A Faithful Woman A Sermon for Mother’s Day
A Faithful Woman
Acts 16: 9-15/ Revelation 21: 22- 2: 5/ John 14: 23-29
6th Sunday of Easter/ Year C/ May 9, 2010
Mother’s Day
The United States celebrates Mother’s Day on the second Sunday in May. In the 1880s and 1890s there were several attempts to establish a Mother’s Day led by such women as Julia Ward Howe and Lucretia Mott, but they didn’t succeed beyond the local level. The holiday was created by Anna Jarvis in Grafton, West Virginia, in 1908 as a day to honor one’s mother. Jarvis wanted to accomplish her mother’s dream of making a celebration for all mothers, although the idea didn’t take off until she enlisted the services of wealthy Philadelphia merchant John Wanamaker. She kept promoting the holiday until President Woodrow Wilson made it an official national holiday in 1914. The holiday eventually became so highly commercialized that many, including its founder, Anna Jarvis, considered it a “Hallmark Holiday”, i.e. one with an overwhelming commercial purpose. Jarvis eventually ended up opposing the holiday she had helped to create. She died in 1948, regretting what had become of her holiday. In the United States, Mother’s Day remains one of the biggest days for sales of flowers, greeting cards, and the like; it is also the biggest holiday for long-distance telephone calls.
Mother’s Day is not an official holiday in the church calendar, but has become such a part of American Culture that it has become a special day set aside to remember those women who have given us so much, our mothers. It is not very often that the texts for Mother’s Day lend themselves well to preaching about mother’s or strong faithful women. Many times we ministers have to search for texts that speak to the strength of faithful women. That is not the case today. Our text from Acts is a story about a remarkable woman in a world where women held little or no social status and were treated as chatel to to bartered, sold or thrown out on the streets on the whims of the dominant male society in which they lived.
We know almost nothing about Lydia, but what we do know fascinates us. Who was this woman making her way independently in a world run by men? Who was this Gentile who sought the God of Judaism instead of the pagan Gods that surrounded her? All we know about her from the text is that she was a “seller of purple goods, who was a worshipper of God. However in just those two phrases, scripture with its stunning brevity show us that work and worship both had their place in the life of this remarkable woman.
Lydia is a “dealer in purple goods, i.e. cloth” an extravagant textile available only to the wealthy. She is a businesswoman of no small stature and is in charge of her own household. Notice that Lydia is not associated with a man, indicating that she is in full command of her property. She does not depend upon a man to confer her status. She is financially independent woman who is Paul’s first convert in Europe. But more important than the fact she was an independent woman of means, is that fact that she was open to the presence of God. She sees and understands in Paul’s words the vision of what God is doing in the world. The texts tell us that she worships God and that the Spirit of The Lord has opened her heart to listen eagerly to Paul’s witness concerning the risen Christ. In that moment when she hears the words, she believes. God has once again used a foreigner, as stranger to the faith, a person who according to society lived outside the cultural norms of the day. The vision that Lydia receives that day moves her and indeed her whole household toward becoming disciples of the risen Lord. This prominent dealer in purple cloth, who has been in full command of her life, is now a humble servant of God. Through her understanding of the message of love that Paul communicates to her she is transformed and changed. “She rises from the text and stands before us today as a kind of narrative icon, a picture of God at work in the life of one individual, a woman.” (Feasting on the Word, Volume 2, Year C, p. 474.) She is as one writer has said like Mary and Martha, contemplative and active in one person. Her heart is set on God even while her work gets done.
She came to the riverside, to a secluded place of prayer. Perhaps she expected to meet other women there, Jewish or Gentile seekers for the living God. She came this day not knowing that she would meet a man who would introduce her to a new way of life so radical that it would change her and her family, and through her the history of humankind forever. There by the riverside, outside of Philippi, Lydia found the God who was finding her.
The thing that I find fascinating about this story is that this encounter almost did not happen. Think back to that moment when he had been called back to Jerusalem to account for his ministry to the Gentiles. Did he really want to get involved in that controversy again? But each time Paul tried to move in a different direction, the Spirit of God, nudged and redirected Paul to get him to go Philippi. Twice Paul tried to go elsewhere and twice the Spirit prevented his going. We can only imagine what it is like to have the experience of the Holy Spirit stopping us from doing something.
It almost didn’t happen, this meeting of the business woman and the missionaries, and it would not have happened except by the power of the Spirit guiding both Paul and Lydia to this place by the river. In this moment, Paul, Lydia and the Holy Spirit all work together in this event, this chance encounter by the river. Paul would not have been guided to this place were he not first and foremost at God’s disposal, open to being guided, attuned to being steered in one direction away from all others. And Lydia would not have reached this time and place had she not been a follower of God, a seeker on the way. In this story, the characters play their parts, but it is God who is at work, guiding, directing, and bringing about the “good news” of new life and new directions.
Lydia heard the story that Paul told the words of “good news”. In those words she heard the truth; she found the answers to her search. Through her faithfulness, and the work of the Spirit, she receives these words. It is here that we come to the heart of the story, the intersection between human obedience and divine initiative; Longing for God and Divine grace meet there on the banks of the river. The longing heart of a faithful woman is opened to by the gracious impulse of a faith-giving God. Faithfulness in human action will lead to a first-hand experience of divine indwelling presence.
Lydia’s story is our story. Like Lydia we are astonished when, looking back, we can only say that our steps were guided and hearts opened. Faithfulness and obedience bring us into those moments when we can be touched by the divine and be changed. It may come when we least expect it. It may come on the river bank or sitting in our car in a traffic jam. It may come when we are stressed to the max with life or in the stillness of the night. It may come when we sit here in this place of worship or it may come when we are sitting at our desks a work and we are touched by the powerful presence of God, and our eyes are opened and we see the world in a different light. It may come when we stand on a mountain top and see the beautiful expanse of God’s creation spread out at our feet or it may come when we hold the miracle of life in our hands for the first time. God calls us to faithfulness, to be open to the possibilities that lay before us. Lydia heard, saw and was changed. She and her whole household were baptized that day, joining herself and her family to the vision that God has set for the world then she opens her home as a base for Paul and his companions. “Come, and stay, if you have judged me to be faithful to the Lord.” By hosting the gospel carriers, she becomes one of them, a new convert already in the business of converting others. We can only imagine how many heard the good news while gathered at Lydia’s house.
God opened her heart and she opened her home and offers hospitality. Unlike so many of us today, she sees the truth before her and decides what course to take and it is done.
Lydia is decisive because she is discerning, able to see through the events on the surface to the deeper workings of God’s Spirit. She is discerning because God has opened her heart to a new level of perception, a perception of humankind rooted in the radical, self-giving love of God revealed in Jesus Christ. She came to worship that morning because she was hungering for something more in life, something beyond the commercial success she apparently has achieved. She is hungering for more because that restless Spirit has stirred up a holy longing in her soul. Every step of the way, the Spirit prompts, calls and blesses her. We are hungering for more because that restless spirit has stirred up a longing in our souls. Every step of the way the Spirit prompts, calls and blesses us.
