We zoom in on the powerful image of Paul and Silas, political prisoners, behind bars, surrounded by other prisoners listening to them, as they SING HYMNS to God. They are singing before the miracle. They are singing as strategy, as prayer, and as soul-nourishment individually and collectively. We hear stories from some Mennonite sisters in the contemporary Jesus Uprising, as we ponder our own singing before the miracle, joining the Spirit’s groaning with sighs too deep for words.
Sermon begins at minute 7:23
Acts 16:16-34
Image: Jailed civil rights protesters, Tuscaloosa AL, 1964.
Hymns:
Come Now, O God: Words - ©2018 GIA Publications, Inc., Contributors: David Bjorlin
My Life Flows On: Music - ©1989 MennoMedia Inc., Contributors: Brethren Press
Permission to podcast the music in this service obtained from One License with license #A-726929. All rights reserved.
Resources
- Mother God, by Teresa Kim Pecinovsky, ill by Khoa Le; read just before the recording
- “Expanding our identity in worship,” Sarah Augustine, Vision: A Journal for Church and Theology, Spring 2022: “Music and the arts”
- “Music and inclusion in Mennonite worship and peace-justice work,” an interview with Sarah Nahar, Vision: A Journal for Church and Theology, Spring 2022: “Music and the arts”
- BibleWorm podcast: Episode 341 – Of Jailers and Slave Girls, Amy Robertson and Robert Williamson, Jr.
- “Black and Indigenous Solidarity in the Haudenosaunee Confederacy: Stopping the Narrative Violence of Columbus in Downtown Syracuse, New York,” Sarah Nahar, Stories of Repair: A Reparative Justice Resource toward Dismantling the Doctrine of Discovery (2021).
- Porter's Gate, whose music from their album Justice Songs we used in our time of response.
- “Ramadan Nights Provide Cherished Pause in a Sudan on the Brink,” by Declan Walsh, The New York Times, April 28, 2022.
