Lydia’s Hospitality

Robert E. Hall
Tarrytown United Methodist Church

May 13, 2007

Text: II Corinthians 5: 14-21

GOD IS HERE

This little snapshot is about God’s action and human openness and obedience. It is a testimony to the belief that God did not merely send the disciples out on a mission and then withdraw to heaven. God is moving the message and work of Jesus right along. And God guides and inspires, counting on human obedience.

Most of the time we live as if God were safely removed from human affairs. In the words of a country-western song, “I didn’t see you leaving, but I can see you’re gone.” We are prone to live as practicing atheists, people left to our own devices. It seems apparent to many people that God is nowhere to be found and we may as well make the best of it without divine assistance.

But the earliest Christians thought otherwise. They experienced God as very much in the thick of things, very much directing the work to which they were committed. Their decisions were prayerful ones. And prayer for them was very much a dialogue in which God sometimes opened conversations in surprising ways. One of these surprising ways was through visions.

VISIONS

It was at night, so it could have been a dream-vision I suppose---who really knows. The apostle Paul seems to be “tuned in” to God’s frequency. Five times God gets his attention through dreams or visions. Paul, Timothy and Silas are biding their time in Troas because “the spirit of Jesus did not allow them” to go as they had planned. They are eager to tell people about the Good News of God’s gift of Christ. But where do they go next? If the mission is clear, the itinerary is not.

Then Paul has a vision of a man from Macedonia, begging (“beseeching”) him to travel to Macedonia and help them.

This seems like a strange way to get marching orders. Most of the time, we do not make decisions based on visions or dreams. Or, to put it differently, we are not sure which dreams and visions come from God. How would we distinguish one from another? How would we know that we were not tuned in to the Dark Side or to a Jokester? Was the apostles’ experiences of God’s directions unique to that period of history? Or, is the Book of Acts only reporting the results of Paul’s vision, and leaving out the rest of the story?

Imagine the conversation between Paul and Timothy the morning after Paul’s vision of the Macedonian. “I had a vision in which a man from Macedonia begged us to come and help them. Pack your bags; we’re going.” Timothy might have had a few questions, such as, “Paul, with all due respect for your senior status and experience, how do you know this vision was from God? Macedonia is out there close to the end of the earth. Surely there are more accessible places where people need the gospel.”

There are, of course, no assurances that dreams or visions or ideas or schemes that enter our minds are instructions from the Lord. The author of Acts had the advantage of hindsight: he was able to see the fruits of Paul’s and Timothy’s work in Philippi: a church was founded there, which became a model for many others. If the trip had been fruitless, Timothy might have been kidding Paul for a long time about his vision! “Had any dreams from God lately, Paul?”

Be that as it may, since the Spirit of God is like the wind, moving where it will, God may in fact commune with us in whatever ways God chooses. The issue is God’s faithfulness to the people he called forth to be his missionary church.

The idea that we get from Acts, and from this story as a case in point, is that God comes into our lives not only as a God of comfort and inspiration, but as a God who energizes and guides us. God’s invisible but real presence through the Spirit calls us to go to the people and places where our witness and service make a difference for God’s kingdom. In the words of the creed, “we are not alone; thanks be to God.”

It may well be that God speaks to us through the images we see of persons in need, saying, “Come over here and help us,” or “Go and share the good news with this or that person; they are drowning in bad news.” Our calls to ministry will be suited to the gifts which we have been given to use. These may be pf a mystical nature or matter of fact, through our reason.

Or we may, in fact, find ourselves thinking of some human need or some injustice which simply will not leave us. It may be that God yet works in these ways to energize us and call us to act.

Ken Callahan, a grandfather of church planning, has told of a woman in a church whose heart was touched by the needs of families with autistic children. She could not shake the feelings that her church ought to be doing something to help. She told a friend of her feelings; then the circle grew. Finally they went in to see the pastor about their perceived call to ministry. He was shocked that anything so worthy should arise apart from his prompting! But he was taught that the Spirit of God blows where it wills. And the ministry was launched and became one of the services for which the church was known in the community.

It may be that this story of Paul’ vision may prompt us to pray for openness to the Spirit’s movement. There is another dimension to life than what may be on the surface. We may pray for more receptivity to God, especially in the practice of our mandate to be “ministers of reconciliation.” 

