Pastor Marji Miller

Seen any movies recently? We watched Pinocchio last weekend. What are the lessons from Pinocchio? If you tell a lie…. your nose will grow. Always let your…. conscience be your guide. Greedy little boys turn into ….

What were the lessons you learned from the movies you’ve watched lately? Have you noticed how much of our lives are occupied with stories? We tell them. We listen to them. We watch them. There are the stories of the good old days, stories told to kids at bedtime, stories at family gatherings – including church-family stories. There are the stories that are a big deal on the news until there’s a bigger deal in the next day's news, and there are stories that have been read and watched and listened to by generations.

And the stories that fill our lives aren’t just ways to pass the time. They have more meaning and power than we usually realize. Stories reveal our underlying assumptions about the way the world works, what is important in life and what is not.

Watch or listen to our stories. Who is the villain and who is the hero? Who succeeds and who doesn’t? What is the point of life? And how does it all turn out in the end? Our stories answer those questions. We live by stories, all of us do – not by creeds or by principles, as much as by stories.

In our time, the stories that most occupy us, and may most influence us, are the stories that come to us through the media, especially television. These are the stories of our culture, the stories that tell us who we are and what we value. The news programs and soap operas, the sporting events and situation comedies, reality shows—they have become the default catechism for our kids. There may be some good things on television, radio, internet and some bad things, but, in the end, they are all the same in one way – they are brought to us by people who are trying to sell us something. The underlying story that unites them all is the message that we are supposed to learn how to be good consumers. That, it seems, is the purpose of life. The American Dream: 2.2 kids, a 2-car garage, and a white picket fence. And, a home movie center, a dazzling sound system, a new state of the art computer, 50 pairs of shoes, and a partridge in a pear tree. And, it’s all about the American Dream for me.

Seen the bumper sticker “The one who dies with the most toys wins?” It is kind of refreshing to finally see it spelled out. “The one who dies with the most toys wins.” The dominant story of our culture; life is a contest, a game, the goal of which is to accumulate entertaining possessions. And going out to eat. Life is our chance to get a lot of stuff. We have been transformed into a nation of consumers. And the American Dream threatens to consume us!

So, does spending and getting really produce satisfaction? Let's be honest: it does, up to a point. For instance, if I have had a bad day at work, sometimes I can feel better by logging onto Amazon.com and adding another book to my collection. In Celebrate Recovery we call that Retail Therapy and it’s not good! But, it works – for a time. Why? Because it is fun. For a few minutes it kills the pain.

But, the question to ask of this story of the American Dream, or any story we live by, is this: does it hold up in the end? Does life really work that way? Is that story big enough to live by when the tough times come? Can the story of “stuff” – the American Dream – hold the weight of a human life? Can I take this story to the divorce court? The graveside of a loved one? The emergency room? The unemployment office? Prison? Would it hold me up even there? The American Dream may be enough when life is gentle and bright. But what about when life is hard and dark?

Here’s a story about hard and dark! Set in Philippi, a Roman colony in what is now Greece. Luke wrote:

Once when we were going to the place of prayer, we were met by a female slave who had a spirit by which she predicted the future. She earned a great deal of money for her owners by fortune-telling. She followed Paul and the rest of us, shouting, “These men are servants of the Most High God, who are telling you the way to be saved.” She kept this up for many days. Finally Paul became so annoyed that he turned around and said to the spirit, “In the name of Jesus Christ I command you to come out of her!” At that moment the spirit left her. When her owners realized that their hope of making money was gone, they seized Paul and Silas and dragged them into the marketplace to face the authorities. They brought them before the magistrates and said, “These men are Jews, and are throwing our city into an uproar by advocating customs unlawful for us Romans to accept or practice.” Acts 16:16-21 TNIV

Paul and his companions ran into trouble in the city of Philippi. There was a slave who was a fortune teller and her owners made a lot of money with her. What they had was a portable oracle – a place where you could get an answer from a deity. Instead of people having to travel hundreds of miles to hear what Apollo had to say, they could just come to the slave, pay a fee, and she’d give advice about the customer’s situation or tell the future. This was a very profitable enterprise.

