Come and Stay at My House

Acts 16: 9-15, page 784
During the night Paul had a vision of a man of Macedonia standing and begging him, “Come over to Macedonia and help us.”
After Paul had seen the vision, we got ready at once to leave for Macedonia, concluding that God had called us to preach the gospel to them.
From Troas we put out to sea and sailed straight for Samothrace, and the next day on to Neapolis. From there we traveled to Philippi, a Roman colony and the leading city of that district of Macedonia. And we stayed there several days.
On the Sabbath we went outside the city gate to the river, where we expected to find a place of prayer. We sat down and began to speak to the women who had gathered there. One of those listening was a woman named Lydia, a dealer in purple cloth from the city of Thyatira, who was a worshiper of God.
The Lord opened up her heart to respond to Paul’s message. When she and the members of her household were baptized, she invited us to her home.
“If you consider me a believer in the Lord,” she said, “come and stay at my house.” And she persuaded us.
Sermon
I wasn’t sure that this was the right passage for mother’s day until I got to the last four words and I realized it was the perfect passage for mother’s day.
“And she persuaded us,” ends our passage, leading us to believe that Paul and the others needed to be persuaded.
As though he was 17 years old and his mother asked, “Have you applied to college yet?”
“No Mom, but I will soon.”
The next day comes the same question, “have you applied to college yet, because it’s about time for you to.”
“I know Mom, I will soon.”
“I know you’re 17 son but I brought you in this world and if you don’t apply for college today with this wooden spoon I will take you out.” And she persuaded us.
It works for grandmothers too – “Honey, are you hungry.”
“No ma’am, I’m fine.”
“Are you sure?”
“Yes ma’am, I just ate 20 minutes ago.”
“We’ll I’m just going to put out a little pimento cheese, doesn’t that sound good…. And she persuaded us.”
In our passage for today Paul is reluctant to stay at Lydia’s house – but she didn’t have to persuade him because he was trying to avoid applying for college or because he had already eaten and already had a place to stay. If we really think about it, the reason for his reluctance is obvious – he was concerned about what people would say.
It was only a few decades ago that it became acceptable for single women to go out by themselves, and certainly no single woman would ride in a car with another man because the whole town would be talking. Still today, who you are with from the opposite sex, who you sit with at lunch, who you ride home with from school, all have significant social ramifications – because people love to talk.
Surely in the ancient world the stakes were higher and the Apostle Paul was not about to take lightly this offer from Lydia, as his response would have dramatic ramifications for how he and his message would be received.
He couldn’t just go spending the night in anyone’s house – especially at the invitation of a woman – people would talk. But more than that, he couldn’t just go spending the night at this woman’s house –as about her we can safely assume that people were already talking.
Lydia’s husband isn’t mentioned in this passage; we may assume that she is divorced or widowed but has refused to re-marry, not something socially acceptable at the time; or that she never married which would have been even less socially acceptable as only “that” kind of girl never married. As though things couldn’t get any more scandalous, she also wasn’t poor, living on the street, but by her household showed the whole town that no woman need depend on a husband for survival. More than that, we may even assume that she was rich running this purple cloth business – purple being the color of royalty, the color of Cleopatra, the color of the rich and famous.
She was not the kind of person accepted at the time, and she was surely not the kind of person who Paul ever associated with.
We may even go so far to assume that she is worshiping God by the river at this place of prayer because the Synagogue in this city refused to let her join.
“What would they say,” Paul must have been asking himself.
“Will this be the end of the Gospel? Will this be the end of my reputation?”
And she persuaded us.
Accepting this kind of gift changes you – and when Paul accepted this gift it most certainly changed him and shaped the gospel forever. Lydia was the first convert of Europe – and we all know today that Europe became Christianity’s center after the fall of the Roman Empire – that Lydia was the beginning of a movement of mass conversions, timeless theologies, and breath-taking cathedrals.
So often it is that the greatest of gifts, the gifts that really matter, that really count, that really make a difference, are accepted with such reluctance.
Our friend Steve Ramey told us a story last Thursday as we were wrapping up our Men’s Bible Study on this passage. He said that he grew up in the kind of place where nobody had much but some had less than others. He lived there with his maternal grandmother, and across the street in a home smaller than his own lived his maternal great-grandmother.
On the day Steve left home for Vietnam he left the house with his grandmother and his great-grandmother came out to say good-bye.
She held out a closed hand and said, “Take this, because I’m afraid I’m never going to see you again.”
“Now don’t you worry about me great-grandma. I’ll outrun those bullets and you’ll see me when I come home safe and sound,” Steve said.
“No honey. You take this because I’m never going to see you again.”
Steve held out his hand to accept a five dollar bill. Money that he knew his great-grandmother needed as she lived on $67 a month.
“Now don’t you worry about me great-grandma. They’re going to feed me and give me clothes. You don’t need to worry about me,” Steve said.
“No honey. You take this because I’m never going to see you again.”
She died three months before Steve returned home from Vietnam, and while it’s been a few years since then, Steve is still not the kind of man that I would cross, but as he told this story his eyes welled up with tears, because sometimes the greatest gifts, the kind that last and make a difference, are those given in love that for whatever reason, we accept reluctantly.
Paul was worried about what accepting Lydia’s gift would mean, but she would not be taking no for an answer, “And she persuaded us.”
Years later when Paul wrote to the thriving church that rose up from the foundation of baptisms that day at the river he wrote: “I thank my God every time I remember you. In all my prayers for all of you, I always pray with joy because of your partnership in the gospel from the first day until now, being confident with this, that the one who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus. It is right for me to feel this way about all of you, since I have you in my heart; for whether I am in chains or defending and confirming the gospel, all of you share in God’s grace with me. God can testify how I long for all of you with the affection of Christ Jesus.”
In no other place does Paul write with such love, as though his eyes were welling up with tears from the memory of Lydia’s gift.
A gift given, and accepted reluctantly, like so many gifts that we remember on this Mother’s Day.
Gifts of forgiveness so profound that they can only be described as modeling the grace of Christ.
Gifts of love so pure and true that they warm our souls on cold nights of loneliness, despair, and disappointment.
Gifts of acceptance that convince us of our worth, and are the fuel that takes us out into the world to face each day’s challenge.
Gifts given, and accepted reluctantly – like Christ’s forgiveness offered though we could never deserve it, his love poured out as his own blood was poured out for you, his acceptance given to you in your baptism with water and the words, “You are mine, whom I love, and with you I am well pleased.”
Accept these gifts. Be persuaded to accept these gifts.
Amen.