An Ironic Escape (May 29, 2022) Acts 16.16-34

We have been traveling through Acts for the past few weeks and what a trip it has been. From the conversion of Saul, to the imitations of Peter, to Peter’s story of his visit with Gentiles, to welcoming the first convert in Europe, we have traveled in a thrilling arc. There are many other stories in Acts that are just as exciting and just as edifying. Today we find one of those stories.

Last week we heard the story of Lydia and of her household. How Paul and his companions came to the city of Philippi to answer the call of a man in a vision to come and help them in Macedonia. A vison from God that was a detour of the way that they were wanting to go. And they came to a place of prayer beside a river where they met Lydia and others who were worshiping God in this place. One would think that this is the beginning of a fruitful work in the city of Philippi.

One would think that. But as is often the case of those who are in the work of God, things are not what they always seem to be.

Paul and his companions have become a staple at the place of prayer. They are now known and welcomed there. But one day they encounter something different. They are met by a female slave who has a spirit of divination. This is a spirit that was often attributed to the god of Apollo who was the god of divination with his temple and oracle at Delphi.

This female slave is twice enslaved. She is a slave with owners who control her and she is a slave to the spirit that inhabits her. We are told that she brought her owners a great deal of money by the fortunes she tells to those who are coming to her. In this case she is either very good or the Philippians are very gullible. Whatever the case, she is a slave and one for whom there seems to be no chance of release from either the spirit or her owners.

But she finds Paul and his companions on their way to the place of prayer. And she follows with cries of “These men are slaves of the Most High God, who proclaim to you a way of salvation.”[1] She recognized other slaves, those who were owned by one who was greater than themselves. And she cried out what they were there to do. Now the Most High God could have meant Zeus or the God about whom they were there to tell. But she continues with this statement. Something compels her to cry out.

After several days of this happening, Paul gets a bit annoyed (one can hear him groan, “Oh great. Here she comes again”), possibly by the fact that this woman is bringing proclamation by a spirit that is not the Holy Spirit, it is just religious noise, and orders the spirit “in the name of Jesus Christ” to come out of the girl. The spirit immediately does what Paul orders and the girl is freed from the spirit showing that Jesus is more powerful than the spirit. Now, I would like to have known what happens to the girl, but we are not told anything about her after this. One can hope that the new followers of Christ went out, found her and brought her to their group. That is my hope because according to the text, she is now of no use to her owners. Willie James Jennings has this to say about Paul and his actions: Paul is moved by no great spiritual discernment, and no righteous indignation, but simply and beautifully by annoyance. Paul was annoyed, and this suggests a level of frustration through repetition. Enough of the religious noise! Enough of the mindless praise of God and God’s servants that mask demonic activity! The point was not to silence her voice but to release it from its networked captivity.[2]

But Paul and Silas are about to find out that no good deed goes unpunished. The owners of the female slave are quite put out. They had been making quite a tidy sum from this slave’s divination and they now no longer have their cash cow to rely upon. They understand what the release of the slave from the spirit that possessed her means for them. They do not care about the slave except for the fact that they can no longer make money off of her.

So, what to do now? What are they going to do now that their money-making machine is no longer available? Why, take hold of those who freed their slave from her captivity to the spirit in her.

So, they take Paul and Silas to the marketplace where they call on the ruling authorities to “do their job.” The slave owners say that these men are trying to stir up trouble, that they are rabble rousing men who are trying to proselytize the Romans. In fact, they say, they are Jews (imagine the word said in a sneer) who are nothing like us well-mannered and civilized Romans. They are foreigners who are trying to destroy good Roman values. The ironic thing about this is that Philippi was a Roman colony founded to allow soldiers of the army of Octavian, Caesar Augustus, to have land. None of those accusing or judging Paul and Silas in the marketplace could in good conscience be called “natives”. They had all come from foreign stock. So, their calling Paul and Silas foreigners is quite humorous.

But the magistrates have heard all that they need to hear when it is mentioned that they are Jews (anti-Jewishness is nothing new or modern.). This is simply a kangaroo court where justice is not even present, especially since these men are Jews and not citizens. The crowd is howling and calling for punishment of the “trouble makers”. The magistrates have Paul and Silas stripped, beaten with the rods of authority that they carry as badges of office, and then thrown into the prison. Usually, a beating like this would have been followed up with a throwing out of town of the miscreants, but this time, they want to make of these Jews a lesson: “See what happens when you try to mess with Roman laws and customs? All foreigners take note.” What they do then is throw them in to the local prison. (An aside here: when I went to college in Philippi, WV, the city manager quipped that Paul would have felt right at home in the town jail.)

When they are thrown into the prison, the jailer is told what has happened and that these men are to be treated as the miscreants that they are. So, they are thrown into the innermost part of the prison (think the darkest and most dank part of the prison, no windows and a thick door.) and put in stocks. What they are in is meant to cause the most discomfort as possible.

