Faces of Our Faith: Lydia

Acts 16:11-15,40

©Rev. Sarah Cooper Searight

Swarthmore Presbyterian Church

August 26, 2018

in Jerusalem: spreading the Good News of the Gospel, strengthening the church, leaving no stone

unturned and no authority figured un-agitated (that last one, perhaps just an unintended

consequence of the job…or maybe not).

They picked up folks along the way. The latest was Timothy, son of a Jewish mother and

Greek father, whom Paul encouraged to join them and about whom <TEASER> we’ll hear more next

week.

Today we catch Paul and the gang as they cruise through Macedonia, following on a vision he

had of a man who asked for them to come and help. They couldn’t follow on their intended course

There is much that we could say about Lydia, in fact there is much that has been said.

was baptized as she was baptized. Some understand this to mean that she had unusual autonomy and

power for a woman at the time.

Many assume her to have become the leader of the church in Philippi—highly unusual for sure.

believe that women should not have leadership roles in the church, is the very same one who

baptized a woman and received her hospitality and wrote that he was encouraged by the deep

faithfulness of the community in Philippi as it grew with her leadership.

When I was a kid, I dreaded the annual hearing tests at school.

I can remember now, sitting down at a small desk in a small room with this black box and a

set of earphones and (usually) a woman who would say, “It’s easy honey, just listen for the beeps

All would start out well. Right side—beep. Left side—beep. Right side, right side, left side—

beep. But then I would notice that she wrote something down. Silence. Left side—beep. Silence.

Write on the paper. Silence. Write on paper. Right side—beep.

It turned out, after some investigation, that my hearing was mildly worse than it should be.

Emphasis on the mildly, but enough that I’ve naturally adapted to pay closer attention in

conversation.

Of course, hearing is different than listening, even when one person has to work a bit harder

some capacity for empathy and vulnerability.

These are all very difficult when it feels like there is no attention to spare, no extra time to

give, and it is harder and harder to understand where another person is coming from—particularly

Yet, I wonder if one of the reasons we get the story of Lydia is because it has always been a

particular gift of time and effort to truly listen. I suspect that there has always been a ready excuse

for why it is easier to choose not to listen.

The slave-owners’ bottom line was threatened. They didn’t hear a word else-wise.

The magistrates’ authority was on the line. They only heard the crowd chanting.

What Paul and Silas were saying were things not becoming of good, law-abiding, Roman citizens.

Yet, the Spirit moved in the heart of Lydia as she heard the words at the riverside that one

out to the wilderness from Jerusalem. The resurrected Jesus stood there with bread and fish and

invited his disciples to join him one last time before sending them out on the mission that Paul and

Silas and Timothy and now Lydia were taking up as their own.

Lydia and her whole household were baptized, and she invited everyone over to celebrate.

Lydia listened, and the church of Philippi began that very day.

Truth is though, riverside or mountaintop or coffee shop or street side, when we set ourselves

to the task of Spirit-led listening, it’s pretty hard not to expect something will change.

In 1965, Xernona Clayton moved from Muskogee, Oklahoma to Atlanta, GA to work for the

Southern Christian Leadership Conference. Her work of desegregating hospitals in the city was so

The first time she met with all of the chair people, one man just gave her the tips of his

fingers in a handshake, and she knew that was Mr. Craig. Over the course of that next year, however,

Xernona and Calvin talked almost every day. Mr. Craig kept returning to her office in Atlanta, and

they would sit and talk and laugh together, always respectfully, and speaking of many different

things.

In 1968, three years later, after meeting Ms. Clayton, Mr. Craig held a press conference to

announce that he was leaving the KKK and dedicating his life going forward to, in his words,

America.’”

It takes time to change a person’s heart. Dr. King and Ms. Clayton knew that the Spirit was

give. This is not a story of the civil rights era that we hear very regularly, but I’d guess (I’d hope) it’s

one that repeated itself in many different offices and street corners and church basements over

many years. This is the hope we have, maybe it is the one of the key hopes we have that we and our

institutions and our communities can change.

It seems that again and again the most unexpected people at the most unexpected times and

places, turn out to be those who the Spirit uses in her work of change. This is a fundamentally

hopeful thing for us, for it means that we can be our better selves. This is a necessary hope, for it

Listening is an act of faith. It is an act of solidarity. It is attentiveness. It is action. Do not be

fooled to think otherwise. For we cannot know who another person is and where they come from and

what it is that we can do together, if we do not allow the Spirit to open our hearts and truly listen.

There is much that people could say about us as Christ’s followers, those of us who continue

the long and faithful work of the likes of Lydia; and I pray that of all that people could say, what

they do say is that we as the church are willing to listen, to truly listen and to be open for change.

May it be so.