Of All the Things One Might Do at the Moment . . .
May 20, 2007
Ralph DiBiasio-Snyder

Acts 16:16-34

Introduction to the Reading

Which "book" of the New Testament bears a title that is the most difficult to pronounce of all the New Testament writings? Is it Philippians or Thessolonians? Perhaps Galatians or Colossians or Ephesians? No, for my money it's the book of Acts: A . . . C . . . T . . . S: Acts. It sounds for all the world like "axe" to me, doesn't it? In addition, Acts is not the complete title! The full title - not claimed by the book itself, but by early church tradition - is The Acts of the Apostles. So not only is it the most challenging title to pronounce, but it's also one of the longest!

We've been spending some time in the book of Acts this month, and will for a couple of more weeks. It is a unique book of the New Testament in that it is the only record of how the very first Christians lived, and how the church grew. Acts picks up the story where the Gospels left off - and in fact whoever wrote the gospel of Luke also wrote the book of Acts - they are volumes one and two of his account of Jesus and the Christian movement. Written about fifty years after the birth of the church, Acts begins with just 120 followers of Jesus there in Jerusalem, and ends 28 chapters later with Paul preaching about Jesus at the very heart of the Roman Empire, in the city of Rome. It is a story of expansion in geography and in numbers, and in theology too as the church learned that God's grace extends to all people.

Acts is a dramatic tale of an exciting thirty years or so, starting with the story of Pentecost that you'll hear about next week, and continuing with page after page miracles and visions, shipwrecks and beatings, the apostles preaching to philosophers and kings and to common folk as well. It is the story of ordinary people doing extraordinary things. Like the story we will hear today.

Paul and Silas - and some would argue that the author of this book as well (listen in the reading for the word "we" as the story begins) - have come to Greece, and as we learned last Sunday a prominent business woman named Lydia has converted to the faith. They continue preaching in the streets of Philippi but have picked up one follower they really wish would just stay home: a slave-girl, mentally disturbed, whose owners have been exploiting her illness for their own gain. After many days of this, Paul's patience wears thin, and to the dismay of her owners, he heals her. And that gets him into a lot of trouble not for theological reasons, but economic reasons

Listen especially for what Paul and Silas do at midnight, their feet in stocks, in the darkest cell of the local jail. What would you have done at that moment, in their place?

. . . .

Today's story illustrates why I never became a street preacher. I know, I know - you're probably thinking, "Gee; Ralph has just the right personality to preach on street corners! He'd be great!" And of course you'd be right. But it never happened.

If I had ever been tempted to follow in the steps of evangelists like Paul, the experience we just heard about shows why I'd never do it.

First, you never know just who's going to show up in the crowd. Like this poor, exploited slave-girl. We imagine that she was being used by her owners to tell fortunes - charging vulnerable people to have her rant and rave as if possessed by a spirit, foretelling the future. In those days people would have thought a spirit was speaking through her. Today we'd say she suffered from some severe mental illness, perhaps schizophrenia. Whatever her condition, she was a source of income for her owners.

Notice that what the poor girl was yelling out was true. There at the edge of the crowd listening to Paul she would suddenly cry out, "These men are servants of the Most High God, who proclaim to you the way of salvation!" True enough . . . but even the truth can be a bother if said loud enough and often enough! And when Paul finally healed her, he may have been acting at least as much in anger, as compassion saying, "In the name of Jesus Christ I command you to come out of her!" By this time she had been hounding them "many days;" why had he not healed her the first day she came? Had he welcomed the girl, perhaps, because she was affirming them as servants of God? Preachers like someone in the crowd shouting out a hearty "Amen!" so long as it's done in good taste.

Perhaps it became clear only after a while that she was not a devoted follower but simply mentally disturbed (the two are sometimes hard to tell apart!). She was not a convert to be encouraged, but an ill person to be healed. No, this is not the kind of person you want to see out there in the crowd. But street-preachers never know who's going to show up.

But another good reason not to be a street-preacher is where you just may end up, that is, in jail. Like Paul and Silas. And not just in jail. In the deepest, darkest part of the jail, your feet in stocks.

