Sunday Homily - June 2nd, 2019 - The Gospel Music of the Holy Spirit

The Philippian Jailer before Paul and Silas

- Holman Bible Handbook

I.

On a bright, windy day in Topeka Kansas,
 in the year 1992,
  a young kid walks into a music shop.

Andy is his name.
 And Andy wants to learn how to play the guitar.

Andy is a soft spoken kid,
 tends to be quieter and introverted,
  but always has a sweet demeanor and a kindness around him.

Andy shops around and finds a nice little nylon string guitar,
 from the guitar manufacturer Aria,
  and decides that he wants this one.

Andy's father counts out the cash to the attendant at the counter
 and Andy takes his brand new guitar home.
  As he clumsily plunks with one finger on the strings
   and shapes his hand to the fretting on the top,
    it feels as if his hand is disfiguring into anything but a natural position.

But he is unperturbed by the momentary discomfort.
 He is learning to play the guitar.

Andy begins guitar lessons soon after,
 bringing his Aria acoustic guitar with him.

Andy dedicates himself to learning and playing and practicing.

But, he soon finds himself a little discouraged by his guitar lessons.
 He finds them underwhelming,
  uninspiring,
   perhaps a little bit un-challenging.

So instead of continuing guitar lessons in this sense,
 Andy goes home and begins to teach himself guitar.
  So much for the traditional teacher-student relationship.

However, just because Andy stopped his guitar lessons
 in no way means that his passion for music stopped.

He begins to listen to guitar artists,
 80s and 90s rock songs,
  and begins to play along with them.

Andy bought an electric guitar,
 and learning and playing music from artists like Eric Johnson, Joe Satriani,
  hearing and shredding along with bands like Metallica,
   by the time Andy turns 16,
    only three years after he started learning the guitar,
     he has become pretty good at it.

But his course in music was about to take a deeper and more impressive turn
 when Andy's cousin, also a guitarist,
  took him out to a guitar clinic put on by Preston Reed,
   one of the most influential guitarists in recent memory.

Preston used a simple acoustic guitar.
 But what Andy witnessed was awe-inspiring.
  This guy played the guitar in a truly unique style
   different from anything he had seen before.
    Preston would play the guitar using both of his hands up on the fret board,
     he would add percussion by tapping and drumming on the side of the guitar,
      and he was able to provide a truly emotional experience by the way that he used the instrument.

Andy, at that moment, bought an instructional video from Preston Reed,
 and immediately began to find other artists like him,
  such as Billy McLaughlin, Pat Kirtley, Don Ross,
   but most especially in the late guitarist Michael Hedges,
    who played an old Dyer Harp Guitar in such a way,
     that Andy became transfixed by the music he heard.

And that inspiration that Andy took from these others
 and the guitar music that they made,
  not using loud, rambunctious sounds from an electric guitar,
   but a full range of intense and nuanced sound from a simple acoustic guitar,
    led him to start writing his own music for the guitar.

He releases several albums from 2001 - 2007,
 gaining some good recognition in the guitarist circles that he played within.
  But then, by happenstance and by the rise of YouTube and the internet,
   one of Andy's songs, "Drifting," got such popularity
    that his music became instantly popular,
     with 58 million of views on that song generated on YouTube alone.
     [current metrics as of 5.30.2019]

He has gotten so popular,
 that Andy played with Prince,
  yes, THAT Prince,
   (or at least the Artist Formerly Known As Prince)
    in Prince's Australian Tour in 2012.

And yet, for all the fame and media generated around Andy's incredible work,
 Andy, in his classic mid-west, soft spoken, kindly demeanor,
  describes himself as "just this guy from Topeka, Kansas,
   who kind of blew up on the Internet about a week before Christmas."
   ["Amazing finger style guitarist Andy Mckee...",
    Digg website Archived March 16, 2010, at the Wayback Machine]

For all of the external fame that he gets from his talents and work,
 Andy's passion and love is for the music.

It's not about the money,
 not about the fame,
  not about the recognition.
   It's all about the music.

Andy McKee is his name,
 and he is one of the most popular and talented guitarists out there right now.
  Andy has been an inspiration through the incredible things he can do with just a simple guitar.
   And one of those small, insignificant numbers of views on his song "Drifting"
    was me when I was in college.
     And it ignited a fascination, love, and appreciation for guitar music
      that has lasted and has been a major source of inspiration in my own life.

[the sketch of Andy McKee's biography was taken from several sources and interviews
 that he has conducted in the wake of his popularity. Check out his music. It may change your life!]

There is nothing that can compare
 to the magic that happens
  when a passionate musician plays their instrument.

Music is one of the most universally important arts
 in all of our common humanity.

It doesn't matter where you are from in the world,
 where you grew up,
  what country you hail from,
   or what culture you are influenced by.
    Music has been an essential part of your lives already.

And music plays a subtle,
 but VITAL role in the story of Paul and Silas
  in our Acts reading this morning.

II.

Music is implicit sometimes,
 something that accompanies rather than overpowers.

When Paul and Silas enter into Philippi,
 they follow the music of the Holy Spirit
  and the look for a place of prayer.

Along the way, a dissonant sound appears,
 and scrapes against Paul and Silas's ears.
  This dissonant sound is the voice of the evil spirit
   within the slave girl,
    the girl whose freedom was taken away in two ways:
     by the the spirit of divination binding her,
     and also her slaveholders who were making money off of her fortune telling.

