Dr. Hugh Hamilton
Trinity presbyterian Church – Pensacola, FL 
June 2, 2019   7th Sunday of Easter, Cycle C

UNEXPECTED ACTS OF GOD:  5. REVERSALS FOR SHAKEN PAGANS 
Acts 16:16-40 

In the movie The Shawshank Redemption prisoners walk and talk in the exercise yard at Shawshank prison, making plans for what they will do when they are released.  One older prisoner, Brooks, is released after spending most of his years behind bars. The parole board gets him a room at a boarding house and a job bagging groceries at Foodway. He’s depressed and anxious whether he can make it in the free world.  He misses his fellow prisoners.  Struggling to make it on the outside, he thinks about getting a gun and robbing the Foodway to get himself thrown back into prison.  Eventually, he carves “Brooks was here” into a ceiling beam in the boarding house and sadly, takes his own life, hanging himself from the same beam.  He’d become so used to captivity that the free world is too much to bear. 

In our story about Paul and Silas in Acts 16 we encounter four imprisoned characters – two individuals and two group of characters. The slave girl, her owners, Paul and Silas, and the jailer.  Each needs to be set free - and each experiences the contradiction between freedom and imprisonment.  

First, we have the slave girl.  She may be free to follow Paul and Silas around town, but in truth she is not free.  She is bound by an evil spirit that enables her to tell people’s fortunes and she is enslaved by her owners who make money off her fortune-telling.  She followed Paul and Silas through the streets of Philippi shouting: “These men are slaves of the Most High God, who are proclaiming to you the way salvation.”  Paul becomes so annoyed by the spirit’s shouting that he casts out the demon and frees the girl from the spirit.  In the name of Jesus Christ, she was unshackled from the spirit that enslaved her.  But immediately Paul is in trouble with her owners, because her freedom means they will now lose money.  Her owners are too enslaved to their financial gain to appreciate the girl’s newfound freedom! 

What happened to the girl after she was set free of her demon and no longer useful to the company?  We don’t know. Acts doesn’t tell us.  Was she cast away? Did her owners ell her to someone else? Did she become a follower of Jesus?  The text leaves it to our imagination. 
	Last Sunday’s text was about Lydia, the wealthy woman who was converted to Christ and became a leader of the growing church in Philippi.  Maybe Lydia took in that slave girl, gave her a job and a room in her house in which to live?   Maybe the girl joined the group of ladies who went down to the river to pray each day?  Let’s imagine that the girl lived a new life in Jesus, set free to live as God intended for her.

Next, we have the slave girl’s owners.  They were making money off this girl’s gift—and now they are mad. They’ve lost their income stream; her freedom hurt their wallets.  They drag Paul and Silas off to the authorities and whip the crowd into a frenzy; the crowd strip and beat Paul and Silas and throw them in prison.   

When righteous causes conflict with economics - like Paul releasing the girl from her oppressors - it can have perilous consequences.  People take notice. When we move from donating money to a charity of our choice to saying NO MORE to the unjust treatment of others, people notice.  When you move from helping people in need to addressing the practices and policies that put people in need, you rattle chains and raise shackles.  When economic boycotting dries up income streams, people notice-and they get angry.  

When North Carolina passed their bathroom law limiting LBGT rights, sponsors of the NCAA Basketball Tournament boycotted Charlotte, NC and Charlotte lost millions of dollars in revenue.  People called for reversals of the decision. 

Since Alabama passed their anti-abortion law last month, activists have arranged boycotts of Alabama tourism and Mercedes and Kia car manufacturers with plants in Alabama.  Hit them in their wallets if you want to see change.

For a decade or more presbyterian Church (USA) groups have joined the United Methodist Church, the Roman Catholic Church, the Episcopal Church, the United Church of Christ, the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) and other faith bodies to work side by side with the Campaign for Fair Food Farmworkers to advance human rights and fair wages for migrant farm workers in Florida.  That has made lots of folks in our churches mad, but by their protests and boycotts, these church groups have leveraged some of the biggest landmark agreements with some of the largest food corporations in the world.   Taco Bell, pizza Hutt, Kentucky Fried Chicken, Subway, Whole Foods Markey, Bon Appetit, and Compass Group food services have changed the structure of the food system in America so that it ensures the well-being and safety of men and women who harvest our food and have advanced the health, safety, education and fair labor laws for the children of those migrant workers.  Whether or not you like our denomination’s involvement, they have freed men, women, and children enslaved by the labor market. 
 
The Presbyterian Women organization has attacked the sex slave trafficking in America and is helping teenage girls and young ladies escape to safe shelters free from their predators.   When church people speak out against systems that use people as commodities, they shake up the owners and authorities.   You may not like such tactics, but how many nameless young girls and boys are there in our world who resemble this slave girl? Child sex slaves caught in the slave trade industry? Child prostitutes in either poor or rich cities? Child laborers in sweat shops? Child soldiers fighting grown men’s wars?

Like abused children, this slave girl was bound by a spirit from which she could not free herself.  She was in bondage to it and was at the mercy of others to set her free.  Just like Paul, God calls us to liberate the victims of oppression. We can’t just feel bad and wring our hands. Thank goodness there are people and agencies in our communities engaged in reversing horrific situations in Pensacola, in Florida, in the world and working for the good of our communities. 

