Acts 16:16-34 With Paul and Silas, we came to Philippi in Macedonia, a Roman colony, and, 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. 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." 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.
But when her owners saw that their hope of making money was gone, they seized Paul and Silas and dragged them into the marketplace before the authorities. When they had brought them before the magistrates, they said, "These men are disturbing our city; they are Jews and are advocating customs that are not lawful for us as Romans to adopt or observe." The crowd joined in attacking them, and the magistrates had them stripped of their clothing and ordered them to be beaten with rods. After they had given them a severe flogging, they threw them into prison and ordered the jailer to keep them securely. Following these instructions, he put them in the innermost cell and fastened their feet in the stocks.
About midnight Paul and Silas were praying and singing hymns to God, and the prisoners were listening to them. Suddenly there was an earthquake, so violent that the foundations of the prison were shaken; and immediately all the doors were opened and everyone's chains were unfastened. When the jailer woke up and saw the prison doors wide open, he drew his sword and was about to kill himself, since he supposed that the prisoners had escaped. But Paul shouted in a loud voice, "Do not harm yourself, for we are all here." The jailer called for lights, and rushing in, he fell down trembling before Paul and Silas. Then he brought them outside and said, "Sirs, what must I do to be saved?" They answered, "Believe on the Lord Jesus, and you will be saved, you and your household." They spoke the word of the Lord to him and to all who were in his house. At the same hour of the night he took them and washed their wounds; then he and his entire family were baptized without delay. He brought them up into the house and set food before them; and he and his entire household rejoiced that he had become a believer in God.
Reflection Shhhhh. Be quiet. Do not bother me with your prophecy. Slaves and children are to be seen and not heard. Don’t ask, don’t tell. Do not rock the boat. Who do you think you are, speaking of such things?
We have all been silenced and, perhaps in some situations, appropriately. Still, there are so many occasions when shooshing imprisons, rejects, excludes, overrides, devalues, bullies or denies us. And when shooshing reaches a tipping point we may even start shooshing ourselves; shrinking to invisibility, disowning our inherent goodness and worth. I believe shooshing is the almost perfect crime.
There is much irony in the Acts text. Full of himself the Apostle Paul fails to recognize the veracity of the slave girl’s assertion that he and Silas are men of God offering freedom to the people. The girl recognizes and affirms the Spirit of God at work in the lives of Paul and his friend Silas but rather than welcome her astute perception, Paul misuses his power to bully and silence her.
The slave girl’s owners are equally nearsighted as they fail to recognize the veracity of Paul and Silas’ liberating message. With a failure of perception and foregoing deliberation the slave owners act swiftly to silence Silas and Paul. As it turns out, it is only the slave girl (the least valued among them) who recognizes and proclaims the Spirit of God at work in the world.
Being pathetically oblivious Paul shooshes the slave girl. “Stop talking. Stop following us.” Likewise, the myopic slave owners violently shoosh Paul and Silas by beating them and locking them in prison. And there we have it. Silenced people are imprisoned. Whether silenced by custom, threat or shackles, silenced people are not free to tell their stories. When we are not free to tell our stories we cannot claim our place as valued members of the community. The almost perfect crime is committed when we are not free to share the story of how the Spirit of God is at work in our lives.
The sixteenth century Spanish nun Teresa of Avila dares to challenge the Church by sharing stories of her direct experience with God in seven books, more than five hundred letters and reams of poetry. Alarmed by Teresa’s bold assertions of intimacy with God the bishops and priests who position themselves as essential mediators between God and humankind destroy hundreds of Teresa’s letters and poems as well as many of her books.
In the early 2000s the Roman Catholic Pope Benedict issued the Jesuit School of Theology an extensive list of books banned from Catholic seminaries as well as accompanying orders for their writers to be sent to obscure posts where they can have little or no influence. Benedict aims to silence voices that recognize an essential attribute of God is to affect and be affected in and of, with and through all people and the world. Benedict’s interest is in securing God on the ceiling of the Sistine chapel, well out of reach of unworthy folks such as me, you or a slave girl.
Five hundred years ago or today, keepers of the status quo are masters of the almost perfect crime, shooshing. But to remain silent when shooshed is to be complicit and frankly, the Spirit of God refuses to be imprisoned by custom, threat or shackles.
So, St. Teresa kept putting her quill to cotton and became quite crafty disguising her experiences of God by minimizing herself and writing in the third person. In spite of the fact that the Church and men in power vehemently opposed her, Teresa founded seventeen Carmelite convents and monasteries, fostering the work of God's Spirit for all time.
Fast forward to my twenty first century seminary classroom. After conspicuously pointing to the book titles listed on the whiteboard and audibly asserting that they are banned, my Jesuit Systematic Theology professor walks to the classroom door, closes it, nods toward the list of banned books and says, “We will read them.”
Finding courage in the Spirit of God with her, St. Teresa refuses to be shooshed. Relying on his experience of finding God in all things, my theology professor refuses to be shooshed. Singing and praying in prison, Paul and Silas refuse to be whooshed. The Spirit of God with us refuses to be shooshed by custom, threat or shackles.
l believe the almost perfect crime in the Christian (or any) tradition is allowing our stories of how God is real for us to be shooshed and replaced with institutional dictates prescribing what we should believe. When we bend before dogma and doctrine rather than defend our experience of God with us, we are complicit in securing God on the ceiling of the Sistine chapel, well out of reach of folks such as me, you or a slave girl, complicit in the almost perfect crime.
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