"Main Character Energy" by Rev. Jillian Hankamer, 2/2/2025
- Northminster Church
- Aug 12
- 6 min read
A sermon for Northminster Church
Acts 16: 16-24
Have you heard of Main Character Energy?
-More or less a Gen Z concept
-First started appearing on social media in 2020
-my talking about it makes it automatically out of date and uncool
- idea of putting yourself first and taking control of your story
-”Not in a selfish way, but in a self-affirming way that prioritizes self-care”[1]
-attitude or aura that portrays confidence
-Example: “If you think you look good that storefront window, for example, own it!”
- From Licensed Clinical Psychologist, "When you think of movies, and you think of the main character, that's the person that you're following, that's the person that you're rooting for I see it the same way…you should be rooting for yourself, you should be the main character…[there’s] nothing wrong with having that energy."[2]
-Downsides
-self-focused
-too concerned with others’ opinions
-keeps people from actually enjoying life because they’re too busy portraying it “right”
-Another example of American exceptionalism and individualized culture
MCE in Acts 16
-For this morning let’s agree MCE can be good
-Because there’s someone who should be MC but isn’t, should get more attention but doesn’t
-Verses come immediately after Lydia’s story
-dealer of “purple cloth”
-God opens her heart to receive message
-she and whole household are baptized
-this morning’s story has Paul and Silas walking past a place of prayer
-accosted by female slave
-”had a spirit of divination”
-kept following Paul and Silas yelling about them being followers of God and bringing salvation
-irritating and Paul exorcises her
-this leads to his and Silas’ imprisonment as Paul cost slave owners’ money
-Paul and Silas are imprisoned, pray, sing hymns, and are eventually freed by earthquake
-Great story
-often used to talk about the power of Christian worship and witness
-Obvious answer to question: who has MCE?
-I’m arguing that there’s another character with MCE
-did you spot them? Her?
-Female slave has MCE but isn’t given the opportunity to use it
Another nameless, faceless sister
-Might have been so either way, but is certainly not escaping it due to Paul
-Greek word for his feeling diaponeomai/διαπονέομαι - several meanings including, “to be troubled, displeased, offended, pained, to be worked up.”[3]
-So Paul doesn’t act out of charity, concern, love
-Acts out of irritation
-Narrator tells us the spirit leaves her within the hour, not only making her useless to her owners, but proving that her gift was real
-prophecy she speaks about Paul and Silas is true!
-makes this even worse
-she wasn’t lying she just irritated Paul!
-Arguably, she’s putting Paul and Silas at risk by yelling about them bringing salvation but Paul solidifies negative attention with exorcism
-text doesn’t actually say this
-2 things to consider about this woman:
-first, exorcism benefit Paul, not her
-might assume this set her free as she wasn’t useful as oracle anymore, but easily could have been forced into other kind of work
-even if she is set free, what is she free to do?
-Commentator Mitzi J. Smith notes,” A useless slave did not become a freed slave, but as an exposed slave, she was left to fend for herself with no means to take care of herself. Yes, the owners profited from her gifts, and yes slavery is wrong no matter where it is found…”[4]
-But Paul and Silas don’t treat woman better than owners did
-treat her similarly - “as an object that annoyed them, but not as a human being.”[5]
-unlike Paul who’s later freed from prison because of Roman citizenship, “no due process was afforded the slave girl; she could not appeal to any citizenship rights.”[6]
-Second, Paul and Silas don’t offer her baptism or message of Jesus
-just did this for Lydia
-why not this woman?
-becomes a plot point
-”her role is not even elucidated in court.”[7]
-”there is not follow-through and no follow-up…we do not know if she thinks of herself as healed. If she becomes a follower of the Way. If her masters cast her out. If she is beaten. If she is sold. If she is starved. If she is forced into prostitution to make up for her lost income.”
