Rev. George Miller
April 26, 2026
Acts 16:16-24
Thursday was a bit of a fun day in England-
the day they honor their patron saint, St. George. It was a day to raise a pint to celebrate
courage, faith, and facing evil.
The story of Saint George goes a little something
like this: Once upon a time in 303 there
was a Roman soldier born a Christian. As
a soldier he had success, respect, and alignment with political power.
The emperor he served under was cruel, targeting
Christians, arresting them, destroying their churches, burning their scriptures,
and killing them if they didn’t renounce Christ.
Though a soldier with privilege and status,
George refused to renounce his faith. Some
say he protested the emperor’s directives in public; others say he declared
himself a Christian in court.
His actions cost him- arrest, torture,
death. Torture was meant to break him,
but he held on, kept strong and refused to deny Christ.
His story was told again and again, somehow
growing to include a dragon and a princess. It was said that one day there was
a dragon who poisoned the land and controlled access to fresh water.
The people offered the dragon sacrifices-
sheep; their children. Eventually the
King’s daughter.
George confronts the dragon, makes a sign
of the Cross, attacks, destroys, and frees the town. 15,000 people are baptized and a church is built
in honor of George and Jesus.
Regardless of what was fact and what was
poetic truth, St. George is remembered for facing evil and oppression with courage,
morality, and Christian love.
He became the patron Saint of Georgia, Ethiopia,
Portugal. During the Crusades, soldiers
heard stories of his courage. By 1348
Kind Edward elevated his role, by 1415 King Henry declared St. George’s Day a Feast
Day.
Now, in 2026, St. George’s day is a celebration
with people wearing red roses, flags popping up on pubs and t-shirts, folk
gathering to raise a pint, eat fish and chips, laugh and celebrate English pride.
St. George faced evil head on and said “Nope.”
This story ties so sweetly into today’s
scripture. Paul is in Philippi on one of
his many adventures. Earlier in the week he went down to the river and joined
some people in prayer.
There by the gentle waters that curved
through the landscape, like River Avon in England, Paul met a group of women. He got to know an entrepreneur named Lydia. She opened her heart to the Gospel and had her
household baptized.
Now, Paul and Silas are on their way for
more prayer when a woman who is enslaved starts to really annoy them.
She is possessed by a spirit of divination,
basically trapped by an evil spirit. Her
owners use her as entertainment to make much, much money, pimping out her
talents.
Every time this woman, possessed and
enslaved, sees Paul and Silas, she follows them, she shouts out, she makes them
all a spectacle.
Day after day this happens until finally, finalmente,
Paul can not take any more and says “In the name of Jesus get out of her!”
Her possessor leaves, the woman is free of
the demon…yet still enslaved to the men and their mighty dollar.
What’s interesting is this- the NRSVU
edition says she had a “spirit of divination” BUT that’s not what the original story
says.
In the Greek, it is said that she is possessed
by “pneuma pythona”, which means a python spirit.
In the story of St. George the princess
faces a dragon; in Acts, the woman has a dragon dwell within her.
For those hearing this with 1st
Century ears, they would know that it was said that a python guarded the city,
Apollo killed it, created a temple where the priestess would go into trances
and speak oracles.
In that city and culture, a slave girl who
spoke with a python spirit was seen as a marketable business.
So here we have this issue. Paul is where they consider this behavior appropriate;
he sees it as abusive, morally reprehensible and unholy.
When he casts the money-making dragon out
of the woman, her masters can no longer make a profit. So they respond with violence; they respond
with threats of legality.
Paul and Silas are dragged to the city officials. The owners accuse them, the crowds are blood
thirsty, the authorities have them stripped, beaten, thrown into prison with
their feet fastened in stocks.
And yet, somehow, someway, like St.
George, they hold onto their faith and belief in Christ, and eventually they
are freed, make their way back to Lydia’s house and more people become
baptized.
What a complex amazing story. I wish we got to know more about the woman. Just like her owners, the narrator loses
interest in her once the dragon is slayed.
But wouldn’t you love to know the rest of
her story- how this affected her, what she did after? Did her life become
better or worse once she was no longer used as profit?
That is for our imagination to dance with
and wonder.
But for today, let us leave with a thought. The story of St. George and the woman with
the python spirit can be for us a metaphor.
A metaphor for how we live, how we act, when faced with dragons.
Think about it- there are dragons
everywhere; dragons of all kinds.
As believers in Christ, how can we deal
with those dragons, those we can control, those we are forced to face?
The dragons of health, like unexpected
diagnosis, draining treatments, bodies that don’t body the way they used
to.
The dragons of home life. The bills to pay. The beloved pets that age or face medical
crisis. The empty nest or reality of
having to move.
The dragons of the world. ICE breathing threats of violence against
anyone brown. Wars that don’t end. A
planet that just wants to breathe and be beautiful.
How in Christ do we face the dragons, how
do we face the pythons, how do we hold onto our faith even if it means we can
be punished, shamed, shunned?
Some folk here today may be saying “Pastor,
what kind of dragons you think we got?”
Others are thinking “The pythons are many
and they seem to be choking my neck.”
There is no easy, automatic answer to
give, but in today’s stories we witness ways to confront them; to act.
In today’s scripture and virtually every
story in the Bible, we are reminded of how people of faith faced difficult
situations, and how we to can have courage too.
Paul could have stayed annoyed at what was
going on around him, but instead he acted, and he invoked the name of Christ.
May we all continue to grow into our Christian
legacy so that we too can play a role in facing those things that want to hold
us down.
Amen and amen.
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