“Jesus Sets Us Free”

Acts 16:16-35

Pastor Deb Troester, STHPC, October 27, 2024

Some time back, I watched a video about a game called “The Privilege Walk.” It’s the kind of thing you might do in a church youth group, a game with a lesson to it. The privilege walk game is designed to help people understand the effects of societal privileges. What do we mean by privilege? As one participant explained, “Some people are born into families where they have to walk miles just to get water. All I have to do is turn on the faucet. That’s privilege.”

Privilege Walk participants all started off standing together on a line. A list of 35 social privileges or disadvantages were read to the group. As the leader made each statement, each person moved forward or backward a step.

Here are some of the statements:

·      “If you were embarrassed about your clothes or house while growing up, take one step back.”

·      If you have ever been diagnosed as having a physical or mental illness or disability, take one step back.

·      If you have ever been bullied or made fun of based on something that you can’t change, take one step back.

·      If you can show affection for your romantic partner in public without fear of ridicule or violence, take one step forward.

·      If you came from a supportive family environment, take one step forward.

·      If you can see a doctor whenever you feel the need, take one step forward.

·      If you are able to move through the world without fear of sexual harassment or violence, take one step forward.

·      If there were more than 50 books in the house where you grew up, take one step forward.

         Participants started out holding hands with the person on either side, but  they soon found that as they stepped forward or backward, the distance between them grew, and they could no longer clasp hands.

At the end of the game, some people had made it to the front of the room, many were still in the middle, and a few were far behind. Afterwards, one participant remarked, “For me it was kind of frustrating to look back and to see how much some people were behind me and realizing that… no amount of hard work or even legislation can make up that gap.” Another person said, “I learned to be grateful for what I have…we’re in …a… society where people are always complaining about what you don’t have.” It was a thought-provoking video.

Just like our world today, the Roman Empire of the first century was also a place of privilege, and the lack of it, starting with the enslaved woman’s plight. She had zero rights. She was property. Her owners saw her only as a means of making money. Contrast her with another woman mentioned earlier in this chapter, Lydia, the first European convert to Christianity. She was a well-off business woman, a seller of valuable purple cloth, who owned her own house, which was large enough to entertain guests, including Paul and Silas.

Or consider the Roman magistrates, who on their word alone could imprison people or release them – that is quite a privilege. Then there was the jailer, a humble civil servant, but backed by the power of the Roman empire; and the jailer’s household, which included his wife, children, and maybe other relatives, servants, or slaves. Under Roman law the eldest male exercised complete control over his family, and that would have been the jailer’s privilege as well.

In this one chapter there are many different levels of power and privilege. There are men, women, adults, children, rich, poor, Jews, Gentiles, Romans, non-Romans, the powerful and the powerless and all those in between. Yet the Gospel is meant for everyone. God’s grace is extended to all. Throughout the Book of Acts, and the Gospels as well, people from all levels of society, all ethnicities and conditions, receive God’s grace. All are free in Christ Jesus – free from being judged simply by their place in life; free to be embraced by the love of God that lifts up the lowly, casts down the mighty, and frees us all to love one another and to know the love of God.

Indeed, one of the major themes of the Book of Acts is that the love of God through Jesus Christ is for everyone. As biblical scholar Stephen J. Patterson writes: “Here, then, is an episode of our history from a time long past, when foreigners were slaughtered, captives sold as slaves, and women kept in their place, when a few imaginative, inspired people [known as Christians] dared to declare solidarity between natives and foreigners, free born and slaves, men and women, through a ceremony [baptism] and a creed [Jesus is Lord].”

A second theme of Acts is the story of how this gospel spread, first from Jerusalem, then to nearby regions, and finally to the ends of the earth. Philippi was 1500 miles from Jerusalem. At that time of travel on foot and by sail-powered ships, it must have seemed like “the ends of the earth.” Paul and Barnabus, and later his companion Silas, were the first missionaries to travel to distant places specifically to share the gospel with people outside their own ethnic group. This was their calling: to tell people the good news that despite our differences, God loves us all, frees us from our sins and gives us eternal life through Jesus Christ.

