When I was in college at the University of Georgia, we had to take a Regents Exam in order to be able to graduate. I think the real purpose was to see that you didn’t graduate from college unless you could write a fairly simple essay. Our instructors gave us one piece of advice, over and over: "Keep it simple." "They’re not looking for a great novelist," the instructors said, " and the more complex you make your essay, the greater your chances of making a mistake."

I went to take the test a little nervous that I might blow this, which would have been really embarrassing since I was an English major. I had lots of incentive to keep it simple.

Then they said, "You may begin," and I opened the booklet and read the essay topics. I knew immediately which one I would write on (despite myself), and I knew immediately that I would not be able to keep it simple. Several hours later, long after the more compliant students had left, I turned in an essay that discussed consumerism, commercialism, individualism, paradox, Christianity, the nature of reality, the meaning of life.

Lord, to this day I feel sorry for those poor graders—probably a room full of grad students looking at a mountain of essay answers and praying for just one thing—that people like me would just keep it simple. Wherever you are, I’m sorry.

What caused me to torture those graders was this question: "Discuss this line: ‘Freedom is just another word for nothing left to lose.’" I recognized Kris Kristofferson’s lyrics, and I heard Janice Joplin’s husky voice singing, "Me and Bobby McGee." And I didn’t keep it simple.

I passed the exam, but I was crazy to write on freedom. Freedom is a complicated, complex concept, full of paradox and irony. We have a story this morning about freedom and bondage, and it’s full of paradox and irony.

The story begins when Paul and his friends encounter a girl who is in bondage to a mental disorder, and who is in bondage to slavery. We don’t know exactly what her disease is, but her owners use it for their financial gain. She’s loud and socially inappropriate, and she reads palms and provides the entertainment at parties—all for a handsome profit to her owners.

Then she sees Paul. Somehow this exploited slave in bondage recognizes a fellow slave, but she perceives that Paul and his friends are slaves not to exploitation or bondage, but to freedom. There’s a paradox. Anyway, being who she is, she follows them around shouting, "These men are slaves of the Most High God, who proclaim a way of salvation." Paul and his companions probably thought it was nice at first. "This woman," they thought, "is very perceptive." They probably thought that—for a while. Maybe an hour. Maybe even a day. But she kept it up for many days. Now it was clear—she wasn’t just perceptive, she was ill. And she was driving them nuts.

So Paul heals her in the name of Christ. He frees her from her disease. Yea! Good move, right? People are happy for her? Wrong. When he frees her from her disease, we see how imprisoned her owners are to greed. Paul has killed the golden goose. He has crossed the economic system, a very serious offense. So they haul him and Silas before the Chamber of Commerce and they don’t say why they’re really upset with them, but they do resort to three very effective tools of bondage: patriotism, hatred (in this case, anti-Semitism), and "old time religion." "They’re disturbing our city," they say, "and they’re Jews, and they’re advocating things good believers in Zeus just don’t do."

Well, the Chamber of Commerce folks in that city had embraced bondage (in this case, bondage to greed). People who are genuinely free usually have a powerful effect on people who have embraced bondage—they scare them. A lot. So Paul and Silas are attacked by the crowd, and ordered to be flogged and they get a severe beating (and in the Roman Empire, when you received a severe flogging, it could kill you), and they’re thrown into jail, bleeding and bruised, and they’re put in the innermost cell and on top of that, they’re put in stocks.

"Now," the business people, the slave holders, think as they imagine Paul and Silas in a dark, filthy hell-hole in the middle of the prison, wearing chains, bleeding, "Now, who is in bondage now?"

Good question. While they’re in their homes, stewing over how these strangers have affected their bottom line, Paul and Silas are sitting, in chains, bleeding, in a dark hell hole—singing hymns. And praying. And the other prisoners are listening to them. What’s with these guys? Free, in chains.

Then there’s an earthquake, and the prison is in a shambles, and all the doors all pop open, and the opportunity for freedom from the chains presents itself. And they don’t take it. And, in a wonderful irony, the jailer, the very symbol of one who is free and who imprisons others, turns out to be in bondage, bondage to fear.

