May 01, 2016
Written by
Kathryn Matthews
Sunday, May 1
Sixth Sunday of Easter
Focus Theme
Disciples Together
Weekly Prayer
Gracious God, through a vision you sent forth Paul to preach the gospel and
called the women to the place of prayer on the Sabbath. Grant that we may be
sent like Paul and be found like Lydia, our hearts responsive to your word and
open to go where you lead us. Amen.
Focus Scripture
Acts 16:9-15
During the night Paul had a
vision: there stood a man of Macedonia pleading with him and saying, "Come
over to Macedonia and help us." When he had seen the vision, we
immediately tried to cross over to Macedonia, being convinced that God had
called us to proclaim the good news to them.
We set sail from Troas and
took a straight course to Samothrace, the following day to Neapolis, and from
there to Philippi, which is a leading city of the district of Macedonia and a
Roman colony. We remained in this city for some days. On the sabbath day we
went outside the gate by the river, where we supposed there was a place of
prayer; and we sat down and spoke to the women who had gathered there. A
certain woman named Lydia, a worshiper of God, was listening to us; she was
from the city of Thyatira and a dealer in purple cloth. The Lord opened her
heart to listen eagerly to what was said by Paul. When she and her household
were baptized, she urged us, saying, "If you have judged me to be faithful
to the Lord, come and stay at my home." And she prevailed upon us.
All Readings For
This Sunday
Acts 16:9-15
Psalm 67
Revelation 21:10, 22-22:5
John 14:23-29 or John 5:1-9
Focus Questions
1. How does it strike our
ears differently when a woman (instead of a man) in the Bible makes a decision
for her entire household?
2. How do you discern God's
will for your life?
3. When have you ever encountered obstacles on the path you thought was right,
until you found the path God actually wanted you to take?
4. Who are women who have
been "mothers" in the church, bringing new life and energy to its
mission and ministry?
5. How do you imagine the
life of Lydia before and after that day by the river, when she met Paul?
Reflection by Kate
Matthews
There are some times when
it's easier than others to figure out what God wants us to do and where God
wants us to go. After Paul, with his new traveling companion Silas, had
completed a tour of the churches he had already founded on his first trip, they
decided to strike out into new territory. However, the verses immediately
preceding this week's passage tell us that the "Spirit of Jesus"
prevented Paul and Silas from going to Asia to preach the gospel (even though
they seemed inclined to do so), so they headed instead to Macedonia, that is,
to Europe. How did they decide on Macedonia? Paul had a vision of "a man
of Macedonia" asking him to come, delivering a clear message from God, or
at least that's the way Paul understands it.
A note about geography and
history from Paul Walaskay, who tells us that here "Asia" doesn't
refer to what we understand as Asia, but to Asia Minor. By going to
"Europe" (certainly not as we understand France, Germany, etc., but
the easternmost part of Greece), Paul and Silas embarked on their
"challenging mission in the cradle of western culture — the home of Homer
and Hesiod, of Socrates and Plato, of Aristotle and Alexander the Great."
Reversing the path of
Alexander
The journey of the great
evangelist, then, is the opposite of that of Alexander, who left Macedonia to
bring the Greek language and culture (along with war) to much of the known
world three centuries earlier; Paul, of course, is bringing something much
better, Charles Cousar observes. But the journey is not simply to
"Europe": as Walaskay describes it, Paul's missionary activity takes
him "from Judaism's religious center into Greece's intellectual center,
and eventually to Rome's political center."
If there is something of the
unexpected in Paul and Silas' decision to go to Europe rather than Asia, then
there is also a most unlikely candidate for First Christian Convert in Europe:
Lydia, a Gentile, and a woman at that. (After all, it was "a man,"
not "a woman" of Macedonia who summoned them there.) Lydia seems to
prompt all sorts of speculation on the part of commentators. Some think she had
children and even a husband, along with her servants, all of whom she brought
to baptism (whether they wanted it or not, we might wonder). Others say she was
single, and still others say she may have been a former slave, but most agree
she was now wealthy, and used to dealing (literally) with wealthy people, who
were the only ones able and permitted to wear the purple cloth she sold.
A woman in charge
We're used to hearing in the
Bible that powerful men made decisions for their households, but does it strike
our ears differently when a woman does so? And how ironic is it that much of
European Christianity has long prevented women from being leaders in the
church, when the first European Christian was a Gentile woman? There is
definitely something of the unexpected for us in this text, and it makes our
patriarchal church history even more perplexing. When we think of the countless
women whose works and stories are untold, we wonder what has been lost to the
world, and how those women themselves have suffered. I believe it was Maya
Angelou who said, "There is no greater agony than bearing an untold story
inside you."
