruel chains! Yet scenes these could be found anywhere in our world today. Even in this country. There are injustices and crimes against God’s kingdom of love everywhere and we thank God for those courageous individuals who today stand with victims and speak out against injustice. We give thanks for those who work in dangerous city centres and hostile environments, showing God’s love rather than just preaching it. Charities like Action for Children, Christian Aid, city missions and those working to release children trapped in drug County Lines. We also celebrate those who bravely help refugees fleeing violence and war, fearful of reprisals should they return, and those who offer a welcome and sanctuary like in our own MAP.
But as well as those in enforced exile, as well as those trapped physically and literally in poverty, and those bound by real alcohol and drug dependencies, there can be others who are trapped in their mind. The little slave girl with her “spirit of divination” was probably in that category, as well as being legally bound to her owners. The jailer too was terrified at the possible reprisals for him and his family should his special prisoners have escaped because of the earthquake which had loosed everyone’s chains. Sometimes fear and paralysis comes from within. There are dungeons of the mind and people need both psychological support and love in breaking free from them
What keeps us bound?There are powers, ideas, that keep us bound: old prejudices, systemic injustice that we don't even see but certainly benefit from: a need for security, fear that makes us suspect strangers, resentment that grips us and keeps us apart...perhaps we don't call these "demons" or even "spirits," but they are powerful indeed and we need to be set free from them. Remember, in prison, Luke says Paul and Silas sang, the very act of singing gave them strength and inspiration. Songs and hymns are, in their own way, a haunting and defiant claim of freedom; think of American spirituals, gospel music and the 60s Civil Rights songs. In the 18thcentury Methodism was born in song and Charles Wesley’s hymns give a moving eloquent voice to ideas of Christian liberation, salvation, and transformation. Here’s one
Hymn: O For a thousand tongues to sing
https://youtu.be/b2dYT_Anl6E?si=YtLlcjxozwg5dKcE
