Let the words of my mouth and meditations of my heart be acceptable in thy sight, O Lord, my strength and my redeemer. Amen.

I invite you to walk with me on a thought: Being a witness when Rome won't do. Being a witness when Rome won't do...

Following Jesus in the public square is not without its challenges. Not all ears will endure what thus saith the Lord. In an age when people prefer profits over prophets, this text seems to mirror our times.

The gospel always goes against the grain of the empire. As a result, witnesses can find themselves maligned and labeled as malcontents, troublemakers, and even communists. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was often maligned as an outsider, but still prodded the church to not be pawns of the state, but rather be conscience of the state.

Witnessing truth of real power to the powers that don't be can get you locked up and/or killed. This lectionary passage comes in an especially dark time in our world in general, and our country in particular. But before anyone tunes me out, I'm still in the Bible and asking the question: If we got charged with practicing Christianity, would we be found guilty?

Paul had a rough and ready resolve that pressed on no matter what. He knew there would be itching ears that would not endure sound doctrine and would seek out teachers who catered to their own desires. And on this second missionary journey with Silas, they unapologetically witnessed a gospel that Paul formerly held in contempt. He and Silas witnessed in places not hospitable to the Holy.

And as I preach this message, I am mindful of a Hindu Christian colleague of mine whose ministry is hounded by Hindu radicals, even as I preach.

When you've been touched by Christ, there is nothing that fires you up more than sharing the Gospel. Because the Gospel can cause you to preach unapologetically to strongholds that you once feared, or sometimes therein were complicit. Sometimes those strongholds are sitting in the pews of your own church.

But Acts 16 is both timely and telling. Why? It mirrors these times where Rome won't do the Jesus Paul proclaims, but prefers the Jesus that seems to prefer country over the cross. We have all heard the phrase, "When in Rome, do as the Romans do." Well, Paul and Silas happened to be Roman citizens, but were liberated of Roman tendencies. They were unfettered by the need to be in good standing with the empire.

Living for Christ can make you free of the shackles of Rome and Caesar. Not much is known about Silas other than he accompanied Paul in his second missionary journey, but he and Paul are a formidable pair. On their way to pray— they're on their way to pray— and prayer equips us to proclaim. Prayer equips us for the journey.

It was there they were met by a female slave fortune teller. This begs the question: how can one be both a slave and a fortune teller? She trailed Paul and Silas for many days, parroting their witness. Her spirit so annoyed Paul that he turned and called it out of her in the name of Jesus.

I would put a pin right there because I was in a conversation with a friend of mine the other day. And I was saying, "Without Jesus, there would be no Paul." And he said, "Well, looks like with Paul there is no Jesus." He was talking about Paul's exterior— Paul's getting annoyed, Paul's zeal, Paul's fire— that seemed to be not as calm and collected as Jesus.

However, after this, in the name of Roman justice, her angered owners, now void of cash flow, press charges against Paul and Silas. She was delivered, but they were angry. They were guilty of pandering, but used the court to do what had not been done to them. The rule of law did not apply to them other than to prosecute others. Does that sound familiar?

Paul and Silas were beaten for what they were guilty of—witnessing for Christ. What does it mean to be charged and beaten as guilty of being a witness? What happens when your conviction gets you convicted? Was this really wrong, or was the wrong accusing right of being wrong?

Paul and Silas are unapologetically Christian and unashamedly woke witnesses. You see, being woke will get you labeled. It is a divine label I wear proudly. It means that I can't be lulled to sleep—while my history is erased, while my worth is othered, and my civil rights are rolled back to 1619. I can't sleep while my very right to exist is under the microscope of those who find me and those who look like me suddenly unwelcome, unwanted, and called an ideology or not reflective of Roman values and history.

Paul and Silas were beaten, but they stayed woke. Thanks to their wokeness, jail time became a choir rehearsal. Singing hymns rocked open cell doors. Hymns allowed them to see between the bars and loose the shackles.

This is what being woke to the Gospel will do. Rome won't ever do what God will do. Rome requires less of you and more of it. Does this text call us out of hiding to woke preaching in sleepy times? By all means, yes, the Gospel does theological reflection in the key of life free. To be woke is not to be lulled to sleep by the patriot games of Rome. To be woke is to admit, like Jacob when he said, "Surely the Lord was in this place, and I wasn't aware of it." You cannot hang around God or Jesus too long and not get woke. Rev. Cameron Trimble says, “Jesus never taught us to avoid suffering. He invited us to stay awake through it, to weep, to pray, to hold each other, to walk the road anyway.”