Reading only the lectionary
passage, however, keeps us from hearing that this period in the ministry of
Paul is actually "framed" by this woman, Lydia. The first part of the
frame is set when Paul and Silas go looking for devout Jews in Philippi to whom
they might preach the good news of Jesus Christ, and they wait until the
Sabbath when they're sure to find an audience among those gathered in prayer.
Is there a synagogue? If so, it's a humble one, and probably just a gathering
of folks down by the river, ready to pray and listen for a Word from God.
(We're reminded of new church starts that begin in unlikely places: bars,
coffee shops, karate studios.)
People outside the gate,
on the edge
It seems, again, that these
devout, open-hearted people, thanks to God at work in their midst, are women,
which somehow doesn't surprise us in a book written by Luke. However, the
ironic note is hit again: people outside the gate, people on the edge or the
fringe of social acceptance, people who are not traditionally given a voice or
a place in the life of organized religion, are often most open and, perhaps,
most in need of good news. The audience may be unexpected, but so is Paul's
behavior: since when do Pharisees sit down with women to talk about faith? (We
wonder if Lydia herself was surprised.)
If Jesus came, as he said in
the fourth chapter of Luke's Gospel, to proclaim good news and the year of the
Lord's favor, and we carry this good news, like Paul, to all the ends of the
earth, wouldn't those on the fringes, those outside the gate, be hungry to hear
what we have to say? And could it also be that God has surprises in store for
us about who's included in the circle of God's grace, and who's part of the
great conversation of faith? Acts is just full of small moments like this, and
big stories as well, from our earliest, earliest Christian ancestors. Yes, they
had many of the same prejudices and unjust, exclusionary rules that we have,
but the story itself keeps breaking those down. Do we pay enough attention to
the big story of which we are a part, and those important though small moments
of truth breaking through?
Lydia the God-fearer
It's also significant that
Lydia has been prepared for Paul's message by her participation in the faith of
Israel. According to Charles Cousar, the Jews were often receptive to Paul's
message, because they already knew the God of compassion and justice who would
understandably give the great gift of grace in Jesus Christ. There was great
coherence between the message of the Old Testament and the gospel of Jesus
Christ. Lydia, "a worshiper of God" (that is, a Gentile who was
studying Judaism, sometimes called a "God-fearer"), was drawn to the
God who gave us Jesus, and open to hearing how God was working in the world
through his life, death, and resurrection. Gail R. O'Day links Lydia, the first
official European convert, to Cornelius, the very first official Gentile
convert (Acts 10). Perhaps God is trying to tell us something?
Lydia the Unlikely is a
"frame" for this story because it is her house, now a house church,
as they did things in those days, that provides a haven for Paul after his
imprisonment in verse 40. Oddly, while Lydia's whole household was baptized
with her, she's not described later as the leader of the house church; while she
was obviously a "somebody" in her business dealings and her
household, she still slips from view (as so many women do) as a leader in the
early church.
Who led the church?
The church at Philippi, we
recall, was later the recipient of Paul's beautiful letter of joy, urging them
to "make my joy complete" (2:2) and "[r]ejoice in the Lord
always; again, I will say, rejoice" (4:4). Whether we gather in houses, or
in church buildings, or in "places of prayer" out on the edge of things,
down by the river, have we opened our hearts to the least likely in our midst
who are called to share the good news, and to be leaders at doing so?
Our reading from these
earliest days of the church prompts several questions for our reflection. We
might spend some time thinking about the spiritual practice of discernment, and
the question of how we know that God is leading us in new and unexpected ways.
Paul may have thought he needed to go to Asia, but "the Spirit of
Jesus" said no. He may have packed all his things and had his itinerary
all worked out, but the Spirit of Jesus closed the door on that plan. Don't we
wonder how Paul felt, with his plans frustrated? How did he feel about all
those travels just to end up outside the city gate with only a bunch of women
to listen to him? How do we know what God wants us to do, and where God wants
us to go, and with whom God wants us to work? And when we get to where we're
going, what surprises wait for us?
Visions or strategic
planning, or both?
Commentators provide rich
material for our reflection on this question. When it comes to mission, David
Forney observes that it's common to do strategic planning in the church, with
the help of experts from outside. Not that there's anything wrong with that, of
course…but could it be, as Forney suggests, that we find such an approach
something we can manage much better than things like, say, visions from God?
And yet visions from God like the one experienced by Paul that set him on a
very different course in his ministry are found all through the Bible.
