Next week I have been asked to talk to the group of teenagers who meet every month. The theme is how faith affects one’s life and work. I find it quite daunting although I’m hoping Emma, Liz and Chris will be on hand to save me from eaten alive. Hoping for inspiration, I turned to today’s readings.
John’s vision of all believers becoming one with Christ and with God is certainly inspiring but not very practically helpful.
Paul, however, was an indefatigable evangelist and there ought to be something to learn from his activity, some practical steps to guide us in our life of mission. And I think Paul’s adventures do provide some useful lessons; chiefly, they teach us to rely on the Holy Spirit, rather than our own projects or aspirations; they show us that events or circumstances may not be only as they appear to us; and they teach us that spontaneity rather than preparation and action rather than words may be more effective in spreading the gospel.
In last week’s reading from Acts we heard how Paul had set out intending to evangelize what is now north-west Turkey but experienced some sort of missionary block, and was instead inspired by dream and a strong wind to cross over to Macedonia and its chief town, Philippi. Once there he fell in with an apparently wealthy merchant, a woman called Lydia who with her family was baptised and took Paul and Silas into her home, which is where they are based when today’s story begins.
Philippi was a Roman colony, a new town founded to settle the veteran soldiers of the civil wars. The veterans were given land and a constitution which reflected that of Rome, but as Paul’s tetchy treatment of the clairvoyant slave girl reveals there were troublesome currents under the surface at Philippi. As the narrator makes clear, the girl’s owners’ real complaint is that these visiting Jews have cut off their source of income; but the complaint they bring is the apparently irrelevant charge that Paul and co. are encouraging “un-roman activity”. There is a certain ironical truth in this, Paul is indeed preaching a gospel that is far more deeply transforming that the shallow superstition and racketeering which seems to characterise religion at Philippi.
Irrelevant as it may have been, feelings ran high in Philippi and the authorities take a hasty decision to have the “trouble makers” beaten with rods. They were clearly rattled and were to regret their decision, as Paul was in fact a Roman citizen himself entitled to a proper trial before being condemned. We didn’t hear the end of the story which has the magistrates sending to the prison the morning after the earthquake to order Paul’s release. Perhaps they were frightened that Paul had the power to cause earthquakes and wanted him out of their hair as soon as possible. Paul does not, however, intend to go so quietly; he announces his Roman citizenship and sends a chill down the magistrates’ spines. There were heavy penalties for magistrates who disregarded the rights of Roman citizens. In the event, Paul, however accepts their apology and we are left wondering why he left this announcement so late in the day; perhaps he feared the mob the day before; perhaps he wanted to embarrass the authorities who were so obsessed with their Roman-ness they forgot a rather fundamental law.
It’s an exciting story and owes much to the narrative style, made more vivid by the use of the first person-“We”- as it seems Luke, who is supposed to be the author of Acts, is the narrator and was with Paul and Silas. While the style is direct and un-elaborate, it is artful, and owes I think something to a tradition of contemporary stories called Milesian tales which mix the macabre with the farcical, supernatural with slapstick and they often involve some sort of mystical conversion experience. They usually also involve a good deal of sex, but with St Paul about, one can understand why that was left out! You can see some of the comical aspect of the story if you imagine it as an episode in a Carry On film with Barbara Windsor as the slave girl and Sid James as her master. Kenneth Williams is clearly the gaoler, but we need to change to Monty Python for a suitable St Paul; for surely it is John Cleese who is driving the other prisoners up the wall with his hymn singing at midnight.
The point of this superficial comedy is to remind us that things are not always as they seem; that there is always another view point and that the genuine misfortunes of life may also be opportunities; Paul does not despair and out of his troubles emerges success.
This comedy is equally an aspect of a much more fundamental quality of the Holy Spirit- that is its capriciousness; things do not always go to plan and the unexpected twists of fortune are equally opportunities, specifically in our story, for conversion.
Linked to this is the emphasis on action as opposed to words. The comedy of the slave girl who recognises Paul but can’t shut up about it reminds me of the poor chap who walks up and down Oxford St with a loud hailer calling on us to stop being sinners and become winners; his efforts are I fear entirely counterproductive. Contrast this with the speed of the gaoler’s conversion; Paul does “speak the word of the Lord” but only after his conversion has happened. Paul like Moses did not regard himself as being a great orator- there was even then something just a little suspicious about rhetoric.
Paul’s escapades are certainly far removed from our experience, but there are some parallels which might strike a chord with my teenagers next week, and perhaps they will with you.
First, apparently superficially, we see that it is well to take every opportunity, in whatever bizarre setting, to act out love because every act of kindness will bring the world a little closer the Kingdom of God. This requires a deep confidence, a conviction that what we do, and to a much less extent what we say, will be Christ like. St Paul certainly had that confidence as did St John, and I believe it is possible for us to share it. Confidence, however, can too easily turn to over confident insouciance and the twists of the story we have heard should be a warning against the dangers of unreflective certainty and bigotry; it is openness to other and strange ideas that leads to innovation, change, growth and life itself.
This has a special bearing on our teenagers; children are now encouraged early to plan out their lives passing exams, getting work experience and going on improving holidays all in preparation for their careers and their lives; and never I think has the pressure to succeed in conventional terms been more intense than it is now. We see this pressure most clearly on our children, but it is, of course, only a reflection of the same force that applies in adulthood. Ambition and self projection close our minds, leading us along a rail track from which the unconventional and self expression are impossible (or strongly disapproved of). But without the possibility of changing direction constructive growth is inconceivable. It is only through change that we develop and it is through change that the Holy Spirit operates- usually in surprising ways. Our picture of what we ought to be like may blind us to the much more exciting and perhaps more dangerous vision of what we might be and what God means us to be. To get there we need the Spirit’s guidance, not our own. Amen.