A whole new way of being
Norah Summers
May 29, 2022
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Acts 16: 16-24 (NRSVA)
16 One day, as we were going to the place of prayer, we met a slave-girl who had a spirit of divination and brought her owners a great deal of money by fortune-telling. 17 While she followed Paul and us, she would cry out, ‘These men are slaves of the Most High God, who proclaim to you a way of salvation.’ 18 She kept doing this for many days. But Paul, very much annoyed, turned and said to the spirit, ‘I order you in the name of Jesus Christ to come out of her.’ And it came out that very hour.
19 But when her owners saw that their hope of making money was gone, they seized Paul and Silas and dragged them into the market-place before the authorities. 20 When they had brought them before the magistrates, they said, ‘These men are disturbing our city; they are Jews 21 and are advocating customs that are not lawful for us as Romans to adopt or observe.’ 22 The crowd joined in attacking them, and the magistrates had them stripped of their clothing and ordered them to be beaten with rods. 23 After they had given them a severe flogging, they threw them into prison and ordered the jailer to keep them securely. 24 Following these instructions, he put them in the innermost cell and fastened their feet in the stocks.
Saul, the zealous persecutor of Christians, is a new man. Paul, the zealous ambassador for Christ, is on the receiving end now, persecuted by the authorities, on the accusation of people who see their profits threatened.
The young woman was a slave, a profitable resource to her owners. Now she is free – I wonder what became of her? What would her new life be? We are not told, but the fate of her rescuers is here in gruesome detail. Stripped, beaten, imprisoned, prevented from carrying on their work – a new life, for sure.
Is this just the working of the Law of Unintended Consequences? Or did they know perfectly well what they were getting themselves into?
‘Happy are those who are persecuted . . .’ said Jesus. Did this feel like the Kingdom of Heaven?
New/Improved – don’t advertisers love to put those two words together? And how often do we wish they had just left things as they were? If it ain’t broke . . .
Well, things look pretty broke for Paul and Silas at the end of episode 1.
New life?
And I still wonder what became of the young woman.
PRAYER:
God of the new,
God of the unexpected,
look kindly on our surprise.
We don’t know what will happen
when we commit ourselves to follow the Christian way.
We may feel the warm glow that comes of doing the right thing–
or be stopped in our tracks by the enormity of the challenge.
What we do know is that you are there, making all things new.
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