Forney writes about the
surprising results from a Gallup survey of Presbyterians in the 1990's (not the
1890's but the 1990's!) in which half of the church members, and even more
clergy, had had a vision from God. As the daughter of a lifelong Presbyterian,
I find this a remarkable result, and I agree with Forney that we need to open
our hearts and minds to God at work in our lives in the most dramatic and
unexpected ways that might transform our lives and our ministries.
Blocked by the Spirit of
Jesus
Of course, visions and
dreams are powerful and risky experiences of God's leading. Paul himself must
have wondered at times — on the road to Damascus and here, on the road to
Philippi, what exactly God was saying to him. For example, John M. Rottman suggests
that Paul found himself a bit stuck here, at the end of his tour of the
churches; we might say he was "at loose ends." Each time Paul and
Silas try to go somewhere, they're blocked, the text says, by the Holy Spirit,
the "Spirit of Jesus."
Rottman writes that this
feeling of being blocked and frustrated and uncertain might have caused Paul to
"second-guess himself," especially after the argument he had had with
Barnabas, his old and trusted partner in ministry, an argument that had actually
separated them and sent them off in different directions (such things are not
new in the life in the church). Rottman suggests that Barnabas was better than
Silas at discerning what God did want them to do rather than what God didn't
want them to do.
The larger story of
God's work in the world
However, the reflections on
discernment in this text focus not just on messages about our personal
relationships with God but on the nagging, inspiring call of God to the
community of faith. Even in the biblical stories about visions and dreams, the
move isn't inward toward self-absorption but outward, toward the wider world of
God's grace and actions in the life that we share. Rottman suggests a tender,
personal image of God inviting us to participate in the larger story of God's
work in the world, a story full of transforming love for us and for the world.
It's easy, and therefore
customary, to focus on Paul in this text: his discernment of God's calling, his
openness (and transformation) in preaching to women and even visiting the home
of one of them, his establishment of a church in Philippi and his later
experiences of imprisonment there, as well as the hospitality he received from
Lydia afterward. But we might also spend some more time considering Lydia
herself, as a figure in the early church, however elusive and partial her
story, and also as a kind of "figure" of women in the history of the
church.
Mothers of the church
Each year on Mother's Day,
which seems almost like a holy day in the life of many Protestant churches, we
celebrate the motherhood (in many ways) of the women in our lives who have
given birth, perhaps more importantly, have given and nurtured life in each of
us (not only biological mothers). But we can also draw from this story, and the
story of so many women in the church throughout the ages, inspiration for all
who open their hearts and minds and homes and, we might add, pocketbooks, for
the sake of spreading the good news. Years ago, I took a course in Patristics,
studying the "Fathers of the Church." Alas, there was no course in
"Matristics," but there have been plenty of "Mothers of the
Church" throughout the centuries, and I don't just mean mothers of
ministers and priests (although that's an honorable thing, too).
True, Lydia embodies the
inquiring hunger of someone who senses there is more to life than what they
presently, personally experience. Today we might say that she "hungers for
meaning in her life." More than money, more than success, more even than
the evident measure of power and influence she enjoyed — after all, this is a
woman who dealt with the most powerful and wealthy in her society, those who
wore purple when common folk couldn't, and a woman who could decide that her
whole household would be baptized — how unusual is that? This is a woman who
was willing to go beyond the boundaries set for her in a time when women were
seen by many as property rather than people who owned and controlled property.
When Lydia joins the other women down there by the river, this wealthy,
powerful woman leaves the circles of influence and goes out to the margins of
her society, joining those who undoubtedly had far less power, influence, and
wealth than she did.
Lydia the seeker
When she encountered the
gospel in the preaching of Paul and Silas, Lydia found everything she had been
seeking, everything she had hungered for, even if she could not name it (how
often, we wonder, would seekers say the same thing, when they come to our
churches?) Lydia responds to the gospel with actions, with commitment, first in
being baptized and then by insisting on exercising the great, foundational
Christian virtue of hospitality, the expression of God's own grace and welcome,
to the preachers themselves. Again, how ironic: in her own way, she was
preaching to the preachers, through her actions.
The story of Lydia is a
story about the early church, about mission, about discernment, about
hospitality, community, and, of course, the experience of women in the church,
often at its edges but never without impact. Gail R. O’Day writes that
"Lydia embodies Luke's ideal of women's contribution to the church: to
provide housing and economic resources." Lydia, then, evokes many other
memories, of women through the centuries and in many different settings, our
foremothers in faith, who didn't let their marginalization stop them from being
powerhouses for good in the life of the church. (If you're interested in
pursuing Bible study with more emphasis on the experience and contributions of
women, The Women's Bible Commentary is a good resource to use.)
