Disturbing the City - Acts 16:16-34 (Easter 7C)
Wait - you might be thinking that this is going to get political... No - don't worry. It might get political, but not in the way you think. At least - not in any more than I have been any other week. Isn't it political to call for the transformation of the world? Doesn't that cast a vision on how we want to live?
In that vision, do we sing about peace and stop studying war? Shall we pray about an end to hunger and living into God's abundance even here and now in our fruitful world? Who can we look to partner with?
These are questions to ask when looking at visioning and vision statements. Some people might think that those are too high-level and not practical. They get in the way of doing the day-to-day work, or maybe it's all the work to make them happen. Meetings upon meetings. But it can be good to narrow down your focus and get into what you're doing, especially in a place where lots of things can be easily misunderstood, like church.
But ultimately, can we fix everything? No. But can we strive and work for how we see God's vision of heaven getting brought to this earth? Absolutely. Can we get inspired to value what God values and not be content with the way things are but how they could be? How can we make a mission to get moving to connect our hands, feet, and hearts to the work God has called us to do.
Let's get into the text for today - Acts chapter 16: 16-32; kind of a lot going on here; it almost feels like three different stories. The story starts back at the beginning of the chapter, where Paul and Silas meet up with a fantastic woman named Lydia. I encourage you to read that sometime this week because these stories fit together, and I don't want to spoil how. But we are following Paul and Silas in Macedonia, which is north of Greece. Philippi was a Roman colony, a special kind of city that served as a cultural outpost within the Roman imperial system, maintaining uniquely close political and economic ties to Rome. The small city’s residents included many descendants of Roman soldiers who had fought under the command of Rome’s first emperor, Augustus, several decades prior. Prime land in the colony was the reward for their loyalty.
We're traveling around as the "we" group. We were teaching, praying, and engaging with the community in the usual Paul kind of way. But then there is this person. An irritant. A buzzing fly that just won't leave them alone. A slave girl with a gift, a spirit of divination. And she runs after them, like an annoying kid sister who keeps tagging along, wanting to be one of the cool kids. And she announces, no, she divines good stuff, stuff that Paul would have said himself. "These men are the slaves of the Most High God, who proclaim to you a way of salvation."
Who could be upset by that? They're getting free advertising. They've got a P.R. manager running in front of them. What a deal! Except it didn't feel like a deal. Her enthusiasm short-circuited any conversation that they might want to have. The big reveal was revealed too soon. Day after day, she was there, with the same tagline, like a bad commercial that keeps running in every break, all day long. Finally, Paul just snapped. And he turned and healed her, just like that. He cast out that spirit of divination, effectively shutting her up for good.
So, in short, the stuff hits the fan; the owners of the slave girl just lost their meal ticket, and they aren't happy. They have Paul and the team arrested and invent some charges that may be based on truth, but probably not. They are stripped as a way of publicly humiliating them; they are beaten to extract a pound of flesh for the loss of income; they are thrown into the inner jail (the jailiest part of the jail).
Naturally, they start singing hymns, perhaps "The Old Rugged Cross," "How Great Thou Art," and "Amazing Grace"—Luke has a solo on that one. All the hits. They sing them through their facial contusions and over the creaking of their broken bones; they sing rather than moan; they sing rather than complain; they sing. And the other prisoners locked away in that rat-infested darkness listen to them sing and decide they are either crazy or saints, maybe something of both.
Paul and Silas do not waste away but worship God in the midst of their midnight hour - when all hope seems lost they turn to God. When the jailer comes and assumes they are gone he also loses hope and is about to take his life when Paul and Silas share the good news - they are there, hope is found. The Jailer rested his hope in the authorities of Philippi and Rome which measured his worth by how well he imprisoned others
Then the earthquake happened. A natural occurrence? Well, sure. Earthquakes happen. But it's funny how Luke describes the effect. He says the chains were unfastened. Not the chains were shattered or pulled from the wall or any other accidental freeing effect. He says, unfastened. Interesting, don't you think?
And no one seizes the moment and runs for freedom. The gospel singers and their appreciative audience sit there in the rubble, patiently waiting for whatever might be next. When they hear the scream from the jailer and metallic unsheathing of the sword, and the ragged breathing of a man on the brink of despair, Paul shouts out. "We're all here," put away your sword. Then the jailer brings light into their darkness and kneels before the men he treated like dirt earlier in the day and says, "I want what you have that causes you to act as you did here."
It was strange, out of the ordinary, unsettling. Their behavior was not normal. It was offensive to the status quo; they were upsetting the city. It was a part of transforming the world.
The question the jailer has ("What must I do to be saved?") is similar to one we will be talking about next week as a part of Pentecost - but as a preview, salvation is a free gift because of WHO God is, with the mercy of Jesus Christ. The gift has been given to all, it is granted to those who receive it through faith, manifested through visible actions. And if we are presented with the same question, each of us must be willing to stay with the questioner in their struggle, by repeating Paul - "Don't harm yourself, we are here" to help support you on the journey of faith.
Change is hard; that's the point, and it will be resisted. But if we embrace the mission statement, we are change-makers, change bringers. And we will be fought and ignored, and maybe even persecuted. Yet we will persist; we will bring change, a new kin-dom, a new way of living as the human community. We will struggle with it and sometimes will get it wrong. Paul's response to the girl who annoyed him is hardly worthy of the Christ he proclaims, even if the result was positive. We seem to have fallen back on social patterns of sidelining unnamed women. One step forward, two steps back. We are not perfect vessels of this perfect grace. However, we will continue to be worthy of the gospel we proclaim.
Taken to an extreme, behavior like this could paint God as coercive and peevish. With regard to the scene in Acts 16, God’s earth-rattling statement declares that God doesn’t want certain societies to presume they know the right ways to preserve liberty and justice for themselves. After all, some cultures need a firmer kick in the pants than others to get over their arrogant presumptions and their love of power.
But we are in the business of disturbing the inadequate peace, challenging the status quo. The charge gets even better in the next chapter: These people are turning the world upside down. What better legacy could we leave? Who is making disciples of Jesus Christ for the transformation of the world? Let's be about disturbing.
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