2010 has seemed to be a year in which many earthquakes have taken place.
·
On January 12th, a 7.0 magnitude earthquake hit Haiti.
·
On February 27th, an 8.8 magnitude earthquake
hit Chile.
·
On March 8th an earthquake hit Turkey; and an earthquake hit China on April 14.
·
Other significant earthquakes have taken place in the Solomon
Islands (1/3); the Ryukya Island, Japan (1/3); Baja CA, Mexico (4/9); and two
earthquakes in Sumatra, Indonesia (4/7 & 5/9).
·
In total, there have been 840 earthquakes in 2010 of 5.0-9.9
magnitude. There further have been countless smaller earthquakes, including a
recent one in WV.
·
Although this may seem to us to be an abnormal number of
earthquakes, statistical data however does not indicate any significant abnormality in 2010 when compared to previous years.
Earthquakes are nothing new to the world. We read in today’s lectionary
reading of an earthquake taking place. That earthquake shook up the existing
order, and helped people to put lives in proper perspective. It all began with
Paul, Timothy, and Silas on a missionary journey throughout southern Europe. They had reached the port city of Troas, and they were
prepared for a long ministry there. However, God had other plans for these three
disciples. Therefore, one night Paul had a vision. In that vision, he saw a man from Macedonia calling for him to
come there in order to assist their congregations. Sensing that the vision was
God’s calling, Paul, Silas, and Timothy immediately sailed for the new mission field of Macedonia.
After several stops, they arrived at the city of Philippi.
The city had been created by Philip of Macedon, (the father of Alexander the Great) as a retirement community for army
veterans. Being the Sabbath, these disciples inquired where there might be a
synagogue. One of the citizen told that the few Jewish believers in the area
gathered at the Gangites River to worship. Arriving there, Paul and his companions
met with several women who were worshipping. (There seems to have not been the
10 Jewish men in Philippi that was the necessary critical mass in order to form a synagogue.)
The women invited Paul to preach the sermon, and he preached to them regarding Christ Jesus. While there, he met Lydia, a Gentile and a successful businesswomen, who was the head of her household. Lydia invited Paul and his companions to stay with her and her family. They agreed to do so.
Later that week, they set out to walk to the place of prayer by the river. An
unnamed slave girl began following them. Her owners hired her out to read peoples’
fortunes and to provide entertainment for business conventions. She suffered
from a form of untreated mental illness—perhaps schizophrenia with its hallucinations.
However, her owners did not care about her emotional illness. They only
viewed her as a piece of property, whose only value was to make a profit for them. Whenever
Paul and Silas would walk through the city, the young woman would follow them, shouting out that Paul and Silas were “slaves
of the Most High God!” At first, Paul ignored her outbursts. After a while,
however he had enough of the young woman’s raving. Therefore, he cured
her of her possession. For the first time in her life, she was well! However, despite being freed from demon possession, she was not free of being someone’s possession!
Moreover, her owners were not free enough themselves to celebrate her freedom.
They only saw that Paul had destroyed their financial investment. They
were furious. They therefore seized Paul and Silas, and dragged them into court. The slave owners were crafty. They knew
they would not be successful in charging Paul and Silas with hindering their business.
Therefore, they changed them with being a threat to national security. The
crowd immediately became anxious over the supposed threat to national security, which was posed by these newcomers.
In order to calm the waters, the judge quickly declared them guilty without having any trial. He sentenced them to be beaten with rods. Then he had them
thrown into the city prison. The next day he planned to have them run out of
town—that was how they dealt with strangers. After having been severely
beaten, Paul and Silas were jailed in a secure lock-down deep within the city’s prison.
To assure that they would not attempt to escape, the jailer secured their feet in painful iron shackles. Paul and Silas had set the young woman free, yet now these disciples of Jesus Christ were denied their
own freedom.
How did Paul and Silas respond to being beaten and thrown into a dark prison cell?
They drew upon the resources of their faith—they began singing hymns and praying.
