Acts 16:16-34 "Behind Bars"

         I am not a particularly big fan of Elvis Presley.  I was never inclined to make a pilgrimage to Graceland, his mansion estate in Tennessee.  I have never been particularly drawn to Elvis impersonators, and I certainly never wondered whether the King of Rock and Roll in any way lived after his death in 1977. 

         However, I must admit that, when I hear this particular passage we just read from the Book of Acts, I always think of that Elvis classic, “Jailhouse Rock.”  As I listen, I imagine Paul and Silas, shackled to the wall of their prison cell, raising their voices in glorious song.  I can almost hear the hymns and praise tunes reverberating off the floor and ceiling.  Come to think of it, the acoustics in that inner jail cell were probably terrific!!

         However, to focus only on the nighttime hymn sing would be to reflect on only part of this passage.  You see, these verses are not only about the role of music in troubled times.  They are not only about the earthquake that rocked and rolled the prison, shattering the locks and flinging open the doors to freedom. They are not only about Paul and Silas’ opportunity to escape, which the two missionaries threw away in a heartbeat in order to minister to the jailer. 

         Though the passage is certainly about Paul and Silas’ jailhouse rock and roll, it is really more far-reaching than this overnight stay in a first century prison.  We have here a real adventure story, complete with “an exorcism, a mob scene, a kangaroo court, a flogging, a prison-cell, a prison-church, an act of God, an altar call, a conversion, a few baptisms - and it concludes with new friends gathered around a dining table sharing good food and hospitality in the name of Jesus.” (www.fhcpresb.org). 

         You see, if we look carefully at this passage, we will find that, though it is clearly about prisoners and those who imprison them, it is not just about Paul and Silas.  They were not the only ones in this story who were imprisoned.  There were 3 others as well.

         Let’s go back to the beginning of the narrative.  It starts with a slave girl, a young woman who is described as being in the clutches of an abnormal, if not evil, spirit.  It seems that she rants and raves quite a bit in public and, in doing so, spouts a lot of fortune telling jargon.  She mesmerizes the crowd when she picks out an individual and predicts his or her future. People pay good money to have their fortune told.  She was a psychic, and, in our story, she has decided to focus on Paul and Silas. 

         One gets the feeling that she had been stalking our two missionaries for several days.  Even without benefit of palm reading, tarot cards, or a crystal ball, she has them pegged and does not hesitate to make a public announcement – over and over again:  “These men are slaves of the Most High God, who proclaim to you a way of salvation.”

         No wonder Paul got a bit annoyed and tried, to no avail, to brush her off.  She was a crazy lady – and so did not leave anyone with a particularly positive feeling about the Christian message that he preached or the evangelizing that he was up to. After all, people could not help but presume that this wigged out woman was with Paul. 

         It would be like having someone on a soapbox in front of our church on a Sunday morning passing out pamphlets proclaiming that the moderate church was alive and well right here at the Raymond Village Community Church (United Church of Christ): 

In my opinion, promoting that sort of activity is not exactly the best way to grow our congregation.

         And so Paul did what I could not do in a similar situation.  Paul said to the spirit: “I order you in the name of Jesus Christ to come out of her.” And, as the author of the Book of Acts tells us, the spirit came out of her that very hour.

         And so we have the slave girl:  Prisoner #1.  Not only was she the property of her exploitative owners (though that was quite commonplace at the time), she was imprisoned by a spirit that haunted her.  Hers was at least partially a physical prison from which Paul released her.  Whatever his initial motives, at the core was his sense of compassion grounded in the love of Christ, which he both professed and now acted upon. 

         One would have thought that freeing the young woman from the so-called spirits that controlled her would have resulted in a whole bunch of oohs and ahs amidst enthusiastic applause.  One would have thought that, just as Jesus had made a big impression with his dramatic healings, so Paul would have garnered some big points on the evangelical front as well.  Surely such a healing would be appreciated as good news.

         However, that was not the case.  In fact, the slave girl’s owners were furious at Paul.  You see, the slave girl made quite a bit of money for them.  She was a lucrative income stream.  As long as she was ill, they prospered because they were investors and shareholders in a profitable psychic network.  The slave girl was a great little side business for them.  And so when Paul unshackled her – freed her from the prison of her own mind – her owners were apoplectic.  By healing the slave girl, Paul afflicted her owners where they would hurt the most – their bank accounts. 

         And so we have the owners:  Prisoners #2.  They who imprisoned the slave girl by misusing her own imprisonment were themselves spiritually imprisoned by their own selfishness, which allowed them to look the other way and exploit the slave girl for their personal gain.  With their pocketbooks pinched, they also became shackled by greed and by an overpowering fear of scarcity. 

       In this part of our story, Christianity has come up against economics – and it is not a pretty sight.  When religious convictions and money matters collide, the consequences are most often unsettling, even dangerous.       