You see, the Romans had a very powerful incentive for jailers to do their jobs. They didn’t say, "No escapes and you win a trip to Vegas." They said, "One escape, and you die." So the jailer lives in bondage to fear, and he gets ready to do the honorable thing jailers do when somebody escapes and kill himself when Paul says, "Hold it; we’re still here." By refusing to escape, they have freed him. And he says, "What must I do to be saved?" and they say, "Believe on the Lord Jesus, and you will be saved." He stops acting like a jailer; he is free to act like a brother, and he takes them home and nurses their wounds and is baptized.

What a wonderful story of freedom and bondage. Everyone who appears to be "free," the slave holders, the authorities, the jailer as he turns the key, is actually in bondage, and everyone who appears to be in bondage, the slave girl who is healed, Paul and Silas singing hymns in prison, the jailer as he asks for salvation, is actually free.

We Americans say that our government makes us free; it doesn’t. We have a wonderful, cherished form of government, and on this Memorial weekend we are especially thankful for those who died to keep it alive, but it doesn’t make us free; it gives us the opportunity to be free. But there are a lot of things that call us into bondage. Greed says, "Wear these chains; it’ll be worth it," so, many of us sacrifice meaningful work, and family, and church, and friendships, and God, all the things that matter, so we can make more money, and have more things. As a culture, we treat capitalism as a god, and wear its gold chains.

"Freedom," we’re told, means individualism; you can just look out for yourself, be an individual, you and your special interest group don’t own anything to anyone." It’s a lie. You can’t be really free except in a community where you are bound by ethics born of love and concern for others. But our American heritage sings the virtues of individualism, so we wear the chains of isolation.

Freedom comes in pills, powders, bottles, we are told. It’s a lie. Ask them at AA; ask them at NA. Ask them if their drug of choice made them free.

We’re told that freedom comes when we scare someone into saying that they believe on the Lord Jesus so they won’t go to hell. It’s a lie. Many of those Christians are in bondage to fear, prisoners of anxiety.

Our Lord calls us to genuine freedom, the kind of freedom that you can find in a prison cell. Our country, in many ways, gives us the opportunity to be free. But how can we do it? The jailer found freedom that day when he committed to shape his life in the image of Jesus. That is a profound start, but it is only a start. What will that jailer do the next day, the next day when he still lives in that town, that culture of bondage? How can we live the next day? How can we live in our town, our culture of bondage, tomorrow?

It is a constant struggle, a constant struggle to even recognize all the ways we are in bondage, much less to resist them. I think our only hope is to do what Paul and Silas did. Find people who want to be free, who understand that true freedom only comes from being a slave to God. And stick with those folks. And pray with them. And sing God’s praises together.

I hope that’s what we do here. And I’d like us to practice. You are part of a group of people who have committed to shape their lives in the image of Christ. But each of us has our own prison cells, our own chains of bondage to things that try to keep us from being the wonderful, glorious child of God each of us was created to be.

I want you to think right now of one thing that tries to keep you in bondage, that tries to keep you from freedom in Christ. Maybe it’s fear (fear of dying, fear of really living, fear of failure, fear of success—there are lots of fears). Maybe it’s drugs or alcohol, or the inability to touch someone in a relationship, or money, or your history. Whatever it is, think of one thing now.

Now I want you to name that one thing that tries to keep you in bondage after one of the great slave holders in history. Think of that one thing, and name it "Pharaoh." Now, I want you to imagine that you are in that prison cell with Paul and Silas. And we are going to sing. Stand up and turn to hymn 648. Jon Marc, would you come play for us?

If you’re somebody who doesn’t’ usually sing because you think you don’t have a good voice, I don’t want to hear any excuses! Think of the other prisoners listening. Sing! Sing! Sing for your freedom! Because, we, slaves of the God of Freedom, we have something to tell ol’ Pharaoh.

[The congregation sings the following hymn.]

Amen.