An Open Heart -- Sixth Sunday of Easter

 Acts 16:9-15

May 22, 2022

 

            I was still a fairly new Presbyterian. I had been attending my church in Richmond for maybe a year, maybe a little longer. After joining the church, I was laid off from the job that brought me to Richmond in the first place, but something told me not to go back to Nashville yet. I was able to stay in Richmond because a dear family in the church had taken me in, invited me to be their second daughter, and gave me the space and time I needed so catch my breath so I could figure out my next step.

            It was spring, and I was in a small group Bible study at church. The group met that evening, so that afternoon I was reading through the lesson to get prepared for the discussion that night. The scripture was from Philippians 2 …

            “If then there is any encouragement in Christ, any consolation from love, any sharing in the Spirit, any compassion and sympathy, make my joy complete: be of the same mind, having the same love, being in full accord and of one mind. Do nothing from selfish ambition or conceit, but in humility regard others as better than yourselves. Let each of you look not to your own interests, but to the interests of others. Let the same mind be in you that was in Christ Jesus …”

            I was certainly not a Biblical scholar – then or now – but I had grown up listening to scripture. It was read at church. My dad read it each morning at breakfast. In my more ambitions moments as a child, I would try to read the entire Bible. I usually got stuck in the begats in Genesis. But if I had ever read or heard these words from Philippians before, I didn’t remember them.

            So, I read them again. And again. And each time I read them, I felt like something was opening up inside of me. It’s difficult to explain what I mean by that. But I think the best way is to stay that as I read these words from Philippians, I heard them in a way I’d never heard scripture before. They were no longer just lofty words on the page, they meant something. They were speaking to me. Had I been of the same mind as Christ? Did I consider others with humility, believing they were better than myself? How had I lived up to these words? And how had I failed to do just that?

            Something changed that day when I read those words. Something changed in me. I think, I may be wrong, but I think it was God opening my heart to hear these words, to hear scripture in a way I had never heard them before.

            We don’t know what words Paul spoke to the women gathered by the river that day, but through those words God opened the heart of a woman named Lydia. God opened her heart to hear Paul’s words, to accept them, to believe them, to believe in what he was preaching, and with her heart opened, she responded to the apostles by opening her home.

            This is a quiet sort of story, isn’t it? In my Bible, the subheading for this passage is, “The Conversion of Lydia.” But what struck me about this story is that Lydia is described as “a worshiper of God,” before her heart is opened. And if she is being converted, it is certainly not the dramatic conversion that Paul once Saul experienced, is it? Lydia does not hear a voice speaking to her from heaven. She is not thrown to the ground. No scales fall from her eyes. No, this is a much quieter kind of conversion.

            Now there is drama leading up to this moment. We start our passage basically in the middle of a paragraph, but the verses before our starting point tell of Paul and his companions trying to go into the region of Phrygia and Galatia, only to be stopped by the Holy Spirit. The Spirit would not allow them to speak in those places. They tried to go to another place, but the Spirit would not allow them to go there either. So, bypassing Mysia, they go down to Troas. And that’s where our part of the story begins. Paul has a vision of a man asking him to “Come over to Macedonia and help us.” Paul heeded the vision and went to Macedonia, sailing from Troas to Samothrace to Neapolis to Philippi, crossing into the continent of Europe for the first time.

            And once there, Paul did not seek out worship in a synagogue, which seems unusual. Instead, he went to the river figuring that a prayer gathering would be happening there. And it was. And there God opens Lydia’s heart. Although there are only a few sentences devoted to Lydia, we learn some significant things about her. She was a worshipper of God, but like Cornelius, she was a Gentile believer. She was not a native of Philippi, she was from Thyatira. She was a dealer in purple cloth, which meant that she was a businesswoman and most likely a successful businesswoman at that. Purple cloth was the cloth of wealth and means. Purple was not an easy color to create, so if you wanted purple you had to have money to buy it.

            So, that’s what we know about Lydia. And what we also know is that while she was already a worshipper of God, something about what Paul said resonated with her, and through those words God opened her heart. And when her heart was opened, she responded by opening her home. Her response to God was hospitality.

            Like I said, even considering the vision at the beginning of this story, this is a quiet conversion. But what it does mean that she was converted, especially because she was already a woman of faith? Does it mean that she was converted to the gospel of Jesus? Probably. Does it mean that she was now, in the words of John’s gospel, “born again?” Maybe. Does it mean that her heart was expanded to believe in God in a new way? I would think so. It may mean all the above and so much more, but what I kept thinking as I worked on this passage, is that Lydia had been given a new understanding of God, of God’s work in the world, of the saving grace of Christ, and the power of the Holy Spirit, and that this was the next step in her growing in faith. This was next step in her walking the life of faith. Yes, she was converted, but maybe it was one of many conversions that she would experience throughout her life. Maybe the first conversion was what brought her to worship God before Paul ever entered her world. Maybe this conversion would be the steppingstone for the next one, and that one would be the steppingstone for the next one after that.

