Subscribe
Share
Share
Embed
Acts 16:6-40
Sermons from Commons Church. Intellectually honest. Spiritually passionate. Jesus at the centre. Since 2014.
Welcome to the commons cast. We're glad to have you here. We hope you find something meaningful in our teaching this week. Head to commons.church for more information.
Speaker 2:If we haven't met before, my name is Maddie. I've been hanging around commons for a while now. I'm a theology student at Ambrose University, and so I started out here by doing my pract icum in the fall and winter. And then to cover a time of transition, I came on staff for these summer months. And it really has been such a joy to get get to know this community here and become a part of it.
Speaker 2:I've had the opportunity to meet so many of you lovely people and also the opportunity to learn so much from the amazing staff team here at Commons. Right now, we're in the middle of a series in the Acts of the Apostles, and we've been exploring a number of different stories that are full of drama and intrigue. And one of the things that has struck me as we've been traveling through these stories is the sheer number of characters who are present in the book of acts. While the gospels tend to focus in on the person of Jesus and those surrounding him, the book of Acts expands its view to include people from all walks of life. In Acts, we encounter apostles and sorcerers and high priests and all sorts of folks in between.
Speaker 2:And the range of human experience that acts includes allows us to see God at work in all circumstances. And
Speaker 1:in
Speaker 2:the middle of all of the drama, the good and the bad and the ugly, we see people of faith practicing, as Bobby called it a few weeks ago, the art of living well. They practice being who they are, where they are. And we'll meet three more people in acts this week, a businesswoman, a slave girl, and a jailer. But first, will you pray with me? Gracious and loving God, you are the one who sees.
Speaker 2:You see us on all of the different paths we take in moments of great joy and those of deep sorrow. Your patience and your love for us has no end. May we remember that today? And remind us that you hold all of our story with love, the parts we celebrate and the parts we grieve. Assure us, God, that in the midst of pain and struggle, you are present and your spirit is in us, and invite us to lean into the good good news that is your grace.
Speaker 2:In the name of Christ, pray. Amen. This week, we're taking a look at Acts chapter 16. And at this point in Acts, Paul is on his second journey around Asia Minor and the Mediterranean where he is building the Christian community and encouraging believers in a number of different cities. And in this moment in the story, Paul and his companions have traveled to Troas where they stopped for the night.
Speaker 2:The text tells us they took an alternate route because the holy spirit kept them from entering the province of Asia. And then when they tried to go to Pithynia instead, the spirit of Jesus stopped them from going there too. And in this, we see that although Jesus is no longer physically present with his disciples, his spirit is guiding them nonetheless. But this spirit that has been guiding Paul and his companions throughout this journey is not pushy or demanding, it meets them wherever they are along the path and it guides them forward from there. So they arrive at Troas for the night and we read, during the night, Paul had a vision of a man of Macedonia standing and begging him.
Speaker 2:Come over to Macedonia and help us. After Paul had seen the vision, we got ready at once to leave for Macedonia concluding that God had called us to preach the gospel to them. Paul is quick to react here. He hear he hears the desperate need of the man in this vision, and he concludes that the divine must be drawing them somewhere new. So Paul and his companions, they set out right away.
Speaker 2:And when they arrive at Philippi, they spend several days there. So the author of Acts has set the stage for us, and now he's ready to tell us a few stories. The first one goes like this. On the Sabbath, we went outside the city gate to the river where we expected to find a place of prayer. We sat down and began to speak to the women who had gathered there.
Speaker 2:And one of those listening was a woman from the city of Thyatira named Lydia, a dealer in purple cloth. She was a worshipper of God. The Lord opened her heart to respond to Paul's message. When she and the members of her household were baptized, she invited us to come to her home. If you consider me a believer in the Lord, she said, come and stay at my house.
Speaker 2:And she persuaded us. Now it was common for Paul to look for the largest Jewish gathering when he was entering a city. It was a sort of home base where he would establish a relationship with the people who worshiped there and then also begin his teaching ministry. But in this story, in Philippi, he doesn't find a synagogue. What he finds instead is a group of women gathered to pray by a river.
