Skip to main content

Undisposed (Sermon, Easter 4)



This story has an enslaved young woman in it. What’s her name? Why doesn’t she have a name?

What does Paul do to her? (Cast out the spirit of divination)
Why does he do it? (Because he is annoyed)
What happens to the girl? (She is no longer useful as a commodity for her owners. She is not free; she is now considered worthless.)

Does she matter?

If we keep reading, we go on to Paul and Silas praising God in prison. Their impromptu hymn sing and prayers intrigues the other prisoners and leads the jailer, himself an enforcer of Roman laws, to seeking salvation.

But what happens to the girl?

You may think it does not matter. She served her purpose in the story- moving the plot forward to get to the imprisonment part. That’s all we need to know about her. She’s not a Roman citizen. She’s probably not even a follower of the Way of Jesus, even though she is able to recognize that Paul and Silas are. Even though the story of Lydia, a woman who comes to the Way with her whole household, is what immediately precedes this story in Acts… this slave girl, enslaved young woman, is not to become Lydia’s sister in the faith. At least, not so we know about it.

This matters because she is treated as disposable to the story. She has a function and when her function is complete, she is gone. Even for Paul’s purposes, he does not heal her or speak the story of Christ to her. He just wants her to stop annoying him. For even Paul, she is inconvenient and unnecessary- disposable.

While we may never know what happened to her, it is important to register a sense of injustice and even outrage at the idea of a person as disposable. When other people become means to an end, we stop seeing them as people. When they are no longer people, we know longer acknowledge Christ in them and the work of the Spirit in their lives. They become nameless, then faceless, and then… gone. Disposable.

On April 14th, 276 Nigerian girls were kidnapped from a high school in Chibok, Nigeria. A radical group that opposes education, particularly “Western education”, for girls kidnapped them. Some of the girls have escaped back to their families, but most remain missing. The leader of the kidnappers has said that they intend to sell most of the girls off to be married, but they can be ransomed for $12 a piece. On May 1st, the president of Nigeria vowed to do all he could to get the girls back.

This story did not become international news until nearly 3 weeks after it occurred. Why not? Is it because these girls are the wrong color, wrong nationality, have no money? Do we care that some of these girls may be made mothers against their will on this very day? Countries that poured significant resources into searching for the missing Malaysian airplane, into training and transport for the Olympics, into oil and gas exploration have not yet offered that kind of money to find these girls.

Are their lives disposable? Is what happens to them regrettable, but simply a cost of the way the world is? We live in a world where many countries have a surplus of men because female babies are less desirable and are eliminated. In order for the men to have wives, girls are kidnapped. Because girls are not desirable, women who bear girls are often considered failures. This happens even in our own country. Even certain “Christian” sects value the lives of women less than lives of men. Women are disposable- less valuable to men and so perceived to be less valuable to God.

What can we do? Let’s do a little biblical imagining here. What happened to the slave girl?

(My imagining: Her employers beat her and cast her out without references. They will not even give her the “dignity” of being sold to a new owner. While crouching over a trash heap, she observes a man taking food to Paul and Silas in prison. She follows him back to his house. She sleeps on his doorstep and is found the next morning by his wife. The girl tells the wife the whole story. They bring her into their home, share the gospel with her, and keep her as a valued employee (and spiritual equal) for the rest of her life.)

If we can imagine what might happen to a character who received 2 sentences in a historical record, surely we can imagine greater things for real people all around us. If we can imagine great things, we can, with the help of the Spirit, act to make our imaginings, reality. 

The gospel, the good news, of the story we heard today is actually that no one is disposable to God. Not a jailer who serves the Romans, not other prisoners who may have committed real crimes, not even a slave girl who annoys the Great Apostle. Not one life is disposable to God. We are to remember that for ourselves and for those around us.

