PCOP
set free
Acts 16.11-40
11 May 2014, Easter 4, NL4-37
(take two)
We set sail from Troas and took a straight course to Samothrace, the following day to Neapolis, and from there to Philippi, which is a leading city of the district of Macedonia and a Roman colony. We remained in this city for some days. On the sabbath day we went outside the gate by the river, where we supposed there was a place of prayer; and we sat down and spoke to the women who had gathered there. A certain woman named Lydia, a worshipper of God, was listening to us; she was from the city of Thyatira and a dealer in purple cloth. The Lord opened her heart to listen eagerly to what was said by Paul. When she and her household were baptized, she urged us, saying, ‘If you have judged me to be faithful to the Lord, come and stay at my home.’ And she prevailed upon us.
One day, as we were going to the place of prayer, we met a slave-girl who had a spirit of divination and brought her owners a great deal of money by fortune-telling. While she followed Paul and us, she would cry out, ‘These men are slaves of the Most High God, who proclaim to you a way of salvation.’ She kept doing this for many days. But Paul, very much annoyed, turned and said to the spirit, ‘I order you in the name of Jesus Christ to come out of her.’ And it came out that very hour.
But when her owners saw that their hope of making money was gone, they seized Paul and Silas and dragged them into the market-place before the authorities. When they had brought them before the magistrates, they said, ‘These men are disturbing our city; they are Jews and are advocating customs that are not lawful for us as Romans to adopt or observe.’ The crowd joined in attacking them, and the magistrates had them stripped of their clothing and ordered them to be beaten with rods. After they had given them a severe flogging, they threw them into prison and ordered the jailer to keep them securely. Following these instructions, he put them in the innermost cell and fastened their feet in the stocks. About midnight Paul and Silas were praying and singing hymns to God, and the prisoners were listening to them. Suddenly there was an earthquake, so violent that the foundations of the prison were shaken; and immediately all the doors were opened and everyone’s chains were unfastened. When the jailer woke up and saw the prison doors wide open, he drew his sword and was about to kill himself, since he supposed that the prisoners had escaped. But Paul shouted in a loud voice, ‘Do not harm yourself, for we are all here.’ The jailer called for lights, and rushing in, he fell down trembling before Paul and Silas. Then he brought them outside and said, ‘Sirs, what must I do to be saved?’ They answered, ‘Believe on the Lord Jesus, and you will be saved, you and your household.’ They spoke the word of the Lord to him and to all who were in his house. At the same hour of the night he took them and washed their wounds; then he and his entire family were baptized without delay. He brought them up into the house and set food before them; and he and his entire household rejoiced that he had become a believer in God.
When morning came, the magistrates sent the police, saying, ‘Let those men go.’ And the jailer reported the message to Paul, saying, ‘The magistrates sent word to let you go; therefore come out now and go in peace.’ But Paul replied, ‘They have beaten us in public, uncondemned, men who are Roman citizens, and have thrown us into prison; and now are they going to discharge us in secret? Certainly not! Let them come and take us out themselves.’ The police reported these words to the magistrates, and they were afraid when they heard that they were Roman citizens; so they came and apologized to them. And they took them out and asked them to leave the city. After leaving the prison they went to Lydia’s home; and when they had seen and encouraged the brothers and sisters there, they departed.
~~~~~~~~
I wonder if they thought about her.
The enslaved woman who started all this—did Paul and Silas
think about her while they were being beaten, or while they were in prison
singing, or while they were telling the good news of Jesus to the jailer, or
while they were using their privilege of Roman citizenship in a show of
nonviolent resistance?
Or was she just an irritant to be brushed off and forgotten?
We like to read this as if she is yet another person set
free from a demon by the power of Christ’s name. And that is true, but it is
not the whole truth. The text does not tell us if she was truly set free, or if
she was just made disposable to her owners. After all, she was a slave who used
to bring in money, and now she doesn’t, and her owners are angry about that.
What will happen to her?
Scripture doesn’t tell us what happened to her. She just
disappears, as if she’s nothing more than a way for Paul and Silas to make a
point in the prison and with the magistrates.
