Proper 21A – George Yandell
I want to talk about a woman who led an entire Roman colony to faith in Jesus. And how the congregation in her house witnessed to their faith and led to creating numerous other congregations across the northern Mediterranean.
After Paul first arrived in Philippi, he and Silas went down to the river on the Sabbath day, supposing there was a place of prayer there. They found a group of women gathered by the river, probably near the synagogue, and they spoke to them. Acts says, “A certain woman named Lydia, a worshipper of God, was listening to us; she was from [a nearby village] and a dealer in purple cloth. The Lord opened her heart to listen eagerly to what was said by Paul.” Lydia became the first European convert to the Way of Jesus, @ 49 CE (Acts 16:13-40).
Lydia was a businesswoman who sold purple cloth, a luxury item. Her business would have put her in contact with the wealthy. (Women’s Bible Commentary, Newsom/Ringe, 1998, p. 400) Acts describes her as a “god-worshipper.” This means she was a Gentile/ Greek speaker attracted to Jewish synagogue worship. She sympathized with the Jews. “God-worshippers” were the major targets of Paul’s missionary work. He regularly sought them out when coming to a new city. God worshippers had decent knowledge of Hebrew scripture, and often were patrons of the local synagogue. The use of Lydia’s personal name suggests she enjoyed high social status among free persons and merchants. Maybe she was widowed or divorced with some wealth. She was the head of her own household. Her whole household was baptized by Paul and Silas, meaning both slaves and immediate family members. Lydia’s home served as the first meeting place for the church in Philippi.
Philippi sat right on the major east-west Roman road, completed some 130 years before Jesus was born. It was also near by a major port linking Byzantium to Italy. Thus Philippi had become a major stopping point on the way to and from Rome. This was the road Paul traveled on his first missionary journey into Greece. The congregation he started there was the first Christian fellowship in Greece.
Paul loved the Jesus fellowship at Philippi. They were mostly people living in poverty, with some members of means, like Lydia. When Paul wrote this letter to them, followers of Jesus in their province had undergone persecution. In spite of their despair over losing members of their fellowship, they had continued to be generous in giving. They supported other congregations where Paul was active, all across the northern Mediterranean basin.
Evidently the congregation had been suffering adversity and disunity from threats from outside its membership. Paul calls them back to unity and humility based on the story of Christ. The passage we heard just now is one of the most sublime in all of the NT. Scholars think Paul was quoting to them a Christ hymn they knew well. They might even have jumped in and started singing it with Epaphroditus as he read Paul’s letter to them. Let me re-read it, 2:6-11:
“Let the same mind be in you that was in Christ Jesus, who though he was in the form of God, did not regard equality with God as something to be exploited [or held on to], but emptied himself, taking the form of a slave, being born in human likeness. And being found in human form, he humbled himself and became obedient to the point of death—even death on a cross. Therefore God highly exalted him and gave him the name which is above every name, so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bend, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.”
This is the earliest Christian hymn we know: The first half tells the story of Jesus’ incarnation, his refusal to exploit his divine status or power. It tells about his becoming not merely human, but a slave, his life as one of the humiliated, and his obedience to God, leading to his death on the cross. The second half asserts his being exalted, his receiving the name above all names, and his universal lordship. In these short five verses the hymn tells the whole story of God’s saving the world through Christ, that the Philippians now live in the new creation of God. The words also told them how to live in union with the mind of Christ. The unity of the congregation is rooted in the story of Jesus and maintained in practices that show forth Christ’s way. (The above adapted from The New Interpreter’s Dictionary of the Bible, vol. 3, p. 736, and vol. 4, pp. 501, 505.)
We can take a lesson from Lydia. As we live out the Way of Jesus, we are to be tuned to the mind of Christ. The story of Jesus, maintained with practices that show forth Christ’s glory, are the method for ministry today as they were 1974 years ago in Phillipi. We are to offer ourselves, our homes, as servants. We’re to practice self-emptying love, and sing joyfully about the transformation Jesus has worked in our midst.
Like Lydia, we are God’s reconciling co-workers; we are God’s co-conspirators in reconciling the world to Christ; we seek to demonstrate what it looks like to be spiritually and socially reconciled individuals and communities in the Spirit of the risen Christ.
This ministry of reconciliation gives us a vibrant new identity, according to Paul. We are not merely religious insiders huddled in stained glass ghettoes, nor are we religious outsiders living without reference to the living God. But instead we are God’s peace ambassadors, insiders who intentionally move outside to plead with others to be reconciled to God.
So we plead with them to rethink everything and follow the way of Jesus. We plead with them based on the good news that in Christ, God is offering amnesty for all offenders, whatever they’ve done, whoever they’ve been. We plead with people to stop being part of the problem, and to join God in Christ as agents of the solution, so God’s will can indeed be done on earth as it is in heaven. (The 3 paragraphs above from Brian McLaren’s sermon at the Episcopal Convention, 2009)