            It seems to me that this conversion was not the end all conversion of Lydia’s life. I realize that this purely speculation on my part. We have no other story of her but this. But I wonder if this isn’t often how conversion works. It is a series of having our hearts opened to hear God’s word, to see God’s work in the world in a new way. It is a lifelong process, not a one-time event.

            Because here is the thing about our hearts. They can be so easily closed. Our daily lives, filled as they are with both drama and mundane, with hopes and fears, with losses and celebrations, with love and with grief, all of this works to close our hearts. We close our hearts. Maybe it’s not deliberate or intentional. It’s just that life is hard. It can be hard facing this world with an open heart because our hearts can be so badly broken. It can be hard to hear God’s word because this really is a noisy, cacophonous world that we live in. So, maybe, just maybe, we need to have our hearts opened again and again. And again.

            When I had that experience reading the words from Philippians, I wasn’t reading in a vacuum. I was a youth advisor, and we were experiencing conflict among the advisors. As I read that passage, I began to wonder about how we were dealing with one another. Were we coming at the conflict with humility or conceit? In our next meeting, I talked about my experience with this scripture, what I had realized, what I had begun to see. I don’t know if it helped all that much, but it gave us something to think about.

            As we’ve read and as I’ve already pointed out, Lydia’s opened heart was not just about her. She responded. She opened her home. When our hearts are opened, in those moments when we can see in that mirror a little more clearly, we are also called to respond. When our hearts are opened, we are called to share that in some way with someone else. Maybe it is offering our witness or our testimony, and maybe it is in something that we do, an action that we take. So, my question for all of us is this. Are our hearts being opened to someone or something in a new or different way? Are we being given a glimpse of something new? Is God working on us right now, opening our minds, opening our hearts, opening our hands? Are we being called to take a step in new direction, with our relationships, with our church, with our work, with our lives?

            Lydia’s conversion was a quiet one, and I think that our lives are filled with such quiet conversions. But with each opening of the heart, we can see more, we can understand more, and we can do more.

            May God open our hearts to hear the Word, to see the Word, to live the Word, today and every day.

            Let all of God’s children say, “Alleluia.”

            Amen.

There Was a Disciple -- Mother's Day

 Acts 9:36-43

May 8, 2022/

 

            There was a disciple in the city of Joppa who cared for the least of these. She made clothing for poor widows – tunics and other garments. She used her resources to help others. She used her time and her talents to give care, hope, and comfort to the poor and to the marginalized. She showed compassion and love to those at the furthest reaches of her society.

But it came to pass that this disciple fell ill. She died, and the grief and mourning surrounding her death could hardly be contained. The people who knew her, who loved her, who had received her love and care were inconsolable. But some people in her community heard that an apostle, one who was close to Jesus, was in nearby Lydda. Two men were sent to him, to ask him, beg him if they had to, to come back with them to Joppa. Come back with them to where this disciple lay, to where the people mourned.

This disciple heard their plea, and he went to Joppa with the two men. There he found the disciple, washed and laid in an upstairs room. She was encircled by widows, keening with grief at the untimely death of this beloved disciple. The women showed the apostle the tunics that she had made for them. They showed him the other clothing that she had woven and sewn and stitched so that they could stay warm and dry. This disciple had cared for the widows, for the least of these, the forgotten ones when no one else did.

What would they do? What would they do? What would they do without this disciple who loved them?

In the city of Joppa there was a disciple. Her name was Tabitha in Aramaic and Dorcas in Greek. Luke, the author of the gospel by the same name and also this book of Acts, writes that she was devoted to doing good works and acts of charity. When she fell ill and died, the people of Joppa sent for Peter. Although it is not part of our immediate story today, it is helpful to know what is happening preceding our verses, our part of the story. After the dramatic conversion of Saul, and before another dramatic conversion yet to come, the narrative switches back to focus on Peter.

Peter is going “here and there” among the saints of Lydda. He meets a man named Aeneas who has been paralyzed and bedridden for eight years. Peter comes to Aeneas’s bedside and speaks to whatever hope for healing Aeneas may have had left.

            “Aeneas, Jesus Christ heals you. Get up and make your bed!”

