20 05 07   Finding Good in the Human Spirit   Acts 16:16-40   Colin Finlayson

The Acts story today would have been a newspaper sub-editor’s dream for thinking up headlines.  Perhaps as you read the story yourself you can imagine lots of ‘headlines’ that jump out at you.  My imagination thought of headlines like:

As we read this story, despite its antiquity, we recognize the world in which we live today:

We see the contrast, of great human spirit in the out-pouring of support and care for the family of the abducted child Madeline McCann, and we see the selfish human greed for money in the same story with newspaper reports that a number of web sites had been set up by swindlers seeking to skim money from people interested in helping the family by exploiting the high profile case and the web site set up to support the family.

We live in a world where the human goodness that was created within us by God’s creative power, often seems dominated by our human potential for sin, evil and depravity.  
Now, it’s is certainly not helpful to flee from the raw edge of our humanity - we should understand and appreciate what we are, for we deny God's grace if we deny our humanity by hiding our true self and living a lie.

But, the incarnation reminds us that what God made in human-kind was good, and that its goodness was reaffirmed in Christ taking upon himself human flesh.   So, although the creation is affected by sin, it remains substantially "good".  In fact, I would want to say, that not only is it "good" in itself, but that the whole creation exists for an ultimately "good" purpose – as an environment for enabling all to come into a loving relationship with God.

In the Acts story we have heard today, despite the horror of the circumstances, the goodness that God created in people shines through.

Three aspect of this story stand out today:

Firstly, the Slave Girl

We’ve heard much about the abolition of slavery in Britain this year through the role of Wilberforce and others, but right back in the 1st century the story tells of the slave girl owned by people who sell her powers of fortune-telling and foretelling the future, thus creating great profits for her owners.  The slave girl has no freedom and cannot determine anything about her life.  

She is enslaved in her physical life by those who own her and sell her, and enslaved in her inner personal life by the spirit who possesses and controls her.  

I understand the original Greek word used in this story is for "a young girl, a damsel, a maid-servant, or a young female slave.", and the word is a compound of the Greek word which means "child".  So this slave girl was almost certainly a young child, being touted and driven by adults for profit.  She is being used, abused and treated as just merchandise to be bought and sold.

But in the darkness and horror of that life, her God created nature is still able to recognize goodness and Godliness in the life of Paul and Silas.  She follows them about calling out "These men are servants of the most-high God and are declaring to you a way of salvation".  Despite the torment and horror in her life the God-created human part of her cried out with truth, and with a perhaps unconscious cry for help.  In even the darkest despair of this girl, her God-created goodness and desire for freedom, in God, shines through, and is rewarded when Paul commands the evil spirit to come out of her and she returns to normal life.  

We learn that even in what appears to us the darkest and most evil of human lives, God’s goodness and love are still there, waiting to be released.  

There are still today hundreds of thousands of children and adults in our world who are held in slavery and sold for profit.  There are many who are enslaved in the torment of their inner being.

We can, by our witness to God’s truth in our life, be the Paul and Silas for those who suffer and are enslaved in our world today.

Secondly, the Jailer

The Jailer’s job in a Turkish prison of the 1st century would have been hard and demanding and brutalising.  You need only read a few accounts of life in the Roman Empire to get a feel for just how hard and brutal it was.  The jailer, in devotion to duty, or fearing the power of the magistrates and the crowds, secures Paul and Silas in the inner prison, in punishment stocks.  Jailers would often be hard bitten men, with little sympathy for prisoners and brutal ways of treating them, as was common at that time.  Yet in his fear when the earthquake releases the prisoners, and he considers committing suicide, truth bursts out of his inner being and through his exterior hardness and brutality.  The example of Paul and Silas in the jail impacted on him.  The jailer suddenly saw his own life with a clarity he'd never known before and his God-given life is opened up again to faith in God as he passes from death to new life in Christ.  
St Augustine’s profound words aptly describe this life-changing experience of the jailer - he said “Man has a God-shaped hole in his heart until he finds his peace in God”

There are still today hundreds of thousands of people who are brutalised by what they do – we just have to think e.g. of the children who are pressed into being child-soldiers.

We can, by our witness to God’s truth in our life, and by working to change our world, be the Paul and Silas for those who are brutalised in our world today.

Thirdly, Paul and Silas

The jail that Paul and Silas are in would have been humid and uncomfortable. It would have been pitch black inside the prison, especially in the innermost part, where Paul and Silas were kept, in maximum security. They had been accused of causing a disturbance; attacked by a mob of people; had their clothes torn off and flogged by order of the magistrates and then imprisoned in the most uncomfortable and painful circumstances. I imagine I would feel very hard done by; depressed; sorry for myself; complaining about the injustice done to me.  But despite the terrible circumstances of that day, Paul and Silas are saying their prayers and singing praises to God with the other prisoners listening, and no doubt the jailer too. To those listening, the prayers and singing were the sound of hope of those who could rise above the terrible punishment and wrong done to them.   Something in the witness and kind compassion of Paul and Silas made the jailer realize, as we have just talked about, that he was in the presence of people who knew what life is really about. They were so stable, so calm and so obviously at peace with the universe.  Paul and Silas are able to overcome the horror of their personal experience through praising God in the midst of their pain and suffering.  The story makes it sound so easy, but we cannot underestimate the trust in God it took from Paul and Silas to praise His name while they were suffering such injustice and pain!   But, as God's messengers, they knew they could break into the bastions of darkness and release its prisoners

There are many, many people in our world today who are treated unjustly by some authorities and some individuals.

We can, by our witness to our loving Lord and Saviour, and by our action to end injustice, be the Paul and Silas for those who are imprisoned by the circumstances of their life in our world today,

Human life and experience is often painful and chaotic, but we learn from today’s reading that this does not frustrate God’s purpose.  God brought good out of evil:

Our faith is challenged though our own personal tragedies and the personal human tragedy, war and suffering brought into our living-rooms by the media day-by-day. It may be only the cross of the suffering Christ, and the power of His Spirit, that preserves us from despair at the state of our world.
For us, as Christians, let us live out our Christian life in a way that speaks to others of goodness and Godliness, of care and compassion, of support and care, and of challenge to injustice.   Let us pray today, and each day, that we may be: