Bible Readings :
Acts 16:9-15, John 14: 23-29
Let us pray: may the words of my mouth and the meditations
of our hearts open us to your guiding for each of us this day in Jesus
name. Amen
In our liturgical
year this is the last Saturday of the Easter season – next week is Ascension
and the following Sunday Pentecost. So
it seems timely to ask this of ourselves as we lead into Pentecost (and what is
called Ordinary time – where the work of the church is done ) – what
significant thing are we to do in response to such a transformative event as
Easter Sunday – the empty tomb? Before
we take down these banners around the church, what vision of being an Easter
people do they inspire in us, what are we each and together going to take into
our future of being church?
Many answers
perhaps – but for me today, as we ponder the journey of Paul through to
Philippi and his meeting with Lydia, it is this: that we are to be open to the possibilities
of the Spirit – to those things beyond our control and not of our planning. Now that may sound to you either exciting or
scary or perhaps a bit of both.
I’m going to
cautiously venture back into that analogy of the garden - if we rigorously
allow only that which we have chosen and planted to grow in well prepared places
that we have defined, we lay ourselves open to missing some special moments –
like the miracle of the wind blown seed flowering in impossible places, the
absolute perfection of the camellia on that one day before the wind and rain
get to it, the beauty and intricacy of the flower of that which we always determined
to be a weed because it was more prolific than we were comfortable with.....
Let me try and
explain how I see this connecting with the story of Lydia and Paul. Both of these transforming disciples of
Christ had something in common – they were open to the Spirit in their
lives. Let’s take Paul first. The few verses before today’s reading are
important. In them we place Paul back in
Lystra and Iconium where he connects with Timothy, and from there they go
through Phrygia and Galatia –but, and here is the interesting part, they are
forbidden by the Spirit to head either northeast into Mysia or southwest into Asia
but instead they are encouraged by the Spirit to travel onto Troas and, as we
heard, a man in a dream convinces them to travel across the waters to Macedonia
and in the end to Philippi.
Paul was open to
the guidance of the Spirit – he had his own plans but was convinced to head in
different directions. And something
happened that, in his own planning, would have been most unlikely. He ended up sitting down on a river bank in
Philippi talking to a bunch of woman who met regularly for prayer – women seeking
God - and one of them was the Gentile Lydia - identified particularly as a worshipper of
God. What a journey to get to this
unexpected and unlooked for encounter that was to have an enormous impact on
the spreading of the Gospel message. For
many people of the time, the strategic planners shall we say of the day, both
Jewish and Gentile, this meeting of Paul and Lydia would be a weed in the
garden experience – random and of dubious value, and certainly not the best use
of their time and energy in spreading the Gospel of Jesus Christ. For these were women, gentiles, outside the
place of worship - and therefore the authority of worship we suspect – an unlikely
patch of garden to be cultivated really.
What we find in
fact is that Lydia proved to be a rich and fruitful source for the Gospel of
Christ Jesus – she was already established as a strong and resourceful woman in
her community, a seller of purple cloth indicating her dealings with the elite
in society, she was head of her own household in a male dominated society. She was a strong woman and used to being in
control and choosing what she might do and think.
But nothing would have happened that day on
the river bank without Lydia’s heart being open to the possibilities of God –
she was participating in worship, she was seeking answers and therefore she was
open to the truth of the message that Paul brought – so ready and prepared that
she responded immediately and generously with her heart and her hospitality. One person described the moment beautifully
“Longing and Grace met on the banks of the river that day”.
What does this mean for us then – this being
led by the Spirit? Well I will tell you
what it definitely does not mean - it does not mean gardens full of weeds and
long grass and choked stunted peas and beans as we sit waiting for a word from
the Spirit to tell us what to do next.
It is not a space of ‘do nothing’ until told otherwise. Rather more it is a continuing to actively
live our faith as we best know how and, at the same time, being open to the nudgings
of the Spirit into other possibilities as well, being open of mind and heart to
things we might not have planned for or that occur in ways we might not have
pictured.
I am reminded of a part of the Last Battle,
the final book of the Narnia series by C S Lewis – where the transitory world
of Narnia is imploding really, and the door of the stable is the opening into
the eternal Narnia where all is reborn and beautiful – and the dwarves are so intent on seeing only
what they expect to see, the inside of a manky old stable, that even the most
delectable food and drink tasted like mouldy hay and dirty trough water, the
most glorious sunshine was pokey darkness and the sweetest smelling violet was
stable litter. They were not open to the
possibilities of the new Narnia and were left behind snarling and arguing with
each other.
Don’t let us be like that – surrounded by
possibilities and seeing none of them because we refused to look up from our
rigidly held perceptions of the right way, not allowing that there can be
possibilities of life and grace outside our experiences.
For it is in this place of openness to the
Spirit that great things can happen – we can only imagine how many heard the
Good News of Jesus whilst gathered at Lydia’s home – how that improbable
encounter became the catalyst for so much more.
But I would like to leave the final word
today to Ronald Cole-Tuner[1]
as he describes his insight into the openness and seeking nature of Lydia.
Lydia is able to be so decisive at this
moment of meeting with Paul – within minutes of being baptised she turns her
house into base for the spread of Christianity into Europe – she can be so
decisive because she is open to discerning the deeper workings of God’s Spirit.
And she gains this perception, this seeking because of her worship – she has
come to worship hungering for something more in her life, something bigger and
more real than the commercial and social success that she enjoys. And in that hunger she is open to the restless
Spirit, who is present in all of us before we even know it, open to the nudging
of the one who sees ways that we cannot plan for and fruitful blessings in the
most impossible places – is that how we might continue to be an Easter People
into Pentecost and the year ahead do you think?
Margaret Garland
Margaret Garland
A sunflower growing at Terezin Concentration Camp
outside Prague.
Photo copyright Tui Bevin 2013
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