Speaker 2:And one woman in particular, that's Lydia, is the focal point of this story. And the text tells us that she deals in purple cloth. And then the color purple was strongly associated with wealth and extravagance. And the author of Acts actually tells us a story about a rich man in Luke chapter 16. And the story tells us that the rich man was dressed in purple and fine linen and lived in luxury every single day.
Speaker 2:It almost sounds like a Bruno Mars song. And so when the author of Luke Acts tells us that Lydia Lydia deals in purple cloth, he is definitely name dropping here. He wants us to know that she is a big deal. And this is really important because the author of Luke and Acts likes to examine the ways that wealthy people interact with the gospel. It's in the gospel of Luke where Jesus says, it's easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than it is for a rich person to enter the kingdom of God.
Speaker 2:And yet something about this story of Jesus compels Lydia and she's baptized. Lydia may have been used to being taken pretty seriously in the world of business. She was after all a dealer in a highly profitable market and she would have had daily interactions with other men like Paul. But in this religious setting where her presence as a woman might not have been taken as seriously, she is still given the chance to play a significant role. And she's invited to take the power she has and put it to good use.
Speaker 2:And on Paul's part, this move to engage Lydia in his mission is actually a bit of a risk. He's used to doing things a very particular way, going into a city and finding the synagogue and speaking to the men there and establishing a church. But when he encounters this group of women, something causes him to stop and to realize that this gathering and this woman, Lydia, in particular, has something really significant to offer. He recognizes potential in her and he decides to address it and it pays off. And often, sense will tell us that we should keep doing things the way we've been doing them before.
Speaker 2:We shouldn't try anything crazy, that we shouldn't go off the beaten path. And then other times, an interaction with someone will nudge something inside of us that says, maybe I should think about this differently. Maybe I should try something new. Maybe I should take a chance on that person. Maybe we should move off course.
Speaker 2:And Paul does make the decision to divert his course, and it led to the establishment of faithful and hospitable leadership in Lydia. Now Lydia's story wraps up with her inviting this group of men into her home. Lydia will show up again a bit later today, but before then, the writer tells us another story. It sounds like Paul and his companions come back to this place of prayer a few more times because their path down to the river is our setting for story number two. The author of Acts tells us that one day, while they are visiting the place of prayer, they are met by a female slave.
Speaker 2:The Greek for female slave here is padis king, which can be translated literally as slave girl. So this actually isn't an adult woman in slavery but a child. And this slave girl, the text tells us, is captive to a spirit that allows her to predict the future, and she is earning a great deal of money for her owners by fortune telling. Now, our English translation is pretty vague here in describing the spirit that inhabits this young girl. But the Greek text literally reads, she had a spirit of python.
Speaker 2:Now, this would have been a well known image for Luke's contemporaries. This title, Python, referenced the Greek god Apollo's priestess, Pythia, who was known to have highly reliable prophetic knowledge. Now even though this belief was definitely not part of the Jewish religious tradition, the people hearing the book of Acts read would have known the Greek religious tradition well enough to recognize this name Pythia, to recognize that the spirit in this story was presumed to be one that could tell the future. Now, it's important to note here that what we're talking about is not something like Old Testament prophecy, which was about speaking truth to the powers that be. This fortune telling here is more like the ancient version of getting your palm red.
Speaker 2:It was about telling people what they wanted to hear about their individual fates. Now as as Paul and his companions are on their way down to the river, this slave girl follows them and she says, these men are servants of the most high god who are telling you the way to be saved. And in the story here, it's hard to know whether it's this young girl who's supposed to be speaking or whether the author wants to see this as the spirit speaking through her, but she keeps this up for several days. And so we can presume that Paul and his companions encountered her every time they went down to the river to gather. Finally, one day, Paul, he just snaps.
Speaker 2:He turns and he faces the slave girl and he says, the name of Jesus Christ, I command you to come out of her. And the spirit leaves her. And when I first read this, I was a little surprised that Paul reacted this way because what the slave girl was saying about Paul and his companions was basically true. But while our instincts might might be to hear the slave girl's words as good news being proclaimed, it's actually a lot more complicated than that. This girl is a very young girl in a very vulnerable situation.
