It Ain't Always Easy: Sermon Acts 16:16-14

Dear God, take our minds and think through them; take our hands and feet and work through them; take our lips and speak through them, take our hearts and set them on fire for you. Amen

Over the last few weeks since Easter we have talked about the responsibilities of being a Christian. We have talked about going out and proclaiming the good news of Christ. We have talked about how we can make the beautiful vision of John the Revelator a reality; we have also talked about our role the God’s redemption of the world. We have talked about how we must not only proclaim the gospel but live out the gospel in our lives. These are all positive things, but let us not forget that being a Christian isn’t always easy.

There are hardships in the Christian life. We face a world that does not always want to hear our words. The world is wrapped up in its own status quo and does not want anyone to rock the boat. But that is part of being a follower of Christ. We must rock the boat just as Jesus rocked the boat and overturned tables, and spoke truth even when it wasn’t nice or welcomed. We are called to comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable. It sounds good, it sounds like the right thing to do and it would seem that those who hear our words would see the error of their ways and change. But this is not always the case.

The world does not always react positively and sometimes it reacts quite harshly and even violently to the words of the gospel. We see such a reaction to the Christian life in today’s reading. However, the story also demonstrates how we should face the reaction of the world to our words and deeds as Christians. We also will see how God sometimes places us in a bad situation in order to have an opportunity to talk about Christ to someone else.

Today’s story begins with Paul, Silas, and a group of people walking to a prayer room. While walking they encounter a young girl who is a slave. They might not have noticed her at all but she runs up to them and beings to say “These men are slaves of the Most High God, who proclaim to you a way of salvation.” (v.17) She is possessed by a spirit which gives her the power to predict the future. We are not told much about her except that she is a slave and that people are exploiting her for money. We do not know how old this girl was nor do we know how she became a slave. It is a sad situation; she has no choice but to work for those who have taken ownership of her. Where are her parents, is she being exploited by her parents? We do not know. We do know that 2,000 years later there are still children all over the world who are stolen and even sold into slavery by their parents. Slavery is not a painful part of the past, but remains a horrid institution of the present.

She follows Paul and his entourage repeating that proclamation. Perhaps it is the little girl herself who is crying out in desperation, “I know you are men of God, save me.” The Bible says that Paul becomes annoyed with her ranting and casts the spirit out of her. If we look at the story in this way then we see Paul not acting out of compassion, but out of annoyance. He grows tired of her and remedies the irritation. However, perhaps we can look at it in a different way. Perhaps Paul took pity on her and wanted to set her free not only in her tortured spirit but free her from the bondage of slavery. Perhaps he saw the injustice of the situation, a young girl living in the hell of slavery and exploitation. Where it was out of annoyance or pity, it was a good deed, an act of mercy, an act of grace, an act of Christ. This is an example for us today. We might become annoyed at the homeless person always asking for change. We might be annoyed at the person who doesn’t have enough money in the checkout line at Wal-Mart. What if we looked beyond the annoyance to the heart of the problem? Perhaps if we looked hard enough we might see the injustice that is behind it all. We might see a problem that needs fixing; we might see a hurting person who needs healing. As we have discussed in the last few weeks we have a responsibility as Christians, a reasonability to take action, to speak out, to do what needs to be done.

And when we do good deeds we expect some kind of praise usually, don’t we? We might not expect an article in the paper or a trophy and a parade, but we all like to have our good work noticed and appreciated. This does not always happen. When we rock the boat sometimes the other people on the boat don’t take kindly to it. Paul does a good deed and frees a young slave girl from a life of captivity and exploitation, but those doing the exploiting don’t see it as a good deed. They see their money maker doing down the drain. Their easy living, their ticket to ride is gone and all that is left is anger. When we act out as Christians sometimes we make a splash and sometimes we make a big splash and sometimes the ripples of that splash upset the balance, the status quo, the way things have always been. Many times the reaction that we get is negative or even violent.

This kind of thing is not limited to fighting injustice in the world. Sometimes it happens within the Church. How many times have we gotten the old, “we’ve never done this before” line? We don’t do it that way, we don’t like change. Sometimes new ideas are good and sometimes new ideas are bad, but we might have to courage to hear them out and be willing to enact change. When someone wants to rock our boat we have ask ourselves is this person working with God behind them?

Back to the story, the people who exploited this poor girl contact the local police who arrest them and bring them before the magistrate or local judge and accuse them of disturbing the peace, in other words rocking the boat. The magistrate hands them over to be beaten and then jailed. Talk about a nasty reaction. They find themselves in a place of injustice and unfairness, all because they did a good deed. Now Paul could have been mad at God. He could have said, “Hey God, I’m down here doing your work and this is the thanks I get, beaten up and locked up.” That is not Paul’s reaction. Instead Paul trusted in God’s plan and knew that he had been placed in this bad situation for a specific purpose. Paul knew that this bad situation would turn good with God’s help and that God had not abandoned him.

So Paul and his groups sing hymns and praises to God into the night. It is similar to those civil rights leaders, many of whom where pastor, who sat in jailhouses unfairly and unjustly, but remained confident in God’s plan. Then sometimes amazing and unexpected happens. A great earthquake shakes the very foundations of the prison and springs open the doors and even loosens the chains they have been locked up with. Now I don’t know about you, but if that had happened. Phew!! I would have been gone, out the door, and half way out of town before they knew what happened. However, Paul remains in prison, sitting in that dark, dingy cell the ability to leave, but he remains. Why? This is perhaps the most puzzling part of the story. Paul and his group remain behind. Perhaps Paul knew somehow and someway that God’s purpose for him was in that prison. The opportunity that God was going to bring out of the bad situation lied in that prison.

The Roman penal system was pretty harsh. Not only for the prisoners but also for the guards whose responsibility it was to control the population. In fact if a prisoner escaped then the guard was expected to give up his own life in exchange. It was a death filled with shame and dishonor. So the guard was just about ready take his own life, because he thought there was no way that the prisoners had remained, when Paul called out to him. In that moment the guard realizes how important and how fragile life is and how quickly things can turn bad. He also realizes that a great mercy has been placed upon him. He asked what he must do to be saved. How do I become a Christian? That was the opportunity God had brought out of the bad situation, an opportunity in the midst of tragedy.

Perhaps the Holy Spirit had spoken to Paul and told him that there was an opportunity in that prison. I don’t know about that particular situation but I do know that the Spirit does move us. The Spirit guides us and sometimes we find ourselves in a bad situation, but just like Paul maybe within that bad situation there is an opportunity to further God’s kingdom. It ain’t always easy, but with God’s help we can work through it and despite the bad odds we can make progress.

Let us pray…

Grant, O Lord,

that what has been said with our lips we may believe in our hearts,

and that what we believe in our hearts we may practice in our lives;

through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.