Called Out of Ourselves

Acts 16:9-15

9 During the night Paul had a vision: there stood a man of Macedonia pleading with him and saying, "Come over to Macedonia and help us." 10 When he had seen the vision, we immediately tried to cross over to Macedonia, being convinced that God had called us to proclaim the good news to them. 11 We set sail from Troas and took a straight course to Samothrace, the following day to Neapolis, 12 and from there to Philippi, which is a leading city of the district of Macedonia and a Roman colony. We remained in this city for some days. 13 On the sabbath day we went outside the gate by the river, where we supposed there was a place of prayer; and we sat down and spoke to the women who had gathered there. 14 A certain woman named Lydia, a worshiper of God, was listening to us; she was from the city of Thyatira and a dealer in purple cloth. The Lord opened her heart to listen eagerly to what was said by Paul. 15 When she and her household were baptized, she urged us, saying, "If you have judged me to be faithful to the Lord, come and stay at my home." And she prevailed upon us. - NRSV

Rev Michael Vanacore | Trinity Lutheran Church in Sunset Park | 5/26/19

At the heart of what it means to be a Christian is to respond to the cry of our neighbor when he or she is in need. To allow that cry to summon us out from the comfort and safety of our homes and to journey forth to meet that need. But so often when we get to the place that we thought we had been called, we find ourselves doing something different than what we had originally anticipated and dealing with people we had no plans to encounter. And, it is very often the case that the people that we find ourselves ministering to have more to offer to us than we to them. In this way, the call of the Gospel is a call to hear the cry of our neighbors, to step outside of the confines of ourselves, and in the process to be transformed by our encounter with the other.

The Book of Acts is filled with examples of this kind of story, and perhaps none so vivid as the encounter between Paul and Lydia. That story begins by recounting a vision that the Apostle Paul receives while traveling together with his companion Timothy. In this vision, Paul sees a man from Macedonia who is “pleading with him to go over to Macedonia and help us.” Upon waking, he recounts this vision to his traveling companions, and immediately they set out for Macedonia. They do not seem worried that they are leaving the comfort and safety of the place they are in, or about the dangers that lie ahead; they just go.

Here we see the response of a true Christian. When faced with the cry of help of a neighbor in need, even though that neighbor may be in a far-off place, the first response of the true Christian should always be to go.

I am reminded of the moment in which I received my own call. As many of you know, previous to becoming a minister, I was employed as a Union organizer. After some years in that profession, I had begun to feel that there was some other calling out there for me; some greater vocation that I was supposed to be fulfilling. One day, when I was seated in my living room, thinking hard over this question, the answer came to me: I was supposed to be a pastor.

As clearly as the Apostle Paul saw the Macedonian man asking for help, I saw myself as a minister--presiding over the sacraments, preaching the Good News, and doing all of the pastoral acts that a minister does. And, like the apostle Paul who answered his call to go to Macedonia, I answered my own call to go to seminary.

Interestingly, the author of the book of Acts does not skip over the journey that the Apostles make to get to their destination. We learn that from Troas they set sail to Samothrace, and from there to Neapolis. From Neapolis they proceed to Philippi, a leading city of the district of Macedonia.

When I decided to become a minister, I also had to go on a journey. I could not just walk down the road and into the nearest church and say, “Here I am, let me be your pastor!” I had to go to seminary, which led me on a trip to Ohio, and then ultimately to Union Theological Seminary in the city of New York. And from there I wound my way through many other places, including St. Louis, Missouri and Lima, Peru, before settling into ministry here at Trinity.

I think what the author of Acts is trying to impart is that answering the call of Jesus, in any form, will always require some sort of journey. Some kind of adventure outside of our comfort zones and into the unknown, through places and people and experiences that we had never before encountered. For the Christian journey is one of newness and discovery, of difficulty and even danger. We, as people of faith, have to be willing to face those risks and brave that newness in pursuit of our goal.

And many times, just at the moment when we think we have reached our destination, we often find something completely different than what we had expected. The disciples, after spending a few days in the city of Philippi, go outside the gates of the city and down to a river that was running there. They have heard that there is a gathering place for prayer, and I imagine they must have been thinking, “maybe here we will find the man who called out to us in prayer for help.” But instead of finding that man, or any man at all, or even anyone asking for help, they find a group of women who have gathered for prayer.

Now, it would have been easy for the apostles to see this group and walk on by. It is always easier, if you have set out with a particular job, or task, or mission in mind, to focus on just that to the exclusion of everything else. But when we are engaged in true ministry, we have to be open to possibilities that arise from people and places that we did not expect. Luckily the apostles the apostles possess the wisdom and discernment to sit and talk with this group of prayerful women that they encounter.

One of those women is a certain Lydia, a gentile worshipper of God who is also a merchant who deals in purple cloth. According to the experts, because of these facts, we can assume that she was a wealthy and influential woman in the society of her day. In fact, she was probably of a higher social and cultural stature than Paul and the other disciples, who were mostly fishermen, former slaves, and other working individuals who had been converted to the Gospel. And she was not even a Jew like them. But she was moved to look beyond these boundaries of race, and culture, and class, and to let her heart to be opened by the message they preached. And wher heart had been opened, she and her whole household were baptized. After her baptism, she offers Paul and his disciples to stay with her, and, after much urging, she prevails.

Now that last piece of the story is perhaps the most important. Even as the disciples offer her the spiritual grace of baptism, because of her wealth and stature, she is in a position to offer them something equally sacred--the gift of hospitality.

I am reminded of my own experience here at Trinity, where I have been blessed to share some of the Good News that I myself have discovered in Jesus. But I, like the apostle in his encounter with Lydia, have received far more hospitality from you, the lay members of this congregation, than I could ever hope to give.

The moral of the story here is that when we set forth in our quests to serve one another, and we should do this for it is the very call of the Gospel, we should not do so with the arrogance or hubris, but rather with openness and humility. It is that spirit of humility that will enable us to journey out beyond the confines of ourselves and to offer one another the gifts that we all possess as children of God. And in that encounter--with one another and with Christ--we find ourselves transformed, for together we can do far more for the Kingdom of God than we can ever do alone.