Speaker 2:Situation. And she's owned by people who are making a profit off of her. And her experience of this Pythian spirit has just been mixed in with this strange message of good news that she's heard from Paul. And this weird mix of Greco Roman cult practice and the message of Paul, it has turned into some sort of fanaticism where she's following these men around in a bit of a frenzy. And Paul recognized this in her because he clearly isn't okay with what's happening.
Speaker 2:Maybe it was something in her eyes, the way she looked at them that caused him to be concerned. Maybe it was her voice, the sense of desperation she had. It could have been her persistence in following them that tipped Paul off. But either way, he recognized that the way this girl was acting and speaking, this was not an honest and healthy expression of faith. It is the result of endless manipulation and exploitation and involvement in this Greco Roman cult.
Speaker 2:So while it might be very tempting for Paul to allow this girl to proclaim their arrival, to advertise their mission, to draw attention to him and his message, he resists that temptation. In fact, instead of being flattered by her praise, the text tells us that he's annoyed by it. The Greek word that's translated as annoyed here is dioponeomai, which can mean annoyed, but it also can mean grieved or distressed. So we can read their interaction like this. Finally, Paul becomes so grieved and distressed that he turns around and says to the spirit, in the name of Jesus, I command you to come out of her.
Speaker 2:Because Paul doesn't want the praise of someone who is being used for the sake of a prophet. The slave girl may be saying the right words, but they're clearly coming from the wrong place, and this causes Paul to be annoyed and grieved and distressed. And because of Paul, the girl is freed from the spiritual element of her captivity. But this is only part of her story. We don't get to see what happens after that.
Speaker 2:We can imagine and then we and we can hope that one day she is freed from her physical captivity as well, but the text doesn't really give us much to go on here. Because for this slave girl, her story really isn't in her own hands. It is those with more power than her, Paul and her owners, who have the chance to allow for her freedom. And I wonder what it would mean for us to realize that our stories are never fully in our own hands either. They are formed and informed by the people around us.
Speaker 2:And part of living a healthy life within that reality is recognizing the ways that we might be trapped in someone else's expectations for us or that we might be holding someone else in a habit or way of being that is harmful to them. But Paul's decision to confront what holds this girl captive, it costs him. We read that when the slave girl's owners realized that their hope of making money was gone, they seized Paul and Silas and dragged them into the marketplace to face the authorities. They brought them before the magistrates and said, these men are Jews and are throwing our city into an uproar by advocating customs unlawful for us Romans to accept or practice. And things go downhill from here.
Speaker 2:The crowd joins in on the attack against Paul and Silas, and the two men are stripped and beaten, and they are thrown into jail. Notice how this narrative moves along. Paul and Silas take away the owner's hope of making money, and they pay for it. In his commentary on the acts of the apostles, r Kent Hughes writes this, whenever the preaching of the gospel touches the economic structure of the powers that be, opposition is bound to come. The gospel that Paul and his companions are preaching isn't good news unless it moves to the practical realities of our world.
Speaker 2:The spiritual will always be touching down and impacting the way the kingdom of God plays out here on earth. And that's what's that's exactly what's happening here in this story. The owners of the slave girl, they wanted religion to stay in its place, to mind its own business, to not mess with how they made their money. But the good news that Paul preaches is good news to those who are most vulnerable. And good news to those who are most vulnerable might sound like bad news to those who make their money through exploitation.
Speaker 2:Notice the contrast to Lydia's story here. Lydia was in the business of making money too, but her encounter with God led her to generosity and hospitality. A professor of mine, Kolenthoff Meyer said, well, tweeted it actually, that we must move from fear over what might happen to our position of privilege to the search for opportunities to use our privilege to benefit others. And that takes some serious work. So the slave girls' owners are upset with Paul and Silas because they've taken away their hope for a profit.
