The Sunday of the Blind Man
Following Jesus isn’t always easy.
Sometimes it means we have to make a moral or ethical decision that puts our livelihoods in jeopardy. This is what happens in today’s epistle reading from Acts.
There was a slave girl who had a gift for soothsaying. Her masters used this to their advantage, charging people to hear their fortunes.
However, when this slave girl encountered Paul and Silas, she recognized the power of their preaching and started to promote them all over town.
Paul, who was a little annoyed at the attention, cleansed the slave girl of her demon, which also caused her to lose her soothsaying abilities. Her masters weren’t too happy since they could no longer sell her “talents” to others.
Not only did this have disastrous results for the girl’s masters, but also for Paul and Silas. They ended up in jail.
Sometimes, we feel like we’re jail when we try to do something good but it’s not received well and we’re berated for only “trying to help.”
Other times, we have to make a decision, like the slave girl: do we make our boss happy and do as he tells us, or do we do the “right” thing instead?
Either way you look at it, a lot of people—the salve girl, her masters, as well as Paul and Silas—ended up with the short end of the stick.
Scripture: Acts 16:16-34 (click here to read)
Bottom Line: Sometimes, it’s hardships that bring about salvation.
Discussion Questions
- A slave girl, in this society, would have been the lowest of the low in the social hierarchy. What does this tell you about her courage? How does it inspire you (or not inspire you) to evangelize and share your faith?
- What do you think of Paul and Silas staying in jail even when their bonds were broken by the earthquake? How many people would have done what they did? Do you think it was morally or ethically right to stay or to leave? What would you have done?
- Both of these cases (the slave girl as well as Paul and Silas) demonstrate a sort of sacrifice. How do these stories help you to understand what sacrifice means? What have you sacrificed in your life? For what have you sacrificed? How do you determine is something is worth a sacrifice?
Moving Forward
In English, we have a saying, You can’t have your cake and eat it too. This, in a nutshell, is the idea of sacrifice.
In order to have the experience of the cake—tasting it and filling our belly—we have to sacrifice the cake. Once it’s eaten, we no longer have it. It’s gone. We’ve sacrificed the cake for the pleasure of eating it.
Was it worth it?
Well, judging by the number of cakes eaten every year, I’d say it’s a sacrifice we’re all willing to take.
Whether we like it or not, this is how life goes.
We make sacrifices in the hopes that the benefits outweigh that which was sacrificed. We sacrifice financial gains to pay for college in the hopes that we’ll get good-paying jobs later in life.
Sometimes, we are willing to go through hardships because it will get us to a goal that we deem worthy. We saw this sort of sacrifice in the founding of many of our churches here in America.
The first immigrants to American often skipped putting money in their savings accounts or buying their own homes until they had built an Orthodox Church in their community. In their minds, taking care of their spiritual health rather than their physical comforts was a worthy sacrifice.
This is the theme of today’s reading in Acts.
The slave girl was willing to sacrifice her soothsaying abilities to tell everyone about Paul and Silas.
And, Paul and Silas were willing to sacrifice their freedoms to preach Christ and cleanse the girl of her demon—whether she had asked for this or not. They were willing to go against the customs of their own Judean tradition, insult the Roman gods, and disrupt community life.
In the end, they were willing to go through hardship after hardship to evangelize the Roman Empire, even if it ended in death.
Even when a great earthquake freed them from their bonds in the jail, they sacrificed their freedom so that the guard wouldn’t be punished for letting captives go free.
So, the question is: what’s the payoff for these sacrifices?
The answer: salvation.
Paul and Silas are saints in our tradition, but their sacrifice in this story brought about the salvation of the slave girl and the Roman guard’s family.
Now, we’re all willing to sacrifice when there’s a benefit for us. But, the church asks us to sacrifice out of love for God and our neighbors. This is the difference between a Christian way of life and a secular one.
Our sacrifice, as Christians, is to benefit others.
Just as Jesus sacrificed himself on the cross for us, we are called to imitate Christ, to sacrificed and endure hardships so that everyone, everywhere, and in all times, can find salvation.
Right now, this may include staying home, wearing masks in public, or being diligent about social distancing.
Throughout our lives, it means lovingly giving to others our time and sharing our gifts.
Our prayer is that they find the love of God and salvation by seeing in our sacrifice the image of the crucified Christ.
Changing Your Mind
“And bringing them up to the house he set out a table for them, and rejoiced along with the whole household at having come to have faith in God.” (Acts 16:34)