An Uprising of Partnership
Christ is Risen, he is Risen indeed, Alleluia!
This is the fifth Sunday of the Easter season, the fifty days that lead from Resurrection Sunday to Pentecost. And on this Sunday, our journey to make the road by walking together continues into a 9thmonth.
Our text for this week is long and a little complicated. It will help as we study to look back at where we have been since Easter and really since last September to understand how the arc of the story of God – Father, Son and Spirit – continues to take shape and to understand how we are living in that same continuing story today.
Today’s account from Acts reflects key scriptural themes including liberation and being counter-cultural as a community committed to God.
The book of Acts was written by the author of Luke’s gospel, in which Jesus’ first act in ministry is recorded this way:
When he came to Nazareth, where he had been brought up, he went to the synagogue on the sabbath day, as was his custom. He stood up to read, and the scroll of the prophet Isaiah was given to him. He unrolled the scroll and found the place where it was written:
“The Spirit of the Lord is upon me,
because he has anointed me
to bring good news to the poor.
He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives
and recovery of sight to the blind,
to let the oppressed go free,
to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.”
And he rolled up the scroll, gave it back to the attendant, and sat down. The eyes of all in the synagogue were fixed on him. Then he began to say to them, “Today this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing.” (Luke 4: 16 – 21)
And this text from Acts today is a story about releasing captives. It is about how the work Jesus began with the disciples continued in the decades after the resurrection and continues today.
In today’s account, we are probably as much as 20 years past the resurrection. Paul and Silas are shifting the focus of their evangelism work, away from Asia and now headed to Macedonia (present day Greece), and specifically to Philippi, a Roman “outpost.”
Early in the text, after scouting the city for some days, Paul and Silas find themselves just outside the city gate, gathering on the Sabbath with a what is described as a community of prayer. This was likely a Jewish worship gathering, but not officially a synagogue – possibly because of the sheer scarcity of Jews in a pagan Roman city center. An official synagogue would have required 10 Jewish men. It is possible that this was such a tiny community that there simply weren’t 10 men, but the devout women would still gather for Sabbath prayer.
At this gathering, Paul and Silas speak to the women. Let’s put a pin in that – for both Roman secular norms and Jewish worship norms, it would be somewhat unusual for these devout men to interact directly with the women of the community, let alone record that detail. And among the women, they are introduced to Lydia. Lydia is believed to NOT be Jewish – this is buried in clues from the text, right alongside clues that she is an independent business woman – a dealer in fine cloth. She invites Paul and Silas to her home. And they agree. They baptize her entire household. This is the beginning of a ministry foothold for Jesus followers in Philippi.
So Paul and Silas are housing this early ministry in the newly baptized household of a woman who has her own position in the Roman social structure of the day. We don’t have to know all the details of that, but it is important to consider how unusual this might be. And Lydia’s presence bookends this text, always an important feature when reading scripture.
As Paul and Silas are moving about the city, they encounter a slave girl involved in divination, or some kind of supernatural seeing. This girl would follow the men, crying out “These men are slaves of the Most High God, who proclaim to you a way of salvation.”
This statement would draw attention. First, here is a slave, who is naming others as slave. And she uses this terminology, most high god, which would have also likely been used in descriptors of pagan deities. But…these slaves of the most high God are proclaiming a way of salvation.
I don’t think it is a hard stretch for us to imagine, in a society struggling to define who has power and who does not, how a slave talking about salvation – about liberation of sorts – might draw some attention and discomfort.
And Paul hears this for a few days and has a bit of a tantrum, likely because she is drawing unwelcome scrutiny. Determining that she is possessed by a spirit, he orders the spirit to come out in the name of Jesus Christ. And the girl loses her power of divination. This upsets her owners – her masters. Because her power of divination is her money-making value to them.
We would be wise to pause here and wonder what harm comes to this girl as a result of Paul’s action? It seems she is liberated from whatever enabled her to see supernaturally, but she’s still a slave. Has she gained anything or is she now in grave danger? There is no easy answer here, but it doesn’t seem to me like this girl has experienced liberation that is salvific…at least we don’t know what her salvation ultimately looks like.