Speaker 2:They accuse the two men of throwing their city into an uproar, and this accusation is so vague, but the thing is is it works. The crowd goes crazy, and Paul and Silas are stripped and beaten and thrown into prison just like that. Isn't it scary how fast a loss of power can turn into a loss of control? And so far in this story, we've seen Paul interacting with these two women from opposite ends of the social ladder. Lydia is influential and wealthy.
Speaker 2:She's near the top. And this slave girl, she is vulnerable and marginalized right at the very bottom. And what's beautiful is they're both invited into this common story from opposite sides. But Paul's encounter with the slave girl, it ends him up in prison where a certain jailer is charged to look after him. And now in the middle of the night, Paul and Silas, they start singing hymns to God.
Speaker 2:And the prisoners are listening and the jailer is listening and suddenly there's this violent earthquake and all the chains are broken and all the prisoners are freed. And if you're the jailer, just put yourself in his shoes for a moment. You would be panicking at this point because under Roman law, if any prisoners escaped, all of their offenses would be laid on the jailer and he would be held solely responsible. And the jailer is so petrified of this, so terrified of the consequences of not doing his job that he almost ends his life right then and there. But before he can, he hears Paul and Silas calling out to him.
Speaker 2:He hears them say, don't hurt yourself. Wait. We're here. They tell him that they're looking out for him, and they get the chance to leave, to walk free, but they don't. They stay and they protect the jailer instead.
Speaker 2:And the jailer is so overwhelmed by their compassion that he cries out, what must I do to be saved? And I think after what the jailer has seen, first these prisoners singing hymns to God in prison and then this crazy earthquake and then their compassion towards him, I think it's no wonder that he wanted what they had to offer. But the funny thing is is it's not the earthquake or the miracle of the earthquake that compels the jailer to seek salvation. This miracle is actually what makes him want to end his life. It's the compassion that Paul and Silas show this jailer in his moment of vulnerability that draws him towards faith.
Speaker 2:Their compassion to him in his moment of despair. Then suddenly the scene shifts and Paul and Silas seem to be inside the jailer's home. And we read that the jailer washes their wounds and then he and his family are actually baptized. It's this beautiful moment of mutuality where the man who washed Paul and Silas' wounds is now washed and cleansed and raised to new life himself. And we read that this moment of baptism is followed by celebration and by joy and by a meal shared together.
Speaker 2:So so far, this story of Jesus has captivated a wealthy businesswoman and a girl in slavery, and now it's captivated someone who is represents governmental authority and power, someone who is partially responsible for Paul and own brutal mistreatment. Now in the morning, these three men, Paul and Silas and the jailer, they end up back at the prison. And the text tells us that the authorities swing by the prison to let the jailer know that he can let Paul and Silas go. And so the jailer tells the two prisoners to go in peace, and just when you thought this was going to wrap up nicely with a good happy ending, I feel like acts has not given me enough of those, Paul decides that going in peace is not how he wants to do it. He turns to the officers who came to notify the jailer and he says this, they beat us publicly without a trial even though we are Roman citizens.
Speaker 2:And then they threw us into prison. And now they just want to get rid of us quietly? I don't think so. Let them come themselves and escort us out. Now I can imagine Silas might have been a bit exasperated at this point.
Speaker 2:They finally have a shot of walking free of getting out of prison, and Paul, who just has to have everyone know that he is right, is putting up a fuss. But surprisingly, the officers who come to let Paul and Silas go, they seem to take Paul's words pretty seriously. They report back to the magistrates and the text tells us that upon hearing Paul's message, they are alarmed. The men who they thought were just trouble causing Jews were actually Roman citizens. And under the law, Roman citizens were protected from certain things.
Speaker 2:They had a right to a fair trial and and they had protection from the kind of mistreatment that Paul and Silas endured. Paul chooses to expose the injustice that led to their incarceration. He knows it may have been easier to just keep the peace and leave without any trouble, but he isn't satisfied with that. There's a recurring conversation I have with my mom about what it means to keep the peace. I started three or four years ago, think, and she told me that I wasn't being honest with someone else about the way they are making me feel.
