Text: Acts 16:6-15

Sometimes you start on a journey and find yourself at an unexpected destination. For instance, when I set out for Washington, DC, last month, I found myself spending an extra night in Chicago as the result of a surprising spring snowstorm. On my way back, I arrived at 3 AM instead of 10 PM because I decided to take advantage of the unexpected opportunity to volunteer my seat on an overbooked flight in order to receive the promise of a free ticket anywhere US Airways flies in the continental United States, plus $10 toward a delicious, nutritious dinner at the Pittsburgh airport. I’ll bet some of you could tell better stories than that about trips delayed, planes re-routed, hopes dashed, expectations radically altered, promises deferred, life changed.

For reasons not entirely clear, the writer of Luke tells us Paul wanted to spread the Good News to the East. Building on the success of what has come to be known as his first missionary journey, Paul wanted to work next in the region dominated by the significant city of Ephesus. But the Spirit said, “No.” He next attempts to move north and east into the province of Bithynia. Here again the Spirit says, “No.” One commentator speculates that if Paul had managed to move in the direction of his original plans, we might find ourselves today being evangelized by missionaries from India, China and Japan.

What does it mean that the Spirit says no? Is this even a concept that makes any sense to our modern minds? I mean, does God still speak, if She ever really did to those of Her servants seeking do Her will and walk Her way? Clearly for the writer of Acts, God’s Holy Spirit is an active, central character in the establishment and growth of the early church. In trances, visions and strange encounters with tongues of flame, blinding lights, and voices in the night, the lives of ordinary people are transformed as God works through the Spirit to change the world. For the modern folk, with practical, scientific and technological mindsets, such stories may seem so incredible that they even give religion a bad name in certain circles.

But the testimony of the writer of Acts, over and over again, is to the power of the Spirit to move in human lives, empowering and transforming them. We have already seen Peter transformed from a crude, bragging peasant to a solid, eloquent spokesperson for the Good News, bringing healing, wholeness, even resurrection in the name of Jesus, the Christ. We have seen Saul, the vicious persecutor of the Jesus movement, become its most influential and impassioned advocate. In the time between Peter’s vision of opening the Word to the Gentiles and today’s text, there has been significant ongoing controversy within the Jesus Movement and among the various branches of Judaism, of which it is one. There is real tension among those who want to preserve certain aspects of traditional Judaism such as circumcision and dietary restrictions and those who are eager to spread the Jesus movement throughout a wider world. A great council is held in Jerusalem among the leaders of the Jesus Movement and decisions are made no longer to require circumcision as a prerequisite to membership while continuing to honor dietary restrictions such as not eating meat sacrificed to idols.

It is on the heels of this council that Paul sets out on a new missionary journey. Here we also begin to see a significant shift in the book of Acts to the growth of the Jesus Movement among Gentiles. The poor, the downtrodden, those who are experiencing deep spiritual hunger, who are frustrated with the demands of empire, the emptiness of their busy lives, the raucous, gaudy gods competing for their attention - all provide fertile ground for sowing the Gospel and no one seems more effective at this than Paul. He has already begun several churches in Asia Minor and he is eager to get on with his work. He sets off with Silas and Timothy to move eastward.

But his way is blocked. Does the Spirit speak to him in so many words? Have they torn up the road again for repairs, leaving it impassible? Is the weather report ominous for the East? Do they not have sufficient funds to get them where they want to go? Do they have word that they will not be welcomed by those whose support they need in the places they plan to go? One apparently sad result of the growing tension between the Jesus Movement and other strains of Judaism is that the Jewish communities to which Paul and his group would ordinarily go, and the synagogues in which they would preach, were increasingly closed to them. Julie Galambush writes of the reluctant parting of the ways between Jews and Christians that comes from these controversies. So it may be that their contacts among the Jewish communities in the provinces of Asia and Bithynia said, “We don’t want you here,” or “The timing isn’t right for you to come here now.”

We can imagine a frustrated and somewhat demoralized group gathered in Troas, wondering what to do next. They had set out with such big plans, such high hopes, only to be disappointed. At the same time, we might imagine that Paul, in his zeal for the gospel, is a die hard optimist and an incessant, perhaps annoying, cheerleader. “Just keep on folks. Chin up; God will show the way.” And of course, that’s just what happens…a vision in the night, a solitary figure pleading with Paul to come to Macedonia to share the good news there. More than one missionary appeal has been based on the pleading of the Macedonian, “Come over to India, Burma, Congo, El Salvador, Nicaragua and help us.” Paul is up before dawn, bags packed, down at the dock, booking the next ship sailing west. Not at all what he planned, but he is more than eager to go where the Spirit sends him. This change of plans might be an obstacle to one who is hung up on doing it his way, who is not open to change, who is not willing to consider an unexpected calling or an unconventional solution to a dilemma. This is not Paul; it is not Peter; it is not Jesus; it is not the way of the church, at least not the early church.

The second act of our little drama takes place in Philippi, a place our writer calls a leading city of the district. Philippi was a fortified city, a Roman military colony on the main road from Rome to the East. Apparently the Philippians were very satisfied with their own sense of self importance. Their city was described as a Little Rome as they tried to imitate the pomp and circumstance of the imperial city. Some have speculated that Luke himself was a Macedonian. They say that it was a physical malady, the infamous “thorn” in Paul’s flesh, that kept them from traveling east. When they found themselves in Troas, they called for a physician to treat Paul and that physician was none other than Luke, who proceeded to beg Paul to come with the good news to Luke’s hometown of Philippi. It’s a lovely story, though there is no way to verify it.