And as Paul and his team were going about their business, the slave kept hounding them, following them and shouting, These men are servants of the Most High God, who are telling you the way to be saved. Paul put up with the situation for “many days” and finally he had enough. He turned and said, “In the name of Jesus Christ I command you to come out of her!”

Why did this woman bother Paul so much? It sounded like she was helping them spread the gospel. Some Bible scholars point out that her message may not have been exactly what we think it was. See, when she said, “These men are servants of the Most High God, who are telling you the way to be saved,” there is a problem with the phrase “the way.” In the Greek, the word “the” is not there. So perhaps this woman was saying, “These men are servants of the Most High God, who are telling you a way to be saved.” That could have annoyed Paul. If that were the case, the message of Jesus was being announced as only one of many ways to be saved. And Paul and the message were being introduced to everyone in Philippi by a spirit. And, not the Holy Spirit, that’s for sure. Some translations call the spirit a demon. Not what it says, but it could be what it means. Who needs an introduction like that? So, that could be what upset Paul.

Or, we could accept Luke’s words on face value. Maybe we don’t like to admit Paul cast the spirit out of this slave because he was so annoyed? We don’t like to think God’s will could be done because someone got mad. NOT an excuse to act in anger, by the way, but the division between Paul and Barnabas resulted from an argument. All Israel was kept from starvation because Joseph’s brothers were angry and jealous. All the Jews of the Persian empire were saved because Esther got angry with Haman. God can use all kinds of stuff.

Anyway, kind of casually, Paul exorcised her, alleviating his annoyance, but also crippling the profitability of a thriving and manipulative business. And, this act – whatever the motivation – was a turning point in Paul’s ministry at Philippi. Of course, these slave owners didn’t care about their slave, and the fact that she was in bondage. Her “powers” meant money for them. She was a business venture, their property, a source of income, as long as she possessed these powers. Or better, as long as some “power” possessed her. Her owners realized that they were going to lose the money they had made from her, and they were livid. Their lifestyle was impacted – diminished. The loss of the Philippian dream - and they intended to make Paul pay for it, one way or another. Maybe they realized it would have been futile to sue this preacher, who had no money, but they could make him suffer in another way. They dragged Paul and Silas off to the city authorities.

They had drummed up some charges. They said these guys are trouble makers: “...throwing our city into an uproar by advocating customs unlawful for us Romans to accept or practice.” They weren’t, but take some racism, multiply it by an economic crisis, and you can have a riot! Notice their indictments failed to mention their real concern: When her owners realized that their hope of making money was gone… That was the real problem.

The story continues:

The crowd joined in the attack against Paul and Silas, and the magistrates ordered them to be stripped and beaten with rods. After they had been severely flogged, they were thrown into prison, and the jailer was commanded to guard them carefully. When he received these orders, he put them in the inner cell and fastened their feet in the stocks.

What Paul believed about God was very different from what most of the people in the city believed, but Philippi was a cosmopolitan place and, to its people, what Paul believed was Paul’s business. Until Paul’s belief interfered with the finances. That was another thing altogether.

The authorities apparently failed to check Paul’s driver’s license. The slave owners had said Paul and Silas were Jewish and the authorities didn’t find out what the readers know – Paul and Silas were Roman citizens. It was illegal to treat Roman citizens the way Paul and Silas were treated. I’m not sure why Paul didn’t yell out that he was a Roman on the way to the jail, but sometimes we let go of our own rights in order to do God’s will. Or maybe Paul just couldn’t be heard over the crowd. But God used it. Without a trial Paul and Silas were beaten, thrown into prison, and placed in maximum security, which meant locked in an inner cell, feet in stocks.