Now if I were Paul and Silas, I would have been silent. I would have been in dismay and shock at how I was treated. I would have been wondering what it meant to be a slave of God if this was how one was treated for doing the will of God.

Instead, we are told that the two of them are praising God and singing hymns, probably psalms of praise that they knew by heart. One can imagine the other prisoners listening to this and wondering just who these two are and if they are mentally stable. Especially at around midnight. Didn’t these two know that people were trying to sleep? But the singing continues.

Then the moment that changes everything. An earthquake shakes the walls and foundations, shakes the bonds that hold them loose and throws open the doors of the prison.

The jailer immediately comes down to check out the situation. Upon seeing all the doors open, he assesses what has happened and assumes that the prisoners have all escaped. With this assumption he takes what would have been the only honorable course out: suicide. But Paul, maybe hearing a sword being unsheathed or hearing the jailer state what he is about to do, calls out and assures him that all the prisoners are still there. The jailer then asks the question that was repeated all through my childhood in sermons: “Sirs, what must I do to be saved?”[3] This was probably a question of “how do I get out of this mess?” not a question of personal salvation as was taught to me when I was growing up. The answer is not one that he was expecting, a verse that I can still recite in the King James Version: They answered, “Believe on the Lord Jesus, and you will be saved, you and your household.”[4], though I have to admit that we left off the part about the household. It did not play well with the personal salvation part of our theology.

Whatever the man thought of this, he believed and was baptized along with his household, similar to what happened with Lydia. And also similar to Lydia, the jailer brings them in to his house and breaks bread with Paul and Silas rejoicing that salvation was brought to the household.

One part of this story that the lectionary leaves off is what happens after this. The magistrates, feeling that their point has been made, send to the jail and tell them to release these two prisoners and escort them out of town. Paul will have none of it. Those sent are told that these men are Roman citizens. Now there is real trouble. Beating citizens without a fair trial was punishable by death. Now, the magistrate’s bacon is in the fire. They come, personally apologize and ask them to leave so that there is no more trouble. Paul and Silas do take their leave, but only after meeting again with the new church, which include Lydia and the Jailer.

This is a story of those who are in slavery and those who are free. But the tables are flipped. Those who are in slavery are the ones who are free and those who are free are in slavery. Allow me to elaborate. The female slave is indeed in slavery, both to her owners and the spirit. She however is set free by Paul calling on the name of Jesus to drive the spirit out of her. We don’t know that she was set free by her owners, but because she is of no use to them, there is a good chance that she was abandoned by them. Paul and Silas are slaves of the Most High God. They are free because the truth set them free.

Those who are in slavery yet believe that they are free are the owners, the magistrates and jailer. The owners are slaves to their profits and the money that the female slave brought to them. They cannot see past the profits that her being free cost them. The magistrates are slaves to the popular opinion. Rather than listen to Paul and Silas about what had happened and have a fair trial, they listen to the crowd and deliver them to the jail beaten and dazed. The Jailer is a slave to what he believes is the right thing to do when something goes wrong. He believes that he will be blamed and that taking his life is the only way out of his situation. He is the only one who is freed from his slavery.

Too often we think that we are free when we are really slaves. We constantly call upon our freedoms that we have in our country but we are slaves. We are slaves to consumerism with the lust for the next greatest and biggest thing that comes along. We are slaves to the fact that we have our ideas and are unwilling to listen to others, believing that we are the only ones correct. We are slaves to those who continue to tell us that only they can save us. We are slaves to fear that makes us believe that having more firearms can help make us safe. These are just a few of the things that we are slave to in our “freedom”.

But we are most free when we realize that we are slaves to the Most High God. Jesus calls us to take up his yoke, a metaphor for being a worker who is owned by another. We are told that the yoke is easy and the burden is light. When we see the truth in Jesus, that he is the one who brings us our salvation, that truth will set us free. Then we will be free to live lives of joy. We will be free from those things that keep us captive even when we believe that they are what makes us free.

What holds us in slavery wants to keep us in slavery. Like the owners of the female slave, the things that hold us in slavery care only for themselves. But the master that we follow, Jesus, gives life and life abundantly. So why should we look for freedom in things that hold us in slavery? Let us look to the one who for freedom sets us free. Amen.

[1] The Holy Bible: New Revised Standard Version. Nashville: Thomas Nelson Publishers, 1989. Print. [2]Jennings, Willie James. Acts. Ed. Amy Plantinga Pauw and William C. Placher. First edition. Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox Press, 2017. Print. Belief: A Theological Commentary on the Bible. [3] The Holy Bible: New Revised Standard Version. Nashville: Thomas Nelson Publishers, 1989. Print. [4] The Holy Bible: New Revised Standard Version. Nashville: Thomas Nelson Publishers, 1989. Print.