One of the easiest ways in which I connect with God is through nature, and I love when I can be with those I love out in God’s beauty. One of the best things about exploring nature with others is learning that the things I love aren’t necessarily the things that others love. Stopping to admire the wildflowers and delicate intricacies of plants was not the highlight of a short hike I took with my preteen nephews a few years back but throwing rocks and stones of various sizes and shapes into the creek – that was entirely their speed. My oldest nephew, I learned this day, has a particular gift at skipping rocks, and I learned that I do not. Like he was Babe Ruth calling a shot, he would try to predict how many times a certain rock would skip. “This one’s going to go seven times.” Seven! I exclaimed, both proud and jealous, as I am a deeply completive person. As he launched it, and we counted as it skipped up the creek, first in giant hops, then smaller and smaller jumps till it finally sunk after the seventh count. We hooted and hollered, and our minds were blown, and I marveled at the way in which the ripples echoed out throughout the otherwise still creek.
This week, I remembered this day at the creek, watching the ripples echo out as I read a commentary from the Rev. Dr. Jaclyn P. Williams who describes our lesson from Acts of the Apostles as “Ripples of Freedom.” [1] She describes the powerful and liberating work of the Spirit at work in the world as Paul and Silas are traveling throughout Rome and an enslaved girl who was possessed with a spirit of divination began to follow them for many days. The girl’s proclamations shifted from foretelling and winning financial gains for her enslavers and instead she began to proclaim Paul and Silas’ devotion to God. Paul, in a moment of true and deeply relatable humanness of finding this annoying, commanded the spirit to leave the girl, and it did, angering her enslavers who could no longer benefit from her possession. Paul and Silas were brought before authorities, flogged, and put into the innermost part of the prison with their ankles shackled at their crime of freeing the oppressed girl.
In the jail, they began to pray and sing hymns, as the other prisoners listened. It was late in the evening, and the jailer was asleep; there was a sudden and quick earthquake that caused the foundations of this place of imprisonment to be shaken to its very core. The doors opened wide, the chains fell off, and even through all this the jailer wakes only after the dust has settled and assumes all prisoners would have fled to freedom. The fear of this overtakes him and he picks up his sword to take his own life, because the truth is, this jailer is imprisoned by his own work of oppressing others, and he knew he would be punished severely for failing to do so. But Paul called out to him to stop him, and the jailer fell at his feet and asked what must he do to be saved? Paul and Silas’ conviction that their freedom was not something that they had to run to, rather it was something that they knew they had to show by their risky choice to stay in the open cell with the doors open wide so they could share the Good News of God’s liberation with the jailer. The jailer welcomed them into his home, washed their wounds from the beating and he and his family were baptized.
Now, this story that we hear from Acts today is a little wild – miraculous healings, brutal and xenophobic beatings, violent imprisonment upended by a conveniently timed and very specific earthquake. It’s so wild, that it can be easy to rush right over in it in our hurry to get to Pentecost, but in her commentary, Dr. Williams helped me see that the healing and beatings and the earthquakes are not a series of unfortunate events for the evil forces in our world, but rather ripples of freedom—they are the echoes of a liberation that cannot be contained solely to an enslaved girl destined to be continually possessed by demons or by others. And that the effects that stretched out from the earthquake like an aftershock touched not only the jailer, but his family, as they let the love of the liberating and life-giving God dwell among their whole household.
My friends, there are many ripples of God’s liberating work in the world, and it is our job in this critical moment. . . in this critical moment between Easter and Pentecost, between our hope of the resurrection and our desire for the Holy Spirit to rush into our lives, into our churches, into our diocese to empower us to do God’s will. . .it is our job in this deeply critical moment to pay attention—to pay attention to the world around us and to what we might be called to do.
God is inviting us in this passage to be active participants in the liberation of the poor, oppressed, and the harmed. Friends, I’m just meeting most of you, but if I can, let me tell you one thing I’ve learned time and time again: That faith without love, prayer without action, and Christianity without discipleship will do more harm than good in this world, and I’m convinced that if we can, we must, chose again and again to walk this Christian walk each and every day because we take seriously what we see happening when an enslaved girl is freed and a jailer is shown another path than a life of oppression, and we take seriously the challenge to actively participate in God’s liberating work in this world. The question then, is, will we join in? Will we join in God’s liberating work in the world?
May each of us this day, and throughout this week be swift to love, be hasty to be kind, and may we make no peace with oppression. Amen.
A sermon on Acts 16: 16-34 delivered to the people of Trinity Episcopal Church in Covington, Kentucky for Easter 7C on June 1, 2025
[1] https://www.workingpreacher.org/commentaries/revised-common-lectionary/seventh-sunday-of-easter-3/commentary-on-acts-1616-34-9
Becca Kello 