And this evil spirit sings out a mocking song,
 a sing-songy parody of their holy mission from God
  from the mouth of the women oppressed by this spirit:
   "These men are slaves of the Most High God,
    who proclaim to you a way of salvation."
     [Acts 16 NRSV]

This dissonant music of slavery,
 this disconnected sound of an evil spirit smothering the humanity of this girl,
  this mockery of God's will for the world
   grates against Blessed Saint Paul so much,
    that the Scripture says that Paul gives that evil spirit
     a token and proof of the power of God to set free the captive soul.
      He turns, greatly annoyed, and commands,
       "I order you in the name of Jesus Christ to come out of her."

The music of freedom in the Holy Spirit
 casts out the broken music of slavery.

But just because the girl is set free
 doesn't mean that the situation is healed completely.
  Because the love of money is the root of all evil,
   as the Holy Scripture says (1 Timothy 6:10),
    and the slaveholders were not happy that their source of income
     has been banished,
      even if that source of income is literally from an evil, oppressive spiritual source.

And these slaveholders are so irritated,
 that they bring Paul and Silas to the city magistrates.
  And did you notice in our reading what they were charged with?
   They were basically brought up on the charges
    of being Jewish
     and were basically accused of damaging the Roman public
      by teaching their Jewish customs.

The dissonant music of slavery,
 subverted by the Holy Spirit's music of freedom,
  now also adds another broken instrument to the chorus,
   and instrument that is often called Anti Semitism.

And notice that these slaveholders had enough power in the city's court of law
 that the crowd gathered attack and beat Paul and Silas,
  flogging them,
   and then thrown bruised and bloody into the innermost prison cell
    to ensure they would learn their lesson.

And all because they were Jews.
 Jews who taught the Gospel of Jesus.

But the music of the Holy Spirit
 cannot be drowned out by any empty power in the world.

Because the most amazing thing happens.

Paul and Silas begin to pray and sing in prison!

They pray and sing as they are in prison,
 the gentle and attractive music of freedom,
  even in the midst of wrongful imprisonment.

And this music of their mouths along with the music of their lives,
 cause the other prisoners to listen to them
  and wonder what kind of hope that these two people carried with them
   even as they lie physically abused and locked in the stocks.

And as they prayed and sang,
 all of a sudden,
  and intense earthquake occurs,
   one so violent that the walls of the prison break,
    and all the doors to the jail cells open
     allowing the prisoners to go free.

And the jailer,
 the poor jailer in charge of watching the prisoners,
  sees that the doors had been opened,
   and knows that his military masters will probably have him killed
    for losing the prisoners.

And just as this jailer pulls his sword from the sheath
 to take his own life,
  the music of Paul and Silas's voice echo from within the jail cell:
   the prisoners are all still there!

Sometimes we lose the element of surprise
 from the accounts of Holy Scripture that we have heard before,
  but notice how we, the readers, get an M Night Shyamalan kind of twist,
   when we discover, along with the Philippian jailer
    that the prisoners are still there?!

And the jailer, the person who was in charge of their imprisonment,
 brings them out of the jail himself,
  and then is so moved by this mysterious, wonderful, confusing music
   of Paul and Silas's otherworldly kindness,
    that he wants what these men have.
     He has seen by their words and their lives
      that they have brought Life Abundant with them
       and empowered by a truly Divine Source in the Holy Spirit.

He pleads with them,
 "Sirs, what must I do to be saved?"
  And, you know what, y'all,
   sometimes the simplest song is the most beautiful:
    Paul and Silas reply:
     "Believe on the Lord Jesus, and you will be saved,
      you and your household."
       And this jailer, with all his family, were baptized that very night,
        and God added to the number of our brothers and sisters
         who we will see again in the Communion of Saints
          at the great resurrection of the dead in Christ.

III.

So,
 which music do you listen to, friends?

Do we choose to fall victim to the broken chorus of the world,
 a power that enslaves us and oppresses our souls?

Or do we tune into the mysterious, wonderful, confusing, but oh so good music
 of the Holy Spirit,
  that music that can easily go unnoticed,
   but nonetheless is the only genuine music in the world?

I find that when I catch the music of the Holy Spirit in the world,
 that I often have the same reaction as Andy McKee when he went to that guitar clinic.
  He saw the guitarist Preston Reed do something with a guitar
   that he couldn't quite describe,
    except to say that he earnestly wanted to play music like that.

When I hear the music of someone who is filled with the Holy Spirit,
 I deeply want that gift of God as well.

And the great thing about the music of the Holy Spirit,
 is that this gift only gets more expansive,
  more impressive,
   more exciting the more that we share it with the world!

Just as we walk into the world,
 singing the beautiful Gospel song,
  God also adds voices to the choir of heaven
   which itself creates deeper and more beautiful harmonies,
    a chorus that only grows more beautiful the more voices that are added.

What if we, here at Trinity Parish Church,
 heard the world in this way?

What if we walk into the world filled with that music
 and the desire to add more voices to that beautiful chorus,
  that music that has been sanctified by the Holy Spirit,
   commissioned by our Lord Jesus Christ,
    and set on fire by the love of our Father in Heaven?

What kind of Gospel witness could we be,
 if we shared this music freely with everyone who we meet,
  and allow them to see that which is mysterious, wonderful, often confusing, but oh so good music
   that is within those who truly strive to love God and our neighbor
    with all our heart,
     with all our mind,
      with all our soul,
       and with all our strength?

I'm not exactly sure what that would look like.
 But, y'all, I do know what it would sound like:
  it would sound like the music of the Kingdom of God.

In the name of the + Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.