We Should Get Together: From Friendship to Community With Lydia

Lydia Acts: 16: 11-15

We set sail from Troas and took a straight course to Samothrace, the following day to Neapolis, 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. 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. 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. 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.

In Acts, chapter 16, Paul meets Lydia. But the story clearly starts with Paul looking for a man. Paul is going to Macedonia because he has a vision of a man, but he gets lucky and finds Lydia instead. Paul was looking for a man who might help him build a community around the teachings of Jesus and he found Lydia. She was among women, gathered by the river in worship, community, and prayer. Perhaps they had gotten tired of the temple’s boys club, or maybe they liked the sound of the water, the shade of the trees, and the sound of the breeze running across the leaves and grasses. Lydia has a community and I imagine she has done the work with these women to build strong bonds and weave a powerful web of love, mutuality and support. 

Lydia is a dealer of purple cloth, and before we start imagining that she has a cute craft store; being a dealer of purple cloth meant she was a businesswoman working with the wealthy in this Roman colony. We might translate it better as a Jaguar or Lexus dealer. She has capacity and gifts, and has managed a business, which is still a bit of an outlier in our context some 2000 years later. Not only is she presumably remarkable in her professional context, she is a worshiper of God. 

Worshiper of God means something to the people that first read the book of Acts. She is probably not ethnically Jewish, but she is in awe of the Divine and open to the wisdom she experiences in the Biblical Narrative. She leans into the God of the Hebrew Bible, finding life in the stories of Moses and Miriam, Ruth and David, learning from the prophets and singing the Psalms. 

So when Paul lucks out and finds a woman rather than a man from Macedonia. He starts a new church community and he doesn't do it by preaching on the street corners. He does it by being curious and by finding a person who is interested and curious too. It is like she was waiting for Paul and the message of Jesus, his way of being in the world that included and called on her to be a part, to answer the call of faith with her own life. Paul doesn’t say this often but Lydia “prevails upon him” to stay, perhaps he figures out how she has a business. She is determined and it’s apparently not easy to tell her no. Her household is probably the first house church, and might I add, she didn’t need a bunch of letters like the folks in Corinth, who can’t remember to wait until everyone sits down to eat at the communion table. 

Paul was looking for a man and he found Lydia, the first Christian in Europe and that’s how faith matters and how faith should grow, rather than Roman might and force converting Europeans at the point of a sword. We lost that beautiful piece of relationships and surprise and even the awkward reality that Lydia wasn't who Paul set out to find and he is not embarrassed in the least that his vision didn’t come true. Lydia makes a community, with her whole heart. That’s a part of our story and our practice even if the modern church has forgotten some of that in favor of matching t-shirts and matching beliefs. Our tradition is organic and woven with different people, ideas, voices and somehow they all come together. Lydia’s house becomes the church.

Kat Vellos shares the story of her friend Jeannie. Jeannie doesn't live alone, she lives in community and there are structures and intentions. Housemates that have been a village of support and care for her and her daughter as she was growing up. She works hard to make her community one that supports each person's well being, they share meals, have roommate agreements and “instigate each other's creativity.” And this free flowing joy, comes out of hard work on self and community. They make decisions and have to let go of ego and really be honest even when it's hard. In a country when more and more people are living alone, Jeannie’s model really pushes against the grain. But she is sure relationships can form and have meaning even if you don’t live in a communal house. 

“You have to ask yourself, ‘What is my life for? Is my life about consuming resources and having whatever I want, or is my life a gift to the world?” She encourages people to say to themselves: I was born as a gift to the planet. How am I sharing that gift?” To those who don’t know what their gifts are or how to share them, she quotes Howard Thurman: “Don’t ask what the world needs. Ask what makes you come alive, and go do it. Because what the world needs is people who have come alive.”...Ask what brings you into your creative place. And get comfortable with yourself. It’s taken me a long time and I’m in a pretty good place 95 percent of the time. You weave together a basket of community. It takes time to find your people, to experiment, and get to know yourself. All these different people are opportunities-it gives you a sounding board for discovering your truth. A lot of times you find your truth by finding what’s your not-truth. If you look at life as a school, it's a lot easier. Every relationship and every community is that - all these possibilities for learning.”  (Vellos p. 232)

This story is only possible because Jeannie practiced, she goes on to talk about hard learnings from the community…it’s not all group hugs and campfires. She has been hurt and learned about hurting others and all of this meant figuring herself out. That’s probably the hardest part, we don’t always learn about ourselves and our gifts, the boundaries we want and need or the preferences we have until we realize we aren't there or we hurt someone or they hurt us. That’s where you have to dig in and that’s probably where a lot of us just put up some walls. 

But if we can get brave and clear about ourselves, we can get connected in a way that empowers us and the whole community. The thing is we will probably have to get awkward and real and feel a little vulnerable at first. Getting to know people can be awkward and hard. It requires us to get interested in someone else and if we are honest we probably love folks being curious about us more that we get curious with others. It might require a practice of how we get close and relax about perfection and allow awkward spots to be a little funny and even charming.

So maybe we can start with asking questions and not just what do you do but really good questions. Open questions that don’t need a yes or no and follow up questions that keep bringing depth. Imagine you are working for Humans of New York on finding the fascinating, passionate parts of everyday folks. 

When my daughter, Lila started school I read about asking kids good questions rather than eliciting a “Fine” after asking, “How was school?” 

• Did anyone make you laugh today? 

• Who did you sit by at lunch? 

• What was the hardest thing you did today or what was your favorite subject today? 

• https://www.understood.org/en/articles/open-ended-questions-to-ask-child-about-school

Kat Vellos has pages and pages of good questions in her book that are 100 times more fun than, how are you or what do you do or where are you from. (Vellos pgs. 263-284)

• What’s a memory you really love?

• Has a book ever changed your life? What and why?

• What was your first job?

• What’s a music memory you have?

• What are your favorite comfort foods?

• Have you ever been naked in public?

• If you could wake up tomorrow with two new talents or abilities what would they be?

• Is there anything that you’ve done that you wish more people knew about?

• How do you want to be remembered when your life is over?

• Do you practice self-care? What are some examples of self-care that really nourish you?

• What were you like as a 16 year old kid?

• What's a lesson that life keeps trying to teach you?

• Do you say hello and look people in the eye when you pass them on the street? Why or why not?

• What are three things you wish the people in your city would all start doing?

Let’s get curious and interested in others. Let’s get to know ourselves and have courage to be present as our whole selves. Let's gather people around and get to know what is at the heart of our community. And Maybe we will find someone we were not even looking for but wouldn't be the same without, just like Paul and Lydia. 

May it be so. Amen.