Thomas G. Long - "Singing in Jail" (September 30, 2001)

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-	I was glad when they said unto me	0:13
	let us go into the house of the lord.	0:14
	It is always good to be at worship with you in this place.	0:17
	In addition to the lessons that we have already heard,	0:23
	I want to read to us an absolutely fascinating	0:27
	and wonderful story from the book of Acts.	0:30
	What has happened is that Paul and Silas	0:34
	and the others who are engaged in mission to the gentiles	0:37
	have come to the old Roman colony of Philippi.	0:40
	And instead of their usual strategy	0:45
	which is to establish contact	0:48
	with the local synagogue,	0:50
	at Philippi they make a connection with	0:52
	a woman's prayer group meeting beside the river,	0:56
	headed up by a businesswoman named Lydia.	1:00
	This group is responsive to the Gospel	1:04
	and the relationship grows.	1:06
	And then this happens.	1:09
	Once when we were going to the place of prayer,	1:14
	we were met by a slave girl who had a spirit	1:18
	by which she predicted the future.	1:22
	She earned a great deal of money	1:25
	for her owners by fortune telling.	1:27
	This girl followed Paul and the rest of us shouting	1:31
	these men are servants of the most high God	1:36
	who are telling you the way to be saved!	1:38
	She kept this up for many days.	1:42
	Finally, Paul became so troubled	1:45
	that he turned around and said to the spirit,	1:48
	in the name of Jesus Christ	1:51
	I command you to come out of her.	1:53
	At that moment, the spirit left her.	1:57
	When the owners of the slave girl realized	2:02
	that their hope of making money was gone,	2:04
	they seized Paul and Silas and dragged them	2:08
	into the marketplace to face the authorities.	2:11
	They brought them before the magistrates	2:14
	and said these men are Jews.	2:16
	They are throwing our city into an uproar	2:22
	by advocating customs unlawful for us Romans	2:24
	to accept or practice.	2:28
	The crowd joined in the attack against Paul and Silas	2:31
	and the magistrates ordered them to be stripped and beaten.	2:34
	After they had been severely flogged,	2:40
	they were thrown into prison	2:42
	and the jailer was commanded guard them carefully.	2:44
	Upon receiving such orders, he put them in the inner cell	2:49
	and fastened their feet in the stocks.	2:53
	About midnight, Paul and Silas were praying	2:59
	and singing hymns to God,	3:04
	and the other prisoners were listening to them.	3:06
	Suddenly there was such a violent earthquake	3:10
	that the foundations of the prison were shaken.	3:13
	At once, all the prison doors flew open	3:16
	and everybody's chains came loose.	3:19
	The jailer woke up and when he saw the prison doors open,	3:22
	he drew his sword and was about to kill himself	3:26
	because he thought the prisoners had escaped,	3:30
	but Paul shouted	3:33
	don't harm yourself!	3:35
	We're all here.	3:38
	The jailer called for lights,	3:41
	rushed in and fell trembling before Paul and Silas.	3:43
	He then brought them out and asked them sirs,	3:47
	what must I do to be saved?	3:50
	They replied believe in the lord Jesus	3:53
	and you will be saved.	3:55
	You and your household.	3:56
	Then they spoke the word of the lord to him	3:59
	and to all the others in the house.	4:01
	At that hour of the night, the jailer took them	4:03
	and washed their wounds and immediately	4:06
	he and all his family were baptized.	4:09
	The jailer brought them into his house	4:12
	and set a meal before them.	4:15
	He was filled with joy, because he had come to	4:17
	believe in God, he and his whole family.	4:20
	I don't know whether you've noticed it or not,	4:30
	but one of the things that has happened to us	4:32
	in the last two and a half weeks,	4:35
	two and a half weeks in which the world	4:38
	as we thought we had known it has come apart.	4:39
	One of the things that has happened to us	4:43
	has happened in our worship,	4:45
	and that is that the hymns that we sing,	4:48
	the old hymns, the hymns we have sung thousands of times	4:51
	have come to take on new comfort and depth and power.	4:56
	As some of you know, I was scheduled to preach here	5:01
	on the Sunday after a terror attack.	5:04
	Events changed that of course,	5:08
	but I have heard much about that service,	5:09
	and what I have heard is that not only	5:12
	was the spoken word powerful,	5:14
	but maybe especially the hymns.	5:16
	Is There a Balm in Gilead?	5:19
	Those of you who were here know what I'm talking about.	5:21
	In the church where my family and I worship	5:25
	on that Sunday the service began	5:28
	with a hymn that we're going to sing in a few minutes,	5:30
	A Mighty Fortress is Our God.	5:33
	It's an old hymn.	5:36
	We've sung it many many times,	5:37
	but we could hardly make it through it.	5:40
