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 marketplace 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. Acts 16:16-34 (NRSV)
Grace and peace to you from our Lord and resurrected Savior, Jesus Christ. Amen.
Each week as I prepare to write my sermon, there are a variety of things I do and read. I first meditate for a day or two on the reading, using different translations to see how it has been interpreted differently. Then, I go to the original Greek and see if there is anything that stands out to me. Then, believe it or not, I go onto Facebook. (Do I hear a collective groan?)
I really do go onto Facebook. Because on that platform, I am a member of a few different groups that discuss our weekly reading from the Narrative Lectionary. Sometimes the discussion gets very lively. At other times, there’s hardly any. This week, though, our reading from Acts resulted in one of the longest and most liveliest discussions I’ve seen over the past couple of years.
The primary focus of this discussion was the incident between the Apostle Paul and the slave girl who was possessed by a spirit, a spirit that gave her fortune-telling abilities. So, we are going to look closely at that exchange today. But, before digging deeper into it and everything it led to, first, a little context.
Last week, we heard about the conversion of Saul, whom we know better as Paul. His conversion happened along the road to Damascus, in Syria, some 135 miles away north of Jerusalem, as the crow flies. Today’s story is years later, years during which Paul has been formed as an apostle and, particularly, years during which he has been spreading the good news of Jesus Christ to the Gentiles, to the non-Jews. This is the mission territory where the Jerusalem council has sent him. Where the Holy Spirit has sent him.
As our story opens, Paul and Silas are in Philippi. Now Phillippi is in northeast Greece, a continent away from Jerusalem. It was a Roman colony and was located along a major east-west trade route for the Roman empire. So, Philippi was a cosmopolitan city with many influences, particularly Greek and Roman. In the verses that precede today’s story, we learn that the first convert in Philippi was Lydia, a woman who was a merchant selling purple cloth, likely a wealthy merchant. As was the custom of that day, when Lydia converted, her entire household was converted. It was in Lydia’s home that Paul and Silas were staying as they worked to share the Gospel throughout this thriving city. It is at this point that today’s story opens.
One day, as they were headed to a place where they had been praying outside the city gates, they met a young woman who was a slave. Our scripture says that she had a “spirit of divination.” What is interesting about this young slave woman and the spirit that inhabited her body was that, in the Greek, this spirit is called a “python spirit.” If you’re up on your Greek mythology, Python was the name of the mythical serpent that guarded the oracle at Delphi. Python was defeated by the Greek god, Apollo. So, the story of Python and Apollo is really a story of conflict. A story of a fight for rulership, over which god will ultimately prevail.
But, back to our young woman. After meeting Paul and Silas, she began to follow them and to shout, “These people are servants of the Most High God! They are proclaiming a way of salvation to you!” Doesn’t sound so bad, does it? But, day after day, when she saw them, she would shout this. After awhile, Paul became annoyed. Very annoyed. One day, he turned to her and ordered this spirit--this “python spirit”--out of her. Now, one would typically think that this would have been a good thing. That it was positive that Paul had freed her of this spirit.
One would think that.
But, in her case, she was being used by her owners--exploited by her owners--who were making a lot of money off of her, a lot of money off of her fortune-telling abilities. So, when Paul sent the spirit packing, along with it went their money-making ability. They got angry. They grabbed Paul and Silas and took them to the town square to the legal authorities.
Do you notice what they do next?
Rather than speak the truth of what had happened, they seek to exploit and to divide people by nationality. “They are Jews!” the men say. “They are bringing in practices that are different from our culture.” They seek to agitate the crowd against Paul and Silas for who they are--Jewish rather than Roman. Once again, they are engaging in exploitation. This time it is to drive a wedge between Paul and Silas and the rest of the people.
As a result, Paul and Silas are stripped and beaten. They are thrown into prison, into the “innermost cell,” which would typically have no windows and little air, except when the door was opened. They are secured in stocks. All of this because of a desire on the part of these men to exploit people and situations for their own means.
We already heard the rest of the story. In the middle of the night, as Paul and Silas are praying and singing hymns to God, there is a great earthquake, freeing all of the prisoners. And, eventually, the jailer is saved and baptized, along with his entire household.
Throughout this entire fascinating story, I am still captured by this python spirit. Setting aside the relationship to Greek mythology, I can’t help thinking about pythons and, especially, how they kill their prey. When they catch something--a small animal, for example--they seize their prey with their teeth, while simultaneously squeezing the life out of it. They are life-constricting, rather than life-giving.
This is what exploitation is. This is what is does. Whether it is the exploitation of a young slave, or the exploitation of a crowd, or any other form of exploitation, it is life-constricting rather than life-giving. It kills life, rather than creating life.
Our God is a God that creates life. That is life-giving. This is what we know from creation and from all of scripture. This is what we know from both the cross and the resurrection. God creates life. God is life-giving. Not life-constricting. When we exploit people or situations or when we, yes, exploit creation, we are not living as people of God. We are life-constricting rather than the life-giving people God intends us to be. This is the struggle. This is the fight for rulership, for which God will prevail. A fight between the god of the world that brings death. Or the God of life--who gives life through Jesus Christ. We know the winner of that conflict. We know that God will continue to bring life out of death, to offer forgiveness out of sin, to create light of out darkness, to bring belief out of unbelief. Life-giving. Not life-constricting.
Yesterday, I watched the funeral of Barbara Bush, our former First Lady and mother of former President George W. Bush. She was a wonderful woman. Not perfect, by any means, which she would easily admit. But someone who truly lived out her faith, putting service above selfishness, nation above political party. In a time when fear of AIDS was running rampant in our country, she publicly went to a hospital for infants infected with AIDS and held one, using her position to send a strong message throughout our country. There are many other similar stories. The one, though, that stayed with me the most was about a man named J. T. Pace.
Literacy was the one issue that Mrs. Bush worked on for her entire life. J. T. Pace was a son of a sharecropper. When Mrs. Bush met him, he was 63-years old. He had only recently become literate. He was scheduled to read the preamble to the constitution at an event commemorating our nation’s bicentennial. Backstage, at the event, he was very nervous. Mrs. Bush noticed this and asked if she might help by reading the preamble together with him on stage. He agreed. When they took the stage, they began to read it together. As Mr. Pace became more comfortable reading in front of the large crowd, Mrs. Bush began to lower her voice. Bit by bit, she continued to do this until, at last, Mr. Pace was reading completely on his own. Her work was done when he had fully found his voice.
Life-giving. Not life-constricting.
We, too, are to be life-givers. This is who we are called to be. To live into the redemption won for us by Jesus on the cross--a redemption intended not only for all humankind, but redemption intended for all creation, whom God has connected us to deeply. We are called to live into that redemption and to be life-givers.
This is why, on this Earth day, we celebrate the goodness of God’s creation and commit to caring for it. Not to exploit it, but to care for it and to advocate for its health and life, just as we are to advocate and care for all of life. Not to constrict life. But to be life-givers, just as God has given us life. Abundant life.
May God make it so. Amen.
Preached April 22, 2018, at Grace & Glory Lutheran Church, Goshen, KY.
Fourth Sunday of Easter
Readings: Luke 6:18-19, 22-23; Acts 16:16-34
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