6th Sunday of Easter
Revised Common Lectionary
Homily preached at St. Stephen's Episcopal Church, New Harmony, IN
My daughter
Started a job right out of
college
It has been a two year series
of 6 month rotations
Pretty much all over the
country
It has been intense
And in two months it is
coming to an end
And what she has learned…she
told me last week…
is that she hates working for
a big multinational corporation
And with that comes all the
new anxiety of yet another transition
She is struggling to balance
URGENCY and PATIENCE
That’s what I hear today
In the Reading from
The Acts of the Apostles
I hear about that constant
discipleship paradox
That calls us to both URGENCY
and PATIENCE
Today is day 43
Day 43 of the Easter Season
By now the Easter Alleluias’s
are fading a bit
But Reading from Acts is an
Easter Sign!
the scholars say that
Luke (the gospel of Luke) +
Acts (the Acts of the Apostles)
Are two parts of one Book
And looking at it that way
The unity becomes clear
The Gospel has Jesus moving
from Galilee to Jerusalem
And Acts has Paul moving from
Jerusalem to Rome
There is a great symmetry in
the story
So it is no wonder that the
themes are the same
Written in the 90’s
the second coming has not
materialized
new concerns emerge…
How does the Christian
community manage
for the long haul???
And the themes of Luke+Acts answer
this question
The themes:
The Holy Spirit,
Prayer,
Women
and the Church!
Are answers
To Long Haul needs
And my friends
we have been long-hauling
ever since.
Friday was the feast of St
Catherine of Siena
And I found this quote of
hers:
“Every step of the way to heaven is heaven”
But…she was only 29 when she
died
And this life can be quite a
LONG HAUL!
But…yes…
I would like to make
“Every step of the way to heaven…heaven”
And the themes of Luke+Acts
are there to guide the way
So where are we in our Easter
reading of Acts?
Paul and Barnabas are fresh
from the Council in Jerusalem (ch 15)
It was a huge deal, called to
settle conflicts and preserve unity
The issue was Gentile
Christians and their place vis a vis
Jewish Christianity…
the battle focused on
circumcision
After passionate testimony,
Paul at his preaching best
He wins the day.
The gentile converts were
free from the burden of the law
Peter says:
“GO…Go to the ends of the
earth with the message…go with our blessing”
Can you feel Paul’s mood?
Wow…I’m quite persuasive
I’ve got charisma
I just changed the minds of
the powers that be
The JERUSALEM church!
And then what happens???
They are stumbling
around…aimlessly
Running into roadblocks to
their mission
They are like a fly
that keeps running into the
glass
Over and over
Were they so elated
So pleased with themselves
And their win
That they forgot to take time
To stop and ask for directions?
Did winning…so go to their heads that
Paul and Silas and Timothy forgot
Whose mission this was anyway?
Did they forget about that vital LONG HAUL need…
the promised guidance of the Holy Spirit?
It is easy isn’t it?
To get so caught up with our
own agendas
That we forget that
We are here
I mean literally here in this
Church
because
We believe that
There is actually a goal to
this life
I’m okay calling it heaven
And that
At least potentially
“Every step of the way to heaven can be heaven”
Christina described to Rob
and I how she feels
As being on one of those
bullet trains
With no stops
And now she’s coming to a
stop
It is fast approaching
But stopping is unfamiliar to
her
She hasn’t stopped in 6
years!
She has no idea where to go
or what to do next
Paul forgot to stop
He forgot to stop and listen
To give a chance for the
Guidance from the Holy Spirit
to speak to him
I don’t think Visions
land very easily on moving
targets
But like a tired fly
Paul stopped
And the vision came
Paul saw “a certain
Macedonian Man”
“Come over to us…We need you…come
serve us”
And All of the sudden the
text is full
Of WE and Us
This vision didn’t just
belong to Paul
The text says:
When HE
had seen the Vision
…being convinced that God had called US
to proclaim the Good News to them
WE immediately
tried to cross over to Macedonia
Visions are great
but they tend to be blurry
and
they need interpretation
That’s where a community of
faith, close friends, family…church
Become vital to the
discernment
…the vestry here…
is tasked with that same kind
of mutual discernment
Where is the Holy Spirit
calling the community of St. Stephen’s?
Might it be somewhere off the
radar…like Macedonia was to Paul?
And in our personal lives
Are we ever too old
Too stuck
Too sure
Too smart
To ask for some new
directions?
I don’t think so
Not if the vision is
“Every step of the way to heaven is heaven”
And then there is Lydia
The first thing to note
Is that she is NOT a
Macedonian man
She is a SURPRISE!!!
SURPRISE Paul, and Silas and
Timothy
YOUR Macedonian man
Turned out to be a woman who
was NOT from Macedonia!
Funny thing how we can be
limited by our own predictable expectations
Lydia, a woman of prominence
and position
A business woman…A dealer in
purple cloth
Lydia and her band of
God-fearing women
Respond to the Spirit-led
preaching of Paul with
Great openness
Her response is total
Her response is conversion
and baptism
For her and her household
She insists/urges (its the same Greek word the disciples on the road
used to persuade Jesus to stay and break bread with them)
Lydia insists on putting her
hospitality at the service of the church.
Lydia and women of the Church
in Philippi,
Continue to provide support
to Paul and his missions
He has a great love for the
community at Philippi
The letter to the Philippians
is most tender and joy-filled.
If Paul had a favorite
community, I bet it was Philippi.
So we have Paul and Lydia
Paul reminds us
That there is no shame in not
knowing the directions
He witnesses to needing all
the long-haul help he could get
He reminds us that
The guidance of the Holy
Spirit, which comes to all of us
…in visions of all kinds…doesn’t
fail
He reminds us of the
companionship found in the church
Where we are never alone in
this discipleship thing
And where discernment belongs
to all of us
And then there is Lydia
Who models the openness of
mind
And the generosity of Spirit
That is essential
for the love of Christ
to take root in us
And to overwhelm us
So that
truly
"Every step of the way to heaven…just might be…Heaven"
St. Lydia of Philippi
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