Also an heir according
to the promise
The beauty of this story is
how well it illustrates what Paul later writes in the famous passage in his
letter to the Galatians, when he emphatically quotes the baptismal formula used
by the very early, early Christians: "There is no longer Jew or Greek,
there is no longer slave or free, there is no longer male and female; for all
of you are one in Christ Jesus." When Paul baptized Lydia that day down by
the river, we can just imagine him using those very words as he welcomed a new
daughter of the promise – and it no longer mattered that she had been a slave,
that she was a woman, or that she was a Greek (or gentile), because now she was
an heir according to the promise, too.
I once heard a sermon by a
colleague, Jan Aerie, who told the story of women in the earliest days of
global mission work in the church, more than two hundred years ago, the
"rest of the story" of the Haystack Meeting that we all learned about
in school. When that story is told, we hear about the young men who committed
to going overseas in mission, but we rarely if ever hear about the women who
were such an important and early part of the story of global mission. Jan told
us that morning, "Before the establishment of the American Board of Commissioners
for Foreign Missions (ABCFM) and even well before the five students received
their call through the thunder and lightning, the women were hard at work on
mission. The Female Society for Spreading Christian Education (later changed to
the Women's Board of Mission) was organized in 1801, a full five years before
that haystack call. The women started the 'Penny Society' and asked women in
the churches to give one cent a week for mission."
Saving pennies for
mission
Jan continued, "By
1812, when four of the young men and their wives were duly commissioned and
ready to sail across the sea, the ABCFM knew the funds were not sufficient to
book passage. Ironically, or in divine order, the ship's sailing was delayed
for several weeks. In the meantime, churches were inspired by the prospect of
mission and money began to flow. But it was the women that saved the day. The
women's Penny Society over twelve years had raised $6000—that is 600,000
pennies!! Their $6000 was what enabled the eight to book passage on two clipper
ships, fully outfitted with supplies and food and salary for one full year! We
can safely say that without the women this would not have happened. For fifty
years the women faithfully collected their mission pennies and, working closely
with the ABCFM (men), funded many, many missionaries." However, Jan also
notes that, "[t]hroughout that time the ABCFM (men) would not allow any
woman to be sent as a missionary herself."
As I listened to Jan speak,
I thought of this Lydia text, and Mother's Day, and the wondrous ways God is at
work in the world. It was, in its own way, a brief but inspiring
"Matristics" course. The journey of Paul and Silas into new and
unexpected places, in ministry with new and most unexpected people (women!
Gentiles!), is the story not only of the early church but of the church
throughout the ages. And, as we embark on God's mission in our day and in our
own setting as well as around the world, we are more, together, than simply the
sum of our parts: we are the Body of Christ active, at work, in the world that
God loves.
Listening for God's
leading
The power of this community
exists not just in the story of Silas (or Barnabas, or Lydia) added to Paul's
ministry long ago, but in the relationships of all of us in the church, each
and every one of us, in our rich diversity, our unique stories and gifts, and
our visions, too, opening our hearts and listening for God's leading: where we
should go, even if it's to the most unexpected places; how we should get there,
even if the means come from the most unexpected sources; and whom we should
serve, even if we find ourselves most unexpectedly blessed by them in turn.
How does it strike our ears
differently when a woman (instead of a man) in the Bible makes a decision for
her entire household? How do you discern God's will for your life? When have
you ever encountered obstacles on the path you thought was right, until you
found the path God actually wanted you to take? Who are women who have been
"mothers" in the church, bringing new life and energy to its mission
and ministry? How do you imagine the life of Lydia before and after that day by
the river, when she first met Paul?
For further
reflection
Emily Dickinson, 19th
century
"We never know how high we are/Till we are called to rise;
And then, if we are true to plan, Our statures touch the skies."
Meryl Streep, 21st
century
"Motherhood has a very humanizing effect. Everything gets reduced to
essentials."
Virginia Woolf, A Room
of One's Own, 20th century
"Lock up your libraries if you like; but there is no gate, no lock, no
bolt that you can set upon the freedom of my mind."
Jeanne d'Arc, 15th
century
"One life is all we have and we live it as we believe in living it. But to
sacrifice what you are and to live without belief, that is a fate more terrible
than dying."
Fred Rodgers, 20th
century
"You rarely have time for everything you want in this life, so you need to
make choices. And hopefully your choices can come from a deep sense of who you
are."
High Eagle, 20th century
"To be blessed with visions is not enough...we must live them!"
Parker Palmer, 21st
century
"The moments when we meet and reckon with contradictions are turning
points where we either enter or evade the mystery of God."