	Phrases that normally we would simply glide over	5:43
	attached to our broken hearts.	5:46
	Were we in our own strength to confide	5:50
	our striving would be losing.	5:53
	The prince of darkness grim, we tremble not for him.	5:55
	The body they may kill, but God's truth abideth still.	6:00
	By the end of that hymn, we were singing	6:06
	at the top of our lungs and the bottom of our souls.	6:08
	It's a wonderful thing of course that we can sing	6:13
	in a time like this, but if you think about it	6:15
	it is also a very strange thing	6:20
	that we sing at a time like this.	6:24
	It is a very odd thing that the Christian faith	6:27
	has always flowered forth with hymns	6:30
	in all kinds of circumstances.	6:35
	Why is that?	6:40
	Did not Jesus sing a psalm that night?	6:43
	Asks the hymn Within Our Music God is Glorified.	6:46
	Did not Jesus sing a psalm that night?	6:50
	What night?	6:54
	When utmost darkness strove against the light, that night.	6:56
	We sing hymns, but why?	7:00
	I want to ask you that question this morning.	7:03
	Why do we sing in this place?	7:05
	Now look, I know.	7:07
	I'm a preacher.	7:09
	I'm supposed to be more worried about sermons than songs.	7:10
	In fact especially in the Protestant tradition there has	7:15
	often been a kind of competition	7:18
	between the spoken word and the arts and music,	7:20
	or to put it more practically,	7:24
	the rivalry between preachers and church musicians.	7:27
	(congregation laughs)	7:31
	Is legendary in Protestant circles.	7:32
	I heard once about a preacher	7:36
	who got up to preach the sermon and realized	7:38
	that his sermon notes were out of order.	7:40
	In order to buy a little time,	7:43
	he leaned over to the organist and whispered	7:45
	why don't you just noodle around a little bit?	7:49
	She looked up and said why don't you	7:52
	just mumble around a little bit?	7:55
	(congregation laughs)	7:57
	But this competition finds no place in scripture.	8:00
	As a matter of fact, in scripture	8:03
	the hymns that we sing are not competition	8:06
	to the spoken word,	8:08
	they're the consummation of the spoken word.	8:09
	As Ephesians puts it, be not drunk with wine.	8:13
	Be drunk in the Holy Spirit and in your intoxication,	8:15
	sing hymns and songs and spiritual songs to God.	8:20
	Where we are going with the spoken word	8:26
	is to the place that all of us can be lost	8:29
	in wonder, love, and praise, but why is that?	8:31
	Why do we sing?	8:36
	Well a good story to use as a lens	8:39
	to look through at that question	8:41
	is this story I just read from the book of Acts	8:44
	because it has this marvelous image in it	8:47
	of Paul and Silas singing hymns in jail	8:49
	while the other prisoners listen to them.	8:56
	What has happened is they're on their way	8:59
	to the place of prayer, and this little slave girl	9:01
	who makes money for her masters by fortunetelling,	9:05
	she's clairvoyant.	9:08
	If she were around today, she'd have her own 900 number.	9:10
	She follows Paul and Silas saying	9:14
	these men are servants of the most high God.	9:17
	They've come to proclaim a way of salvation.	9:19
	These men are servants of the most high God.	9:21
	They've come to proclaim a way of salvation.	9:23
	True, but annoying.	9:25
	Finally Paul's had all of that he can take	9:28
	and turns and says to the spirit	9:30
	I tell you in the name of Jesus come out of her.	9:32
	And it came out that very hour,	9:35
	which may be the only healing in the New Testament	9:37
	done in the name of irritation rather than compassion.	9:40
	(congregation laughs)	9:44
	But when the slave girl was whole,	9:45
	she could no longer be exploited by her masters	9:47
	and when they saw their hope of making money was gone	9:52
	they dragged Paul and Silas before the magistrates.	9:54
	The charges?	9:57
	Traveling while Jewish.	9:59
	These men don't eat what we eat.	10:02
	They don't talk like we talk.	10:04
	They don't look like we look.	10:06
	They have customs that are not like our customs.	10:08
	They're throwing us into an uproar	10:10
	and they put them in maximum security.	10:12
	Chains on the hands, stocks on the feet,	10:15
	guard them with your life, they told the jailer	10:19
	and it was there	10:21
	in jail	10:24
	that they sang hymns.	10:28
	Why?	10:32
	Some people say that the reason why Christians sing	10:34
	all the time is that we have these powerful experiences	10:39
	and emotions down deep in our soul,	10:43
	and they simply need a way of coming out and when they do,	10:46
	the language of prose will not work.	10:49
	We need the language of ecstasy and poetry and music.	10:52
	Listen to the sound of my voice.	10:57
	Or better yet, listen to the sound of your own voice.	11:01
	In the rising and falling of our voices,	11:06
	it is almost as if we are searching for a melody line.	11:09
