Sermon – The Trafficking Economy and God’s Economy

(I preached this sermon at Christ Lutheran Church in Allison Hill on Sunday, April 26, 2026. It is in response to Acts 16:16-34.)

There is a lot going on in this story.

A trafficked girl forced to tell fortunes.
Men who lose money when she is set free.
A crowd that turns violent.
Leaders who do not ask questions.
A public beating.
A prison cell.
Chains locked tight.
A midnight song.
An earthquake.
A jailer ready to die.
A household pulled into new life.

It is a lot. And if you sit with it long enough, you start to see what is really holding it together.

This is a story about abuse. About control.
About the kind of arrangements people build where some are used and others profit.

The girl at the center of the story is enslaved. She is trafficked.

Her body is not her own.
Her voice is not her own.
Her gift is not her own.

Everything about her has been claimed and put to work to make money for someone else.

And we need to be clear. That is not just something that happened way back then.

There are women here in Allison Hill right now who are trafficked.
Their bodies used to bring in money for someone else.
Their safety ignored. Their wellbeing dismissed.

Most of the world would rather not talk about it.  Most the world would rather keep trafficking abstract.  It’s less uncomfortable that way.  

Some of these women come through the medical outreach clinic.

They come in afraid.
They come in exhausted.
They come in carrying wounds, both visible and hidden.

Some use substances just to get through the day.  To dull the pain of their existence. 

And what happens when they come?

They are met with nurses who do not judge them.
Who treat their wounds.
Who look them in the eye.
Who learn their names.
Who begin to build trust.

Because the first step toward freedom is being seen.

And when Paul casts out the spirit from this girl, he is doing far more than just a spiritual act.

He is interrupting abuse. He is breaking a money-making arrangement that depends on her suffering.

He is shutting down a way of doing business that treats a human being as a product. And this isn’t just about this one incident.

He is disrupting an economy. The entire city is drawn in.  And that should raise a lot of questions.  And that is when everything falls apart.

Her owners do not care that she is free. They care that their income is gone.

So they grab Paul and Silas and drag them into the center of the city.

Now put a modern twist on their complaints and see if you recognize them.  

“These people need to stay in their lane.”
“Religion has no place in economics.”
“Keep your faith out of politics.”
“These outsiders are causing problems.”
“They are interfering with the way things work.”
“They are threatening our way of life.”

The language is loud.  It is exaggerated. It is meant to stir fear.

Because when profit is threatened, the truth becomes disposable.  People become disposable. Everything becomes disposable.

And the response that follows is familiar.

The crowd piles on.
The officials do not ask questions.
There is no hearing.
There is no pause.

Paul and Silas are stripped. They were humiliated and dehumanized. They are beaten. They are thrown into prison.

This is what happens when a way of organizing life is built on exploitation. This is the economy that Paul interrupts. 

You get exactly what that way of life produces.

We have seen this before.

We have seen Black men and women beaten, imprisoned, killed, with no justice.

We know the names.

George Floyd
Breonna Taylor
Ahmaud Arbery

And before them, generations of names that were never recorded.

There were Black men lynched for the accusation of looking the wrong way. For being in the wrong place. For nothing at all.

These were not random acts. They were part of a pattern meant to keep people in their place. They were meant to maintain a pecking order. To remind everyone who had power and who did not.

And we still see arrangements like this today.

People picked up off the street. From their workplace. From their cars.

Taken into detention.

No hearing. No chance to speak.

I stood at a press conference organized by our neighbors at the Catholic Worker House after Easter for a man named Omar, who is a part of this community. 

He has been held for five months in ICE detention.
Taken on his way to the courthouse.

The charges against him have since been dropped.

An immigration judge has ordered his release.

And still, he remains in custody.

That is not confusion.
That is how the machinery is operating.

And then there are people like Alex Pretti and Renee Good.

They stepped in to help. They chose care over violence. And they were labeled as threats – domestic terrorists.  

