In one of his older comedy routines, Bill Cosby describes the scene of a car that has just had a head-on collision with an oak tree. The front end is all bent up and steaming, dripping antifreeze. The tree is leaning forward from the impact of the crash. The driver has gotten out of the vehicle, and a police car pulls up, with siren blaring and lights spinning. The officer steps out and looks around and asks, “What happened?” “What happened?!” Isn’t it obvious what has happened? Well, officer, this tree here just jumped right out and bit my car.

The problem here is the question asked by the officer. “What happened?” implies that he doesn’t know what happened, but he does. He knows that the driver hit a tree. What he doesn’t know and what is more relevant for his investigation is how the accident happened.

If we started reading Acts 16:16-34 at the end, we see enough devastation to make a car accident forgettable. 

There’s a prison with a damaged foundation and criminals running free. A jailer and his family are gathered together around a table with the prisoners he had incarcerated, and their wounds are bandaged. They’re enjoying a meal together. It’s a scene of devastation and salvation. If you want to know what happened here’s your answer. But if you want to know how it happened – well, that’s a different story.

It all started with trip to a place of prayer. Paul and Silas had just arrived in the city of Thyatira in Macedonia as missionaries, and while they were in town, they maintained their ritual of attending synagogue. 

But on their way, they happened upon a “cash cow.” She was a slave girl who had a spirit of divination. In other words, she was possessed by a demon that gave her the ability to tell fortunes. And apparently she was pretty good at what she did, because people were willing to pay for her skills, and her owners profited from each satisfied customer.

The girl spotted Paul and Silas as they were heading to the place of prayer and began shouting out something that might actually help their cause in Macedonia. She started shouting out, “These men are slaves of the Most High God, who proclaim to you a way of salvation.” 

That’s true, isn’t it? It’s not a false statement. This girl was a trusted source of fortunes. When she talked, people listened. So you’d think Paul and Silas could have used her free marketing to their advantage. She didn’t seem to be hostile she’s just loud and annoying. But Paul and Silas knew this wasn’t the way they wanted the Gospel proclaimed. They knew that the message of Christ’s hope for the world did not mix well with loud shouts in the streets.

If you read about how Jesus, Paul and other early Christians went throughout Palestine and the Roman Empire with the Gospel, you’ll see that while they sometimes gave loud public speeches, they mostly relied on conversations, on private intimate gatherings, and on interactions with business associates. They went about as if they had an open secret or a story that demanded dialogue. Paul knew this, and the slave girl’s publicity campaign wasn’t allowing those conversations to take place.

So Paul, fed up with the shouts from this fortune teller, confront the spirit and told it to come out. And the spirit left. And here’s where trouble for Paul and Silas began. Without the spirit, the girl returned to sanity. Without the spirit she could no longer be a soothsayer, which meant her owners would no longer have a source of income. 

Paul’s decision to confront a spirit had direct implications not only on the girl, but on the systems which propped up the society they were visiting. So while the Gospel isn’t best told through a bullhorn, that doesn’t mean it won’t stir up trouble.

Sometimes this message, this faith of ours, demands that we behave differently, that we speak differently, that we purchase things differently. Sometimes it compels us to stand up not only for what we believe in, but for those who are enslaved and suffocating under the thumb of oppression. And sometimes when this faith of ours dares to engage the public square, when it confronts oppressive systems or overpowers bullies, then that means this faith of ours means trouble.

In 1996, Sam Brownback, a conservative Republican from Kansas, was elected to the United States Senate, and he went around his state to converse with his constituents, to find out what they wanted and what they needed. 

During that time he took notice of the Native American tribes scattered throughout Kansas, and he listened to the sense of betrayal they still felt, and the palpable anger they felt toward the U.S. government for reneging on treaties and agreements. Brownback thought about this and began the long process of assembling an official resolution which would urge the president to extend an apology “for historic violence and injustices inflicted upon Native Americans by the federal government.” 

In an interview in 2008, Brownback was asked about the difficult nature of apologies and was reminded how Clinton had been attacked for insinuating an apology to the African peoples for the United States’ role in the slave trade. He was reminded how such an apology could lead to massive lawsuits, reparations, and property disputes. And I remember Senator Brownback saying he understood the dangers, “but that shouldn’t keep us from doing the right thing. Those fears are the things that keep us from reconciliation.”

When we do the right thing, when we act on behalf of justice, we face the danger of the consequences – that we will inevitably disturb the peace. If we act on our convictions, if we seek to free others from oppression, if we choose to rock the boat, the state of peace that everyone enjoys will indeed be disturbed and shaken – if you want to call it peace. 