            Aeneas does just that. He stands up. He walks for the first time in eight years. And, although the text does not say this specifically, it’s fair for us to assume that Aeneas also made his bed just as Peter told him to. When the people of Lydda and Sharon heard about this miracle, they turned to the Lord and believed.

            When the two men from Joppa came to Peter with their request, he did not hesitate to go with them. We do not know what the people who loved and lost Tabitha wanted them to do. The text gives us no specifics about their expectations of Peter. Did they think that he could bring her back from the dead? Did they seek consolation even as they believed they could never be consoled?

            Whatever their motivation, when Peter arrived, they showed him samples of the clothing Tabitha had made for them. It was as if they were saying to Peter,

            “Tabitha cared for us. She cared whether we lived or died. She gave to us, poor widows that we are, not because she had to but because she wanted to. Who else will care for us in the way she did? What will happen to us now?”

            Peter sent the mourners out of the room. When he was alone with Tabitha, he knelt and prayed. He turned toward her body and said,

            “Tabitha, get up.”

            Just as Aeneas listened and did what Peter told him, so did Tabitha. She opened her eyes. She sat up, and Peter took her hand and helped her to stand. He restored this saint of Joppa, this saint of the church back to the fullness of her life. He brought her back to her life of charity, good works, and service.

            There was a disciple in Joppa who devoted herself to charity and good works. When the text tells us that she was a disciple, she was indeed a disciple. One of the unique points of this story is that this is the only instance in the New Testament where the feminine form of the word for disciple is used. Tabitha was a mathetria, and as a mathetria she served her community with absolute devotion. When she became ill and died, the people who loved her and the people whom she had loved were distraught. We know already that they called for Peter to come to them, but the text does not tell us what they wanted him to do. Did they expect what actually happened to happen? Did they believe from the get-go that Peter could revive and resurrect her? Did they think that he could find a way to continue her work among them? Or did they hope for comfort and consolation from this person who had known, loved, and learned from Jesus?

            If Peter wonders why they called them, we aren’t told about it. But he goes with the men who came for him seemingly without question. Maybe he understood this to be part of his new call, part of his work as an apostle, sharing the gospel and continuing the ministry that Jesus began during his earthly life. When he arrived in Joppa, did Peter believe that he could help them? Did he believe that when he prayed for Tabitha and told her to “get up” that she would?

            I realize that Peter and the other apostles have grown by leaps and bounds in their faith, in their understanding, in their willingness to follow the narrow road that discipleship called them to walk. But this same Peter who once denied Jesus three times, now has the depth of faith to call a woman back from death. Whatever the mourners’ expectations of him, whatever expectations he may have had about himself, this is an amazing and astonishing act of faith. Through his belief in Jesus’ ability to heal, make new, and resurrect, Peter brings Tabitha back to the living. He restores her not only to the people who love her, but to the fullness of her life here on earth.

            When Peter was still in Lydda and he healed Aeneas, people heard about his actions and, more importantly, the consequences of his actions and believed in the Lord Jesus. The same is true in Joppa. The people who heard about Tabitha’s miraculous resurrection believed in Jesus. They believed in the good news.

            That seems to be the logical thing to do. Right. You hear that someone has died, then been brought back to life, and you believe in the person, the power, that made this happen. But what does this do for us today? How many saints have we lost in our church, in our families, among our friends, and prayed that they would be healed, restored to us, only for it not to happen? And what’s more Tabitha would not live forever. She would one day die again just as we all will do, and that time she would stay dead.

            So, is this a story about the resurrection of a beloved disciple, the only mathetria in the New Testament, or is it a story about the upside down turning that the gospel created? One of the truths that seems to be most prevalent in all of Acts is that for a short while the world seemed as close as it ever has to being the kind of world that God created. Flowing out from Jerusalem, from the center point of where Jesus lived and died and rose again, this world was perhaps the closest that it has ever been to being the kingdom of God, the kingdom of Heaven that Jesus proclaimed was in our midst. This is a world where it is obvious that the Holy Spirit was on the move. Things were happening. Miracles were happening. Saul, who once breathed threats and murder against anyone who followed the way, was converted and began to speak the gospel of Jesus the Christ to all who would listen. Well, that was a complete and utter miracle of miracles. But now Aeneas has left his bed and walked, and Tabitha has been brought back to life. The world has truly been turned upside down. And the people who knew that really knew that, and what’s more they lived it.

            They lived the reality of their world turned upside down, by the power of the Holy Spirit that had been unleashed, and by their belief in the resurrection of Jesus. They were Easter people without even knowing that they were Easter people.