Speaker 2:She said that I was being too eager to keep the peace, too eager to stay quiet about something and that it was letting this person and their actions and the way it was affecting me, it was letting them off the hook. I don't remember exactly what the context was in this situation, it was a few years ago, but based off of what my mom was saying, I'm guessing it was about some boy who wasn't treating me with all the respect she thought I deserved. My mom is the best. Anyway, started thinking about this word peacekeeping and how it sounds kind of static. It's keeping things the same.
Speaker 2:It's accepting the status quo, and it's keeping the peace no matter what. Now we do peacekeeping all around the world often, and it's often good and necessary. But keeping peace at the cost of allowing injustice injustice to continue, that doesn't move us in the right direction. Because the word used for peace in the Hebrew scriptures is shalom, and shalom is all encompassing wholeness. It is harmony and completeness and the welfare of all of creation.
Speaker 2:And we only have to look around us to realize that this isn't the status quo. This kind of peace, this shalom is not gonna be achieved by things staying as they are. And I think that I too often try and keep the status quo in situations that could honestly use a bit of shaking up. And so instead of being a peacekeeper, I've decided to do my best to be a peacemaker, which means standing up to injustice. It means taking an active role to call out that which is harmful.
Speaker 2:And this is exactly what Paul does here when instead of just walking away, he chooses to speak up, to not let it go. I think there are times when we have to ask ourselves, are we just going along with the way things are? Are we satisfied with the status quo because it works out alright for us? Or maybe it even benefits us? Because that's how we participate in God's work in the world, by working towards a peace that promotes the welfare of everyone, by pushing back against injustice, and by inviting people from all sorts of directions into the story of Jesus.
Speaker 2:In the last verse of this section, we read, after Paul and Silas came out of the prison, they went to Lydia's house where they met with the brothers and sisters and encouraged them. Then they left. So here Lydia makes her other appearance and we see that the chance that Paul took on Lydia a few verses back, this has led to the kind of community that Paul can return to. A location for a gathering where all are encouraged, men and women, apostles and business owners. It's a gathering of different people drawn together by a common story.
Speaker 2:I want you to remember Paul's own story for a moment here because Paul at the beginning of Acts is a very different person from the Paul we are encountering now. Just seven chapters earlier, Paul was breathing murderous threats against anyone who called themselves a Christian. And yet somehow he goes from being hyper religious, someone who's obsessed with drawing lines and staying inside of them, to someone who comes into Philippi and crosses all sorts of lines. And the walls that used to define Paul's life have started to come crumbling down. And now when Paul does leave Philippi, he leaves behind this dynamic community full of rich business women and slave girls who were involved in fortune telling and jailers and their wife and kids and government officials who've been called out.
Speaker 2:The story of Jesus has drawn people from all sorts of wild places into a community that is diverse and vibrant. And we can see that there's no socioeconomic barrier that the spirit of God cannot overcome. And as we are drawn into the story of Jesus, we too will be drawn nearer to one another. Jesus pulls unexpected people from places we never could have imagined to participate in the community of faith. And that's what's encouraging to me here.
Speaker 2:These stories, they give me hope. Hope that who I am right now, the work that I do, the people I love, the desires of my heart, so that it all can be part of God's story. And the differences that exist between all of us, differences in occupation or family history or experience, all of that serves the community of faith as well. God draws all people from all places participate in the life of the divine. And to be in the middle of God's story in the world, I don't have to be someone I'm not, and neither do you.
Speaker 2:God will continue to invite us to play our part in the gospel, and I think that is very good news for us all. Will you pray with me? God of new beginnings, you constantly surprise us by dwelling in places and among people we never would have expected. For those of us who felt like we aren't who the church needs, may we be reminded that you have formed new beginnings from all sorts of unlikely people. And transform us now, God, to be people who have the courage to divert our course when we feel you calling us elsewhere.
Speaker 2:And invite us to see your spirit working in all things, in all places, in all people. May we know that who we are is exactly who you've created us to be And that in this moment, in this season of life, we are capable of participating in your work in the world, work that transforms and renews and brings lasting peace to all things. In the name of Christ, we pray. Amen.