Easter 4 (NL4) John B. Valentine
Acts 16:16-34 April 26, 2026

“ACTS OF DISRUPTION”

Here’s a weird reality for you!

A living, breathing example of a word that has completely changed its meaning within the context of most of our lifetimes!

So a number of us were in our Academic Bible Study class last Wednesday evening ...

Having a discussion as to HOW and WHY the Christian Church grew from being a group of probably less than forty individuals huddled up in Jerusalem to being the faith that conquered the Roman Empire from within less than three hundred years later ...

And I happened to mention the word “disruptor”.

And I asked if any of our class participants knew the meaning of that word ...

And everyone around the table nodded in agreement ...

And Bob Bauer even injected an example ... “A disruptor is that kid in the class who shouts out ... or make noises with objects ... or just refuses to follow the teacher’s directions.”

And everyone again nodded in agreement ... which fits ... because all of the participants in that class were born in the middle of the 20th Century.

You see ... until about the turn of the millennium ... the word “disruptor” simply meant that. A “disruptor” was one who disrupted things ... and nobody wanted to be labeled a “disruptor”.

But that’s NOT what the word “disruptor” means anymore!

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Seriously ... I kid you not ... whereas ... fifty years ago ... no one wanted to be tagged with that title ... nowadays people aspire to being a disruptor ...

Because ... nowadays ... “disruptors” ... aren’t those pain-in-the-neck kids in the back of the classroom clamoring for attention ...

Nowadays ... disruptors are businesses and social movements and ideas that change traditional ways of thinking and ways of doing in new and effective ways.

By the 21st Century definition of that word ... when a “disruptor” shows show up ... it changes the world we live in in substantive and substantial ways.

So ... for instance ...

• Steve Jobs and the folks at Apple were disruptors ... for they turned cell phones into pocket-size touchscreen computing platforms ...

• Email disrupted the US Postal Service in ways that our federal government is still trying to cope with yet today ...

• Personal computers disrupted the typewriter-manufacturing business ...

• Henry Ford’s Model T disrupted the horse-breeding and horse-feeding industries ...

• Thomas Jefferson and his “Declaration of Independence” and the whole idea of democracy disrupted the British Empire ... and have been disrupting monarchies and authoritarian states for the past two-hundred-and-fifty years!

It could well be said that we live in this whole “Age of Disruption” ... folks ...

Betwixt AI ... nano-technologies ... quantum computing ... and bioinformatics ... the speed of change that is occurring around us is just mind-blowing ...

Sure ... we may find some of that disruption inconvenient ... and some of it baffling ... and some of it disconcerting ... but I suspect ... in the long haul ... we wouldn’t want to have it any other way.

For ... as one pundit noted ... “Few people nowadays are crying that Edison put the lantern makers out of business.”

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But ... it seems to me ... “disruption” ... using the 21st Century definition of that term ... is kind of what God has been about ever since like Genesis ... chapter 12!

• I mean ... out of the blue ... in Genesis 12 ... God calls Abraham ... and says to him ... “I’m going to bless the whole world ... the WHOLE of the world ... through you!”

Abraham’s life got disrupted ... and God’s plan of salvation and restoration got its start.

• Again ... out of the blue ... in Exodus 3 ... an angel of the Lord appears to Moses in a fiery bush ... and speaks to him from the fiery bush ... and Moses says “Here I am, Lord.”

Moses’ life got disrupted ... and God’s people got called out of captivity and into community.

• On a mountaintop ... Peter, James and John are on a hike with Jesus ... when suddenly Jesus is transfigured before them ... and a voice says ”This is my Son, listen to him!”

Peter and James and John had their lives disrupted ... and the awareness that Jesus was more than just a teacher began to take hold.

• Or how about Easter morning? Mary and some other women go to grieve the death of their friend Jesus ... but find his body to be missing. And they run back to tell the disciples ... who then run to see for themselves what’s going on ... and then Mary hears Jesus speak her name ... and she knows that everything ... EVERYTHING ... is changed.

Mary has her life disrupted ... and the world has never been the same.

All that being said ... it seems to me that this godly “disruption” stuff is really at the heart of this morning’s Scripture lesson as well.

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In that bit we heard read from Acts 16 ... Paul and his companion Silas arrive in the Greek city of Philippi ...

And Paul drives a malevolent spirit out of a slave girl ... but then he and Silas get dragged before the authorities ... because the slave-girl’s owners were apparently making a pretty handsome profit off of her fortune-telling.

“These men are disturbing our city” ... they say .... although maybe it would be better to read that ‘disturbing’ as ‘disrupting’ ... “They are Jews and are advocating customs that are not lawful for us as Romans to adopt or observe.”

Anyhow ...Paul and Silas are given a bit of corporal punishment and then thrown into prison.