            Maybe the message for us today is that we do know we are Easter people. And yet do we live as though we are? Easter was only, what, three weeks ago? But are we still living the joy and the wonder and the power of that day? Or have we already moved on? The candy is most likely gone, and the Easter baskets have been put away for another year. And what’s more, death seems predominant in this world of ours. It’s hard, if not impossible, to live as people who believe that death has been conquered and that the Holy Spirit swooshes through the world breathing new life and light, when so much seems dead and dark.

            But we are Easter people. We are people who believe in the power and the promise of the resurrection. We are people whose lives have been changed, turned upside down, because we have heard the good news of the gospel and believed it. Now our call is to live it. Our call is to go home this afternoon, and give thanks for the mothers in our lives, and also think, the world has been turned upside down and I am an Easter person. Our call is to go to work tomorrow and think the same. Our call is to go to the grocery store and believe the same. Our call is to trust that that indeed the world is upside down, the last are first and the first are last, and to live as though that matters, because it does. We are called to live as though this truth, our truth, has changed everything, because it has.

            We are called to be Easter people. The entire book of Acts is about a small group of Easter people who believed in the resurrection, who performed great and wondrous acts because of the power of the resurrection, and who lived their lives differently because of the resurrection. May we do the same.

            Let all of God’s children, all of God’s Easter people, say “Alleluia.”

            Amen.

The Scales Are Falling -- Third Sunday of Easter

Acts 9:1-19

May 1, 2022

 

            When we hear the phrase, “the scales fell from his eyes,” many of us know that it is based on this story in Acts. We know, because if we have been in church at all, we have probably heard this story several times. The story of Saul on the road to Damascus was most likely a story told with characters on a felt board when I was a little girl in Sunday School.

            So, the scales falling from the eyes is not new to us. We know that it happened to Saul. We know that it was part of his conversion from one who wanted to kill followers of the Way, to becoming an evangelist extraordinaire for Jesus the Christ.

            This story is a familiar one, and the detail about the scales falling from Saul’s eyes has even been incorporated into popular culture. Yet because this story is so familiar, because it is known beyond the realm of the church, it presents a unique challenge when it comes to preaching it. It is so well-known that we may take it for granted. It is so well-known that it can be hard to figure out how to make it relevant and real to us right now in 2022. To address this challenge, I decided I needed to ask questions of this text that I had not thought to ask before.

            What exactly are these scales? I guess there is no way for us to really know. I have always assumed that they were like the scales on a fish or a snake, because that is what makes the most sense in this context. I doubt they were the musical scales that I hated to practice when I was taking piano and cello lessons as a kid. And I also doubt that they were the device that sits on my bathroom floor, the one that I often dread to stand on.

            So, they must have been like the scales on a fish or a reptile or even some mammals. But I wanted to know the purpose of scales. What are they exactly? I take for granted that I know what they are, but do I really?

Google to the rescue! Scales on a fish or a reptile or a mammal are hard protrusions that grow out of the skin of the creature who wears them. Scales provide protection. They protect the creature by making it hard for predators to get through the scales. They provide protection from weather, from the environment the creatures dwells in. They provide protection in the form of camouflage. Scales will often help the creature blend in with its surroundings.

            Hmmm. It makes me wonder if these were the kinds of scales covering Saul’s eyes, what exactly was he being protected from? Or, more importantly, what did he want protection from?

            Let’s talk about Saul. In this story, Saul is not yet Paul, the evangelist, church builder, and writer of many letters. But this story of Saul’s conversion is not the first time that we meet him. A few chapters earlier, Saul is mentioned as one who approved of the killing of Stephen. Stephen was the first person to be martyred for the sake of the risen Christ. And in Stephen’s dying words, he asked the Lord to not hold the sin of these people – the people who stoned him to death – against them. Saul must have been included in Stephen’s request.

            Saul may have been a minor character in the story of Stephen, but in the verses before us he steps firmly into the spotlight. And he steps into the spotlight “breathing threats and murder against the disciples of the Lord.”

            To breathe threats and murder means that Saul’s desire for violence was in every exhalation of breath. Hatred was running rampant throughout his circulatory system. If he was breathing threats and murder, his whole body, his whole being, was filled with loathing for the followers of the Way.

            Just before this story, we read the story of Philip and the Ethiopian Eunuch. That means that the good news of the gospel, the good news of Jesus the Christ, was reaching far beyond the original boundaries of Jerusalem. It was on the move toward Syria. That’s why Saul wanted to go to Damascus. He wanted to prevent this faction from growing any larger. And it is on the road to Damascus where Jesus meets him, and he meets Jesus. It is on the road to Damascus where a light from heaven flashed and Saul fell to the ground in its wake. It is on the road to Damascus where Saul hears a voice asking why.

