Text: Acts: 16:16-34
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The story takes place in prisons. I said that correctly. Even though you heard, when the lesson was read to you, a story about a prison, I see it differently. There are more than two prisoners and more than one jail. In fact, this is a story about a major prison break, about many who escape captivity. With a little background work, a little review, I think you’ll agree.

 

The context of these prison stories begins a few verses earlier as Paul, Silas and Timothy arrive in Philippi.  It is early in Paul’s second missionary journey. A few days after they arrive, they go to a “place of prayer” by a river where they assume there will be other Jews. There isn’t a synagogue in Philippi. They are meeting by the river and because they find only women, it is believed that there are few Jews in the community.  Philippi is a gentile town.

 

One of the women was a wealthy textile dealer named Lydia. By that river, Lydia is saved, baptized and becomes the founding matriarch of the church in Philippi. At the very least, Paul, Silas and Timothy stay with her. Likely, her house was where the new church gathered for worship.  They now have a foothold from which to witness. With this background in mind, we address the various prisons within our story. It begins with Paul and Silas going to the place of prayer. One might assume that they are going back to the river.  We might even assume that this is the Sabbath one week later. All is conjecture. What is not conjecture is that on the way, they are accosted by a slave-girl.  The text says she had a spirit of divination which allows her to tell people’s fortunes. She makes money for her owners by reading palms or tea leaves or Tarot cards or manipulating a Ouija board. Somehow, someway, she can tell the future.  In the case of Paul and Silas, she follows them shouting at them. Do you get the picture? Can you see it to the point of experiencing what they are going through? Walking through town, a woman is following them, yelling. The text says it happens several days in a row. It is a picture of someone imprisoned by mental illness. We hospitalize people who follow people and shout at them in hopes that we can help them to get well enough to live civilly. Paul’s response then is not unlike ours. The passage says, “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.”  (Acts 16:18) 

 

Thank God. This poor woman is healed. Paul helped her get out of jail, released her from the demonic captivity which caused her to act so oddly. Thank God she is finally free, or is she? No, she is still imprisoned by the systems of slavery and now she has a problem. Her value as a slave has gone down dramatically. The lesson says, “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.”  (Acts 16:19) Despite the good down by Paul in this exorcism, he got in trouble.

 

If this part of the story sounds familiar it should. You might remember that Jesus healed a mentally deranged man that was running around shouting. He sent the demons that possessed him in to a herd of swine. Those pigs didn’t like those demons so they rushed head long off a cliff, committing suicide. While the demonic was quite grateful that he was in his right mind, the Geresanes Pork Producers Association was not. That’s a lot of bacon to lose and so despite the miraculous healing, they asked Jesus to leave town. Their bottom line had been hurt.[1]  

 

There is a prison called greed which always has more than its fair share of inmates. One could imagine an emergency meeting of the Philippians’ Chamber of Commerce to discuss the fiscal implications of Paul’s ministry. I suspect the Crystal Ball Workers Union called sent out a memo encouraging all seers and diviners to stay away from Paul. These liberators can hurt your checkbook. The slave owners are furious because they have lost their cash cow. In the name of Jesus, Paul has hurt the local economy. Imprisoned by their greed, the slave owners cannot see any good in healing the possessed woman.

 

It’s not surprising that they seize Paul and Silas and put them before the authorities, claiming they are disturbing the city. "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."  (Acts 16:20b-21) Oops, the inmates of the racial prison speak up. “They are Jews. They are not like us. They are bringing their foreign ways into our country. They advocate customs which are not lawful to our country.”  I suppose we can call this the jail of jingoism, or prison of protectionism. Keep out the people who aren’t like us.

 

What is frightening is the prisoners now take over, beating Silas and Paul, literally flogging them and then, tossing them in the Philippi jail with instructions to put them in stocks in the darkness, innermost cell. The liberators have become the imprisoned. By the power of Jesus, a possessed women is now free of her demons but the two who healed her are jailed. In their incarceration, we see the prison of injustice. It’s a prison cell all of us sit in at some time or another in our life. When someone has wronged us, when someone gets away with something and pins it on you, when you are ill treated, ridiculed, punished because of your values and beliefs, you are jailed in the prison of injustice. How do you respond? Do you get angry? Get even? Get depressed?

 

Not our duo. Scripture tells us “Paul and Silas were praying and singing hymns to God and the prisoners were listening to them.” (Acts 16:25) That’s just like Paul. No wonder the church flourishes. Even in prison, he holds a revival.

 

Right in the middle of the midnight hymn fest, the earth quakes, the prison breaks, the doors of the cells fly open and everyone’s chains fall off. If that happens in Newcastle, they riot and burn their mattress. In Philippi, they stay put, praying and singing. The jailer wakes horrified. He knows the consequences of escape. As the jailer, he lives in the prison of fear. The prison of fear takes your options away, promotes self-destruction and takes away rational thinking. He panicked and felt like the only option available was suicide. Paul shouts, “Don’t do it. We’re all here, just singing.”

 

The jailer asks the obvious question, the question of someone in prison. “Why are you still here? You were bound in chains and now you are free to get out of jail. But you stayed.” This behavior is not the behavior of the incarcerated. It is the behavior of free men, free in whatever circumstances they find themselves. The jailer released that he is actually the one imprisoned, imprisoned by his fear. He rushes into the cell, falls to his knees and asks the questions to Paul, “What do I have to do to get out of jail?” Or, to quote it the way it is found in scripture: “Sirs, what must I do to be saved?"  They answered, "Believe on the Lord Jesus, and you will be saved, you and your household."  (Acts 16:30b-31)

 

Iron bars do not make a prison. You can be imprisoned by a lot of things and I’m wondering if you have begun to identify which prisons you might find yourself.  Sin, abuse, greed, anger injustice, prejudice, despair….one or more of them claim you because you are human. It is impossible for us not to find ourselves occasionally doing some jail time. But as we come to the close of the season of Easter and anticipate Pentecost next weekend, we embrace this truth. God has the power to change our hearts, our minds and our attitudes. But we have to know what needs to change. 

 

In Walk the Line (2005), Johnny Cash, who is played by Joaquin Phoenix, is talking to the prison warden. The warden says:  “Mr. Cash? The record company asks that you not play any songs that would remind the prisoners that they are in jail.” Johnny Cash comes back and says, “Do you think they forgot?” In the same film, this is an exchange between Johnny Cash and a record company executive. The record company executive says, “Your fans are church folk, Johnny. Christians. They don’t wanna hear you singing to a bunch of murderers and rapists, tryin’ to cheer ’em up.” Cash says, “Well, they’re not Christians, then.”[2]

You have to know what is imprisoning you. Do you? It requires looking carefully. We see in this story that those who perceive themselves to be free are actually in prison and the two who are jailed, are actually free. The one who sees this is the jailer. He falls to his knees and asks for liberation not because of the power of the earthquake. He is overwhelmed by Paul and Silas’ belief in the transformative power of Christ to change their lives. “Believe on the Lord Jesus, and you will be saved, you and your household.” (Acts 16:31)

 

That’s the good news for us. As disciples of Jesus, we all find ourselves captive and imprisoned by a number of things that separate us from Christ and from one another. It is impossible not to spend a little time jailed.

             

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