Broadway Christian Church · Columbia, Missouri

The Worship of God · May 16, 2010

Litany of Praise

From Psalm 97

There is only one monarch who deserves our highest praise, the Lord our God.

            Like lightening and fire, his glory fills the world.

We worship nothing less than this:

            The God that is above all ideas about God,

            the one who is always more than we imagine.

Let us pray:

            Deliver us from the worship of the little gods that seek our devotion

            and turn us instead to the bedrock of all life

            in whom we live and move and have our being. Amen.

Glory be to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Ghost;

As it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be,

World without end. Amen. Amen.

Pastoral Prayer

Jacob Thorne

Gracious God and Loving God, this morning we bring our fragmented lives into the wholeness of your presence. We bring our wandering thoughts into your eternal light. We bring our restless spirits into the calming strength of your grace. 

We give you thanks because, even in moments of anxiety – when the threads of our lives are hanging loose, sometimes chaotic and disconnected – we can be confident that you are with us. All too often, we operate under the assumption that the way to find rest for our souls is to cross one more task off the list. However, we know that true rest comes from you, our rock and redeemer. As we journey down life’s road, we do so not alone, but with your guiding and tender Spirit.

Now hear us, O God, as we say together the prayer that your Son taught us…

Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed by thy name. Thy kingdom come, thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread and forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors. And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil: for thine is the kingdom, the power, and glory, forever. Amen.

New Testament Lesson

Acts 16:16-34

One day, as we were going to the place of prayer, we met a slave-girl who had a spirit of divination and brought her owners a great deal of money by fortune-telling. While she followed Paul and us, she would cry out, “These men are slaves of the Most High God, who proclaim to you a way of salvation.” She kept doing this for many days. But Paul, very much annoyed, turned, and said to the spirit, “I order you in the name of Jesus Christ to come out of her.” And it came out that very hour.

But when her owners saw that their hope of making money was gone, they seized Paul and Silas and dragged them into the marketplace before the authorities. When they had brought them before the magistrates, they said, “These men are disturbing our city; they are Jews and are advocating customs that are not lawful for us as Romans to adopt or observe.” The crowd joined in attacking them, and the magistrates had them stripped of their clothing and ordered them to be beaten with rods. After they had given them a severe flogging, they threw them into prison and ordered the jailer to keep them securely. Following these instructions, he put them in the innermost cell and fastened their feet in the stocks.

About midnight Paul and Silas were praying and singing hymns to God, and the prisoners were listening to them. Suddenly there was an earthquake, so violent that the foundations of the prison were shaken; and immediately all the doors were opened and everyone’s chains were unfastened. When the jailer woke up and saw the prison doors wide open, he drew his sword and was about to kill himself, since he supposed that the prisoners had escaped. But Paul shouted in a loud voice, “Do not harm yourself, for we are all here.” The jailer called for lights, and rushing in, he fell down trembling before Paul and Silas. Then he brought them outside and said, “Sirs, what must I do to be saved?” They answered, “Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and you will be saved, you and your household.” They spoke the word of the Lord to him and to all who were in his house. At the same hour of the night he took them and washed their wounds; then he and his entire family were baptized without delay. He brought them up into the house and set food before them; and he and his entire household rejoiced that he had become a believer in God.

Message

Baggage Fees

Jacob Thorne

Well… Have you ever had an experience like this? It is a perfect day – no rain, no clouds. You are out there with your friends or family, and you have your campfire going. The tent is set up perfectly. You roasted the hot dogs, and you toasted the marshmallows. A couple of them caught on fire, but they taste so good when they are burned black. Right? Yes! The kids go to sleep. Finally, it is time for you to go to sleep. So, very quietly, you unzip the tent door. You step inside, and then you zip it back closed. You snuggle down into your sleeping bag. You s-t-r-e-t-c-h, and you breathe in that fresh air, and you think how good it feels to be out in nature. You look up through the dome of your tent, and you see the star-lit sky. Everything is just so perfect. You place the flashlight right next to you. And you breathe in the smells and scents of nature, and you are almost asleep.

But then… Right next to your ear, you hear this noise that sounds like this, “Bzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz.” Oh, you know what it is. It is that mosquito in the tent. So, you sort of swat around. You get out of your sleeping bag. You turn on your flashlight. You wake everybody. Everybody is swatting in the tent. Of course, you don’t see the mosquito. You can’t know where the insect is. You think, “Well, maybe I just imagined it.” 

You repeat the entire process. Back in the sleeping bag. Stretch, yawn, place the flashlight. This time you really are asleep; you think.

“Bzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz.” It is just right there. This process goes on and on all night long. Finally, you just give up. But you know – you know – that while you are sleeping, that mosquito is just flying around and scoping out its next victim, which is going to be, without a doubt, you!

Life is full of annoyances. There are the small annoyances like the mosquito, so you carry around your Repel. But then, there are the other annoyances, like having to wash the car, or you are supposed to keep the car clean. Cleaning the house on a weekly or daily basis, or how ever often it is supposed to be done at your house. Oh. I don’t know if this problem ever bothers you or not, but a bad hair day! And it is always right before it is time to go to work. The yard that always needs to be mowed, if it ever stops raining. The assignments at school; the tests at the end the year. The finals just keep on piling up. Oh, the projects at work; they just never end.