If peace is defined as the absence of conflict and war, then I guess you could say that the city of Philippi was indeed enjoying a state of peace. But, that’s not the biblical idea of peace. “Peace” or “shalom” was a state of wholeness in which everyone acts responsibly and each person does what they’re supposed to do. It is the hope for all of creation. 

Instead what we find in this city is a slave woman doubly bound – she was in bondage to a spirit and again to several opportunistic entrepreneurs. She was being used for others’ gain – that’s not peace. She was a casualty of a culture driven by fear. The people feared the uncertainty of the future, so they went to a slave girl to hear her babble. And when they got what they needed, they walked away, ignoring the oppressive bondage that held her and went back to their “peaceful lives.” But were they really experiencing peace? A lack of conflict and war, yes, but not peace.

What the people of Philippi needed was a duo like Paul and Silas who challenged their way of life and the way they perceived business. They needed someone to confront their demons, their secret spirits and their corrupt systems. They needed someone who would boldly push their buttons and make them mad.

Yellowstone National Park is one of America’s great natural treasures and is visited by millions of visitors every year. It was so popular as a landmark and a vacation destination that during the ’70s and ’80s that the National Park Service in essence coddled it. They created a wilderness theme- park-like setting and allowed Yellowstone to settle into a state of equilibrium by extinguishing fires quickly. This allowed debris and deadfall to accumulate and grow thick, and as a result, in 1988, a lightning strike sparked the largest fire in the park’s history, devouring acres of land. 

If they had allowed the land to be scorched by fire, the natural cleansing process that helps a forest avoid massive catastrophic fires instead of settling into a state of equilibrium, the massive blaze of ’88 probably wouldn’t have been so devastating. This is why, in the natural world, equilibrium is death, while chaos (fires, wind, rain, etc.) can sometimes be considered the most fertile source for creativity.

The same could be said for human society. Any culture, any human system, any corporation, any organization, any church, any family and any individual life faces the danger of being lulled into a state of equilibrium, where everything is fine, sterile and neatly arranged. 

But slowly and surely subtle business practices can be approved, behaviors can be rejected, codes of ethics can slowly be forgotten, rules can be pushed to the side, accountability slackens, and suddenly the strong have gotten stronger at the expense of the weak. And if this state of equilibrium, this passivity which ignores justice and the freedom of others ,is suddenly challenged, the response can be unpleasant.

That’s what Paul and Silas discovered. A mob led by the angry owners of the slave girl attacked them. They were arrested, tried, beaten and imprisoned in a maximum-security cell. Their feet were put in stocks, and a jailer watched over them.

But the disturbance of this state of equilibrium had just begun. Around midnight, Paul and Silas were singing hymns to God. Loud hymns, apparently, because the passage says the prisoners were listening. And suddenly an earthquake shook the foundations of the prison. 

But what I find so interesting about this divine earthquake is that everyone was set free. Not just Paul and Silas – everyone. Everyone was freed – the guilty and the innocent. This wasn’t some precise military operation designed to release the “good guys.” This was a jail break in which all the prisoners were set free. Evidence, once again, that God’s grace isn’t just concerned with the Christians, the law-abiders, and the God-fearers; God’s grace is for everyone, and especially for the least of these – the hungry, the thirsty, the naked AND the prisoner.

Now everyone was free to leave, to have a night on the town, to try to start life over. But they didn’t. In fact, the text says that when the despondent jailer decided to kill himself, Paul shouted out, “Don’t hurt yourself; we’re all here!” 

They stayed around – Paul, Silas, and apparently every other prisoner as well. This was their chance to run away. They were freed from the shackles that bound them, but they stayed right there in the rubble to finish the church service that Paul and Silas had begun. 

And because they stayed in that rubble, they saw the desperation of the jailer. They heard his desperate question about the nature of salvation. And because they stayed in the rubble, they witnessed the jailer and his family become believers. 

And that’s how this scene of devastation and salvation happened.

It started with a trip to a synagogue, an annoying, troubled slave girl and two Christians, Paul and Silas, who just couldn’t shut up.

And because they didn’t, a girl was set free, and the two were imprisoned and severely beaten. 

But they still wouldn’t shut up.

And because they didn’t, they touched off an earthquake and they were free to run to safety.

But they still wouldn’t shut up.

And because they didn’t, they spared a man’s life, and the jailer and his family embraced salvation.

It’s a story of devastation and a story of salvation. That’s what happened.

If the church is to be the church, if it confronts injustice and spiritual strongholds, if it continues to sing and hang around in the rubble, this is how it will happen: we might live in a story of devastation, where people get angry with us and the “peace” might be disturbed. But if we refuse to be silent, and if we hang around when things are rough, we just might witness a story of salvation as well.

Let us be bold enough to endure through such a story. Amen.