"The Twists and Turns of Life with God"  Judy Skaggs

Scriptures: Acts 16:16-34

During the season of Easter, the lectionary sends us to the book of Acts, to some of the stories of the early church. In our passage today, we find Paul and his companion Silas on Paul’s second missionary journey. On this journey, they felt that the Spirit of Christ was leading them to go up into Europe for the first time. When they came to Philippi, on the Sabbath, they learned that there was a place of prayer out by the river, so they went out and met with the women gathered there. A woman named Lydia was their leader, and she was very eager to hear all that Paul had to teach. Afterward, she and her whole household were baptized. So Paul and his companions stayed with her in her home.

Our story today is what happened one day while they were still in Philippi. Let us listen for how the spirit might be speaking to the church today.  Read Acts 16:16-34.

I remember one time when one of my children asked me – Mom, what do you do all day as a pastor? I thought a moment and then said, I get interrupted! And I think most pastors would agree. We may come to the church office with a plan for the day, but so often we end up responding to people who come by, phone calls and emails of all sorts, or illness or even deaths that occur.

I don’t think pastors are the only ones who end up spending their day responding to unplanned events. In our story for today, we certainly find Paul and Silas heading one direction and by the end of the day, they end up in a completely different place and circumstance. But I think what we find in this story is that God is in their midst, at every twist and turn. And hopefully, we will be able to look into our own lives and find the same thing.

Paul’s day begins with prayer. Perhaps they continued to meet down at the river every morning. But then one morning, they encountered a slave girl – a girl who was not only a slave of her owners, but was slave to a spirit that appeared to give her special powers. She was able to predict the future and could see more deeply into the realities around her that ordinary folk could. She could make a lot of money for her owners with her predictions.

But, when she encountered Paul and his group, she calls out that they are “slaves” of the Most High God and that they proclaim a way of salvation. Actually what she says is the truth!

But apparently, after several days of this, Paul is greatly annoyed and he casts the spirit out of the girl. Even though she speaks the truth, Paul finds her a distraction to what he believes his mission is.

The curious thing is that we don’t know any more about the girl. We don’t know if her owners let her go free since they could no longer make any money from her divinations. We don’t find out anything else about her. And another curious thing is that Paul healed her out of his annoyance – not out of compassion. And yet, this act turns his plans for the day on their head and leads him off in a different direction.

The girl’s owners are furious! They drag Paul and Silas before the magistrates and have them beaten and then thrown in prison. They are cast down into the depths of the prison. We can imagine dark, damp, a place of despair.

And yet, at midnight, despite their chains, Paul and Silas are praying and singing, and all the prisoners are listening. These apostles who are the willing slaves of the Most High God, are witnessing to their God in the midst of a kind of forced slavery.

But then, there’s more excitement! An earthquake shakes the foundation of the prison – doors spring open, their shackles fall off, and all the prisoners could have escaped easily. The jailer expects they have all gone and instead of finding himself in prison or even killed, he decides to take his own life. But for some reason, none of the prisoners left. Paul calls out to the jailer that they are all still there.

Can you imagine how the jailer felt in that moment? They all could have escaped – why didn’t they? Why in the world do they care enough about what happens to me that they would give up their freedom? And yet, here they are. And because they are still there, the jailer’s life is transformed.

The jailer comes to Paul and Silas and asks – what must I do to be saved? This poignant question has been asked down through the ages. Often the question comes at a time of desperation, at a time of great crisis. But often it addresses a larger issue. What will save me from this mess, from the things that are destroying me? What will save me when I have lost my way? How can I be saved from my addictions, from emptiness, from this grief that will not let me go, from my fears?

Paul’s answer sounds so simple – believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and you will be saved. And we might think his answer is very inadequate. Don’t we often want a nice check list of things to do in order to be Christ’s disciples?

But Paul’s answer is that it is Christ who saves. It is Christ’s spirit that transforms us. We cannot save ourselves no matter how hard we try. Paul says to believe – to trust your life to Christ, to trust in God who is faithful and gracious.

On their day of surprising twists and turns, Paul and Silas were able to trust in God’s presence with them. And God led them to this place where they could minister to the jailer and his family.

The jailer took water and washed their wounds. And they took the waters of baptism and washed away the old life, as the jailer and his household committed themselves to a new way of life with Christ at the center.

And so, we also find ourselves at the waters of baptism in our service today. We call this “Promise Sunday” – a day when we not only remember our own  baptism with grateful hearts, but we remember the promises we as a congregation make when someone is baptized.

Here is what we promise:

            Do we, as members of the church of Jesus Christ, promise to guide and nurture this person, by word and deed, with love and prayer, encouraging them to know and follow Christ and to be a faithful member of his church? And we always answer: We do!

So as we consider how we have been nurtured in our life with God, how we have been able to trust in the presence of Christ in our lives, then we are also called to consider how we might pass that along to others – particularly those in our care right here in this congregation.