God intervened twice in what we just heard from the book of Acts: one dramatic way and one, more subtle – yet crucially important – way. The apostle Paul was telling the good news about Jesus Christ to Jews and Gentiles along the eastern shoreline of the Mediterranean, north of Israel. His first missionary journey took him in a relatively small loop of several cities. But on his second missionary journey, God intervened and told Paul to change his plans and go further west – to cross the Aegean Sea and enter into Macedonia (Greece). For the first time, based on the biblical record, the gospel of Christ was shared on European soil. This wasn’t part of Paul’s original itinerary. The dream that Paul had convinced him to set off in a new direction. So he sailed to the land of Socrates, Aristotle, and Alexander the Great – settling in the city of Philippi, named after Alexander the Great’s father, Philip. Over time a Christian congregation would be established there to which Paul would write his Letter to the Philippians – probably the most heartfelt and loving letter of all Paul’s epistles to the early church. What do we learn from all this? Something special happens when we follow where God leads.
The second intervention involves someone Paul met when he ventured into Macedonia, namely, the influential businesswoman Lydia. As Mary Alice Lightle pointed out at the Good Samaritan service last week, Lydia is the last woman to speak in the text of the bible, so it is important for us to learn her story and listen to what she has to say.
Whenever Paul arrived in a new city, he would seek out the local Jewish population. In the larger Gentile communities, often there would be a small synagogue where Jews would gather and pray. In Philippi, that gathering place was outside the city wall down by the river. Paul began to preach; and we’re not told if any men listened to him, but a group of women took time to hear his message. In their group was a woman named Lydia, a merchant who sold purple cloth. Purple, dyed fabric was rare and very expensive. It was reserved for the rich and royalty, used for tapestries and the robes wore by temple priests and high officials. I assumed the dye came from some sort of berry grown in that region, but I found out it comes from a gland found in the stomach lining of a mollusk that thrived in the waters of Greece. Imagine how many clams it took to get enough dye for curtains in the palace!
Lydia knew and had made a successful business out of her knowledge. She also had moved away from her Greek roots of worshiping many gods to worshiping only one god, which is why she is a part of the faith community that gathered by the river. Yes, it is important to know about Lydia. She was a woman who had her own thriving business, a woman who oversaw a large household, and a woman who became the first European convert to Christianity and likely the first European preacher of the gospel leading others to faith in Christ (since she led her entire household to be baptized). Those are all important details, but don’t overlook how God was active in her life before Paul arrived. She was already a person of faith, a worshiper of God. She was already meeting on the Sabbath with women to pray; she was already receptive to Paul’s words before Paul opened his mouth – all by the grace and loving preparatory activity of our God.
Faith does not happen by accident. Real change doesn’t occur by chance. We worship a God who knows the road we will travel and who providentially prepares us for the road ahead. Let’s look at this idea of preparation in both a general and a personal way. For hundreds of years, Western Civilization languished in what we call the Dark Ages. Then came the Renaissance – da Vinci, Michelangelo, Christopher Columbus. This flowering of learning and discovery did not happen by chance. Some argue that the Renaissance was possible because of three earlier inventions: the printing press, firearms, and the compass. The printing press took information and learning out of the hands of a few and spread it out into the community at large. Firearms, for better or worse, gave the European cultures superiority over the native American and Asian cultures. And the little magnetized needle of the compass inaugurated the great age of discovery. For centuries, Mediterranean sailors were forced to stay in port during the cloudy, bad weather months from October to March, because they couldn’t navigate clearly without the sun. But with the aid of the compass, they could at long last make trading and discovery voyages all year round.
Three inventions helped the Renaissance generally blossom and flourish. In a more personal way, the flowering of learning that takes place in early childhood also needs to be prepared for. Research has shown that a significant factor determining whether children do well in school is the number of words they are exposed to during their first three years of life. Sadly there is a significant “vocabulary gap” between families of different economic levels. Children in low income households typically hear about 600 words an hour, while in wealthy homes they may hear over 2000 words an hour. That adds up to a difference of exposure of up to 30 million words by the time the child enters kindergarten. Other factors include the number of books in the home, the amount of time spent reading to the child, and the balance of positive vs. negative comments spoken to the child. Closing this vocabulary gap – reading and talking to children – is a critical part of preparing young people for success in school and life in general.
Now consider this same topic from the perspective of faith. Faith in God does not happen by accident. You learn to chart the voyage of faith by using the compass of scripture and following the examples of others in your life. Likewise, you learn the vocabulary of faith by what you read and hear about God, by learning the vocabulary of the church with its seasons of Advent, Lent and Easter or rituals like baptism and communion and prayer. I know there are good ministers and lousy ministers; good churches that make you feel loved and blessed and lousy churches that make you feel unwelcome and unimportant. And frankly sometimes the same minister or church swings between those extremes on any given day. Let those who are without sin cast the first stone at the church.
The bottom line is that faith needs to be prepared. The soil of the soul must be prepared if seeds of faith are to take root within us. That’s why it is nonsense for a parent to say that he or she doesn’t want to impose Christian faith on their children, so they don’t take them to church and trust that they will make up their own minds when they are older. All that says is that there is nothing in the parent’s faith that they consider valuable enough to pass on to their children, and that they are willing to let others teach life values (good or bad) to their children. Think of where you are today – the accomplishments you’ve enjoyed, whatever that looks like – and call to mind the persons who were your mentors, teachers or inspiration. I’d like everyone who has been ordained as a church officer, elder or deacon, to raise your hands. Think of one person whose faith example led you to accept that role in the church. Now imagine if you’d never known them and consider whether or not your hand would have been raised today. Faith needs to be prepared in order to take root and bear fruit.
A quick Mother’s Day illustration and then I’ll bring this to a close. A number of books have been composed by mothers with their daughters or sons. These collaborations are interesting to read, because you gain different perspectives from each generation’s voice. Sometimes this combination can lead to tensions. When Anne Lamott wrote a book with her son, she acknowledged that Sam often had to be nudged and bribed to get his part written, casting Lamott in the role of the nagging Boss Lady to her son’s Mellow Young Artist. But when another author, Anna Lappé, was asked what it was like to be in her mother’s shadow, she wisely replied, “I’m not in my mother’s shadow. I’m in my mother’s light.”1
We stand, not in the shadow, but in the light – especially when it comes to matters of faith. God prepares us for the journey of life, so that our hearts may be open and we can hear faithfully, joyfully, the words of gospel healing and hope. It was true for Paul. It was true for Lydia. It is true for us. Wherever you are in your life, pause and ask – not “How did this happen?” or “Why did this happen?”– but ask “How has a loving God prepared me for this moment?” Start there. And like Lydia, may you travel the road of faith with confidence and eagerness and joyful, open, listening hearts.
AMEN