Advocating Unlawful Customs

Acts 16:16-3416:16 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.

16:17 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."

16:18 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.

16:19 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.

16:20 When they had brought them before the magistrates, they said, "These men are disturbing our city; they are Jews

16:21 and are advocating customs that are not lawful for us as Romans to adopt or observe."

16:22 The crowd joined in attacking them, and the magistrates had them stripped of their clothing and ordered them to be beaten with rods.

16:23 After they had given them a severe flogging, they threw them into prison and ordered the jailer to keep them securely.

16:24 Following these instructions, he put them in the innermost cell and fastened their feet in the stocks.

16:25 About midnight Paul and Silas were praying and singing hymns to God, and the prisoners were listening to them.

16:26 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.

16:27 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.

16:28 But Paul shouted in a loud voice, "Do not harm yourself, for we are all here."

16:29 The jailer called for lights, and rushing in, he fell down trembling before Paul and Silas.

16:30 Then he brought them outside and said, "Sirs, what must I do to be saved?"

This was a section of one of this past week's readings from the Revised Common Lectionary.  I'm always amazed by at least one of the texts each week.  When I open the readings and I see something that I have undoubtedly read so many times before, I always am surprised by some aspect of it.  I was not disappointed with this selection.  It is an amazing story of Paul and Silas going about their day, trying to find a place of prayer and coming across a slave girl who was being used by her owners to bring great wealth to them.  As Paul and Silas walked by, she must have noticed something different about them, probably because of the spirit that had overtaken her, and she saw that they were slaves of the most high God, just as she was a slave to the men who were using her and to the spirit that had overtaken her.  We can call it an act of kindness or a response to irritation but whatever we call it, Paul and Silas had had enough from this spirit and ordered it out of the woman in the name of Jesus.  The spirit came out of the woman that very hour.

The men who owned the girl realized in that moment that their "hope of making money was gone", they weren't too happy, to say the least.  They seized Paul and Silas and dragged them before the authorities in the marketplace.  Their charge was that Paul and Silas were "advocating customs that are not lawful for us as Romans to adopt or observe".  What's amazing about these charges is that when we look back at what they had done leading up to this specific encounter was: going to a place of prayer, meeting with a slave, being called slaves of the most high God, and freeing a woman from her bondage.  I would guess that the last of those actions was the one that actually got them in trouble because it is the one that kept those men from earning the same crooked and broken living they were making before.

As the story continues we see that the courts of the marketplace, the courts of commerce, the very place that would benefit from this slave girl, wasted no time in finding them guilty, beating Paul and Silas and placing them in prison.  Even in this place of bondage, they sang spiritual songs and hymns to God and it says "the prisoners were listening to them".  Even in this place they were setting people free from the bondage that they too had found themselves in.  There was then an earthquake that was so intense that it broke the gates open and the chains free from all of the prisoners but what is amazing is that no one left.  When the guard came to see what had happened he was about to kill himself, until he realized that all of the prisoners had stayed back and not fled their captors.  It was this bold and shocking response to an opportunity for freedom that spared the jailers life and led to him asking "what must I do to be saved?"

There is so much in this rich text that I almost hate to dissect it at all because I think it really speaks for itself.  What I will do is share what has been haunting me about it since early last week.

Unlawful Customs

The first thing is something that I already touched on but I would like to explore a bit further.  The crime that Paul and Silas were guilty of, as they were brought before this marketplace court, was bringing unlawful customs to Rome.  As I said earlier, that crime was freeing a slave.  Let's be clear, they didn't say that girl was no longer a slave, they just gave her a free identity.  She was bound to those men because she could make them money and that is it. I started thinking about this story in light of our current customs and ways of being and doing business in a "New Capitalism" West.  A person could really get themselves in trouble today, even among those who confess to be Christians, by upsetting the ways in which "we" in this country, make money.  We are ok with CEOs keeping large salaries, clothing companies paying people over seas pennies a day, not requiring businesses to hold fair employment practices, letting a cake maker discriminate against whole people groups, because it is free commerce and to be against it would be bringing your "unlawful customs" to a well defined market place.  We might "keep them from making their living".  Paul and Silas saw something rotten in Denmark and freed that woman from a broken system that was making money at the expense of that girls' soul.

This is not a purely political critique because I believe that change doesn't always have to be legislated but it should certainly at least begin with those of us confessing to be slaves of the most high God.  What if we upset the system by refusing to buy goods that were made in unsafe working conditions by a people making slave wages.  What if we refused to bring our business companies where the gap between the CEO's wages and the lowest paid employee is growing at an increasing rate?  What if we "freed" people locked in that system by creating jobs where wealth is shared amongst all of the employees and we made goods that were meant to last instead of used, discarded and then piled on a garbage heap?    It would be a start.

For we are all here

Second and lastly I want to zero in on the response of Paul, Silas and for what we know all of the prisoners.  The guard represented everything about "the system".  He was in with the people that had apprehended Paul and his companion, probably wearing the same uniform as the people that flogged them and threw them into their cell but Paul saw something else.  You see, the guard was a part of the same broken system that had thrown them into jail in the first place.  A system that even though the guard had performed all of his duties to the best of his abilities, he would be at least shamed if not put to death by that system.  Paul saw it and he knew it.  He saw that jailer as one who was also in chains and when he could have fled, he didn't.  He stayed, for the sake of the one who was charged with keeping him.  This is good news!  It is a good news not just for those that we see as the victim in these stories but also for those that we have to look a little closer to see that they too are victims.

This scene ends as the guard asks what he must do to be saved, I'm sure Paul shared some of his testimony and a word from the Lord, the guard is baptized, transformed and a living testimony to his household.  It all started with Paul and his companions just going about their business.  Going to a place of prayer, speaking with one who most people would have ignored and getting in a whole bunch of holy trouble from that point on.  It looks like a story of chaos and strife but the kingdom leapt forward that day.  I bet as they retold that story to all of the people they encountered on the remainder of their journeys, it was without even a hint of regret.  I pray that we can look back on the way that we bring our kingdom customs to this culture and we can say the same.