Homily for Tuesday, 6th Week of Easter

Homily for Tuesday
6th Week of Easter

May 28, 2018

Acts 16: 22-34
Our Lady of Lourdes, Bethesda, Md.

“Sirs, what must I do to be saved?” (Acts 16: 30).

In our 1st reading yesterday (Acts 16:11-15), Paul and Silas came to Philippi in the Greek region of Macedonia and preached the Gospel for the 1st time in Europe, with some positive response.  The lectionary skips the passage that follows (16:16-21), in which Paul casts a demon out of a slave girl.  Since the demon used the girl to tell fortunes and so earned some good money for her owners, they were quite angry about the demon’s departure, and with it their income.  (No sympathy, obviously, for the plight of that 1st-century victim of human trafficking.)  So they instigated an anti-Jewish riot, identifying Paul and Silas as the chief culprits, perpetrators of anti-Roman mischief.

That’s where our reading today picks up:  the arrest and jailing of the 2 apostles; the story includes details suggestive of St. Peter’s imprisonment by King Herod in Acts 12.

Earthquakes aren’t unheard of in Macedonia, but the timing and the effects of this little jolt appear to be miraculous.  Christian readers of Acts will read it as such, again recalling St. Peter’s miraculous delivery.  The jailer, on the other hand, sees himself taking the blame for the presumed escape of his prisoners and intends to head off public shame, trial, and execution by killing himself.

Paul’s intervention saves him from that.  The jailer’s left with 2 possible interpretations for this strange event; we can’t say for sure which was in his mind.  He could have seen God’s hand at work in this way of releasing the apostles.  Or he could have seen Paul—in trouble for exorcising an evil spirit—as some kind of wizard who’s brought about the earthquake, and of whom he’d better be duly respectful.

So he pleads, “What must I do to be saved?”  If he’s heard something of Paul’s preaching, it’s a good question, one many hearers of the Gospel have asked in those or equivalent words, including the rich young man who approached Jesus with that question (Mark 10:17) and the crowds who heard St. Peter’s preaching on Pentecost Day (Acts 2:37).  If he sees Paul as a wizard, he’s asking how Paul can be placated, so that he, the jailer, can be safe.

Paul, of course, gives him the Good News of salvation thru Jesus Christ.

The question the jailer asked remains the fundamental question of the Acts of the Apostles and of all of salvation history:  what must people do to be saved?  It’s the fundamental question of our own lives.

Note that the question is in the passive voice.  It’s not, “What must I do to achieve my salvation?” but, “What must I do so that God will save me?”  The work of salvation is God’s; we can only entrust ourselves to the Father thru Jesus Christ, which is what Paul tells the jailer (16:31).

Our own salvation similarly depends upon our surrendering our lives—our hearts, minds, words, and actions—to Jesus as our master, our lord:  “Believe in the Lord Jesus.”  There’s no higher priority.  Or, as St. Peter proclaims to the Sanhedrin, “There is no other name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved” (Acts 4:12).  We won’t be saved by our family or friends, nor by our country or a political party, nor by our career or fame or fortune.  If we give ourselves to Jesus, we will in fact do our best to put all of that—family, country, career, etc.—into sync with the cross and resurrection of Jesus and with his Gospel, so that, as St. Paul says in his letter to the Ephesians, God may be “all in all” (1:23); might be the center of the entire universe.