I’d have been saying: “God, you led us to preach the gospel here in this miserable city. Now look what has happened! Don’t you care about us? What did we do to deserve this? A beating. Sitting in this cold, dark prison. Lord, why me?” Paul and Silas didn’t do that. The dark story takes a twist.

About midnight Paul and Silas were praying and singing hymns to God, and the other prisoners were listening to them. Suddenly there was such a violent earthquake that the foundations of the prison were shaken. At once all the prison doors flew open, and everyone’s chains came loose. The jailer woke up, and when he saw the prison doors open, he drew his sword and was about to kill himself because he thought the prisoners had escaped. But Paul shouted, “Don’t harm yourself! We are all here!” The jailer called for lights, rushed in and fell trembling before Paul and Silas. He then brought them out and asked, “Sirs, what must I do to be saved?” They replied, “Believe in the Lord Jesus, and you will be saved—you and your household.”

What were they doing inside that prison? They were singing! Somehow, they kept their focus on the Lord during their crisis. And as Paul and Silas sang there was a great earthquake so that the foundations of the prison shook and all the doors were opened and everyone's chains were unfastened. I’d think their initial reaction would have been to bolt. But they didn’t. Paul knew the law: according to Roman law, the Philippian jailer was responsible for Paul, Silas, and the rest of the prisoners. Notice the jailer was about to kill himself when he saw that the prison doors were open. If they escaped, he would pay for his negligence with his life.

But, but, but the door is opened. Paul, Silas, just walk out the door! Quick! Nothing between them and freedom, Nothing between them and their rights! Except the life of a non-believer. They choose to stay. Compare this to the reaction of the slave owners. A different dream… For Paul and Silas it was about compassion, not their own self-interests. Living by a different story....

The guard was so impressed with their response to the open door that he asked “What must I do to be saved?” What did he mean by this? Did he want protection from authorities who might hold him accountable? Did he think Paul and Silas had some great power and might give him something? Did he sense something different about these Christians? Something he wanted for himself? Did he even know how deep his question was? In that moment of rollercoaster emotions, maybe he didn’t. But he cleaned Paul and Silas up and took them to his own home. The story gets brighter.

Then they spoke the word of the Lord to him and to all the others in his house. At that hour of the night the jailer took them and washed their wounds; then immediately he and all his household were baptized. The jailer brought them into his house and set a meal before them; he was filled with joy because he had come to believe in God—he and his whole household.

This seems to be an odd story. The miracle of exorcising the spirit from the slave doesn’t seem to have anything to do with Paul's mission. The slave seems more an inconvenient distraction than an object of compassion. Paul and Silas were charged as Jews, not as Christians. Finally, those who perpetrated this injustice had only one motive: to avenge their monetary loss.

What’s the point of this story? Obviously, we want to celebrate new believers in the church. We have spent months and months in sermons, classes, conversations, talking about the importance of reaching out to those who need to hear the Story of Jesus. And this story is part of that bigger story, but as in most stories in the big story, there’s more than one layer of meaning:

The slave owners were right about one thing. There was an uproar. I like the way the Athenians described Paul and his companions. Acts 17

“These people who have been turning the world upside down.” Acts 17:6 NRSV

Philippi needed to be turned upside down. Slavery was rampant; the Philippian dream was built on it. We think of the woman legally owned by someone else: she needed to be freed, and we have no record that she was. The American Dream isn’t built on that kind of slavery, but, there is more than one kind. The slave owners were enslaved. To their greed. The jailer was enslaved to living up to the less-than-ethical demands of his employer. For money – greed. They were in hot pursuit of the Philippian Dream. Two chariots in every garage. The most fashionable tunics and sandals. The biggest villa on the Aegean Sea. The latest gadgets. Whatever those would have been.