Paul and Silas are thrown in jail because they freed the slave girl.  At midnight they are praying and singing to God, disturbing the other prisoners and creating a commotion. Paul and Silas will not be silenced; their bodies are in chains, but their spirts are fee to worship God!
Then an earthquake shakes the prison, doors swing open and the prisoners’ shackles fall off!  God’s power shakes not only the foundations of the prison, but of the earthly powers as well!   Nothing can keep God’s workers locked up forever, and Paul and Silas and all the prisoners are now free to walk away! 

But the jailer, who seems to be a free man, is so enslaved to his authorities, that he about to commit suicide rather than face what his Roman overseers will do to him when they find out his has lost his prisoners.   Paul called out to him these words that stopped him short: “Do not harm yourself; we are all here.”   This is an escape story without an escape!

Ironically, the jailer does what he was afraid the earthquake had done – he liberates the prisoners and takes them to his own home.  And there, he becomes a follower of Jesus!  The jailer’s question is key to this whole narrative: 
    “What must I do to be saved? What must I do to be set free?” 
          “Believe in the Lord Jesus,” Paul answers, “and you shall be saved, you and your      
               household!”  (Acts 16:31) 
After washing the physical wounds of the prisoners, the jailer is washed in the waters of baptism, and he and his whole household become believers in Jesus (v33-34).  

The liberating gospel of Jesus Christ unshackles us from what imprisons and enslaves. We each have our own form of chains or demons.  Maybe it’s doubt, or fear or anxiety; addiction; maybe you can’t forgive yourself or someone else;  maybe you depend too much on your bank account for your security; maybe your pride or ego control you;  maybe a painful memory still haunts you, controls you.  

Whatever demon is holding you captive, don’t be afraid to name it when you pray to Jesus during communion today.  Lift it up to God and ask his help. The question of Paul’s jailer asked is THE question: What must I do to be saved, to be set free?   The answer might shake you like an earthquake. If you allow Jesus into your hearts and life, he cleanses you, heals you, frees you to move ahead.  God may shake you to your core, to your foundations, but God will not leave you shackled to the addictions or attitudes or fears that hold you captive. God will free you and make you useful to God’s work.

Freedom and transformation can be bittersweet. Being set free takes time and patience and the courage to be changed. That’s what happened to both the girl and the jailer. We don’t know their names, but we know that when they encountered the name of Jesus, their lives were profoundly changed. They were shaken and set free.

There is one more surprising story of reversal we must not overlook: The Roman Magistrates.  In verses 35-40, the Roman magistrates want to be done with this whole episode quickly. Maybe they realize the mob mentality had gotten out of hand the day before.  Maybe they thought they had over-reacted.  Maybe they thought a night in jail would be enough to stop Paul and Silas from making any more trouble.  No matter the disturbance the night before, they still think they are in control of their little world. 

They send their policeman with orders for the jailer to “release those men,” (v35), but Paul refuses to leave! It’s another escape story without an escape.   Paul reveals that he is a Roman citizen and lists the magistrates’ offenses: they beat us in public without a trial; they threw us in prison, now they’re trying to secret us away – no, we’re not going!  You tell the magistrates to come to us and escort us out themselves!  
The magistrates are shocked and shaken when they hear that the Paul is a fellow Roman!  What they had done was illegal to do to a Roman citizen.  The magistrates’ sense of power and control is taken away. In a panic they go Paul and beg him to leave town and to leave them alone.   Paul does leave, after all, God is calling him to an expanding mission to the Gentiles.  

But before he leaves, he goes to Lydia’s house, lest we forget that the church is still there in Philippi, in the house of Lydia, and now …also … in the house of the jailer.   If the magistrates felt any relief that Paul was gone, it was premature, and they were mistaken - the gospel continues to spread and the church is growing! The church is proclaiming Christ and the kingdom of God – and the world will not go back to the way it was! 

This is a story of reversals:
Everyone we assume to be free – the jailer, the magistrates, the owners of the slave girl – 
   is in bondage. 
      Everyone we assume to be enslaved - Paul, Silas, the slave girls, the prisoners – has been   
          freed in Jesus Christ. 
	These shaken pagans are now believers in Jesus Christ. 

Pastor Jessica LaGrone writes:
	Having the key to lock someone up doesn’t make you a free person.   Being on the inside 	of prison bars doesn’t necessarily mean you aren’t free.  The determiner of freedom is 	so available, so accessible, so immediate, that we don’t have to wait for a key to unlock 	it or an earthquake to experience it.  If the Son makes you free, you wil be free indeed” 	(John 8:36). (LaGrone, 214).

2 Timothy 1:7 says, “God has not given us a spirit of fear, but a spirit of power and love and discipline.”  
Fear not, for God is with you to deliver you.
   Open your heart and mind to God during communion, 
      and let Jesus open the door for you to move ahead, to change for the better, 
          to work for the good of a better day, a better future.  
	Thanks be to God for the freedom and victory that are ours in Jesus!  Amen! 
Sources

Beal, Clover. “Shaken and Unshackled.” Forest Hills Presbyterian Church, Cleveland, OH, 
	May 16, 2010.  https://www.fhcpresb.org/worship-music/sermon-	archives/2010/05/shaken-and-unshackled-acts-1616-34/
Hamilton, Hugh. “Set Us Free.” First Presbyterian Church Covington, TN.  May 28, 1995.
LaGrone, Jessica. “Easter Series” Seventh Sunday of Easter: An Ironic Escape” in A Preacher’s 	Guide to Lectionary Sermon Series. Compiled by Jessica Miller Kelley. Louisville: 	Westminster/John Knox Press, 2016.
Peterson, Brian. Commentary on Acts 16:16-34. 	https://www.workingpreacher.org/preaching.aspx?commentary_id=1628.

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