Jail Sing
Acts 16:16-39

May 23, 2004

Rory Allen (a well-known local Elvis impersonator) has worshiped with us here before. “Jail House Rock” would have been a good anthem leading right into the sermon. Hard to get those notes on the organ sounding Elvis-ey, however.

It must have been a little surreal for the other inmates at that unhappy prison. No prison can be a happy place and in the first century prisons specialized in unhappiness. It may be safe to say that there were few criminals in ancient jails. Political prisoners, the poor and destitute were as much a part of the woodwork as the petty thieves and murderers.

I have led a number of worship services in jails, and we made attempts at singing a hymn or two, but back then to sing in jail would have seemed an obscenity. There was nothing joyous at all, yet there was something powerful about Paul and Silas’ tunes. Probably they didn’t have decent voices, but their tone burrowed deep into the prisoners’ depression. The translations can’t come up with the proper description; they were simply amazed, startled, perplexed, and flabbergasted. These guys could sing.

And in the midst of their singing, the world fell apart, literally. An earthquake simply happens. The narrator does not identify it as an act of God or event incurred by divine displeasure. Like most of what happens in our natural world, it just happened. Nature is usually painfully neutral.

For we human beings, however, the consequences of nature are seldom neutral when they happen to us. Here an event in God’s creation set the captives free. Cell doors were unhinged, chains were unloosed, spirits were freed. There is no mindless, pell mell, headlong rush into personal freedom, however. They stop and think about the welfare of someone else first.

On our way to prayer is how it all began so innocently. Our way is the point. Nature may treat us all as third party “its,” but when it’s you and we who start to observe things we are no longer uninvolved. The narrator we’ll call Luke, and what is taking place to Paul and Silas is happening to him. He’s a guilty bystander, convicted of all their virtues, and perhaps vices as well.

Paul has a vice: he does not suffer annoying evil spirits very well. A young girl, possibly 10 years old or so, had some kind of spirit that enabled her to act as an oracle, to discern the future and figure out the minor directions of people’s lives. Lots of people would pay money for that kind of spirit, and there were some unscrupulous business men who controlled her and her gift, earning quite a decent income. Almost certainly the young girl barely received any benefits and was probably threatened within an inch of her life if she tried to run away. Some translations use the word “prostitute” to describe her status. I wouldn’t rule out sexual exploitation, but certainly her spirit was being prostituted just as grievously.

This young girl’s spirit could not help noticing Paul and Silas and called their game. Not negatively, but rather persistently in a nagging sort of way. Paul finally lost his patience and summoned the spirit out of her, and that was that. The girl was freed. She was healed. Isn’t that what we are all working for? Being a Christian is all about helping and healing people who are needy and sick.

Not everyone agrees. It is not an uncommon story in the media today about how the activities that lead to a strong economy often compromise the welfare of individuals and sections of society. Parts of the Old Testament allude to similar dilemmas, but this story is the most brutally clear example of doing good being poor economics.

The owners and handlers of this young girl are outraged that their cash flow has been dismantled. Just as often is the case today, the economic warlords demonstrate that they are the ones with the real power, as they muster all the authorities and the maddened mob to arrest and convict Paul and Silas and company of inappropriate activity. Typically, there is a vagueness about what is this unlawful activity, mumbled with anger and passion. Prostitution brings in big bucks, no matter what the century, and woe to those righteous do gooders who get in the way of doing business. Isn’t jail the only right place for those who disrupt the balance of society?

As was the custom, the authorities began by beating up Paul and Silas black and blue. In most Sunday School readings, we have tended to blip over this part. Isn’t it reassuring that our forces of justice are still using first century methods today, demonstrating a veneration of traditional practices.

Here are Paul and Silas and probably the “we” narrator as well crouched in a dark dank prison, leg irons making the point you are going nowhere, guilty of being good and compassionate and healing. The Bible does not use the phrase, but I like to say that this is a clear case of the absurdity of existence. You’re not in prison because anything makes sense, but because the world doesn’t operate the way you were taught in Sunday School.

What should you do then? Do something outrageously happy and hopeful – sing. No one can sing even a sad song, and remain depressed. Paul and Silas belted out a bunch of hymns and the other prisoners found it absurd, though I bet they wish they knew the words to join in. When people or just the world treats you unjustly, the best way is not to complain, but do something ridiculously just in response. It won’t change the external situation, yet it’ll keep you from losing who you are meant to be.

Earthquakes in that part of the happen more frequently than you think. The Scriptures do not imply there is any ulterior motive behind this occurrence. But it did change everything, and the apostles knew how to react and take advantage. The jail lost its jailness, everyone was free, so they simply stayed put in their cells. They surely must have been Canadians – they did not think it was polite to leave just then!

They did not leave because they knew the life of the jailer was in their hands. If you were privileged or condemned to be a jailer until fairly recent times, your job and your life depended upon the prisoners staying in prison. If any escaped, the jailer would be lucky if he were only punished severely. Our jailer is ready to fall on his sword when Paul yells out at the top of his voice to stop. “We are all still here!” One of the strangest messages in prison ever. Even more than singing a few tunes, Paul and company respond to the cruel injustice of their captors by acting in the interest of justice for the jailer himself. Doing good instead of evil, doing good to replace and undo evil was the way they reacted to the unexplainable providence of an earthquake.

The jailer recognized this was not by accident. It was an act of God in the most active sense. He asked Paul for life and they gave it to him, told him the Good News, baptized him and all his household. The jailer, in turn, dressed their wounds, fed them, and a new life was begun in earnest.

The real Canadian thing about all of this is that after their celebration and feast, they all went back into the jail. The magistrates sent the police to release them from jail in the morning, but Paul, making it clear that he was a Roman citizen, insisted upon the magistrates themselves coming to the jail and apologizing. The earthquake may have been an unbelievable natural coincidence, but the magistrates did come out and say they were sorry for their regrettable injustice – that was a miracle!

You can wait a long time for an earthquake to set you free from the dilemmas and injustices you suffer, an eternity for most of us. It probably won’t come when we need it. It has become fashionable today for victims of a crime or injustice to scream out for revenge and long prison sentences, even death penalties. I don’t believe any justice results from those reactions. It’s far more effective to sing. No justice ever occurs if all we are is angry and vengeful. It’s infinitely more effective when you have been treated unfairly and unjustly, to reach out and be just and fair to someone else who has been beaten up by the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune and inhumanity, and then you and the rest of the world will begin to heal. The world is already too full of recriminations and nothing comes out of them except more violence and death and another group of people being treated unjustly. In the midst of your suffering, bless and kiss your persecutors, love and heal others who suffer around you.

The injustice of this world cannot stand that; it will have to change.

Preached by Robert Kitchen
Knox-Metropolitan United Church
Regina, Saskatchewan