But to God she is a precious child, carrying God’s image. To
God, she has a name, and a story, and value beyond what income she can
generate. And that means that she has value to us as well. We who follow Jesus
can never simply assume that some people are collateral damage, that some people
are disposable, that some people matter more than others.
Paul and Silas’ trip to Philippi had started well. They’d
gotten to know the town a bit, looking for the places where the light of Christ
was already shining, where the Spirit was already visible. Once they found that
bright spot, they were able to begin work there and let the light spread. That
bright spot happened to be down by the river, where the women worked and
prayed. Philippi was a Roman colony, so it did not have a synagogue but it did
have a vibrant economy. Down at the river, they encountered Lydia, a wealthy
merchant woman whose business was dirty but profitable work, extracting costly
purple dye from small snails. The work meant she was unclean according to
Jewish law, but she was a Gentile anyway. In fact, she’s often considered the
first European convert to the Way of Christ. The Spirit was already moving in
that little community by the river, and when Paul and Silas brought the story
of God in Christ, they immediately embraced it in both word and deed, with
radical hospitality and grace.
A fledgling church began in Lydia’s home, and news must have
spread. By the time the slave woman gets on Paul’s last nerve, they’ve been
there for a while and are beginning to be known. But they are still Jews in a
Roman colony—outsiders. And that makes it easy to accuse them when they lash
out and hurt someone’s bottom line.
As they sang in the darkness, did they think about her? Were
they praying for their freedom in Christ to become literal freedom for
themselves and for her? Or was she forgotten?
Freedom did come for them. The earth shook and the doors
open and the chains fell to the floor. The jailer knew that their freedom meant
his own expendability was now front and center—and Paul knew this too. As the
jailer’s despair deepened to match the pitch-black darkness of a maximum
security prison in the dead of night, a voice came out of the dark. Imagine the
freedom he must have felt, to hear the words “we are all here.” It’s almost a
resurrection story all over again, with life coming out of death in the middle
of the night. In fact, not even “almost”—it is
a resurrection story, for where the jailer previously thought his life was tied
only to the value of his work, he now rejoices in knowing that he, and
everyone, is a part of the Body of Christ.
So I wonder if they thought about her?
Was she part of the Body too? Later in his career, Paul will
write that if one member of the body suffers, all suffer together with it. Is
that true for this woman, so easily cast aside? Is it true for the thousands of
women and men and children whose names we will never know but who live their
lives chained to sewing machines to make our lives easier and cheaper? Is it
true for the Nigerian mothers weeping for their daughters while we spend twenty
billion dollars on cards and flowers and gifts for our own mothers? Is it true
for the hundreds of thousands of people sold, like this woman, into sex
slavery? Do we all suffer together with those whom Christ loves but we ignore
as useful at best and disposable at worst?
When the magistrates try to brush off Paul and Silas as an
irritant, sending them away in secret, Paul uses his privilege in exactly the
way Jesus teaches us to resist oppressors: by highlighting their cruelty
through turning the other cheek and walking the extra mile. He brings up his
citizenship for the first time in the story, and forces the leaders of the
colony to come out and make a scene, apologizing for their wrongdoing in public
where everyone can see they were in the wrong. It’s a brilliant move that puts
the good news of God’s story of freedom front-and-center in the town square, at
the same moment it highlights the weakness of the Empire’s assumptions and its
mob justice.
Did they go look for her? Did they try to set her free in a
literal sense now that she was spiritually free? Because spiritual freedom is
important, but it’s only one part of freedom. God didn’t just set the
Israelites free in their hearts, God led them out of Egypt. God didn’t just tell
the disciples that death had now power, God raised Jesus from the dead and
freed him from the tomb. Paul and Silas had all the spiritual freedom they
could want, yet still the earth shook and the doors of the prison opened.
Conversely, it’s easy to assume our freedom because we have
no literal shackles. But we are just as bound. Whether we are shackled to our
socio-economic status, to our insistence that our desires be met at every turn,
to our complicity in a world system where some people are disposable, to our
history, or to our material possessions, or to any other impermanent thing that
has tricked us into believing it is ultimate…Christ has come to set us free. It
may be earth-shaking, it may be hard, it may take a massive shift in how we see
ourselves and others, but God’s will is always for freedom, for justice, for
grace, for peace—in other words, for good news for all, not just for some. For
as often as we do it to the least of these, we do it to Christ. And the least
of these have names, and stories, and value as children of God, regardless of
their value to our economy or interest to our media.