Returning to the immediate events, after being attacked by a mob, severely flogged, and thrown into prison, Silas and Paul were still ready to share this gospel. Amazingly, in the middle of the night, in the dark jail cell, feet bolted into stocks, they sang praises to God. Physically they were locked up, in an impossible situation, but spiritually they were free. Their souls soared with the angels as they lifted their voices in songs of praise. As theologian Walter Brueggeman said, “Hope is the action we take against all the evidence to the contrary!” Knowing Christ frees our spirits, even when our bodies are tethered – whether by actual chains, by the pain of illness, or other circumstances beyond our control.

While they were singing, a miracle happened: an earthquake, so violent that the foundations of the prison were shaken, tore the prison doors off their hinges; somehow the prisoners’ chains were unfastened. Even the Roman Empire with all its might was subject to God’s power. There is no privilege or lack of it that places us out of God’s reach. God intervenes to negate the judgement of the privileged Roman officials and works to turn a disaster into a miracle of grace.

Most people would have escaped from the jail as quickly as possible, but Paul and Silas saw an opportunity to minister to a man who needed God. The jailer knelt before them, asking, “What must I do to be saved?” He probably fearing the divine wrath of a God powerful enough to cause such a mighty earthquake in order to release his representatives Paul and Silas, whom he had mistreated. Paul answered with the famous words, “Believe on the Lord Jesus, and you will be saved, you and your household.” Even though the jailer and his family were Gentiles whose home most practicing Jews of that time would not have entered lest it render them unclean, Paul and Silas accepted the jailer’s invitation to come to his home, have their wounds seen to and accept a meal at their table. Paul knew that all people, whether Gentile or Jew, male or female, Roman citizen or not, were all the same in God’s eyes and in need of a relationship with God through Jesus Christ. As Paul would later write to the church in Philippi: “But our citizenship is in heaven, and it is from there that we are expecting a Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ” (Phil 3:20).

Even though Paul actually possessed the coveted status of Roman citizen, the only citizenship that really mattered to him was his citizenship in heaven, as part of God’s family. This citizenship is available to all.

Today we are still called to cross cultural, linguistic, racial, and many other barriers to share the Good News of Jesus with others. Just as in Paul’s time, some people have more “privilege” and power than others. Some countries have more privilege and power than others as well. Any of us could have been born in Ukraine, Sudan, or Palestine. Those of us born here in the U.S. got lucky – or should I say blessed. If we were born into a loving, caring home, with parents who worked hard to provide us with a good education and upbringing, we were doubly blessed. It’s a good old Presbyterian teaching that when we are blessed like this, it’s our responsibility to give something back – not to earn our salvation, but to express our gratitude to God.

Because, like Paul, no matter what country or social group we are from, we can say, “Our citizenship is in heaven.”

In this sense, we are all privileged. It is a privilege that we have not earned but have been granted by grace.

As Christians, we are not only citizens, but, like Paul and Silas, we are also missionaries. This, too, is part of the message of Acts: As Jesus said before his Ascension: “But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you, and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.” These words were not meant only for the disciples of long ago but for us today as well.

But we don’t have travel on foot 1500 miles or cross the sea in a wooden ship, like Paul and Silas. We just need to reach out to those around us. Here in the Bay area, it’s not hard to find people of all kinds who need the love of Christ. We don’t have to go to a different country to find those who are different from us in race, culture, or privilege. The world has come to us.

This week, reach outside your comfort zone. Share with someone how God has been real in your life, how God has blessed you, what the love of Christ means to you.

Fortunately, most of us won’t ever have to go to jail, or be beaten or suffer through an earthquake in order to share the love of God with another person. And the really good news is that God loves us all – whether we are privileged or not. Amen.

Reference: Stephen Patterson, The Forgotten Creed: Christianity's Original Struggle against Bigotry, Slavery, and Sexism, p. 7. Oxford University Press, 2018.  

©Deborah Troester, 2024