But the ruckus caused by the exorcism, the loss of productivity perceived by her owners causes them to drag Paul and Silas before the authorities. According to the Macedonian slave holders, Paul and Silas are in town disrupting the “pax Romana,” the perceived peace and cultural acceptance among different nationalities within the wide span of the Roman empire. This is enough for municipal authorities to toss them in the slammer – chained and shackled.
In jail, Paul and Silas praise God, singing hymns and praying throughout the night. The prisoners around them tuned in. And then there was an earthquake – not the kind that toppled buildings but the kind that miraculously freed Paul and Silas and all the other prisoners from their chains and shackles and opened the doors wide open.
When the jailer finds the prison wide open, he draws his sword to kill himself, assuming the prisoners have escaped and he will be punished by the authorities he serves. But Paul and Silas call out to him – we haven’t run, we’re still here.
Can you imagine the range of emotions for that jailer? His job was to keep folks in prison, to maintain their punishment. The worst thing that could happen was an escape. And here he discovers that while all the restraints have fallen away, the prisoners remain.
A miracle.
A miracle that causes the jailer to ask how he might be saved.
A miracle that causes him to believe in God, and to profess Jesus as Lord and Savior.
A rather counter-cultural thing for a man in his position.
The jailer takes Paul and Silas back to his household – another household that takes them in. He dresses their wounds and feeds them, and like Lydia’s household, the jailer’s entire household is baptized.
What comes next feels a little confusing to me. The Roman authorities show up to tell the jailer to let Paul and Silas go free. But Paul, ever the contrarian, points out that as Roman citizens, their own government has beaten them and publicly shamed them and now wants them to depart quietly without acknowledging the misuse of authority. And so he refuses to leave. This forces the magistrates, the police, if you will, to show up and apologize for the misuse of power. To atone. To admit to wrongdoing.
And then Paul and Silas walk away, returning to Lydia’s home to encourage those there before moving on.
Did I mention that it is a complicated story?
So why are we reading it today? Why are we reading it here in Easter?
In We Make the Road by Walking, author Brian McLaren has been helping us to see the story of liberation that weaves throughout our bible – the Hebrew scriptures and New Testament. He has also been helping us to see the story of community and family that takes shape, first with the descendants of Abraham and eventually with the disciples, and after the resurrection among the earliest believers and followers…right up to the communities we seek to form today.
Here in the season of Easter, he has been building a profile for the new “ecclesia,” a word that in modern use generally refers to church-community things. But the earliest followers of Jesus “borrowed” it from the Roman power structure. In Roman culture, an ecclesia was an exclusive gathering that brought Roman citizens together to discuss the empire of Caesar. So to call a group gathering to discuss and shape the Kin-dom of God an ecclesia…was a little counter cultural.
McLaren has highlighted these characteristics for communities of Christ followers over the past four weeks:
Fellowship
Discipleship
Worship
And now Partnership
Fellowship is the shared commitment to a common cause.
Discipleship is the committed and ongoing work of developing ourselves as followers of Jesus, individually and collectively.
Worship is the shared work of praising and honoring God – done through teaching, breaking bread, sharing of experience and resources, and prayer.
And today, our text from Acts gives us some clues about partnership – like Lydia opening her home to Paul and Silas and an ecclesia for the followers in Philippi, and like the jailer tending Paul and Silas’ wounds.
So as we seek to be a community of Christ followers, who are disciples 24/7, we will have opportunities to develop partnerships – partnerships of solidarity in the face of culture, partnerships of liberation for the oppressed, partnerships of resources like space and time and dollars.
As we continue to make the road by walking, we are building a picture of how we might best work together to be Jesus followers together, an ecclesia that is working to be part of the Kin-dom of God, in the world but not of it, seeking to be part of God’s vision of love and liberation.
Today, we’ll gather at the table, virtually again, to re-member – to bring the body together – and to be nourished for that very work. The work of being community. The work of doing our part in the Kin-dom of God.
Let us gather and remember and be fed.
Amen.
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