Our story tells us that the chains of Paul and the prisoners had come loose. But, Paul’s chains had come loose long before this. His chains of pride, selfishness, anger, and hatred – the chains of looking out for number one - had fallen off years earlier when he was stopped by Jesus on the road to Damascus. Both Paul and Silas had believed the good news about Jesus and had put their lives in his hands. That is why they were free to sing songs and worship God after being beaten and put in jail. That’s why they were free to stay there when the prison doors opened. That’s why they were free to give up the rights they were entitled to, the comforts they could have enjoyed if they had let greed call the shots.

Turn the world upside down? You can’t if you’re chained to it. The gospel is a radical and disturbing message. A message that brings freedom. Have you got that kind of freedom? Freedom from materialistic living, freedom from pride, from self-centeredness, from idolatry, from doubt, from fear, from despair, from worry and worldliness. I don’t. We are all enslaved. To the American dream. BUT, are we chained forever, or can there be freedom?

The good news of the gospel is that there can be freedom! Paul wrote to the church in Galatia:

It is for freedom that Christ has set us free. Stand firm, then, and do not let yourselves be burdened again by a yoke of slavery. Galatians 5:1 TNIV

And we can’t have that freedom apart from the promises of the gospel! Only the power of God can break the chains of wanting-more. We can miss God’s will and plan because we refuse to give up our own rights and demands to have our own way. Paul understood that if the open door for him meant a closed door for someone else, the Philippian jailer, the door was really closed to both of them. Paul and Silas stayed. This incredible and compassionate response scrambles my mind. And breaks my stuff-loving heart. A compassion that moves beyond my wants and comforts--even possibilities of individual freedom. This is suffering for someone Jesus died for. It’s life-changing. What we believe in our faith and how we live in faith must be the same. As people of faith, we are constantly called to open doors for someone else in a world that is used to closing doors. From Paul’s example, we are to see that we can’t be free if we know our neighbors and our international brothers and sisters around the world are starving, or illiterate or in fear of losing their lives, and thus not free. Never heard the good news of Jesus - and thus not free. All too often we have seen “freedom” used to oppress and exploit other women, men, and children and their countries in the name of national security and self-interest. We’ve seen “freedom” used to promote racial injustice, gender discrimination, poverty, the mess we’re making of God’s world, child abuse, people dying of easily preventable diseases, homelessness. We do it in the name of “our rights” but it isn’t freedom. It’s slavery. For us, as well as for those we exploit.

There’s always been attempts to lower the standards of Christianity in an effort to make it more appealing; more easily accepted. But there has always been a gap between right and wrong. We are our brother’s keepers. And our sister’s keepers. We love them by serving them.

What story do you live by? Where is your heart? Are you sure? I think most of us would have to admit our stories are at least partially immersed in the American Dream. Are you a slave? Are you the slave owner, caught up in greed? The jailer, caught up in living up to someone else’s less-than-ethical, less than life-giving expectations? Or, are you Paul and Silas, free enough to leave your rights so the door doesn’t close for someone else? Those aren’t rhetorical questions.

I have a challenge for you today. Are you brave enough to take a hard, realistic look at your story? Your values? For the next week, are you brave enough to write down every Starbucks latte? Every Amazon trip? Every fast-food receipt? Car payments? Utilities? Giving to others? Every penny you spend? I have a chart to help you. You don’t have to thank me. You’re welcome. Find out how free you really are. Nobody is going to look at it. You don’t have to bring it back next week and turn it in. But I would challenge you when you come for communion to pick up one of these. Record and pray over what you find out. Most of us will be shocked at what we see.

Jesus can knock off those chains. There were more believers because Paul and Silas were willing to give up their rights. No matter what we have to give up to share the good news, it is always worth it! Because it brings freedom! It brings freedom to those who hear it, and to those who share it. It is not called the good news of convenience, or the good news of leisure. It is called the good news about Jesus - One who suffered, was humiliated, abused, and killed, so that we could come close to God, and find freedom in Jesus!