Jesus is not confined by partisan pandering and ideologies designed to other difference. Jesus is everywhere he is welcomed. Still, he still stands at closed doors and knocks. He is still a way maker for those whose backs are against the walls of injustice. He still comes, that we might have life and have it more abundantly.

There's no wonder that the jailer was about to harm himself. He believed himself to be in trouble with Rome, but got troubled by Jesus. That's what John Lewis would call “good trouble.”

Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. suggested that to be in Christ is to be creatively maladjusted to the cadences of this world. Paul would say, "To live is Christ and to die is gain." It is to be woke with hope.

When Jesus enters your heart, the footprint of Christianity increases wherever you happen to be.

What can we say about this gospel? What does this text reach from antiquity to tell us about the Gospel of Jesus Christ?

First, I want to suggest that it liberates the locked up. Let us be reminded that this text paints the picture of Christianity's infancy and how it was spread by creative, maladjusted proclaimers—Paul and Silas.

Jesus did say, "Follow me, and I will make you fishers of men and women." That means, if you follow Jesus, he will lead you somewhere you have not known or gone. You can never stay where you were again—you will always be somewhere else.

And Paul was fishing when he upset that Roman world. Silas was fishing when he upset that Roman world. Prior to that, Paul was mad at Christ, but this time he was mad about Christ. He was creatively maladjusted to the usual. He was doing what Jesus told the first disciples—becoming a fisher of men, rather than fault-finders of men. We likewise are called to do and be the same.

Welcome should be all over our faces, as it was with Jesus. Why? Because we must never place a period where God has placed a comma.

Jesus was God's comma to the blind. Jesus was God's comma to the lame. Jesus was God's comma to the hungry and to the disinherited.

Way too many of our churches have become prisons of the period, rather than communities of the comma. A comma says, “Not yet, it's not over.” This is just intermission. But a period suggests that it is over and said and covered in our bylaws.

Something about Jesus makes people stretch to see what could be and might be, and then next in their lives. As one of our associate pastors once said at our church, knowing Jesus says, “Wait, there's more.” This is what happens. This is what I'm trying to say.

There is more to you than what has happened—good or bad. My mentor, the late Dr. Samuel DeWitt Proctor, said it this way: “The Lord always makes room for us to live beyond our last worst report.”

These people that had this woman had used her gifts to make their pockets fat. As long as she produced for them, she was all right. But I want to say today—pimps cannot handle it when prostitutes get free.

When you come to yourself, users get angry. When the scales fall from your eyes, those vested in keeping you blind will get mad.

But then the second point is, what do we say about this gospel? It sings the promises regardless of the premises.

Stevie Wonder recorded an album entitled “Songs in the Key of Life”. That title seems to capture the reality of Paul and Silas in jail. Their bodies were locked in a cell, but their singing was the master key to freedom.

They were accused of being Jews and upsetting the status quo of Rome. They were stripped and beaten because of their story. They realized that America—I mean, Rome—would never be great again until all of its citizens were seen as equal and included.

Thus, all of the cell doors flew open. Their song opened the cells of all prisoners of Rome that night. I believe in my sanctified imagination, they may have been singing Kirk Franklin's song "The Reason Why I Sing".

Someone asked the question, “Why do I sing?”
When we lift our hands to Jesus, what do we really mean?
Someone may be wondering when we sing our song.
Sometimes we may be crying, and nothing's even wrong.

Here it is:
We sing because we're happy.
We sing because we're free.
His eye is on the sparrow.
That's the reason why we sing.

I believe that's what Paul and Silas may have been singing in that cell. They knew Jesus as Lord, and that Caesar was just a man. It is why we sing.

It is no wonder my ancestors sang:

I ain't gonna let nobody turn me around,
turn me around, turn me around.
I ain't gonna let nobody turn me around.
I'm gonna keep on moving, keep on moving,
Moving to the promised land.

But thirdly, I believe this text teaches us that we ought to praise Jesus wherever we are.

Paul and Silas sang hymns in a prison. They sang at the darkest time of the day—midnight. But I learned from my grandfather that midnight is a transitional space. It is just before the dawn. The darkest hour is just before the dawn.

I dare you to praise God in the prison that you may find yourself in. When you do, you will be a witness when Rome won't do.

You see, Rome has a shelf life. Rome can only do what Caesar wants it to. But God can do anything but fail.

What would happen if we focused on getting people to like Jesus as opposed to liking us?

When this text is over, an entire household came to Jesus—not Paul. An earthquake happened, chains dropped, prison doors fly open! There is no need to escape, because in Jesus you are free—wherever you happen to be.

There is power in the name of Jesus. Power to break every chain. That's what happens when witnessing when Rome won't do.

God bless you.