The other prisoners within that prison were listening to them. About midnight, the earth heaved, the prison’s foundation began to shake, the doors flew open, and everyone’s
chains fell to the floor. The jailer was awakened from his sleep by the violent
shaking of the foundations. He saw that all the jail cells were open. He was horrified! Fearing punishment for letting his prisoners
escape, he drew his sword and was prepared to take his own life. (Having the
keys to someone else’s cell does not mean that one is free themselves. One can be imprisoned in many ways.)
Paul realized that the jailer was preparing to kill himself—therefore, he shouted, “Don’t do it. We are all here.” The jailer heard Paul’s call to him; the jailer then called
for a torch and rushed into the cellblock. He found all the prisoners still within
their cells, the door wide open. Sensing God was at work in this earthquake,
the jailer fell to his knees and asked, “What do I have to do to be saved!” Paul spoke with him about Jesus
Christ. Then the jailer washed Paul and Silas’ wounds, followed by the
jailer and his entire family being baptized. The jailer then took Paul and Silas
to his own home and fed them. Once fed, they voluntarily returned to their prison
cell.
The next morning, the city judges send word that Paul and Silas were to be released from prison and sent on their way. However, Paul was furious! The judges
had violated his civil rights as a Roman citizen. Such imprisonment and beating
of a Roman citizen without a proper trial was a capital offense. Paul therefore
demanded a public apology from the judges. The judges knew that their necks were
on the line. They therefore went to the prison, humbly apologized, and asked
Paul and Silas to please leave town. However, before leaving town, he went by
to visit with Lydia and the others gathered at her home and said goodbye to all. An earthquake had happened in Philippi, and that earthquake had shaken up the established order and put lives in their
proper perspective.
Earthquakes still happen in our lives: During 2010 there have been environmental, social, and economic ‘earthquakes’ that threaten our sense of security:
· There is the oil-well leak in the Gulf region.
That leak threatens the extinction of some coastal wildlife, as well as endangering the livelihoods of thousands of
persons living in the coastal regions.
· Moreover, random and senseless acts of violence shake our foundations. A UVA Lacrosse player was murdered, and the police have accused her former boyfriend and teammate of the
crime. A few months back a VA Tech student attending a concert at UVA was murdered.
Then there were the random shootings and resulting deaths at VA Tech.
· In addition, the economic downturn has caused massive unemployment, which has forced
many persons into bankruptcy and others the loss of their homes.
Then there are other ‘earthquakes’ in our lives: a serious illness, the death of a close friend or family
member, a business failure, a loss of a job, getting a failing grade in school, having a painful divorce, or some other setback
in our lives.
Earthquakes happen to all of us sooner or later. We can respond in one of two ways to these earthquakes in our lives:
· We can respond in blaming others or ourselves.
We usually then fruitlessly try to peddle harder and harder in doing the same old thing, the same old way, and hoping
we will end up with different results. That approach never works!
· On the other hand, we can use the ‘earthquakes’ in our lives as opportunities
to take stock of ourselves and our life priorities. We then can learn to work
out of our strengths. They can help us to claim a new vision for our lives. Earthquakes can lead to transformational times in our lives.
One of my favorite books is The Velveteen Rabbit. In that story,
the young Toy Rabbit asks the Skin Horse, who has been around in the nursery for some time, how does one know when they have
become “real.” “Sometimes,”
said the Skin Horse, for he always was truthful, “when you are real you don’t mind being hurt.” “Does it happen all at once, like being wound up, or bit by bit,” asked the Toy Rabbit? “It doesn’t happen all at once,” said the Skin
Horse. “You become old and
worn. It takes a long time. That’s
why it doesn’t often happen to people who break easily, or have sharp edges, or who have to be carefully kept. Generally, by the time you are real, most of your hair has been loved off, and your
eyes drop out and you get loose in the joints and very shabby. But these things
don’t matter at all; because once you are real you can’t be ugly, except to people who don’t understand.”
As we learn to live with the challenges within our lives, we become “real.” Moreover,
we know it. In California, there are bumper stickers
that proudly proclaim, “This is Earthquake Country.” You and I likewise are living in earthquake country. Moreover,
those earthquakes can help us to put our lives in proper perspective. We can
grow amidst those earthquakes in becoming “real.”