Now, one way to think of these less consequential facets of life is to see them as just small items of baggage. You can’t always shake them. So, what do you do? You end up packing them with you. [Editor’s note: Jacob is stuffing a backpack with items as he shares these ideas.] You stuff them down. You put on your backpack. You strap it all on. Really, it doesn’t weigh that much, because these small annoyances are small. Everything still fits in your backpack.

Then, you get the larger burdens of life. These larger burdens are the relationships at work, the relationships at home, jobs that require too much, jobs that require too little, the everyday stresses of life. There are major health and wellness issues. Very soon, your backpack becomes heavy. It is not very comfortable to carry around at all. It is not light.

So, what do you do? You find yourself sitting down. You just have to unsnap everything. You lay your burdens down. It is so much nicer to take off.

Our text that we heard read to us just a few moments ago isn’t a text about camping or mosquitoes. But it is a text about annoyance. Leading up to this passage, as we heard last week, Paul had been traveling all around the countryside. He is going from city to city. He is preaching the good news of Jesus Christ. As an itinerant preacher, Paul would walk up and down the streets preaching the good news. While he is in the city of Philippi, where this morning’s text is set, this slave-girl starts following him around. For days and days, wherever Paul would walk, this girl would walk as well. She could see into the future.

When you read this text in the Scripture, it is hard to pick up the tone of the text. It is something like an e-mail; you can’t always read the tone of an e-mail. What this girl was saying was a mocking tone. Paul was almost like swatting at her. She was saying, “These men are slaves of the Most High God. They proclaim to you a way of salvation.” She repeats it over and over and over. Her understanding of the future was accurate, which is ironic, because here was Paul in this Roman town where there weren’t many people of the Jewish faith. They really didn’t understand what he was talking about. Even though she was telling the truth, Paul became so frustrated and annoyed. Finally, he just turned to her and said to her, “I command the spirit that is making you say this to flee, and be healed.”

All of a sudden, she is healed! Her owners are not at all happy that Paul has healed her of this spirit. She was the way they made their living, their livelihood. She was able to see into the future, and people would pay money for this. So, what did they do? They literally grab Paul and his followers. They haul them off to jail. They present them to the magistrates and say, “These people don’t understand our customs. They have ruined our future for us. We demand that you do something about it.”

They take Paul and his followers and beat them, and they strip them of their clothing, all of their possessions. They throw them into the deepest and darkest cell there is. And as an extra act of humiliation, shackles are put around their feet.

But, Paul, despite the fact that he is in this deep, dark, miserable prison cell, no longer appears annoyed. In fact, it’s almost as if Paul is an entirely new and different person. Instead of dwelling on the terrible circumstances surrounding him, instead of focusing on his pain, Paul and his followers start to sing praises to God. They pray together. They have conversation with the other prisoners.

While very few of us in this room have ever been thrown in jail for exorcizing a demon, we have all reacted in annoyance before. Maybe for days, something has been bugging you. It is slowly driving you crazy. All at once, you blow up, and you say something. You address the situation. Then, when it is all over, you begin to think about your actions, and what you said, and what you did, and what you meant, and what you should have said, and what you wished you would have said. You start to see things in a different light. You start to think about what is really important.

When he is sitting in that prison cell, Paul reclaims this unique gift he has of learning how to be content, no matter what the situation in life. In his letter to the church at Philippi, reflecting on his experience in this prison cell, Paul says, “I have learned to be content with no matter what I have. I know what it is to have little, and I know what it is to have plenty. In any and all circumstances, I have learned the act of being well-fed and of going hungry, of having plenty and of being in need. I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me.”

When he is sitting in that prison cell, Paul demonstrates that those who are imprisoned can still have a heart that is free. Those who think they are free are sometimes imprisoned. Because when it is all gone; when there is nothing left to carry; when everything has been stripped away, Paul finds a deeper strength. It is a reality that reaches far, far beyond himself. We call that “grace.”

Now… I don’t know what her name was. But her name was not “Grace.” Because the other day, I was at the airport. The night before, I had systematically and efficiently packed my bag. I was very, very thorough about this. In my opinion, I had the perfect carry-on bag. It wasn’t too big. It wasn’t too small. But when I arrived at the gate, this lady who was collecting the tickets – the gatekeeper – put her hands on her hip and looked at me. She said, “Umm, that bag is too big. You have to check it.” 

I said, “Oh, no, no. This bag isn’t too big. I promise you; I fly with this bag all the time. You’re mistaken.” 

Oh, wrong words to say! 

“I am not mistaken! I run this place!”

“OK.”

You can see this line of people behind me, and they are saying, “What’s this guy doing?”

We had this conversation back and forth. I will call it an amicable conversation – a little frustration, a little annoyance. Finally, she says, “All right. Fine. Whatever. I’ll humor you. Go put your bag in the little metal carrier, and I will show you that it is not the right size.”

