What Cannot Be Dismissed
Acts 16:6-15
They went through the region of Phrygia and Galatia, having been forbidden by the Holy Spirit to speak the word in Asia. When they had come opposite Mysia, they attempted to go into Bithynia, but the Spirit of Jesus did not allow them; so, passing by Mysia, they went down to Troas. 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 therefore 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.
If I were going totally by the book, by what the lectionary selected for our passage from Acts today, I would’ve started from verse 9 instead of verse 6—which would’ve been a little easier for Glenda, who got stuck reading all those foreign ancient city names, sorry Glenda! But when we talked about this passage in Bible study a couple weeks ago, we all agreed that leaving that part out disregards what I believe to be a really important and telling part of the whole passage: verse 7: “…they attempted to go into Bithynia, but the Spirit of Jesus did not allow them.” They were ready to continue their evangelizing moving east, entering Asia, but it seems it wasn’t time yet. The Spirit of Jesus, by way of a dream about this mystery man from Macedonia, brings the apostles northwest instead.
They come to Macedonia and they find a group of women worshipping by the water—it’s unclear if this was sort of an informal gathering, or if there was an actual temple here, but either way, the apostles begin their preaching. Also unclear in this passage, is whether or not Lydia is a part of this group of women. In my vision of it, she’s off to the side, minding her business, when she apparently hears something that sparks her interest.
The Spirit guiding the apostles is a recurring theme throughout Acts. This was sort of that golden age of early Christianity, when, in spite of being persecuted by their powerful oppressors, the apostles and the rest of the new followers of Jesus were so open and full of promise and hope for the good what was possible, the good they had experienced with Jesus, that they were able to really submit to the will of the Spirit, rather than their human whims.
Another nudge from the Spirit begins one of my favorite Bible stories ever, just a few chapters earlier in acts, and that would be the conversion of the Ethiopian eunuch by Philip: “…an angel of the Lord said to Philip, “Get up and go towards the south to the road that goes down from Jerusalem to Gaza. (This is a wilderness road). So he got up and went.” This command leads Philip to an Ethiopian eunuch, a confidant of an Ethiopian queen, educated and wearing fine clothes; but sexually othered.
Isn’t it interesting that the Spirit takes the apostles to people and place they wouldn’t have expected? Philip spreads the Good News to the people of Northern Africa by way of a curious and kind eunuch; Paul finds himself backtracking on his journey, winding up in the company of women, when a wealthy and independent woman (something wildly uncharacteristic for the time) hears and is inspired by his preaching. Just as God continually picked unexpected people to act as prophets to the word of God, Jesus guides the apostles to unexpected locations and people. Surely the apostles were out of their comfort zone in these situation. In our passage for today, the Holy Spirit seems to be cramping their style a bit. They wanted to continue East, but the Spirit did not allow them.
I don’t know about you all, but I’m the type of person that when I have a plan in my head and it doesn’t go the way I had expected or wanted, I get really bent out of shape about it. It’s something I’m continually working on, and something that has improved since I’ve been living at the whims of a toddler, but I still struggle with this level of control sometimes. But the apostles allowed themselves to go by the will of the Spirit, submitting to the Spirit completely, and letting it take them places they never would have expected or dreamed of.
A few weeks ago, we read a story about Tabitha, a disciple of Jesus whom Peter raised from the dead because her time with her town’s widows was not done yet. What we could glean about the life of Tabitha was only from the context clues within the story—that she was a disciple of Jesus known for her good deeds and kindness; it would appear that she dedicated her life to clothing and otherwise supporting he destitute widows of her community. She was someone to aspire to, someone truly living the work Christ commands of us. In the same way, we can only speculate to the background of Lydia from context clues— she is a woman dealing in purple cloth, something that only very wealthy people could afford. She is clearly a woman of business cunning and connection. Where she resides is described as “her household” meaning not only did she own her own home, but she presumably was the matriarch of this home; and it’s also written that she was ‘a worshiper of God,’ which likely means she was a gentile, but that there was something about the Jewish God that drew her in, thought she was not a full-fledged believer or member of the faith.
But when she hears the apostles preaching to other women, presumably Jewish women, by the river about the Good News of Christ, something clicks into place for her. Whatever she had been seeking as a worshiper of God came into view; her heart was opened by and to God, just as Paul’s mind was opened by and to God to be led to Lydia’s heart and home.