As we seek the freedom and hope that Christ came to give,
and remember that with that freedom comes a responsibility to one another, I
invite you to pick up a little piece of that responsibility by committing to
pray for another member of the body. In these baskets are the known names of
the Nigerian schoolgirls who are still missing. Take one or two, and hold them
fiercely, surrounding them with the light and love of God that breaks open prisons.
For until their prisons are opened, ours can never be. And while you’re praying
for them, confess also the ways in which our own system benefits us at their
expense, whether economically or geographically or socially or politically. May
the earth shake loose our shackles and theirs, until all the world is set free
by this Truth: Christ is risen, he is risen indeed—and freedom is coming.
May it be so.
Amen.
1. Deborah
2. Awa
3. Hauwa
4. Asabe
5. Mwa
6. Patiant
7. Saraya
8. Mary
9. Gloria
10. Hanatu
11. Gloria
12. Tabitha
13. Maifa
14. Ruth
15. Esther
16. Awa
17. Anthonia
18. Kume
19. Aisha
20. Nguba
21. Kwanta
22. Kummai
23. Esther
24. Hana
25. Rifkatu
26. Rebecca
27. Blessing
28. Ladi
29. Tabitha
30. Ruth
31. Safiya
32. Na’omi
33. Solomi
34. Rhoda
35. Rebecca
36. Christy
37. Rebecca
38. Laraba
39. Saratu
40. Mary
41. Debora
42. Naomi
43. Hanatu
44. Hauwa
45. Juliana
46. Suzana
47. Saraya
48. Jummai
49. Mary
50. Jummai
51. Yanke
52. Muli
53. Fatima
54. Eli
55. Saratu
56. Deborah
57. Rahila
58. Luggwa
59. Kauna
60. Lydia
61. Laraba
62. Hauwa
63. Confort
64. Hauwa
65. Hauwa
66. Yana
67. Laraba
68. Saraya
69. Glory
70. Na’omi
71. Godiya
72. Awa
73. Na’omi
74. Maryamu
75. Tabitha
76. Mary
77. Ladi
78. Rejoice
79. Luggwa
80. Comfort
81. Saraya
82. Sicker
83. Talata
84. Rejoice
85. Deborah
86. Salomi
87. Mary
88. Ruth
89. Esther
90. Esther
91. Maryamu
91. Zara
93. Maryamu
94. Lydia
95. Laraba
96. Na’omi
97. Rahila
98. Ruth
99. Ladi
100. Mary
101. Esther
102. Helen
103. Margret
104. Deborah
105. Filo
106. Febi
107. Ruth
108. Racheal
109. Rifkatu
110. Mairama
111. Saratu
112. Jinkai
113. Margret
114. Yana
115. Grace
116. Amina
117. Palmata
118. Awagana
119. Pindar
120. Yana
121. Saraya
122. Hauwa
123. Hauwa
125. Hauwa
126. Maryamu
127. Maimuna
128. Rebeca
129. Liyatu
130. Rifkatu
131. Naomi
132. Deborah
133. Ladi
134. Asabe
135. Maryamu
136. Ruth
137. Mary
138. Abigail
139. Deborah
140. Saraya
141. Kauna
142. Christiana
143. Yana
144. Hauwa
145. Hadiza
146. Lydia
147. Ruth
148. Mary
149. Lugwa
150. Muwa
151. Hanatu
152. Monica
153. Margret
154. Docas
155. Rhoda
156. Rifkatu
157. Saratu
158. Naomi
159. Hauwa
160. Rahap
162. Deborah
163. Hauwa
164. Hauwa
165. Serah
166. Aishatu
167. Aishatu
168. Hauwa
169. Hamsatu
170. Mairama
171. Hauwa
172. Ihyi
173. Hasana
174. Rakiya
175. Halima
176. Aisha
177. Kabu
178. Yayi
179. Falta
180. Kwadugu
No comments:
Post a Comment