Because when you interrupt abusive arrangements, those arrangements push back.

Bondage spreads. Shackles spread. They reach further and further.

Into workplaces that demand everything and give little back.
Into courtrooms where outcomes feel predetermined.
Into neighborhoods where fear shapes daily life.

People cannot move.
People cannot breathe.
People begin to lose hope.

Even those who seem to be in charge are caught in it.

And that includes the way our economy actually works.

If we are honest, our economy needs an exorcism.

Think about the actual practices.

Budgets that cut healthcare while protecting wealth at the top.
Contracts that make war very profitable.
Business decisions that treat the earth as expendable.
Work schedules that grind people down and still leave them unable to pay rent.

These are not abstract ideas. These are daily realities.

You can see it in how debt works.

Try talking about debt forgiveness. Watch how quickly people react.

Because we have been taught to believe that if we had to struggle, everyone else should too.

That is how the grip tightens.  How the shackles get put on more people.  That is how people stay bound.

So Paul and Silas sit in a prison cell.

Beaten.
Chained.
Locked down.

And at midnight, they start to sing.

Not quietly.
Not to themselves.

They sing so that others can hear.

This is resistance. This is faithfulness.

The arrangements around them are built on misery. And misery loves company.  And they refuse to join in.

They refuse to let violence shape their spirit. They refuse to let what has been done to them define who they are.

And then the ground begins to shake. An earthquake tears through the prison.

Doors open. Chains fall.

The structures that held them in place begin to give way.

And the jailer wakes up.

He sees the doors open and assumes the worst. He reaches for his sword.

Because in his world, there is only one outcome for failure.

There is no mercy built into that way of life.

Only fear. Only punishment.

And just as he is about to end his life, Paul calls out.

“Do not harm yourself. We are all here.”

They stay.  They know the cost.  

They stay for him.

The one who locked them up.
The one who carried out the very thing that hurt them.

They stay.

And that is where everything changes.

He runs in.
He falls down.
He asks the only question that makes sense in that moment.

“What must I do to be saved?”

This is a man who has seen the way things usually work start to crack.

He has seen where it leads.

And now he is asking if there is another way to live. If that’s not an earthquake that shakes everything up, I don’t know what is. 

They tell him about Jesus.

And then the story turns toward healing.

He washes their wounds.

The same hands that once enforced harm now bring care.

He brings them into his home.
He feeds them.

The whole world has been shaken. 

His whole household is gathered into something new.

Joy enters the story.

And it comes after everything has been shaken to its very core. 

So where do we see this today?

We see it when someone tells the truth about violence and refuses to dress it up.

When a religious leader says clearly that war is not blessed by God.

We see it in the clinic.

A woman walks in with open wounds from drug use.

She expects judgment.

Instead, she is met with care.

Her wounds are cleaned.
She is treated with dignity.

Trust begins. And that is where freedom begins. Because the world needs a lot of shaking up. 

We see it when people walk through this church and realize what is actually happening here.

That the pain so many try to ignore is real.

And that there are people who refuse to look away.

People who show up.
People who care.
People who stay.

This past week, Lutherans from across Pennsylvania gathered.

They learned.
They listened.
They went to the Capitol to talk with law makers and staff. 

They asked them hard questions.
They told them the truth.
They advocated for people who are often ignored.

That is what it looks like when the ground starts to shake. That is what it looks like when the grip of these arrangements begins to loosen.

And here is the good news.

God is still at work. Still setting people free. Still breaking chains. Still loosening what has held people in place for far too long. Still bringing life into places that have known only harm.  Still shaking things up.  

And we are invited into that work.

To see clearly.
To speak honestly.
To care deeply.

To shake things up.

To take part in the freedom that is already breaking in.

Because this story ends with a table.

Where food is set.
And wounds are tended.
People are gathered.

And joy fills the house.  Where people are set free and are seen.  

That is where this is all headed.

And we are already on the way.

Thanks be to God.