God,
we yearn for more of you in our lives.
Speak to us of your love and longing for us to turn more and more
towards you. May my words and our
thoughts be only of you. Amen
My name is Lydia—at least that’s how
you know me. Really, they never recorded
my name. I was the “Lydian woman” from
Lydia in Asia Minor. I, just like some
of you, am a “woman of purple”. I ran a
successful dyeing business and I specialized in all hues of purple. Don’t you just love purple? It’s a color of many variations, each one
more beautiful than the next. Only the
richest of the rich canould afford my purple cloth and trim. It was delicate and handmade. Oh, forgive me. I’m not here to sell you my fabrics; I’m here
to tell you a story.
I’m from Greece; although, at the
time of this story, I was living in Philippi.
I had a nice house and a fine family; although my husband died when my
youngest was just a tiny thing. At
first, I thought it would be too hard to survive; but, I made it work by
building up my business. At the time of
this story, I was really quite successful and well thought of in my
community. I was lucky, I guess. I found something I liked to do and did it as
best as I could. Anyway, I wasn’t
looking for my life to change. I was
perfectly happy with the way things were going.
I had a good relationship with God, or so I thought and I wasn’t seeking
anything special to light up my heart. While
I hadn’t actually converted to Judaism, I certainly thought they were on the
right track and I often listed to their teachers teach. All was well and I was fine. I suppose now I know that I was satisfied
with the status quo—that it had really never occurred to me to wonder if there
was something more to life—I was rich, my children were growing up, and life
was good.
Then, something amazing
happened. I had gone down by the river
to the quiet place where the women gathered to pray and worship. It was a lovely spot, so peaceful and
tranquil—we just loved our times there—such a sisterhood we had together all
worshipping God. On one particularly
lovely night, a man named Paul and his entourage including Silas and that nice
young man, Timothy, came upon all of us who were present singing and
praying. Paul told us the most
incredible story. He told us about
Jesus.
He said that just a few years ago,
there was a man named Jesus who was from Nazareth and who walked from place to
place healing people and teaching them about a new way of living. He explained that this new way of living was
all about love—God’s love for us being shown to the world through this man,
Jesus. At first, I didn’t understand all
that Paul was telling us—seemed too good to be true. But as I listened, I felt my heart growing
more and more open to the truth of what Paul was telling me. Something strange happened to me and I found
myself becoming quiet inside, listening to all that Paul was telling us. How could it be that yielding to God’s
complete love could so thoroughly change who we are and who we want to be?
Paul told us that God loved us so
much that Jesus was sent to teach all the people all about a new covenant. You see, even those of us who had been drawn
to Judaism from another religion believed in Yahweh, a God who had a lot of
rules that we had to follow or risk being punished. Even so, everything about this God made sense
to me. I mean, how could you not believe
in a God who created the color purple?
So, I thought I was very religious; but, I guess I had a lot to
learn. Paul kept talking about how
changed your life would be if you followed the teachings of this Jesus. I wasn’t so sure that I wanted to upset my
spiritual “apple cart”, if you know what I mean. But, as I listened a strange thing began to
happen. My heart seemed to grow lighter. I felt something calling to me saying, “I
love you, I really love you. Let me show
you how different your life could be if you really let me love you.” It took me awhile to understand that this
something was God—the same God who created the earth, the color purple, and
me. I wish I could really explain to you
what this invitation really felt like; so, I’ll try. It seemed to me as if the first message was
that I was ok, truly ok, to be just the way that I am. I didn’t feel like I had to change who I was
though the message pulled so much at my heart, I found myself wanting to let it
in and allow God to change me.
This Jesus, according to Paul spoke
about a new way of being religious—a way that meant that you loved your
neighbor just the way that you loved yourself.
Everybody was welcome, even the sick, and the poor, men AND women, and
children most of all. It seemed as if
the primary message of this man Jesus had to do with justice and equality
inside the new reign of God. We were so
used to fighting battles and winning or, in some cases, losing wars, that this
was amazing news to us. Jesus was a
shepherd of all the people who loved God and loved him. How I wish I could have seen Jesus for
myself. Paul told us, though, that when
we opened our hearts and allowed God to make changes in how we thought and felt
that it would be as if we had seen Jesus with our own eyes. All of this happened so fast as if I was
transformed in a heartbeat. Of course,
now I know that once God starts to work in your heart, unless you stop the
process, God continues to work in your heart throughout your whole life. All
kinds of things happened in the years between then and now. God kept showing me how much I was loved AND
how much I had to learn about truly living in the spirit. But, let me finish my story before I go
there.
Anyway, after we women listened to
Paul and Silas, I made a decision to be baptized. I asked all of my household to be baptized
with me and they were. We were baptized
by Paul into this new life. Afterwards,
I invited all of the people, men and women, who were with Paul or who knew Paul
to meet and to stay at my house. But, I
left the choice up to them. I said, “If
you have judged me to be faithful to Yahweh, enter and stay at my house. In fact, I guess I was a little pushy, I
wanted them to enjoy my home and have a nice place to stay. Later, when Paul was writing letters, he sent
one to the church that had grown up around the people who first believed. He said, “I thank my God always upon every
remembrance of you in every supplication of mine for all of you, as I offer my
supplication with joy, because of the contribution you have made to the good
news from the first day until this moment.”
You know, Rev. Carol asked me to
talk to you about “spiritual transformation”.
I never really thought about how all the changes came about in my life. I just know that once I allowed God to begin
to work in my heart and I began to put some real time into developing my
understanding of who I am and who God is, I began to feel differently about so
many things in my life. Spending time
alone with God, meditating, singing, praying opened up my heart even
wider. I don’t think I really believed
that God truly loved me until that day when Paul was telling us about Jesus and
the change that He wanted to bring into the world. And coming together with all the others who
believed and loved was wonderful indeed.
About the only thing I meditated on
for the first couple of years was learning to truly love my neighbors which
meant, of course, that I had to learn to love myself. Now, that was a lot harder than I thought. I wasn’t like a lot of the women in my
time. I couldn’t really afford to
be. I had to be smarter and think faster
and, yes, be a little ruthless to build my business. In that process, I had forgotten who I was, a
simple woman, a lover of purple, who utilized the gifts that God gave me to
build a pretty successful life. But,
suddenly that wasn’t enough. I wanted
more of the peace that Jesus promised and I wanted to spend more time in quiet,
maybe even silent prayer and praise.
God offers you this opportunity to
learn to trust God and grow in your knowledge and love of God as I was
offered. Spiritual transformation is no
more than that—spending time in God’s presence, soaking up the love, offering
yourself to God, and entering the process.
I have to go, now, but don’t forget to look for the color purple on your
way home. A God who created the color
purple is a good God indeed. Amen and
amen.
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