Thinking about the people on the fringes draws our eyes and attention to where Jesus stands in the fringes of our society and our world.
In our city, people sleep on the couches of friends and family because we have a very low availability rate for affordable housing. We don’t see them.
In our state, we have the second highest incest rate in the nation. This is not about culture; it’s about failure to draw lines. We don’t see it.
In our country, a person of color who commits a crime with a white victim is much, much more likely to get the death penalty than a white person who commits the same crime (regardless of the victim’s race). We don’t see them.
In our world, hundreds of millions of girls die every year because they are considered not worth the effort to keep them alive. We don’t see them.

I realize this seems like a downer of a sermon, but a failure on my part to speak these truths out loud means that I have contributed to these stories, these people, these facts, these children who have mothers… I have made them disposable because it is not comforting, uplifting, or amusing to talk about them. I cannot do that. The gospel will not let me.


What can you do? You can pray for the girls on your paper and for those who are unnamed. (Only the names of the Christian girls have been released.) You can talk with friends and neighbors about what you think a safe intervention would be. You (and we) can look for charities that support the education of girls and women and give them solid backing. We can sing hymns and pray and refuse to accept that a culture that seems loud and powerful determines the worth of people. No child of God, born into this world, has a two-sentence life. No one is disposable. Let anyone who sees you know that you are servant of the Most High God, that you proclaim a way of salvation, and that you see them- just as you yourselves have been seen, forgiven, and loved. Amen.