	Some people think that before human beings	11:16
	spoke to each other, we sang.	11:18
	It was our first communication,	11:22
	and it may be that beneath the din of everyday chatter,	11:25
	underneath all the cellphone talk and the table talk	11:29
	and the chatter, we can hear our voices	11:33
	rising and falling, searching for a song we used to know.	11:37
	♪ Joyful joyful ♪	11:42
	♪ We adore thee ♪	11:45
	Maybe that's why we sing.	11:48
	We have down deep inside of us that which...	11:50
	That may be part of it, but that can't be all of it.	11:56
	Paul and Silas sang in jail.	12:00
	And if there ever was anywhere	12:04
	that is the antithesis of self-expression it is a jail.	12:06
	A jail is a denial of self-expression.	12:10
	If their singing had been	12:13
	only a matter of expressing themselves	12:14
	when the chains fell off and the stocks	12:17
	were broken after the earthquake,	12:19
	they would have self-expressed themselves	12:21
	right on out of there.	12:24
	But they said to the panicked jailer, do not harm yourself.	12:27
	We are all here.	12:31
	As W.H. Auden once put it, if art is only self-expression,	12:34
	keep it to yourself.	12:39
	Other people say that the reason why we Christians sing	12:43
	in this place is not simply because we have	12:47
	something inside of us, it's that in the power of the spirit	12:49
	we are able to discern something outside of us.	12:53
	In the spirit sight, we are able to see	12:57
	in ordinary and mundane life	13:00
	and even in times of trauma and terror,	13:03
	a God at work accomplishing mercy and redemption and peace.	13:07
	Raveling up the sleeves of our care.	13:12
	Several years ago I went to a conference in Boston,	13:17
	and the conference hotel was right down the street	13:20
	from Trinity Episcopal Church.	13:23
	This is the church where one of the giants	13:26
	of the American pulpit, Phillips Brooks	13:28
	was pastor for many years,	13:31
	and one morning I couldn't resist the temptation.	13:32
	I broke away from the conference	13:35
	and I went down to Trinity Church	13:37
	just to breathe in the atmosphere	13:39
	of where that great preacher had preached.	13:41
	When I went into the sanctuary, I was the only one in there	13:45
	or at least so I thought.	13:49
	It's a mystery filled place, and I was looking around.	13:52
	I was even looking at the pulpit	13:56
	and imagining Phillips Brooks there	13:58
	as I stood there all alone in Trinity Church,	14:01
	when suddenly I heard something.	14:05
	♪ Fair is lord Jesus ♪	14:09
	There's no one there, kind of spooky.	14:16
	I looked in the choir loft, no one there.	14:20
	I looked in the shadows to see if I had missed	14:22
	a soloist rehearsing, no one there.	14:25
	♪ All hail the power of Jesus' name ♪	14:28
	I followed the sound until finally I found it.	14:33
	There on the floor under one of the pews	14:38
	was the sexton with a rag polishing the bottom of the pew.	14:43
	And in the middle of that mundane job,	14:48
	but with an awareness of the holiness of his vocation,	14:51
	and the sanctity of that place,	14:54
	he was provoked to sing.	14:57
	Maybe that's why we sing.	15:00
	We see around us the mystery of holiness.	15:02
	One of my friends is a United Church of Christ minister	15:06
	and several years ago he went to a minister's conference,	15:09
	and at the opening worship service,	15:12
	he found himself seated right next to	15:15
	his old theology professor Richard H. Nieber.	15:18
	The preacher that night was trying an experimental sermon.	15:23
	He would preach a little bit, a paragraph or two,	15:27
	and then the congregation would sing the stanza of a hymn.	15:30
	Then he'd preach a little bit more,	15:34
	and they'd sing the second stanza of the hymn and so on	15:35
	and evidently it was not going very well.	15:38
	My friend turned to his old theology prof and said,	15:43
	this is awful.	15:46
	In fact, this reminds me of something	15:49
	you said in class one day.	15:51
	What?	15:53
	We were studying J.S. Whale's book Christian Doctrine	15:55
	and you said Whale is a weak-minded theologian	15:59
	because every time he gets to a theological problem	16:04
	he cannot solve, he quotes a hymn.	16:07
	I was wrong, said Nieber.	16:12
	I was young and brash and I was wrong.	16:15
	The older I get, the more I know	16:18
	there are some things theologians can only say in hymns.	16:22
	Maybe that's it.	16:30
	Maybe we perceive the holy...	16:33
	That's part of it.	16:40
	But even that doesn't go all the way down.	16:42
	Paul and Silas sang in jail.	16:45
	And if there is ever a place	16:51
	that obscures the presence of God, it is jail.	16:53
	It's the Roman government in charge, not God.	16:57
	It's not about freedom in Christ,	17:01
	it's about captivity.	17:02
	Right there, where holiness was invisible, they sang.	17:04
	Because when all is said and done,	17:10