But then there’s an earthquake ... which somehow dislodges the prison doors from their hinges and the prisoners’ shackles from the wall ...

And the jailer assumes his prisoners have escaped ... and ... with a deep sense of shame ... he draws his sword to kill himself ... but Paul calls out and urges him not to stop ... since the prisoners are all still present.

And the jailer clearly struggles to wrap his head around what his eyes and ears are telling him ... because ... when an earthquake shakes loose prison doors ... prisoners are supposed to escape ... but his prisoners are still here.

What was it that the sociologist Rodney Stark said about “conversion experiences”???

• That conversion most often happens among “those whose interpersonal attachments to members of the group overbalance their attachments to nonmembers” ... and again

• that “religions frequently are discarded and new ones accepted in troubled times” ... that “Novelty emerges amid difficulty”???

This Philippian jailer fellow is thoroughly “disrupted” ... and ends up being baptized along with the whole of his household!

In this one brief story from Acts ... Luke is confirming a whole lot of what Rodney Stark seems to imply ...

That the Christian faith was ... and perhaps still is ... a source of disruptive information ... that stretches and stresses ... that surprises and confuses us ... and ... at the same time ... one that changes lives.

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I mean ... look at some of the disruptive messages we hear echoes of in this morning’s lesson.

Disruptive Message Number One ... YOU ARE VALUED FOR WHO YOU ARE — NOT FOR WHAT YOU DO.

After the midnight earthquake ... the jailer feels deeply embarrassed that he has lost his prisoners. And ... in virtuous Roman fashion ... he draws his sword to commit suicide ... because he believed that his failure to do his job designated him a ‘failure’ as a person.

But Paul shouts, “Stop!”

Obviously ... we don’t live in a first-century Roman colony. But I suspect that many of us do share that jailer’s belief that our value is based on what we do.

• If we achieve ‘success’ in school or in work or our primary life-relationships or wherever ... we let that boost our perceptions of our self-worth.

• Conversely ... if we ‘fail’ in any of those arenas ... we let that drag our self-perceptions down into the mud.

Be honest ... folks. We certainly don’t like to talk about it ... but the number of so-called “economic suicides” in our country is frightening ... because people perceive their self worth as being all tied up in their net worth.

But God says “Your value is based on who you are, not on what you do” ... and our worth comes from our being made in the image and likeness of God ... whether we succeed or fail ... and whether we’re students ... or business-folks ... or jailers.

Disruptive Message Number Two: TRUST IN JESUS AND YOU WILL BE SAVED — THE GODS OF THIS WORLD CAN’T DO THAT FOR YOU.

You know ... I got to walk the old city streets of Philippi late last year ... and it was fascinating to see the massive amphitheater and the expansive marketplace ... and even the place traditionally presumed to be the site of the jail into which Paul and Silas had been tossed ...

But ... as I walked those stone-paved streets ... I was reminded by our tour guide that there would have been lots of little shrines and grottoes to lots of different gods scattered throughout that community ... lots of different gods to whom one could entrust oneself for success or wellness or the like.

Now we may well think ourselves and our cities not to be ‘pagan’ these days ... but we have to admit that we are pretty quick to entrust ourselves to all sorts of false gods these days ... to the gods of wellness and fitness ... of success and popularity ... of beauty and fulfillment and God-only-knows what else.

But ... to his credit ... when the jailer falls down before Paul and Silas ... he entrusts himself to the One who can truly save him.

Disruptive Message Number Three: ENTRUSTING OURSELVES TO JESUS MEANS COMMITTING OURSELVES TO ACTION.

I mean ... I find it kind of fascinating that the jailer seems to immediately ‘get’ what it is that is the heart of Jesus’ teaching ...

• It is more blessed to give than to receive ...
• I am my brother’s keeper ...

• Do unto others as you would have them do unto you ...

And the first two things he does in response to his newfound faith commitment are:

• To be about take the practice of caring ... taking care of Paul and Silas and washing their wounds ... and

• To be about the practice of hospitality ... welcoming them into his house and offering them a meal.

You see ... one of the things that has been most noteworthy to those of us who’ve been studying the history of the early church this year is that what set Christianity apart from every other religion in the world back in the day was its focus on service.

In fact ... there was this one Roman emperor ... Julian the Apostate ... who ... in his effort for squelch Christianity ... launched a government-funded campaign to match the charitable efforts of the Christians ... noting:

“I think that when the poor happened to be neglected and overlooked by the priests, the impious Galileans observed this and devoted themselves to benevolence … the Christians ... those ‘impious Galileans” support not only their poor but ours as well.”

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This faith we share ... folks ... this thing called Christianity it was ... and still is ... a source of disruptive information.

It stretches and stresses us ...

It surprises and confuses us ... and ...

It changes lives.

It was true two thousand years ago ... may it be true for us today!