OBEDIENCE WITHOUT CLARITY

Paul and friends respond immediately, taking a straight course to Macedonia, to Philippi. It is a city that was settled by Roman soldiers and their families, veterans of the great battles in 42BC, in which Anthony and Octavian defeated Cassius and Brutus, who had conspired to assassinate Julius Caesar. The city is a bustling trade place, a mini-Rome, on the major highway between the Adriatic and Aegean Seas. (Oxford Bible Commentary)

They go, not knowing with any precision what to expect. Paul is only convinced that God wants them to be there to help people.

I am not inclined to respond to invitations to help in strange situations. You may not be either. However, sometimes we have to trust that God will make things clearer as we obey the order. We often do not have the big picture; we have to trust that God does.

Paul and friends arrive and spend some days there----doing whatever. Perhaps they were looking for a Macedonian man who looked like the one in Paul’s vision.

But on the Sabbath (Saturday) they went down to the river, looking for a place to pray. Rivers were a preferred gathering place for Jews ---especially when there was no synagogue in a city.

There they find a circle of women who had gathered to pray to the God of Israel. The disciples sat down and spoke to them. Being an informal setting, the men could sit with them and visit, in what was surely a conversation more than a sermon..

Not exactly a big pulpit for apostles. Probably not what Paul had in mind. But they are open to the Spirit’s leading. Those who were receptive were the women who had come together to pray.

It well may be that Paul and company were the answers to the prayers that had been lifted up for many Sabbaths. God really is involved in this missionary effort, in ways beyond knowing in advance. Receptivity counts more than detailed planning. God’s grace was there before Paul arrived. Imagine that!

LYDIA

Among the women was Lydia, a business woman from Thyatira. Her product was purple cloth, the color favored by the wealthiest citizens. She had a home there. We do not know if she was married or single. She was a “worshiper of God,” which was the designation for a gentile who had respect and reverence for the God of the Jewish people. And she was an eager listener, for God had “opened her heart to listen eagerly to what was said by Paul.” She may have been married, but if so, her husband is not mentioned; some conjecture that she was a widow. But we may also suppose that she is a mother---for she owns a home, and her whole household is baptized.

Paul writes later that he has prayed that “God may give you a spirit of wisdom and of revelation in the knowledge of him [Jesus Christ], having the eyes of your heart enlightened.” (Ephesians 1:18) John Wesley wrote that “the heart has its eyes….To open them is the peculiar work of God.” (Notes on the NT)

Lydia is receptive, too. She is open to hear the gospel. We do not know anything about the conversation she had with Paul and his companions. But she responds in faith to God. The Spirit led Paul to her; and the Spirit led her to listen and to believe.

Lydia, an independent businesswoman, becomes the first recorded convert on the continent of Europe. This may be surprising to us, since we usually picture women of this era as having few rights. But the churches, from the earliest days, were often led by women like Lydia.

LYDIA’S HOSPITALITY

Lydia urges Paul and friends to stay at her home. Paul may have been reluctant. But Lydia prevails, we are told. “God’s saving grace dismantles various social barriers that cultivate strife between people….The story is an example of the counterculture of the church….The easy relationship between a religious leader and a female outsider”  signifies what Paul writes in I Corinthians:” In Christ there is neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, male nor female, but we are all one in Christ Jesus.” Though the church quickly forgot such reconciled relationships and reverted to its patriarchal ways for centuries, the example we have here is an reminder of the power of God to open our minds and hearts to receive all in Christ as persons with gifts to build up the church. (Robert Wall, “Acts”, in The New Interpreter’s Bible)

Soon after Lydia’s baptism, Paul and friends were thrown in jail and beaten for having freed a slave girl who was being exploited for her unique spiritual abilities. When they finally get out, the first place they go is to Lydia’s home. Her hospitality extended even to those who had been jailed.

SPIRIT-LED PEOPLE

Out of all the needs of all the people of which we are constantly reminded, which ones are we called to go to? Will we believe in “an active presence of a faithful God” who “moves the church to places where grace is needed most?” (Wall)

Will we receive the outsiders, people like Lydia, who eagerly listen and courageously respond to the Gospel? Can we trust that God will continue to move people to hear good new gladly?