Path to Choosing Love

May 26, 2019

Acts 16:11

I often find myself drawn into the stories in the bible of women. Particularly the stories where they aren’t being taken advantage of, used or abused. Instead, they are powerful and killing generals and taking a stand. Having the courage to stay at the empty tomb.

Lydia seems like such a story for me. And yet, we learn so little about her. We come into her story at a moment with only the backstory necessary to understand why she mattered. And almost no story about who this moment makes her. 

I thought about that the first time I saw someone tell Alexandria Ocasio Cortez’ story “From Bartender to Senator”, as if there weren’t a few steps missing, education, internships. Hundreds of choices that made that possible. Like Lydia, we know so little, we guess at a lot, we have more questions than answers. 

Lydia

Lydia was a foreign woman living in a city in the Roman Empire. Philippi was… Florida for many in the Roman military. A place for retiring, to enjoy the spoils of Pax Romana earned at the end of their swords. 

We see in Paul’s life, that citizens of Rome were given special privileges, that were not afforded to those who had been conquered by Rome. And in this man’s world, she was a businesswoman. With so many retired Roman Elite, there was a need in Philippi for the purple cloth that as made in her home town Thyatira.

Maybe that is why we find her in Philippi, she became the link between the home business of making cloth and the selling in Philippi. Maybe it’s a family business.

The Orthodox tradition tells us that she and her husband had been dying cloth before she came to Philippi. But, when the author talks of Lydia, no man is associated with her name. Where is this husband she might have had? Had he died? Was she widowed and making a new life for herself in a new town? Did she struggle to make the connections that she would need?

She was the head of her household, there were people, a family, that depended upon her making all the ends meet. She is determined, entrepreneurial, committed. She was a worshiper of the God of Israel in a pagan world and as a gentile.

This wasn’t the faith of her ancestors. When she said “We were slaves in Egypt”, that was not her heritage. But there was something that she had heard, something that she had learned, something that lea her down this road, like that thing that led her from Thyatira to Philippi.

It led her to the river, outside of the city, with the other women. This renegade synagogue as maybe there weren’t enough men in the city to make a proper synagogue. She and these women made their own. She was open-hearted and minded. She was growing and becoming. She was a seeker of truth. And she was discerning of the moving of the spirit that led her down this path

She was choosing her journey piece by piece that brought her to the river that Sabbath to meet the traveling preacher, Paul. 

Paul

Paul is the opposite of Lydia in many ways. A face of privilege in the Roman city. Man, Roman Citizen, being a follower of Jesus will get him thrown in Jail in Philippi but being a Citizen will be one of the reasons he won’t stay there, this time. 

In the story leading up to this moment, Paul’s plans have all been derailed. He had plans to go back to churches he has seen before. He was going to make a return tour, check-in, bring Timothy with him. But his traveling companion carried on with others and one way or another his path was barred. He had no intention of traveling Europe until the vision he had of a man asking him to come to Macedonia to help the people there. 

So we find ourselves in the long ago conquered Greece. Paul with his face of privilege and Lydia with her hard-earned place in the world. 

At the banks of the river, outside of the city. It was the most improbable meeting if the world worked the way either would have expected it to. 

To exclude Lydia, or if Paul had gone east instead of West.

They had been prepared for this moment. The Spirit of God that moved over the waters, that Jesus promised the disciples when he ascended, the Spirit was moving before Paul arrived on his mission, Lydia was being led, being opened, being taught before Paul showed up to tell them about Jesus. 

So when the story was told, She was prepared to hear it. Open to all the possibilities. Discerning and choosing

Process theology

And we, every day, are presented with multitudes of possibilities and opportunities. We make choices from the moment that we wake up every morning. It doesn’t necessarily mean that some are right or some are wrong or some are or some are evil. Although there are some choices I have made that are better than others. On occasion the inverse, there are some choices that I have made that resulted worse than others. 

A short version of my story could say “Bartender to Pastor”, which ignores the millions of choices that have allowed me to find my way here. But I have found my way here. 

Our Choices

It’s hard though, I can make choices that benefit me, that affect the world around me, that harm those near me. There are multitudes of opportunities, every day. This is part of what is called process theology. We grow and become and make choices and fail and fall and choose again and we grow more the hard way.

And we do this because we care made in the image of God, not in spite of it. 

Every moment is an opportunity to live in the hope and love of the one who was resurrected who showed us, even in his own life, what it is to grow. To watch the mission expand beyond, to choose love again and again, and we have that example in Lydia: Who chose to grow and to learn and to develop, to listen and to welcome Paul. 

The Spirit was present in her life before Paul arrived and the lessons she learned about Jesus lead her to welcome to the preacher, the stranger with generous hospitality. That is the work of the lessons of the resurrected Jesus. This is what we do with the resurrection: How do we become more welcoming? More inclusive? More inviting? More open?

And we learn that from a woman living in a man’s world, participating in the economic and spiritual community in a time when what wasn’t a place for women. And she, like many women in the bible before her, made a place for women. Lydia is the first Jesus follower that we know of in Europe. She was a founding matriarch of the church in Philippi. Some have even named her equal with the apostles. What lessons we could have learned from the women of the ancient church before we get to that part about how women ought to remain quiet in church.

We Choose

You and me, we get choices, opportunities every day. Sometimes we get to choose between hope and fear. We choose love over resentment. We choose generosity and forgiveness over bitterness and anger. We choose hospitality over rejection. We choose liberty over oppression. We choose to let women, and people of color, and those outside of the city walls, or whatever walls we build to have a voice, to have a place in the community, to welcome them in, to offer more liberty, more justice, more love, more compassion and kindness. Because how we choose in each moment affects how we move into the next how we treat those around us, those we love, the children we raise, our neighbors and stranger.

Because for me, this is the truth of the resurrection: Love wins over those who try to kill it. So, how do we choose love?

 I’ve thought a lot about this over the past couple of weeks. I’ve been trying to think about how do we respond, how do I respond to these very anti-abortion laws in Missouri and Georgia, and everywhere else. Because, in a perfect world, it wouldn’t be necessary, everyone would have access to safe and effective birth control. And men and women would consent to sexual interactions and preventative measures. And every child brought into this world would be wanted and loved and nourished physically and emotionally and you and I know these aren’t our reality.

Instead, the church historically shames sex entirely and blames the woman for this original sin, and whatever consequences exist in the aftermath. 1 in 5 women will have an abortion in their lifetime, for multitudes of reasons. But that means there may be someone sitting next to you, who made a choice. And has to live in silence because the world will judge her, will prefer her silence and fear of being found out.

We have a calling in every moment because our actions will either bring restriction and oppression or liberation and love. 

It’s a choice and a risk that I might not take to consider with you

If I did not know you so well. 

But how do we offer a space, a voice, liberation and justice to those standing outside the city gate, outside of the structure of our systems, or find themselves in a place of shame, or rejection or fear. 

With every moment, every opportunity we choose love. It’s who we are and what we are called to.

It sounds so simple.

It can cost so much. 

Discerning, being guided by the Spirit that is always with is and before choose love, for love is never wasted, and never miss placed.