COME AND STAY WITH ME

A Sermon by Bill McDonald from Acts 16:6-15

May 13, 2007

Acts 16

⁶They went through the region of Phrygia and Galatia, having been forbidden by the Holy Spirit to speak the word in Asia. ⁷When they had come opposite Mysia, they attempted to go into Bithynia, but the Spirit of Jesus did not allow them; ⁸so, passing by Mysia, they went down to Troas. 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.

It’s important to remember where we are. The minister who baptized me, Bro. Tom Slaughter, was notorious for being absent-minded or as we might describe it these days, attention deficient. One day after conducting a funeral at our little church, Bro. Slaughter fell in line in the procession behind the funeral director’s car and the hearse on the way to the burial service at the cemetery--with no police escort. They had only gone a few blocks when the distractible Bro. Slaughter began to wonder why these cars in front of him were going so slowly. So he pulled into the left lane to pass them! Luckily a stoplight caught both him and the funeral procession at that moment and, as he casually looked to his right, he found the funeral director wildly waving at him to get back in line! It is important to remember where you are.

This little piece of scripture text from Acts seems to be more travelogue than holy inspiration. Paul of Tarsus, the best known of the evangelists who were spreading the gospel in the early years after Jesus’ death, seemed to be having some difficulty getting a willing audience in Asia Minor, what we know today as the nation called Turkey. Then a vision told him to cross over to Macedonia, or what we know as Greece. So he was the first to bring the gospel to Greece, beginning in a city called Philippi. Is that all this tidbit of scripture tells us—where Paul went?

Don’t get me wrong; where we have been is important to us. Just listen to someone describing their life by listing the places they have lived. “Born in Monkey’s Eyebrow, KY; raised in Santa Claus, IN; lived in Pottawatomy, NY; and finally Lexington.” It is a sure conversation starter at any dinner party because it matters to us where we have been. But you would probably agree with me that it is what happened to us while we were there that makes where we have been significant. So what happened in Philippi?

Paul and his traveling companions, Silas and probably Luke, finding themselves in a Roman colony on a Sabbath, start looking for a synagogue at which to worship. Since foreign religions could not hold worship services inside the city limits in Roman colonies, Paul went outside the gate down to the river where they had heard there was a place of prayer, which is a synonym for a synagogue. There they met Lydia, a businesswoman, a dealer in purple cloth, the head of her household, a Gentile but one who worshipped the one God. She heard their message about Christ, was convinced and immediately was baptized, which meant that her whole household had to be baptized as well since the head of the house got to select the religion of the house. And she said to Paul and his companions, “If you have judged me to be faithful to the Lord, come and stay at my home.”

Did you catch the shocking parts of that seemingly innocuous little story? This is the first century A.D. but a woman was the leader of a business and the head of a household! Even more shocking given the culture, these visiting Jewish Christians were willing to break old prohibitions and to speak with a woman in public and to accept her hospitality. This confirmed the radical nature of this new faith called Christianity—that all are equal in the sight of God. As Paul would later say, in Christ “there is no longer Jew or Greek, there is no longer slave or free, there is no longer male or female.” (Galatians 3:28) Some of us Christians in 2007 act as if we haven’t yet gotten that word from Paul. Over 20 years ago Vice Presidential candidate Geraldine Ferraro thanked her running mate Walter Mondale for “taking down the ‘Men Only’ sign from the White House.” That didn’t work out too well for Geraldine. And so far that sign seems firmly in place. Hilary may or may not be your candidate, but the problem is not the candidate, it’s that we have a barrier. Our biggest pulpits seem to bear the same sign and have the same barrier. When will we finally catch up attitudinally with Lydia and Paul who lived 1,900 years ago?

The most important thing about this stop on Paul’s travels was that a church was organized, no doubt in the house of Lydia, a church that would become one of Paul’s strongest, the Christian church at Philippi, where he would visit three times, to whom he would write a letter which we now use as a book of the Bible, a church that would support him financially and collegially as he traveled on behalf of the gospel. In Paul’s letter, Philippians 4:15, he writes, “You Philippians indeed know that in the early days of the gospel, when I left Macedonia, no church shared with me in the matter of giving and receiving except you alone.” Without their support, would Paul have been able to establish churches all over the Mediterranean area? Would he have ever written letters than now comprise most of our New Testament? What a blessing Lydia’s offer of hospitality was to the entire history of Christianity. “If you have judged me to be faithful to the Lord, come and stay at my home.”

What would it mean for us to say the same thing to Christ as Lydia did to Paul? Come and stay with me. It would mean that we would open up our homes, our businesses, our hearts, our schedules, our priorities, everything we own, everything we are. Come and stay with me. Jim, a congenial man with sparkling eyes and a constant infectious smile, was a very successful businessman and government official who traveled often to foreign countries to help develop infrastructure. He had a comfortable pension coming and a large retirement fund built up. I don’t think I have ever met anyone who looked forward to retirement more than Jim did. In addition to travel and golf he was going to get to spend quality time for the first time with his daughters, especially with Becky and her new-born son. But it was soon discovered that Becky’s son had a terminal illness. Unable to handle the stress, Becky’s husband abandoned the family. It was obvious that Becky would lose her job and her home. What would happen to her and her sick baby? Without a beat of hesitation Jim said, “Well, you two will simply come and stay here.” That invitation meant that Jim had to forego retirement and go back to full time work to provide for his family. His comfortable home had to be converted into a small hospital. Jim’s wife Jean and his daughter Becky traded 12 hour shifts in nursing the boy. Over the next five years Jim spent every cent he could earn and every nickel he had saved to care for his daughter and his grandson. When the diseased little boy died, I never saw the first sign of relief in Jim. I think he would have preferred going on that way forever, working until he was gone himself, just to meet their needs. Throughout his ordeal and the financial devastation that followed, Jim’s smile never dimmed. The spark never left his eye. He never regretted his offer. I haven’t met many people like Jim in my lifetime. But whenever I think about how much of ourselves we are supposed to offer to Christ, I think about Jim—and how much of himself he gave. Come and stay with me.

If we can be judged to be faithful, perhaps Christ will come and stay with us. If our church can be judged as faithful, perhaps Christ will come and stay with us by the presence of the Holy Spirit. The Grecian city of Philippi lays in ruins today. The gateway arch that Paul walked through marking the edge of the city is still there, but little else stands. Stones and rubble from the forum lay about. The remains of two huge basilicas can be seen, but only faintly. Tour guides can show you where the city used to be. But Philippi’s importance to Crestwood Christian Church and to all Christians around the world cannot be overstated. I guess my question is: can we be the next Philippi? Can Christ’s spirit come alive in Lexington so strongly that we make a difference to some searching Lydia 2,000 years from now? Where are we? Are we ready to make a sincere offer to Christ: come and stay with me?