-She’s no longer useful and we hear nothing else about her
Paul knew better from own treatment
-Paul is serial inmate
-In his book Abject Joy, Ryan S. Schellenberg answers question, “What type of person must Paul have been to have been imprisoned so many times?”[8]
-Christian tradition: “Paul the political prisoner…wrongfully accused…Roman citizen demanding trial, the martyr.”[9]
-Schellenberg points out that, “poor, itinerant people considered to be a public nuisance bore the brunt of ‘casual administrative violence’ as well as short-term imprisonments under local magistrates as a means of ‘keeping the peace.’”[10]
-This leads him to suggest that “Paul inhabited a ‘whippable body,’ one that could be hit or locked up by local authorities with impunity for something like what we would call disorderly conduct. Paul’s was one among many bodies treated this way in the ancient Roman world: poor, homeless, and of an ethnicity that marked him as part of an occupied people. Which is to say, Paul looked a lot like those who get over-policed and thrown in jail today.”[11]
-Also why I say he knows better
-understands slavery system
-understands where her value comes from
-understands what he could do that would actually benefit woman
-if nothing else, surely should have shared the good news of Christ
-takes nothing away from suffering of Paul and Silas
-are physically assaulted and imprisoned
-don’t break the law
-” imprisoned because they are imprisonable people - vulnerable people who threaten the bottom line of the powerful.”[12]
-As commentator Mitzi J. Smith says well, “Paul was not perfect; so we need not preach him as if he was. Sometimes we have to preach against the grain and in between the lines because that is where…people live; it’s where life happens, where we struggle with and against oppression.”
Good News
-For that’s the first part of good news: God is found between the lines, against the grain, in the struggle.
-God is a God of justice, of mercy, of compassion
-fully knows those who are nameless and faceless to us
-unconditionally loves those “whippable bodies”
-God who bestows as much value on Paul and Silas as on the slave woman no matter how the story is told by human hands
-God who knows we all have main character energy
-Because second part of good news is “God’s story gives each of us a starring role. God follows all - and each - of the characters. God honors all the plotlines. God lets each of us share in the narration.”[13]
-Why would we ever consider even for a moment that “God’s work can be encapsulated by a single narrative? By a single person? A single community? Or race, nation, continent or hemisphere?”[14]
-May this story be our reminder to let the slave woman “tell her own story”[15] instead of allowing her to be “a prop for Paul’s story.”[16] May it remind us to find the lost lamb, the lost coin, the lost child”[17] because they’re valuable and because God would and does and calls us to the same effort.
[1] Ibid.
[2] Ibid.
[3] Diaponeomai, Blue Letter Bible lexicon, https://www.blueletterbible.org/lexicon/g1278/kjv/tr/0-1/
[4] Mitzi J. Smith, “Paul and Silas: Commentary on Acts 16:16-34,” from Working Preacher, May 11, 2014, https://www.workingpreacher.org/commentaries/narrative-lectionary/paul-and-silas/commentary-on-acts-1616-34-2.
[5] Ibid.
[6] Ibid.
[7] Barb Hedges-Goetti, “Paul and Silas: Commentary on Acts 16: 16-34,” from Working Preacher May 8, 2022, https://www.workingpreacher.org/commentaries/narrative-lectionary/paul-and-silas-2/commentary-on-acts-1616-34-7.
[8] Sarah Jobe, “Why was the apostle Paul in prison so often?,” https://www.christiancentury.org/review/books/why-was-apostle-paul-prison-so-often.
[9] Ibid.
[10] Ibid.
[11] Ibid.
[12] Jerusha Matsen Neal, “Seventh Sunday of Easter: Commentary on Acts 16:16-34,” from Working Preacher, May 29, 2022, https://www.workingpreacher.org/commentaries/revised-common-lectionary/seventh-sunday-of-easter-3/commentary-on-acts-1616-34-8.
[13] Hodges-Goetti, ibid.
[14] Ibid.
[15] Ibid.
[16] Ibid.
[17] Ibid.