Deborah Abge                         Awa Abge


Hauwa Yirma                           Asabe Manu 


Mwa Malam Pogu                  Patiant Dzakwa


Saraya Mal Stover                  Mary Dauda


Gloria Mainta                           Hanatu Ishaku


Gloria Dama                            Tabitha Pogu


Maifa Dama                           Ruth Kollo


Esther Usman                           Awa James


Anthonia Yahonna                  Kume Mutah


Aisha Ezekial                           Nguba Buba


Kwanta Simon                   Kummai Aboku


Esther Markus                           Hana Stephen


Rifkatu Amos                           Rebecca Mallum


Blessing Abana                  Ladi Wadai        


Tabitha Hyelampa                  Ruth Ngladar


Safiya Abdu                           Na’omi Yahonna


Solomi Titus                           Rhoda John


Rebecca Kabu                           Christy Yahi


Rebecca Luka                           Laraba John


Saratu Markus                           Mary Usman


Debora Yahonna                  Naomi Zakaria


Hanatu Musa                            Hauwa Tella


Juliana Yakubu                  Suzana Yakubu


Saraya Paul                           Jummai Paul


Mary Sule                           Jummai John                 


Yanke Shittima                  Muli Waligam


Fatima Tabji                           Eli Joseph


Saratu Emmanuel                  Deborah Peter


Rahila Bitrus                           Luggwa Sanda


Kauna Lalai                           Lydia Emmar


Laraba Maman                  Hauwa Isuwa


Comfort Habila                  Hauwa Abdu


Hauwa Balti                           Yana Joshua


Laraba Paul                           Saraya Amos        


Glory Yaga                           Na’omi Bitrus


Godiya Bitrus                            Awa Bitrus


Na’omi Luka                              Maryamu Lawan


Tabitha Silas                           Mary Yahona


Ladi Joel                                    Rejoice Sanki


Luggwa Samuel                      Comfort Amos


Saraya Samuel                           Sicker Abdul


Talata Daniel                              Rejoice Musa


Deborah Abari                           Salomi Pogu


Mary Amor                               Ruth Joshua


Esther John                              Esther Ayuba


Maryamu Yakubu                  Zara Ishaku


Maryamu Wavi                  Lydia Habila


Laraba Yahonna                  Na’omi Bitrus


Rahila Yahanna                  Ruth Lawan        


Ladi Paul                                    Mary Paul


Esther Joshua                           Helen Musa


Margret Watsai                  Deborah Jafaru


Filo Dauda                           Febi Haruna


Ruth Ishaku                           Racheal Nkeki


Rifkatu Soloman                  Mairama Yahaya


Saratu Dauda                           Jinkai Yama


Margret Shettima                  Yana Yidau


Grace Paul                           Amina Ali


Palmata Musa                           Awagana Musa


Pindar Nuhu                           Yana Pogu


Saraya Musa                           Hauwa Joseph


Hauwa Kwakwi                  Hauwa Musa


Maryamu Musa                  Maimuna Usman


Rebeca Joseph                           Liyatu Habitu


Rifkatu Yakubu                  Naomi Philimon


Deborah Abbas                  Ladi Ibrahim


Asabe Ali                                    Maryamu Bulama


Ruth Amos                           Mary Ali


Abigail Bukar                           Deborah Amos


Saraya Yanga                           Kauna Luka


Christiana Bitrus                  Yana Bukar


Hauwa Peter                            Hadiza Yakubu


Lydia Simon                           Ruth Bitrus


Mary Yakubu                           Lugwa Mutah


Muwa Daniel                           Hanatu Nuhu


Monica Enoch                           Margret Yama


Docas Yakuba                           Rhoda Peter


Rifkatu Galang                           Saratu Ayuba


Naomi Adamu                           Hauwa Ishaya


Rahap Ibrahim                  Deborah Soloman


Hauwa Mutah                             Hauwa Takai


Serah Samuel                           Aishatu Musa


Aishatu Grema                  Hauwa Nkeki


Hamsatu Abubakar                  Mairama Abubakar


Hauwa Wule                           Ihyi Abdu


Hasana Adamu                  Rakiya Kwamtah


Halima Gamba                  Aisha Lawan


Kabu Malla                           Yayi Abana


Falta Lawan                           Kwadugu Manu

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Religious Holidays in Anchorage

You may have read in the Anchorage Daily News about a new policy regarding certain religious holidays and the scheduling of school activities. If not, a link to the article is here . The new rules do not mean that school will be out on these new holiday inclusions, but that the Anchorage School District will avoid scheduling activities, like sporting events, on these days. The new list includes Passover, Rosh Hashanah , Yom Kippur , Eid al - Fitr and Eid al - Adha . They are added to a list which includes New Year's, Orthodox Christmas and Easter, Good Friday, Easter, Thanksgiving Day and Christmas. The new holidays may be unfamiliar to some: Passover is a Jewish celebration, in the springtime, that commemorates the events in Egypt that led up to the Exodus. The name of the holiday comes specifically from the fact that the angel of death "passed over" the houses of the Israelites during the plague which killed the eldest sons of the Egyptians. Passover is a holiday

Latibule

I like words and I recently discovered Save the Words , a website which allows you to adopt words that have faded from the English lexicon and are endanger of being dropped from the Oxford English Dictionary. When you adopt a word, you agree to use it in conversation and writing in an attempt to re-introduce said word back into regular usage. It is exactly as geeky as it sounds. And I love it. A latibule is a hiding place. Use it in a sentence, please. After my son goes to bed, I pull out the good chocolate from my latibule and have a "mommy moment". The perfect latibule was just behind the northwest corner of the barn, where one had a clear view during "Kick the Can". She tucked the movie stub into an old chocolate box, her latibule for sentimental souvenirs. I like the sound of latibule, though I think I would spend more time defining it and defending myself than actually using it. Come to think of it, I'm not really sure how often I use the

A Litany for Mother's Day

A: Loving God, You are everywhere the Lord and Giver of life. We praise You for the gift of mothers through whom You give us life. C: We thank You for their willingness to nurture life, for their trust in You to guide them through the labor of childbirth, the uncertainties of youth, the letting go of young adulthood. A: We thank You for all those women, who did not give us birth, but through whom You give us abundant life: C: We thank You for school teachers, aunts, grandmothers, sisters, pastors, elders, Sunday School teachers, supervisors, co-workers, neighbors and friends who share wisdom. A: We ask Your tender mercies on all those whose mothers now sing with the heavenly chorus, especially for those whose tears are not yet dry. C: Grant them Your peace, which passes all our understanding. A: We ask Your comforting presence on those mothers who have buried sons and daughters. C: Comfort them with the knowledge of their children in Your eternal care. A: We pray for those w