What About the Girl?

Luke tells a fast-paced story in Acts 16. It involves Paul, Silas, and the narrator, Luke himself. It takes place in Philippi, inland from the northwest shore of the Aegean Sea, where the Apostle and his companions were followed “for many days” by a slave girl who kept crying out, “These men are slaves of the Most High God, who proclaim to you a way of salvation."

Paul finally became exasperated, cast out the “spirit of divination,” got mobbed by the city merchants, and along with Silas was tossed in jail for disrupting the peace and the local economy. The story goes on to tell about the earthquake that broke their chains, the conversion of the Philippian jailer, and the resumption of Paul’s missionary journey.

A question that lingers is, “What about the girl?” She was cured of her enslavement to a spirit of some kind, and since she no longer had the gift of divination she was probably dumped by her owners. No more profit possible. Paul seemed consumed with his larger mission. Did the girl get left in the dust?

One of the drawbacks of ministry is that some of the most marginalized people can be bypassed as we seek to do God’s greater work. Put together an impressive worship service. Accomplish a mission project.

Karen Huey, in a meditation on this passage, says that although Paul might have acted out of compassion for the girl, the text plainly says that he was "very much annoyed"; this exorcism is almost impulsive. Paul was tired of being heckled by the girl and the spirit that possessed her. He was focused on doing what he came to do, and healing slave-girls doesn't appear to have been on his agenda. [1] Did he choose the greater good at the expense of a few?

Philippi isn’t the only place this has happened. Public programs instituted for the “greater good” have often intruded on the lives of individuals. The military is infamous for its euphemisms; “collateral damage” is one that describes the supposedly unavoidable killing of civilians in the course of winning a battle. And it happens in church. We can get pretty task oriented about our mission and risk leaving some in our church family behind.

If we ask, “What about the girl?” it leads us to more questions. One is, “What about me? What am I still enslaved to in my daily life?” Ronald Cole-Turner reflects on this and asks, in the words of the repentant jailer: "What must I do to be saved from what destroys me? What must I do to be saved from my particular bondage, my oppressive addiction, emptiness, or boredom? There are countless ways to lose our way in this world or to be in bondage, just as there are many different threats from which we need to be saved." [2]

The answer begins with our willingness to pose the question in the first place. Are you willing to keep asking what it takes to be saved? Unless we ask, it’s unlikely that the freeing work of God will become available to us.

Another question is, “What do we do with our slave girls?” Or more to the point, what do we in the church do with the people who feel they are good, faithful Christians, who attend worship, serve in some capacity, but feel like something is missing.? Or with those outside the church who feel enslaved, but won’t come in?

Reggie McNeal, author of the book The Present Future, describes the first group: “The faithful, maybe silently or not so silently, wonder when their ticket is going to be punched, when they are going to experience the changed life they’ve been promised and expected to experience at church. In North America, people have been led to believe that (the) Christian life is all about church.” He says that when the church fails them, this “not only creates doubt about the church, it also leads them to all kinds of doubt about God.”

There are people like this in every congregation, ours included—who aren’t experiencing the spiritual transformation for which they hoped. As one Christian writer said, “They came to us seeking God, and we gave them church instead.” [3]

So what do we do with those who don’t see church as the answer? We reach out. Waiting for people to come in the door doesn’t work. As a friend recently reminded me, “What makes you think anybody on the outside wants to come in your church? They don’t. Get over it.”
Besides, the end goal isn’t the survival of the church building. It takes an extra step to look at our community and identify the needs that exist – for redemption, forgiveness, physical needs and spiritual wholeness. In the face of those needs we don’t offer church. We offer the good news of salvation in Christ Jesus. We don’t offer church. We offer God. One on one.

Pastor Mike

1 Huey, Karen, Weekly Seeds, May 7, 2010
2 Ibid
3 Watson, Suzanne, Sixth Sunday of Easter