	we sing in this place not because of what is already present	17:12
	but what is promised.	17:20
	We sing in this place because we are people of hope.	17:21
	We sing in the future present tense,	17:27
	anticipating a time when justice	17:31
	will roll down like the waters,	17:33
	and righteousness like an ever flowing stream.	17:35
	Sometime ago I heard James Farmer interviewed on the radio.	17:41
	Do you remember James Farmer?	17:44
	He was the head of CORE, the Congress of Racial Equality.	17:46
	He helped plan the freedom rides into the South,	17:50
	and he was telling in that interview	17:54
	about one of those freedom rides.	17:56
	Busload came into Alabama.	17:58
	They were arrested and thrown into jail.	18:00
	The jailers wanted to demoralize these outside agitators	18:04
	but the world was watching,	18:07
	and they had to be very careful.	18:09
	The first thing they did was to crowd	18:12
	six, seven, eight, 10, 12 of them into a jail cell	18:14
	designed to hold two, but it did not break their spirits.	18:18
	Then they began to heavily salt their food.	18:23
	But it did not break their spirits.	18:28
	But then they found something	18:31
	that did break their spirits.	18:33
	One by one they began to take mattresses	18:35
	out of the jail cells until there were	18:39
	not enough to go around.	18:40
	The prisoners began to argue over the available mattresses,	18:42
	fight over them, morale sunk low.	18:46
	Right at the lowest point, said Farmer,	18:49
	somebody in the cell block began to sing.	18:52
	Amazing grace how sweet the sound.	18:55
	Lift every voice and sing.	19:00
	We shall overcome.	19:02
	Voices joined in until everybody was singing loudly.	19:04
	So loudly the jailers came in	19:08
	to see what the disturbance was	19:10
	and when they did, the prisoners	19:11
	took the rest of those mattresses	19:13
	and pushed them through the cell bars	19:15
	as if to say you can take our mattresses,	19:17
	you can take our comforts, you can even take our lives	19:20
	but you cannot take our hope.	19:23
	We sing in here of a freedom no jailer can take.	19:29
	Of a love no hate can destroy.	19:35
	Of a hope no terrorist can steal.	19:39
	There's a woman named Diane Komp.	19:44
	She teaches on the faculty of Yale Medical School.	19:47
	She's a pediatric oncologist	19:49
	and she is a confessing Christian,	19:51
	but she was not always that way.	19:54
	She spent many years struggling	19:56
	in agnostic wrestling and doubt.	19:59
	She said the turning point for her	20:02
	came when she was standing at the bedside	20:04
	of a seven year old girl drawing her last breaths,	20:06
	dying of leukemia.	20:11
	The hospital chaplain was there, her parents were there,	20:14
	the little girl breathing her last	20:17
	suddenly sat up in the bed and said	20:19
	"mother listen, oh mother do you hear them?	20:25
	"Do you hear the angels singing?	20:31
	"I have never heard such beautiful singing."	20:35
	The hospital chaplain fled the room in terror.	20:40
	The parents acted as if they had been given	20:45
	the greatest gift they could possibly receive,	20:48
	and as for the agnostic attending physician,	20:52
	"I wondered" said Diane Komp	20:55
	"if I had at last heard a reliable witness."	20:58
	In this world imprisoned in fear and hate,	21:06
	let us sing	21:12
	psalms and hymns and spiritual songs.	21:14
	The other prisoners	21:18
	are listening.	21:21
	(organ music)	21:30
	♪ A mighty Fortress is our God ♪	22:29
	♪ A bulwark never failing ♪	22:36
	♪ Our helper He amid the flood ♪	22:44
	♪ Of mortal ills prevailing ♪	22:50
	♪ For still our ancient foe ♪	22:58
	♪ Doth seek to work us woe ♪	23:04
	♪ His craft and power are great ♪	23:10
	♪ And, armed with cruel hate ♪	23:17
	♪ On Earth is not his equal ♪	23:23
	♪ Did we in our own strength confide ♪	23:32
	♪ Our striving would be losing ♪	23:39
	♪ Were not the right Man on our side ♪	23:47
	♪ The Man of God's own choosing ♪	23:54
	♪ Dost ask who that may be ♪	24:02
	♪ Christ Jesus, it is He ♪	24:09
	♪ Lord Sabaoth His name ♪	24:15
	♪ From age to age the same ♪	24:22
	♪ And He must win the battle ♪	24:29
	♪ And though this world, with devils filled ♪	24:39
	♪ Should threaten to undo us ♪	24:46
	♪ We will not fear, for God hath willed ♪	24:53
	♪ His truth to triumph through us ♪	25:00
	♪ The Prince of Darkness grim ♪	25:08
	♪ We tremble not for him ♪	25:15
	♪ His rage we can endure ♪	25:21
	♪ For lo his doom is sure ♪	25:28
	♪ One little word shall fell him ♪	25:35
	♪ That word above all earthly powers ♪	25:44
	♪ No thanks to them, abideth ♪	25:51
	♪ The Spirit and the gifts are ours ♪	26:00
	♪ Through Him who with us sideth ♪	26:06
	♪ Let goods and kindred go ♪	26:15
	♪ This mortal life also ♪	26:21
	♪ The body they may kill ♪	26:28
	♪ God's truth abideth still ♪	26:35
	♪ His Kingdom is forever ♪	26:42

