Slave or Free?

May 16, 2010

Galatians 3:27-4:7 & Acts 16:16-34

Today’s reading from Acts is 19 verses long – too much to absorb all at once. So I’ve divided it up, & want to work on it a few verses at a time. You may want to pull out your pew Bible & follow along. We’ll look at Acts 16.

This reading is just like real life. It presents a tangled web of theological options, ethics, religion, economics, & interpersonal relations. It also talks about strange & mysterious things we don’t quite believe in, but cannot dismiss – fortune telling, demon-possession, & exorcism, … all in the first three verses! There’s moneymaking too, which we do believe in (deeply!), even if we don’t always see it (at least for ourselves), or approve of how it happens in this passage.

Like the verses from Galatians, however, Acts is most interested in the balance between “slave & free.” The whole passage, in fact, amounts to a hard-fought contest over who is a slave, who’s free, & how the shift is enacted from one side to the other.

Scene 1 – Slave or Free? (verses 16-18)

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.

So we begin at a “place of prayer,” the same place we met Lydia last week – when she was the first European convert to Christianity, & a model for many other symbolic “mothers” of our faith, some of whom I named in that sermon.

The “place of prayer” sounds like a good location to start a story about faith. But it doesn’t take long to notice that at least three kinds of “slaves” are present in or around the place of prayer – people who may not be slaves by their own admission but could be slaves even so.

1. The slave-girl, who is enslaved in two ways – outwardly by her owners, & inwardly by a spirit Paul soon will cast out.

2. The girl’s owners. They don’t think they are enslaved, but Acts implies that they are enslaved – to the money she brings them.

3. Paul & company, who are free, but are accused by the girl of being “slaves of the Most High God.”

Some preachers would consider it a badge of honor to be called “slaves of the Most High God.” Such devotion! Such singularity of purpose in relation to the Almighty!

But not Paul. He is annoyed by the thought. He rejects the notion that he or any Christian is a slave – even to God. For him, anyone in Christ is a new creation, the old has passed away, & the new has come. To live in Christ is to be set free from the things that would otherwise own us.

When Paul exorcises the spirit inside the girl, he not only liberates the girl from her captivity to demons & money-chasers, but affirms his own freedom in Christ. He puts the weight of evidence behind his word that “there is no longer slave or free, but all are one in Christ Jesus.”

That sounds like a happy ending to the story, but of course it is always more complicated than that, for the powers that seek to enslave us don’t easily surrender. So …

Scene 2 – Market Disturbance (verses 19-24)

… 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.

Usually when we talk about a market disturbance, we mean something that happens at the New York Stock Exchange. The Dow Jones Average drops a thousand points in an hour. A Greek currency crisis rattles investors. Too many houses go into foreclosure at once; regulators have to step in.

But the same thing can happen when someone tries to break free from captivity. The forces that want to maximize economic profit, even at the cost of human lives, panic & strike back.

In a flash, the girl’s owners respond. Sensing that their profit-making scheme is about to unravel, they do two things: First, they arrest Paul & Silas, & dragg them – where? To jail? To court? No! To the marketplace! The slave owners drag them to the very place that endorses their money-making incentives & goals – the very place that is most likely to turn a blind eye to the injustice of slavery – the place that is least likely to give Paul & Silas an impartial trial – & the place that serves as the reversal of the place of prayer where they started, since the marketplace is less concerned for the weak than for the “survival of the fittest.” That’s one thing the owners do.

But the other thing they do is lie & mislead about their motives. We know that personal profit is their aim. But saying that out loud would be crass – even in the marketplace (like company executives testifying before Congress that their multi-million dollar bonuses are deserved, while others are put out of work).

Not surprisingly, their tactics work. Paul & Silas are not granted a trial, much less a fair one. Instead, they’re attacked by the marketplace mob, flogged, chained, & thrown into a deep, dark dungeon.

It is as Paul says in a verse just prior to today’s readings from Galatians: “Before faith came, we were imprisoned & guarded under the law until faith would be revealed” (Gal. 3:23).