Which may have been a welcome relief to them, given what happened before they got there. They must have been frightened out of their wits when the crowds surrounded them, demanding that they be arrested. They were stripped and beaten - "severely flogged" says the text. Half dead, they must have been quite a sight, these two street-preachers, bruised and bleeding, clothes tattered, in the dark, in stocks and chains.

And I wonder: what do you think they were thinking about at that point in their lives? At that moment, what was going through their minds?

Were they thinking perhaps, that No good deed goes unpunished?  For what had they done to deserve such abuse? They had only healed a girl of her mental illness. It wasn't fair that they be thrown into prison for healing, for preaching the truth! They could have been thinking that - I would have.

And perhaps Paul was thinking, there in the prison, about the fact that they were there, really, not because of their message of Christ. No one had been calling for their heads all those days before the healing of the girl. No, it's "when her owners saw that their hope of making money was gone" that they take action, dragging Paul and Silas down to the authorities. They claim that their offense is the proclamation of a new religion:

"They are Jews!" Antisemitism. "We are Romans!" Nationalism. Now we're getting to what riles up the crowd. But more than that even, what gets Paul and Silas in trouble is when the message gets out of the realm of the spirit alone and into the marketplace, into their pocketbooks, the world of dollars and cents. Religion that minds its own business is applauded, or at least tolerated. Faith that demands a change in how we order our economics - that's when the sparks start flying! Maybe Paul and Silas were thinking along those lines that night.

We can only speculate, of course, on what was going through their minds that night, sore and bleeding, in chains, in darkness. We know more what they do at that moment than what they thought. And what they do is astounding enough.

Try to put yourself in their place. What would you have done? Better yet, think back to a time when you were in prison. It might have been a real one . . . More likely it was a prison of the soul, the mind, the spirit. Think back to a time when everything that could go wrong has gone wrong. A broken promise, that breaks a relationship. A time of poor health, when the prognosis is dim, the doctors offers little hope. The end of a job, and with the end of that job the prospect of a future with no income, with no insurance. A time when fond dreams - for yourself, your children, your retirement - those dreams are shattered or at least have dimmed. A time when truly all seems lost - all IS lost, there in the "innermost cell," your feet bound in stocks. What would you do in that prison? Of all the things one might do at that moment of despair and exhaustion, what did you do? What did I do?

At those points in my life I can tell you that did not do what Paul and Silas did. About midnight Paul and Silas were praying and singing hymns to God.

The cynic in me says that when all other options have been exhausted - when you've truly hit bottom - praying and singing is all you can do! Especially, perhaps, if you are a street-preacher, or a regular preacher, like me. You pray because you have to; you sing because it's expected of you. That's the cynic's view.

But even for street-preachers and regular preachers at the bottom there is another option. That is the option to do nothing at all, to sink into the despair, to even allow oneself to wallow in it, and die in it. Paul could have done that. Full of the frailties and the strengths that all humans have - apostles or not, preachers or not - Paul could have given up hope, and simply gone to sleep. But instead he made a choice in that prison, there at midnight. He could choose despair, resignation, and anger because of the circumstances. And he could choose hope, confidence, and joy - despite the circumstances. He didn't spontaneously break forth in song anymore than you or I do when faced with the diagnosis of cancer, the reality of a bankruptcy, the end of a relationship. It's not a natural response to desperate situations, singing praise to God! I think Paul and Silas decided to pray, decided to sing.

Across the centuries comes this surprising, startling, against-all-odds scene of two men in a dark and dank prison, feet in stocks, manacled hands lifted in prayer, bruised mouths open in glad song - singing against the darkness of their prison and the darkness of their time. It was not easy for them to sing against the darkness. But their choice was made, and stands today as part of our faith story to encourage us to sing as well.

Notice that their singing brought about their freedom - the doors of the prison swung open wide! But in a very important way it didn't matter whether or not the doors were opened. For the doors of their minds and hearts and spirits had already been freed when they chose praise and prayer over anger, resentment, and self-pity.

Given the circumstances of our world - wars abroad, poverty and injustice here - given the circumstances of some of our lives - worries about our health, our families, our future - it is hard to sing in the dark. But that's why we show up here in this place each Sunday. To hear a word of hope, to hear of one another's struggles and faith. And quite literally to "sing into the teeth of evil." *

Not my phrase . . . but I could not find the original quote! - RDS