            “Saul, Saul, why do you persecute me?”

            Saul, bewildered and afraid, asked who was speaking to him.

            “I am Jesus, whom you are persecuting. But get up and enter the city, and you will be told what you are to do.”

            Jesus?! Saul was after the followers of this Jesus. But the voice, Jesus’ voice, made it clear that Saul was not just persecuting the people who followed him, he was persecuting Jesus himself. And this voice did not come from Saul’s imagination. All those with him heard it too. Saul stood up, but he could not see. His eyes were open wide, but he could not see. Helpless and afraid and wondering what would become of him, Saul was led into Damascus.  For three days, he could not see. For three days he did not eat or drink.

            Then the story shifts to a disciple in Damascus named Ananias. That brings me to another question. What about Ananias? The focus of this story is on Saul who becomes Paul. And, yes, Saul is the main character. As I’ve already said, it is Saul who is breathing threats of violence and murder against anyone who is a follower of the Way. That’s what folks are calling the early disciples of Jesus of Nazareth. They were not Christians as we are, meaning that they were still Jews, but they believed this Jesus of Nazareth to be the Son of God. They believed him to be the Savior, the Messiah. They believed that contrary to what common sense would dictate, he was brutally executed, but after three days in the grave, he was resurrected. Something happened in that tomb, and he got up and left it empty. So, these believers were his followers, but the name the Way suggests that they were not so much about doctrine but about doing. The Way suggests that they were about traveling and doing and moving through the world in a new way, in the way that Jesus moved and lived and did.

            But what about Ananias? Ananias is a believer. He is a follower of the Way, and he has heard the stories about Saul. He knows of Saul’s hatred for believers of Jesus. He knows what Saul wants to do to those who follow The Way. He probably knew of Stephen and knew that Saul approved of Stephen’s killing. Ananias knows that even if Saul did not throw a single stone on that terrible day, he still has blood on his hands. But Jesus speaks to Ananias too. Jesus tell Ananias that Saul is coming to the city, blind and in need. Jesus wants Ananias to go to Saul, speak with him, help him as he experiences this dramatic change in his life.

            One commentator wrote that this would be like asking a rabbi to go to Hitler and help him to hear the word of God, to bring the peace of God to Hitler, to help convert Hitler’s heart and mind.  

            With that analogy in mind, it is easy to understand why Ananias is reluctant to do what the Lord asks of him. He resists Jesus’ request. But Jesus tells him to go. Go to Saul. Help Saul. Saul will be the “instrument whom I have chosen to bring my name before Gentiles and kings and before the people of Israel.”

            Ananias does what the Lord asks of him. He goes to where Saul is staying. He lays his hands on Saul and calls him brother. He tells him that the same Jesus who spoke to Saul on the road to the city has spoken to him as well. Saul will regain his vision and be filled with the Holy Spirit.

            And it is in this moment, when Ananias speaks these words to him, that the scales fall. Those hard protective coverings over Saul’s eyes fall away. And he can see. He can see. His sight has returned, and the first person he sees is someone who only a few days earlier he would have arrested, bound, taken to Jerusalem for trial. Only a few days earlier, Saul would have approved the stoning of Ananias as surely as he approved the stoning of Stephen.

            The scales fell. And if scales on creatures are designed for protection, maybe Saul kept those scales on his eyes for protection as well. Maybe he kept them there so that he would not have to see the humanity of his enemies. Maybe he would not have to see that the ones he was so angry with, the people he so wanted to stop, were also children of God.

            Saul was helpless from the moment that light flashed on the road to Damascus, but in this moment, I think he was more vulnerable than ever before because now he could see – really see the person who stood before him. He could see his own hatred, and how that had blinded him. He could see the enmity and destruction that lived inside of him. He could see how every breath he took was filled with hate and anger and fear.

            I don’t think the scales fell only from Saul’s eyes that day. I think they fell from his mind and his heart too. That begs my final question. What are the scales covering our eyes? What are the scales covering our minds? What are the scales covering our hearts? What are we protecting ourselves from, really? When will we finally allow them to fall, so that we can see one another as God’s children? When will finally allow them to fall away, so that we can see one another as God’s children?

            Let all of God’s children see, hear, feel, and share the love of Jesus the Christ.

            Let all of God’s children say, “Alleluia.”

            Amen.