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May 16, 2010, MLC, 7^th Sunday of Easter. Ps. 97, Acts 16. 16ff.

Baptism of Lucia Clara Palombo

I feel not unlike the scrawny 14 year-old on our church basketball team in Tullahoma Tenn. Holy Trinity Lutheran church.

The church league played on Saturday mornings and being a church league EVERYBODY got to play. 

I tell you this because I love to play but spent most of my time on the bench… the bottom seat of the bleachers, for obvious reasons.

When the coach put me in and I finally did get to play, I would get so excited that I forgot to dribble the ball.

If there is one call I can not get out of my mind to this day... it is “walking.”

This morning is one of those times…

So if I forget to dribble the ball you know why.

In the life of the church this is one of those Sundays… it is the 7^th Sunday of Easter; it is the Sunday after the Ascension… that was Thursday.

I wonder how many of us knew the day?

Each week we proclaim, “he ascended into heaven, he is seated at the right hand of the father…” that is not a small footnote of church doctrine. It is big!

Next Sunday is Pentecost and to top it off, there is a baptism, as Lucia Clara is grafted into the communion of saints. A community of God’s people that stretches from the Garden of Eden all the way into Eternity.

I can imagine those who come up with the scripture readings for this day saying, let’s find the oddest most outrageous Bible references we can find to celebrate this last Sunday of the Easter Season in the Church.

So, I feel a bit like I did when I was 14, on a Saturday morning playing basketball for the Lutheran Saints in Tullahoma, Tenn.

I hear someone call my name, as I am half aware that I’m on the court.

Then I have the ball… then the whistle and this time it is a double dribble… and the other team gets the ball.

Again I sit on the bench... but that was then and this is now.

I’m overwhelmed by it all…  God addressing us through Word in those verses we hear of an exorcism. A young girl who provides an income for her owners by fortune-telling!

A girl being exploited for the gift of looking into the future.

But this is also an Ascension story.

Just as Jesus, on many occasions in his ministry had silenced hostile spirits, now the disciples do the same.

The girl is given back her freedom to be who God created her to be; not demon- possessed but Spirit-possessed.

The Good News is that Easter gives us back our freedom to be Spirit-possessed, to be who God created us to be.

We don’t have to be what others want us to be, what society wants us to be.

I have been told on more than one occasion that I don’t fit someone’s ideal of a minister, even my wife tells me on occasion.

Ministers aren’t the only ones who get labels.

He’s not presidential enough. Or I’m not going back to that Dr. He has a ponytail and wear’s sneakers and blue jeans.

The owners of the girl in the story are angered by the freedom that the slave girl was given by Paul and Silas who prayed “and Paul said to the possessing spirit: I order you in the name of Jesus Christ to come out of her.”

But there is a price to pay to be open to God’s presence.

People who practice emancipation and give those possessed by whatever dominates them always rock the boat. 

Always upset the apple cart. If you want to know who they are look on p. 15 ELW… Starting with Jan. 15 MLK Jr. martyr 1968.

The world would rather us be less than God would have us be.

The magistrate is called and the official powers of Government and the mob join forces to restrain the freedom given through Jesus.

The court order given, reminds us that the freedom of a Christian to speak out against injustice and to heal those who are broken will be met with opposition.

The status quo will do all within its power to cancel and undermine the Spirit of Christ and the Resurrection.

Paul and Silas are thrown in jail for disturbing the peace.

They are locked up but are free.

They pray, sing hymns, and soon the other prisoners listen and are drawn into the song of freedom and liberation…

At the end of WWII another man was thrown into the Tegel prison for disturbing the peace. 

From his letters that were written during that time we learn that on more than one occasion his guards had to be changed because he too had them singing and praying with him.

Unlike Paul and Silas, Pastor Bonhoeffer did not walk out of his prison he was executed only a few days before the allied liberation. But he too was free and did not succumb to the Power of the state to shackle him.

In the case of Paul and Silas, when the guard realized what had happened – that his prisoners although free, were still in their cells – he knew that what he was up against was not the authorities of Rome, but the authority of God.

And he asked what all asked, what must I do to be saved?

What must I do to be whole?

What must I do to be free? The answer is always the same… “Believe on the Lord Jesus.”

So here we are on a triple-hitter Sunday… and the question is the same and so is the answer.

Whatever holds you captive, whatever enslaves you, the Easter Gospel is here to set you free…

We sing hymns, we pray, we hear that God’s love is there to cast whatever holds you captive…

It is no wonder that on this Sunday it is the 97^th Ps. That we sing…

The Lord reigns; let the earth rejoice; let the multitude of the Sea (Isles) be glad.

I am awed, humbled, and touched by the beauty and mystery of it all.

Lori and Zach

You didn’t think I would not talk about you today…?

Lori and Zach, bring that which is most precious in their lives to Him who is even more precious…

Like all good parents you only want the very best for your daughter…

You want her to know the love of God. You want her to feel the grace, freedom and joy that pours over LUCIA CLARA as she born again a child of Easter and the resurrection.

Like the slave girl who has no name she now is given a name Lucia Clara child of God.

Like the Jailer and the jailed, she is set free from Sin and what ever would keep her chained and shackled.

So, as the Easter Preface so breathlessly proclaims:

 “It is indeed right, our duty and our joy, that we should at all times and in all paces give thanks and praise to you, almighty and merciful God, for the glorious resurrection of our Savior Jesus Christ, the true paschal lamb who gave himself to take away our sin, who in dying has destroyed death, and in rising has brought us to eternal life. And so with Mary Magdalene and Peter and all the witnesses of the resurrection, with earth and sea and all their creatures, with angels and archangels, cherubim and seraphim, we praise your name and join their unending hymn—amen.