In each of these stories, that of the eunuch, Tabitha, and Lydia, God leads the apostles to the unexpected—to a sexually othered man from a foreign land; a woman giving her life to the disenfranchised; another woman of some wealth and influence with an uncharacteristic amount of respect and influence for a woman of her time. I wonder how many opportunities how many opportunities for connection we’ve missed out on in our respective lives for not heeding the call of God—a call to someplace we didn’t expect, or weren’t very excited about; a meeting with someone who landed a little out of comfort zone…
I just started a nonfiction book called The Undertow: Scenes From a Slow Civil War by Jeff Sharlet, about the division in this country, so naturally, it goes to some pretty bleak places. But it starts out on a very interesting and vaguely hopeful note. Sharlet discusses some time he spent with the singer and activist Harry Belafonte in the years before his death. Belafonte was a skeptic of religion, he was very cynical of it, for valid reasons; he saw how it was used maliciously and blasphemously to keep the Black folks of America in bondage for so long. And he was relatively radical for his time, though it was very intelligently subtle about his leftist activism. So when, in 1956, Belafonte got a call to meet with the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., he was naturally skeptical. He opened the meeting by saying to King “I gotta tell you right now, I understand your mission, I hear what you’re saying, but I gotta tell you, I’m not the church.” Belafonte assumed that King wasn’t genuine, just another Bible hustler. King, in desperate need of some star power to help his civil rights campaign move forward, said to Belafonte, “I need your help. I have no idea where this movement is going. I’m called upon to do things I cannot do, and yet I cannot dismiss this calling.” They spoke for hours that day. Belafonte became one of the biggest financial and public supporters of King’s civil rights movement, and also one of Kings closest and most beloved friends.[i]
King’s statement, relayed here by Belafonte, is just so Biblical. I’m called upon to do things I cannot do, and yet I cannot dismiss this calling. And so went where the Spirit called him. He met with wealthy nonbelievers because he knew he needed help from unexpected people. He knew he needed a coalition of people from different walks of life. And so King heeded the call. The civil rights movement may not have survived without Belafonte’s star power, money, and passion for the cause.
When Paul wound up in Macedonia, surely he had no idea what he was getting into when he followed the call of God that came to him in a dream. It is a man in his dream pleading for help, and yet he is met with women when he arrives. And then Lydia appears outside the circle of believers— someone sympathetic to the believers, but she’s not all in yet. And this Jesus movement so far has been attracting the outcasts of society—the poor, the othered, those sick of body or mind. And while being a woman alone puts you quite far down on the totem pole, the fact that Lydia has a household she is in charge of, and a business dealing with purple cloth makes it clear she is not your average woman, and certainly not your average Jesus-follower. But this would end up being a beautiful and mutually beneficial relationship between Lydia in the apostles. She presumably finds what she’s been looking for as someone sympathetic to and curious about God; and then she hears Paul’s words by the shoreline, and she is moved enough to get baptized and go all in. Paul and the rest of the apostles are then invited to stay in Lydia’s house, which, for a group of, essentially itinerant preachers living on very little, would have been a big deal, and a huge boost to their morale and comfort.
Next week, we’ll read about Paul and Silas in jail; but what we won’t read is the very end of 16 in which it’s written “…when they came out of the jail, they went to Lydia’s house where they saw some of the believers and encouraged them. Then they left.” What we can infer from this is that Lydia became such a trusted confidant and benefactor, that they felt comfortable going back to her house after they had been imprisoned for their beliefs; and we can also infer that Lydia was strong enough in her faith that she risked housing these ex-cons, essentially, again before they went on their way. It’s also implied that Lydia is continuing to spread the Good News, and becomes a powerful disciple in her own right.
What would have happened if King hadn’t had the wherewithal, or the absurd confidence to go to one of the wealthiest and most famous entertainers of his time? What would have happened if Philip had been dismissive about the Ethiopian eunuch’s curiosity about the scriptures because he so culturally removed from the disciples? What would have happened if Paul had dismissed this wealthy woman eavesdropping on his preaching because she didn’t fit the description of your typical disciple? What kinds of relationships or coalition building have we missed out on because we’ve been too nervous to talk to someone who seems intimidating to us? Or because we’ve unfairly judged someone? In a world in which we can so easily put ourselves in echo chambers that speak only to exactly what we believe, exactly what we already know and understand, how do we branch out and connect with other people so that this world can become more united, more empathetic?
It's easier than ever to ignore God’s call when it comes to us in surprising ways, leading us out of our comfort zones towards people and places we might have avoided otherwise. It’s easier than ever for us to distract ourselves from and avoid the often more difficult, circuitous path the Spirit calls us to follow. So today I would ask you— open your hearts and minds to people and places you might otherwise avoid or be intimidated by or wary of. The only way we progress out of this black hole of misunderstanding and division that the people of this country, this world, finds ourselves in, is to connect with one another, by way of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
[i] Sharlet Jeff, The Undertow: Scenes from a Slow Civil war, (W.W. Norton & Co., 2023), 22-23