“OK. Fair enough.” I’m feeling so smart, because I know it’s fine. I carry it over to the metal container. I put it in. Guess what? It’s not even close to the right size. So I smashed it down. I push on it. I turned around and sat on it. 

She said, “Oh, fine. Just take it! Take it! Get on the plane!”

She was annoyed, and I was annoyed. Everybody behind me was annoyed. I didn’t admit it to her, but as soon as I got on that plane, I knew what I had done. I had way over-packed. I ended up not even wearing half of those clothes on the trip. 

But while I thought about how annoyed I was, I remembered a preacher I once heard that distinguished between luggage and baggage. Luggage is what we need for the journey. It is the essentials. You have to lug it. Baggage is what we think we need. You need to bag it. How we pack says a lot about who we are.

Remember President Theodore Roosevelt? He was president number 25. He ran for a third term. He lost. So he felt like he had been beaten down. He needed a big challenge. So, he thought to himself, “What is the hardest thing I can do?” All of a sudden, he came up with this great idea. He decided, “I’m going to take my son and a couple of other people. We are going to go to South America. We are going to explore an uncharted tributary of the Amazon. It is one of the most dangerous places in the world.”

They get to South America. They get on this river. Very soon, everything starts going wrong. Several people are killed. The river is hard to navigate. They didn’t pack appropriately. Roosevelt, halfway through the trip, starts being attacked by these flesh-eating bacteria. He is literally shriveling down to nothing. At one point, it is so bad that Roosevelt turned to his son, Kermit, and says, “Leave me here to die.”

But Kermit doesn’t leave him. Roosevelt makes it back. He comes back on this hero’s welcome back to New York City. He is on this big ship. All the reporters look at him. They are used to a man who used to be so strong and full of life and energy. All of the headlines read, “Roosevelt comes back weak.” “Roosevelt loses his vigor.” Roosevelt isn’t the person that he once was.” 

That trip almost killed him, literally. As I read the book, The River of Doubt, that chronicled this journey, I couldn’t help but think that maybe it was because his baggage got in the way. Because when you read the list of supplies they packed for that trip, it is completely inadequate for the task at hand. Roosevelt thought it was important to have such things as tins of marmalade, five different types of English breakfast teas, mustard, and wonderful camping cots that you carry to use for sleeping. He didn’t pack – he didn’t bring his luggage – for the necessities of what the journey required.

All too often in life, we carry around this unneeded baggage. We get annoyed at the things people do and say. We get annoyed when someone is constantly following us around and talking, even if what they are saying is the truth. We get annoyed when someone doesn’t meet our level of expectations. We get annoyed when we don’t live up to our own levels of expectation, our own levels of perfection. Because we carry regret, and sorrow, and fear, and resentment. When you carry all of this, it is not so easy to unpack. You can’t just drop it all. But, if it is bringing you down… If it is constantly annoying you... You have to address it. Every little thing. Remember, it is the little things that add up to the big things. So, maybe, it is time to lighten up.

After Paul and Silas had been sitting in that jail for several hours, there was this tremendous earthquake. Everything around was shaking. All of a sudden, the prison doors flew open. The shackles fell off their feet. Paul, Silas, their followers, and the other prisoners were free to leave the prison cell. The jailer woke, and he drew his sword, because he was ready to kill himself. He had been responsible for these prisoners, and they were now free. He ran down to the jail cell expecting it to be empty. But there were Paul, Silas, and the other prisoners. They were still praying, and singing, and talking with one another. The jailer, realizing that Paul must be a divine messenger who had a connection with somebody so much deeper than his own self, said to him, “What must I do to be saved?”

Paul said, “Believe in the Lord Jesus, and you, too, will be saved.” 

Paul was suggesting free yourself from your own bondage. In order to free yourself from you own bondage, you have to let go of all of the preconceived notions and baggage that is holding you back. 

Paul had every right to be irritated with that jailer.  He had been beaten. He had been abused. He had been stripped of everything he owned. He had been thrown in that cell, but he didn’t respond with anger when the jailer asked him a question. Instead, he responded with love. It changed the life of that jailer and the family of that jailer forever. What the jailer ended up doing was he took Paul and his followers back to his house. He washed their wounds. They sat down at the table. They shared a meal together. They ended up praying together. The next day, Paul refused to leave the city until the authorities officially apologized for their abuse and treatment he had received. Paul got his apology. Then he picked up his bag, and he walked back down the road. He was carrying his luggage on the way.  They were singing, and they were praying.

The truth is life is a journey. We are all on it. But we are called to honor our emotions. When you find yourself beaten down… When you find yourself shackled in a place where you do not want to be… Even though it is hard, Paul suggests we need to keep on praying, keep on praising God. Because you never know when God will shake the earth and set you free.

Through Christ, we all say together… “Amen.”

Benediction

And now, as you go forth, may you find yourself on life’s journey. May you let go of the baggage that is holding you back. May you know, always, the love, grace, and peace of God. Amen.