       What those consequences were in our story are these:  The now out-of-business slave owners seized Paul and Silas, marched them unceremoniously into the marketplace, and insisted that they be put on trial, right then and there before, as Presbyterian pastor Nick Benson writes, the entire Philippian “Chamber of Commerce. The rulers appeared with their rulebooks; the magistrates came forth in their magisterial garb; and the citizenry showed up with rocks at the ready to stone any rabble rousers threatening the status quo.”

       “These men are troublemakers.”  That was the gist of the accusations, and the monkey court did its work quickly.  Paul and Silas were stripped and whipped and sent to the local maximum- security cell for their crime of compassion.  The jailer was under strict orders to properly shackle them (which he did) and to lock them up tight (which he also did).

       It was that night in the inner jail cell that the hymn fest and prayer service occurred.  It was that night also that the earthquake shook the very prison walls and rattled the doors right off their hinges.  It was that night that the jailer was so distraught over the certain escape of the prisoners that he seriously contemplated suicide.  It was that night that Paul and Silas could have flown the coop but did not for sake of the jailer.

       And so we have the jailer:  Prisoner #3.  Though he held the keys to the jail, he was imprisoned by his job, by the people who dictated its demands, and by the fear all those things engendered.

       And it was that night that the jailer realized his imprisonment, realized that Paul and Silas held the real keys, the ones to the kingdom, and so was baptized.  And it was that night that he transformed from fear-filled jailer to God-filled Good Samaritan, washing the wounds of the two missionaries, clothing them, and eventually feeding them in his own home.

       Though this dramatic story is one full of twists, turns, and surprises, it is also one of deep spiritual significance.  At its roots, it is a tale about those who are prisoners and those who imprison. 

       There was Prisoner #1 - the slave girl imprisoned by her haunting spirits as well as by the abusive nature of her owners. 

       There were Prisoners #2 - the owners themselves, imprisoned by the dollars in their wallets, by their greed, and perhaps most of all by their fear-filled assumption that they needed to grab all they could at whatever cost to others because there will never,

never be enough to go around. 

       And finally there was Prisoner #3 - the jailer imprisoned by fear both of his job and for his job. 

       What these assorted prisoners remind me is that, even in this story, the true prisoners are not always obvious.  That being said, perhaps we – you and I - need to look beyond the ones who live behind actual bars to the ones whose bars are more hidden. 

       We are all prisoners of something, you know.  Maybe it is a job like the jailer, or perhaps it is a relationship.  Maybe we are a prisoner of time.  Who knows – but it is worth asking ourselves this question:  What are we imprisoned by?  And also asking a corollary question:  What bars does the person next to me or behind me or in front of me live behind?

       Of course, the most obvious prisoners in our story were Paul and Silas.  They were the ones stripped and flogged and thrown into jail.  Yet, in a curious theological twist, they were also the ones who freed the prisoners. 

       Paul healed the slave girl.  He liberated her from her physical ailment and, as a result, presumably from the exploitation of her owners.  

However, we do not know for sure what happened to her after this incident. The author of the Book of Acts leaves us nary a clue.

       Though we hope that everything turned out well for her, that niggling omission ought to remind us that we do not always know what the consequences will be of our acts of compassion.  In all our efforts to do good, do we ever in the end do more harm?  It is worth pondering, I think, because sometimes there are more gray areas in life than we like to admit.

       Paul also freed the jailer from what appeared to be certain suicide.  Paul’s compassion ignited a similar spark of compassion in the him.  And you just have to believe that the jailer got it about the keys of the jail and the keys of the kingdom. 

       And finally there were the slave owners.  It does not look like they were freed from much of anything.  And maybe they were not.  So, I think a question that theologian Frederick Buechner once raised is worth reflecting on: “When you find something in a human face that calls out to you, not just for help but in some sense for yourself, how far do you go in answering that call, how far can you go, seeing that you have your own life to get on with as much as he has his?”      

       Perhaps in the end, we can only say that transformation and emancipation are sometimes bittersweet.  Perhaps, in the end, we can only say that it takes time to sort it all out.  Perhaps in the end, we can only say that sometimes we never see the results of our attempts to be Christ-like. 

       But maybe that is part of being a Christian – trusting that our well-thought out (and that is a very important qualifier), our well-thought out acts of compassion will somehow impact the unknotting of all the tangled threads of humanity, trusting that the little acts we do in Jesus’ name can profoundly change lives, trusting that the world as we know it – through our ongoing efforts - will one day collapse as if shaken by a mighty earthquake, and in the rocking and rolling, the prison doors behind which we all reside will open, open to the tune of songs of compassion and justice, and we will realize that we have, in our own hands, held the keys of the kingdom all along. 

by Rev. Nancy Foran, Raymond Village Community Church (U.C.C.)