Open for Witness: Acts 16:9-15 - Sixth Sunday after Easter

⁹During the night Paul had a vision: there stood a man of Macedonia pleading with him and saying, “Come over to Macedonia and help us.” ¹⁰When 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.
  ¹¹We set sail from Troas and took a straight course to Samothrace, the following day to Neapolis, ¹²and 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. ¹³On 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. ¹⁴A 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. ¹⁵When 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)

OPEN by Tracy Lee Carroll on Flickr. CC BY-NC-ND 2.0

I was on my way out of what used to be HealthSouth Rehabilitation Hospital. I stopped in the lobby to bundle up before going out into the bitter cold—when I heard a man’s voice from behind me:

“You lie for a living”

I turn around to see an older gentleman seated on a chair. “How many people do you lie to on Sunday morning?”

I pause, speechless—then I ask: “why do you say that? If you want to tell me, I’ll listen.”

So I sit down, and he tells me that he was an infantryman in the United States Army during World War 2. His unit was waiting to ambush hundreds of Nazi soldiers as they crossed a river in boats in which the front end lowers down and the troops run out. He was behind a large-caliber machine gun and commanded to open fire. “I can’t tell you how many people I killed. Dozens. Maybe hundreds. I wake up three, four times a night and I’m still in that war. So, you can’t tell me there’s a God.”

At that point, there was nothing I could say in my defense—or God’s. All I could do was thank him for his service and the sacrifice he was still making for his country, almost 75 years later.

I’m thankful that he was open to me—and that I could be open to him. And I pray that, somehow, he got a glimpse of Christ’s compassion for him in his trauma and agony.

In our first reading for today, we witness the Holy Spirit opening persons to each other.

The apostles Paul, Timothy, and Silas have been led by the Spirit to the city of Philippi, in what is part of modern-day Greece. On the Sabbath day, they go to a place they assume is a place of prayer. There, a group of women are gathered. Among them is a woman named Lydia, whom we are told is “a worshipper of God” and “a dealer in purple cloth.” Lydia listens on, presumably as they pray.

The bible doesn’t give us any details about their conversation. Perhaps Lydia became curious when she heard them praying to the same God she did—given that most of her neighbors were pagan… We can only speculate. But the Spirit makes an opening—an opening to the Gospel; an opening to each other; an opening for Christ to draw near..

Ultimately, Lydia and her entire household are all baptized—and her home becomes the home base of the Church at Philippi. Many more of God’s children will be baptized—because these persons were open to the Spirit and open to each other.

So how open are you to the Holy Spirit—and what the Spirit is up to?  How open are you to the people you’ll encounter along the way?

I ask this because this kind of openness is far and away the exception rather than the norm. You’re a human being. Your time, energy, resources, and attention span can only be open to so much. When the pressure’s on and the anxiety’s high, the Holy Spirit is not going to be at the forefront of your attention. Can you honestly say that you are more open to God’s desires than your own? And how open can you be to the people around you when you have your own affairs to worry about?

Lydia is a dealer in purple cloth. Whether or not this would’ve made her wealthy is up for debate. But the vocation would’ve been demanding, especially since she had a household to run and a family to look after. People in Jesus’ day would’ve been every bit as busy as us; with none of the comforts and conveniences we rely upon. But our hectic lives, limited attention spans, and fleshly appetites are no match for Holy Spirit—to make an opening.

Your challenge is to stop closing off the Spirit and start paying attention to what the Spirit is doing.

I’m going to hold up last Sunday as an example. The attendance figure suggests the day was a disappointment. Yet, the chancel choir gave us its most uplifting anthem in years. Our Sunday School children learned about how we worship and why we do the things we do. They asked great questions. They even called me “Vice Jesus,” since I speak his Word.

Later that day, we had our confirmation class out on the front porch. And we did, passersby stopped and asked us what we were doing. And we told them. So, the Spirit’s working—only question is, are we open—or are we too frantic, anxious, or bitter to notice?

How open are you to other people: that new neighbor you’ve never met; that fellow church-member who hasn’t been around in a while; the waitress who didn’t serve you what you ordered; or even the panhandler begging at the red light? You find yourselves feeling sorry for them; wishing you could do something; but do you? Or do you keep yourselves closed; for fear of the outcome or because you’re not comfortable getting involved? What about people who make you uncomfortable—because of their race, social class, or orientation? Do you close yourself off, in judgment against them?

Christian witness isn’t about opening people to you. It’s you opening yourself to them. Just open your heart; open your hands. Open your ears. Open your mouth. Open your arms. Your openness is the gift. It’s an opening to Jesus. And it’s still a gift, even if that person isn’t open to you.

And I wonder how we can exercise openness like Paul, Silas, Timothy, and Lydia?

Is there any reason why we can’t do what they do—walk out into the open spaces of our community, pray, and see who or what the Spirit opens to us?