Acts 16:16–34
The Spirit’s work throughout Acts is easily met with skepticism. Next week we will remember the Spirit bringing 3000 souls into discipleship to Jesus who were “united and shared in everything,” (CEB). After over a decade in Catholic Worker communities, where I have shared (a portion) of my income and possessions with other members and housing in-secure guests, it is a little ironic that I was surprised by my New Testament prof’s comment that most scholars don’t think there was ever a community of 3000 who shared all their possessions in the early church. As I noted above, we only ever shared a portion of our possessions. I lived with less than 30 people and there was enough conflict in negotiating our life together that doing this with 3,000 is incredible. That moment of surprise and recognition comes to mind as I read this passage.
Here Paul and Silas end up in prison after exorcising a demon from an enslaved girl. This part makes sense. Paul and Silas were being harassed for many days by her following them around and yelling “These men are slaves of the Most High God, who proclaim to you a way of salvation.” Paul’s annoyance is a very relatable moment. Can you imagine putting up with that for days? The response from her owners is also believable. The girl was doubly-enslaved, both to a demonic force and the owners who exploited her for wealth. We are also living in a world governed by demonic forces and people who exploit us for wealth. In light of the most recent mass shooting, we might consider our enslavement to gun-idolatry and the manufacturers who lobby against restrictions on gun ownership and manufacturing. The only systemic response our country has seen is the increase of police presence, yet increasing the number of people with guns–whether in the hands of police or civilians–has not born the fruit of peace. This story also presents a good opportunity for the abolitionist preacher to point out how the defense of property and increase of wealth has taken precedence over people’s lives in our prison-industrial complex. Furthermore, the accusations in court also feel eerily contemporary. Nationalism, racism, legalism, and propriety regularly undergird the carceral logic that ruins so many BIPOC and impoverished people’s lives. The willingness of the crowd to gang up on them and physically abuse Paul and Silas further recalls the ongoing history of police and white supremacist gang violence against Black bodies. This section is all too real.
So, Paul and Silas being beaten and imprisoned after an understandable (if not well-planned) action taken in psycho-emotional distress speaks realistically to the injustice many incarcerated people, especially Black people, experience in our world today. It’s the next part that we can meet with skepticism. Amid Paul and Silas’ ongoing faithfulness and hope the Spirit intervenes and an earthquake loosens their chains and opens the prison doors. In distress, the working class–just trying to make a living–jailer is about to kill himself when Paul and Silas charitably alert him to their presence. In gratitude, the jailer seeks his salvation from Paul and Silas. He and his household then enter into solidarity with the former prisoners through baptism and provide for Paul and Silas’ basic needs.
This script is fantastical, not only because God initiated a prison-break, but because Paul and Silas–the incarcerated–were the liberators of the jailer. They were free and in that position of power they were able to offer salvation to the jailer. What we remember when we read this account in Acts is not just what has already happened in a miraculous moment, but the inception and fullness of our hope. Our hope does not begin with the conversion of jailers, capitalists, or respectable wealthy white people. It begins with people who are willing to speak against the demons that perpetuate ongoing violence and enslavement to Mammon, and with the abolition of prisons and freeing of prisoners, who can then offer everyone liberation from our demonic, capitalist, prison-industrial complex. May we all believe in this miracle and enter into solidarity with those who will bring us salvation.