Anyway, we find Paul and his posse in Philippi and it is the Sabbath. Now with Paul, much the same as with Peter, we need to keep in mind their deep faith and consistent spiritual discipline. Before Peter’s trance and vision of the unclean animals, he was in prayer. He also prayed before Dorcas’s resurrection. When he heals the beggar by the Beautiful Gate, he is on his way into the temple to worship God. On the Sabbath day, Paul does what his faithful spiritual practice demands of him, he seeks out the community to be in prayer and study. Perhaps we do not hear God speak, see Christ’s way, feel the Spirit move, because we do not put ourselves in such states of openness; we do not engage in the kind of ongoing spiritual practice that allows the holy and mysterious to enter our lives and change our world. If it can’t be rationally established, scientifically demonstrated, technologically manipulated, then we are suspicious of, if not downright hostile to, its possibility. What I am trying to say is that it requires suspension of our disbelief, committed spiritual practice and an openness to the mystery in order for God to work in our lives as She did in the lives of Peter and Paul.

Where was Paul headed on this Sabbath morning? To find his people, so that he could join them in prayer and the study of scripture and the practice of the presence of God. Apparently, the Jewish community in Philippi was not big enough to have a synagogue, so the next place one would look for such a gathering would be down by the riverside. And sure enough, there they were, on the Sabbath morn, gathered for committed acts of spiritual practice, gathered there in the place of prayer. Not a large group, not a powerful group. In fact, the text says it was a group of women who had gathered. It sounds not so different then from now. It’s largely seen as women’s work to keep up the religious end of things. Are women inherently more open to things spiritual? I suppose we don’t want to push that notion too far.

But what is remarkable about this little story is that Paul and his group sit down to talk with them. As with Peter and the centurion, as with Jesus and the Samaritan woman at the well, the old barriers do not hold. No respectable male teacher would sit and talk with a group of women about anything, especially matters of faith. Yet Paul seems willing to sit down without hesitation to engage whomever is present – female or male, Gentile or Jew, slave or free – they are all candidates for receiving God’s good news. He has no time for petty distinctions or artificial barriers that might keep anyone from knowing about the love of God in Christ Jesus.

In the group is another of those remarkable women like Dorcas. Lydia seems to be a powerful figure in her own right. Neither she nor Dorcas has any man attached to her, at least who is relevant to the story. Lydia is apparently a wealthy merchant with her own household. She is a person of power and position in the community. She is one of those Gentiles known as a God-fearer. Not a convert to Judaism per se but a devout follower and a dedicated seeker. It is among these Gentile God-fearers, already attached to the Jewish community, that the gospel found its most fertile soil. Lydia, eagerly listening to Paul with open heart, is converted and baptized along with her household. For her and her business, this is a risky step, yet she seems to take it joyfully. Not only does she open her heart to the gospel, she opens her home to Paul and to the community. From Lydia’s hospitality comes First Church, Philippi.

Walter Brueggemann wonders how the marks of Lydia’s hospitality might also mark today’s church. She had an “open heart;” she had “freedom,” that is she was “emancipated from the powers of the present age;” and she was “capable of the new obedience of love.” Open hearts, freedom from the powers, hearts that love…does that sound at all like us? Brueggemann also says of Paul in this story that “This ‘chief apostle’ is ‘on the loose,’ unencumbered and ready for what is given by God…” and goes on to say this is “not a bad characterization of the church and its ministry when that ministry is not imprisoned in old thought categories or paralyzed by its traditions (or its property.)” How free are we from old thought categories, traditions, property? The beloved church in Philippi got its start down by the riverside because an itinerant preacher and prominent businesswoman, a pretty unlikely pair, you have to admit, insisted on engaging in committed spiritual practice like prayer, study and worship while finding the way to live with hearts open to the powerful and surprising movement of God’s Sprit in their lives and in the world around them.

Brueggemann says “This pre-institutional church was free for news that challenged all old patterns and that invited new life.” He says “This news is that in Jesus of Nazareth, the world has become open to God’s generosity; Paul’s listeners are invited to generosity based on God’s bottomless mercy” (Walter Brueggemann, Blogging toward Sunday, Theolog: The Blog of The Christian Century, May 13, 2007.) And Lydia responds with genuine hospitality. In today’s lectionary reading from Revelation, this promise of new life so generously offered is described like this: “Then the angel showed me the river of the water of life, bright as crystal, flowing from the throne of God and of the Lamb through the middle of the street of the city. On either side of the river, is the tree of life…and the leaves of the tree are for the healing of the nations” (Revelation 22:1-2.)

Our words of preparation say that “Down by the river of the water of life, all things are possible. It is even possible that we, too, can be changed. We too can lay aside assumptions, preconceptions and prejudices…we, too, can lay aside old understandings of the Bible…we, too, can have the vision to go to people beyond the four walls of our church, beyond the boundaries of our community, beyond state lines, beyond the United States of America, and let God’s ways be known upon earth, God’s saving health among all nations” (Kirk Alan Kubichek, “My Peace I Give to You,” Sermons that Work, May 2004.) New life, open hearts, committed practice, fresh understanding, healing for the nations…is it all overstatement, hyperbole, lovely images, or is it what is really possible for us who gather so faithfully, week after week, down by this riverside, seeking to know and do God’s will? Perhaps we will yet hear God speak, see Christ’s way, feel the Spirit move as we journey together. Amen.