Item Info

Title:

Thomas G. Long - "Singing in Jail" (September 30, 2001)

Description:

Sermon start time: (Part 1) 4:29. Sermon end time: (Part 1) 21:23.
A few weeks after the Sept 11 attacks, this sermon examines the power of singing in hard times and suggests that Christians sing to express something deep within them, to point to the holy, and perhaps most importantly to express the promised hope within them. (Abstract created by Duke Divinity School staff.)

Permalink:

https://idn.duke.edu/ark:/87924/r4wm1484w

Date:

September 30, 2001

Speaker:

Long, Thomas G., 1946-

Liturgical Calendar:

Ordinary Time

Biblical Book:

Acts

Chapter and Verse:

Acts 16:16-40

Subject:

Contributor:

Duke University. Chapel

Identifier:

UA.17.01.0003 CS-1087
ref10331_y6k
uachapelsermaud
duke:321293
dcrau001731
ark:/87924/r4wm1484w
afaaa70d-8e2b-4764-b129-2d242f91536b

Digital Collection:

Duke Chapel Recordings

Source Collection:

Duke University Chapel recordings, 1954-2005

Related Resources:

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Language:

English

Location:

United States
North Carolina
Durham (N.C.)

Format:

Provenance:

The Duke University Chapel Recordings were transferred to the Duke University Archives beginning in 1970.

Rights:

Limited Re-Use

CC BY-NC 4.0

Rights Note:

This recording may contain 3rd party materials, such as music or readings that are therefore not covered by the Creative Commons license indicated here. For more information see https://library.duke.edu/rubenstein/research/citations-and-permissions.

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Thomas G. Long - "Singing in Jail" (September 30, 2001)

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1. Thomas G. Long - "Blessed Are Those Who Have Not Seen" (April 30, 2000)

Duke University Archives

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Thomas G. Long - "Singing in Jail" (September 30, 2001)

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