So their claim to freedom in Christ is again put to the test.

Scene 3 – Monopoly Card (verses 25-29)

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. 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.

Paul & Silas are now in prison, but still refuse to act as prisoners or slaves. Listen how subtle Acts is in describing their freedom: They “were praying & singing hymns to God, & the prisoners were listening to them.” Did you notice? It doesn’t say, “the other prisoners,” (as if Paul & Silas are included) but “the prisoners.” Acts does not number Paul & Silas among those who are captive. It continues to recognize that even in a dark dungeon, in shackles & stocks, they are free.

Again, that explains why Paul was annoyed about being called a slave by the girl early on.

No matter where they are or what their circumstances, Paul & Silas & other Christians know they are free. They can be locked up & physically beaten – but even then they are free in Jesus Christ.

So, when they are in prison, they can sing & pray to God. When the earthquake comes & the doors open up, & light is brought in – & other Easter indicators appear – they aren’t surprised or at a loss for what to do. And when the chance comes for them to run & escape for their lives, they don’t. Because, Christ has already set them free.

Paul & Silas & Christians everywhere know that, through Jesus Christ is our “Get Out of Jail Free.” He is our guarantee that no one & no thing will ever take us captive.

That means they don’t have to act the way other people would. But, when they act in a new way, other folks notice.

When Paul & Silas don’t run for their lives, the prisoners don’t, either. Notice how Paul tells the jailer, “We are all here.” Something about the faith of those two men – their calm in the face of chaos – rubs off on the prisoners, giving them fresh courage & inspiring them to new habits. There was a mob in the marketplace, but not where prayers & hymns are offered to God!

The jailer is changed too. He was ready to fall on his sword, but falls instead at the feet of the disciples. Where shame & dishonor might have prevailed, awe & wonder win out. He gets his own “get out of jail card” – a chance to start over & be free.

The words we heard in Galatians apply now to him: “You are no longer a slave, but a child, & if a child then also an heir, through God” (Gal. 4:7). But he isn’t sure what to do. He wonders, “What must I do?”

Scene 4 – Other-Focused (verses 30-34)

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.

The jailer asks, “What must I do to be saved?”

Paul tells him, “Believe on the Lord Jesus, & you will be saved.” And the apostles begin to speak the good news of Jesus Christ to the man & his family.

Soon, he is washing the wounds of the prisoners he had held captive. The presentation of the gospel leads him not to ask “What must I do to be saved,” but rather to care about the wellbeing of others.

With a fascinating symmetry, he first washes their wounds & then is washed in the water of baptism. In fact, he washes the wounds he helped to cause. He sets right the wrongs he had committed – a true act of freedom in Christ.

* *

End of story? Not quite. We don’t know the end of the story for the slave owners or the prisoners. Were any of them changed by what took place in those days? Or did they cling to old habits & forms of enslavement?

We never find out. For the most part, Scripture is content to report & celebrate the small, one-by-one victories – a slave girl here, a jailer there, someone else later on (the prisoner, the sick, the hungry – when you & I minister to them in Christ’s name). It doesn’t point (at least not here) to the grand, all-encompassing victory of God.

Yet that’s okay. By giving us the small, personal stories, we are invited us to look at the small story of our own lives, & notice the things that may enslave us in some way –not like the girl with her owners & her demons – but in ways that cause us to confine ourselves, limit our thinking, shrink expectations, or doubt that we could ever enjoy life on some other terms … & conversely to seek our own freedom in Christ, a freedom already won.

Beyond that, Scripture like this reminds us that every time someone is baptized – be it a jailer long ago, or a baby named Emily today – God’s will is proclaimed, inviting us all to new life – not as “slaves of the Most High God,” but as men, women & children set free by a humble & human Savior, Jesus Christ. IN him we really are invited to life on new terms – a life defined not by money or other masters or walls that confine us, but by a life of prayers & hymns offered

To the glory of God.