Acts 16:11-15
November 23
Lauren J. McFeaters
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Not too many women have ever prevailed upon Paul.
Not too many women carried the day when Paul was on the loose for the Lord.
Not too many women have ever faced Paul and upped the ante.
But somewhere between a riverside prayer meeting, a conversion, and a festival of baptisms, came the establishment of a church.
Lydia prevailed.
She prevailed upon Paul and the traveling Apostles to be her guests; and to find a port in the storm.
Before there was Iona or Rajpur; Taizé or Machu Picchu; before there was El Camino de Santiago or Changhua Ching Shan, followers of Jesus found their way to Lydia’s Home. [i] And it’s not just any home. It’s a thriving compound located in an epicenter of trade and fortune. Lydia has a hefty share of the city’s prosperity. She’s a commercial success: an importer of costly fabrics, a producer of rare textiles.
Eric Barreto describes Lydia as an entrepreneur with vision and initiative. She’s strikingly self-sufficient: bright, creative, industrious. And even though she depends on its adherents to be her customers, she doesn’t bow to the religion of the Empire.
Because in Philippi, it is Caesar who is “lord & god.” There are no synagogues.No places for Jews to worship. Any Jew had to go to the river’s edge, outside the city gates to pray. And it seems that’s where Lydia and her friends went to meet. [ii]
It’s a dangerous walk to the river’s edge when you want to worship God.
Paul, Silas, and Timothy have landed on the shores of Macedonia. It’s the Sabbath and there’s been talk in the streets about the goings-on in Jerusalem, anxious murmurings about a Redeemer who resurrected after being in a guarded tomb; and very quiet instructions about where to find a prayer meeting outside the city gates.
It’s just the thing God’s Chief Apostle wants to hear.Paul is on the loose; on the move, and ready to preach.
And when he does, Paul preaches through lips that only a short time ago had ordered the stoning of Stephen; the annihilation of any Christian; the eradication of any hint of a resurrected Messiah. But now – now Paul speaks and words flow. He speaks as one Converted by the Damascus Road; Altered, Persuaded, Re-Formed. He speaks and acts as one Converted by Christ Jesus. O Paul!
We don’t seem to talk about conversion very often. We don’t readily share about the experiences of God’s unwrapping our hearts and renovating our spirits.
For many of us it’s a private and intimate experience. For some, it happens over the long haul. For some it happens in the blink of an eye, a dramatic and fully realized moment when we know we will never be the same.
For two of my sisters-in-law, neither one raised in a family of faith, it came because someone invited them to church.
For me, it came when I was a 5-year-old during the Kindergarten Nativity play, like Wee Christmas. I was holding a baby-doll-Jesus in my arms and singing a lullaby and something changed. I have no idea what it was, but there was trust in God, and the trajectory of my life took flight. I was 5-years-old, and I look back and all I can think is, our God is so surprising. O Lauren!
Conversion can seem like a long-gone ancient practice; something that happens for a chosen few; a reward; an act reserved for those in the early church, or for those headed to ordination.
Anne Lamott says her conversion to Christ did not start with a leap but rather a series of staggers.“Everywhere I went,” she says, “I had the feeling that a little cat was following me, wanting me to open the door and let it in. But I knew what would happen: you let a cat in one time, give it a little milk, and then it stays forever. So I tried to keep one step ahead of it,slamming the doors of my life.”
“When I went back to church,” she says, “I was so hungover that I couldn’t stand up for the hymns, but it was as if the people were singing in between the notes, weeping and joyful at the same time, and I felt like their voices, or something was rocking me, holding me, and I opened up to that feeling – and it washed over me.”
And then Anne Lamott adds this:I hung my head and said . . . ‘I quit.’This was my beautiful moment of conversion.I took a long deep breath and said out loud, ‘All right. You can come in.’” [iii] O, Anne!
That’s what Lydia says, too. Here’s an influential woman who hopes for more, needs more, wonders if there’s more.
And before we picture Lydia as a neat, delicate, elegant, woman who glides through Phillipi offering you a look at tasteful, luxurious fabrics – She’s not.
Lydia has dirt on her face, blood on her knuckles, grit in her hair, and she’s just spit out a tooth as she rises for another go. [iv]
Lydia’s conversion does not take place in the C-Suite of her Corporate HQ. This is no tidy negotiation for textile distribution and sales.
No.
Lydia’s conversion takes place in the slime of a riverbank where it’s rough and rocky; swampy and water-logged. She’s got the smell of sulfur stinging her nostrils and sludge oozing between her toes.
And in the middle of the mud and muck, she and all who are dear to her are received into Christ’s church; are sealed by the Holy Spirit; and belong to Christ Jesus forever.
And how does Lydia respond? With tenacious hospitality. She prevails – upon Paul: Not with a sweet plea, not a polite appeal. Heavens no. But with a triumphant and unwavering summons.
Her home becomes God’s home – for traveling evangelists, refugees, new believers. God’s home for prayer, meals, rest, study.
And because she prevailed – her home becomes the First Church in Europe. O Lydia!
O Paul! O Lauren! O Anne! O Lydia!
O Nassau!
God has converted us. God has put wings on our Mission. We’re not a delicate, sweet, fragile group of converts, who gently beckon Princetonians to luxuriate in the fabric of our pews.
No.
We’ve got dirt on our face, grit in our hearts, and tenacity in our hospitality, because that’s what it takes to do justice, love kindness, and walk humbly.
It takes placing people, who can never repay, at the head of the table; at the place of honor.
It takes the smell of sulfur stinging our nostrils to clear our sinuses for truth-telling in the public square, and bridge-building between divisions.
It takes a willingness to have mud oozing between our toes to dive into difficult but faithful conversations, so we may do God’s work for the community & world.
O Nassau!
You are Christ’s church; sealed by the Holy Spirit; belonging to Christ Jesus forever.
I thank you for loving me so deeply; for loving Michael and Josie.
And that for a time, together, we have, with God’s loving guidance: Mended the broken. Restored the lost. Comforted the grieving. Stitched up the hurt.
Such freedom. Such beauty. Such tenderness.
O Nassau!
[i] Religious communities: Iona, Scotland; Rajpur, West Bengal, India; Taizé, France; Machu Picchu, Peru; El Camino de Santiago, Spain; Changhua Ching Shan, Taiwan.
[ii] Eric Barreto. Acts 16:9-15 Commentary. www.workingpreacher.org, May 9, 2010.
[iii] Anne Lamott. Traveling Mercies: Some Thoughts on Faith. New York: Random House Inc.; 1999.
[iv] Adaptation of a quote from Matthew @CrowsFault.