“House Guests”
A sermon by Sid Burgess for Edgewood PC, Birmingham, AL
6th Sunday of Easter, May 9, 2010
Text: Acts 16:9-15
Among the rites and rituals of childhood is the “sleepover.” Sometime around first or second grade, little Johnny or little Mary ventures from home for the first time into the strange, unfamiliar surroundings of a different family, a different home—a place where people do things differently. I remember my first time to spend the night with my friend Chuck Grinstead. Inside his family’s garage was a big black Buick--first time I’d ever seen a luxury car up close. (You must remember this was back in the middle of the last century!) And on the back porch were wooden cases of Coca-Cola and Dr. Pepper, as if a person—even a child--could have one just any old time. On Saturday mornings at the home of my friend Gil Maddox dishes went unwashed and beds unmade while Gil’s mother read the newspaper and his dad sat idly in front of the TV watching cartoons with Gil’s younger sister. Nothing in my experience had prepared me to see adults at leisure.
What a shame that we outgrow sleepovers! It would do us all good to leave our entrenched comfort zones and experience the routines of another household. Other than family, it is rare for most of us to host a house-guest, or to be a house-guest. Even family members these days often prefer making other arrangements. Affluent parents might buy an RV to use when visiting their own children and grandchildren. Less affluent folks might stay down the road at a motel—regardless of available beds at their son or daughter’s home.
By stark contrast, in our first scripture lesson today St. Paul and his colleagues become house-guests of a woman named Lydia. Now Lydia is a complete stranger to Paul, but not to us. We know this woman! We have a stained-glass window here on the north aisle honoring the women of our Church. The woman depicted here is Lydia, with a sample of the luxurious purple cloth she sold. We also know Lydia because we have Lydia Lindsey—I love that alliteration—Lydia Lindsey—in our youth group.
The original Lydia has quite a distinction. She has the honor of being the first Christian convert in Europe. She and her household—presumably children and servants— are the first Europeans to be baptized. This woman, having just met them, invites Paul and his buddies to become her house-guests. Even when these traveling missionaries get in trouble with the local authorities, Lydia invites them back into her home, which may have become the first “house church” on the Continent. Quite a distinction for anyone, but for a woman in the male-dominated culture of antiquity, Lydia’s stature is virtually unprecedented.
One does wonder what the exclusively-male hierarchy of the Roman Church today— the Pope and the Curia—would do with an invitation to be Lydia’s house guests. One wonders what those male priests in the Church of England, resisting the prospect of serving under a woman bishop, would do with a woman as strong and resourceful as Lydia.
But let’s get back to the story. Having Paul and his colleagues as house-guests was surely a strange experience for all concerned. Here is Paul, a strictly observant Jew, with all sorts of dietary restrictions, sitting down to eat dinner with a Gentile. Why, the hostess might have served “green eggs and ham” on the first night! And here is Lydia, with strange men hanging around the house, dressed differently, strange accents, maybe wearing their hair differently, spouting on about a strange new religion, certainly causing the neighbors to raise all sorts of questions.
The Bible gives us this and other remarkable stories in the Acts of the Apostles to warn us that following the crucified but risen Christ is anything but “business as usual.” Chicago pastor, Richard Landers, writes, “The book of Acts follows the outgrowth of ministry in the early church as a fruit of the resurrection.”
Think back to our own Easter Sunday celebration. Think back to the soaring music, the beautiful flowers, the packed congregation, the awesome story of the one who was dead but now lives. After the intense experience of Easter the apostles push ahead to the work that God lays before them. So, too, must we!
“The story of the church takes these first missionaries outside the circle of the known and the comfortable.” Now what would that look like and feel like for us, for Edgewood Church?
Well, I don’t know, but I suspect it would feel something like that first time you ventured away from home on your own—your first sleep-over, perhaps. Your first day at school, perhaps, or your first day on a new job, maybe even your first Sunday here in this congregation.
It will be a challenge for the Church to leave the safe confines of the familiar to follow the apostles, the leaders of the early church in spreading the Good News of the Gospel. But we all have experience—somewhere along the way we have done a new thing. Maybe decades ago for some of us, maybe just last week for others. But not to worry, we have each other as support. We are not alone in this enterprise of faith.
For example, we have the children on the chancel steps, bravely embracing newness each and every day. As the prophet Isaiah foretells, “And a little child shall lead them”(Isa. 11.6,8-9). Perhaps the little one to be baptized today—Evrett Porter Ruggerio. Who knows what plans God has for this precious child? Who know where this child may someday lead this congregation?
Or, perhaps we will be led by an older child—perhaps a grown-up child of the church, like Katie Turpen. Katie is taking a year off after college to do mission work in storm-battered, poverty-stricken New Orleans. Perhaps this older child shall lead us by example into ministries that might be to us what far-off Macedonia was to St. Paul. And if not Katie, perhaps it will be Session member Kevin Henderson.
Kevin has been concerned for some time that our slogan, “Open-minded, Open-hearted,” effective as it has been for us, just does not give full expression to the love and acceptance this congregation offers—offers especially to people who have been shunned by the Church, excluded, or otherwise made to feel unwelcome in the Body of Christ. Kevin’s particular concern is young Christians who are gay or lesbian. A couple of months ago we got an inquiry from a group called the Gay Christian Network. This group wants to host an event in Birmingham that will bring together gay Christians and welcoming, affirming congregations. Kevin did “due diligence” on this national organization and found they want a Birmingham event because they have gotten so many inquiries from our area.
Listen to this testimony, given by Kevin to Session:
(Those who are connecting to the Gay Christian Network) appear to be people who have been in church all or most of their lives. Having lived this, I think I have a point of reference for their stories. They are young; they are scared; their world is turned upside down by feelings they may not understand and cannot control; many have been rejected by their families or fear they will be. Many have probably been or at least perceive that they have been rejected by their churches. Some have probably contemplated suicide. They don’t care about ordination standards or the blessing of gay marriages or same sex unions. They have a far deeper and more important question, “Can God possibly love me?” The road is paved with these people who quickly figure out that they can be loved by the world, the world of clubs, sex, alcohol and drugs. If they can’t have God, they can at least have the moment. My heart aches for these people, and breaks for the ones we lose.
Encouraged by Kevin, our Session has agreed to co-host this welcoming church event in Birmingham this summer. Like St. Paul, we’re going into this new territory with colleagues in ministry—sister churches like Southside Baptist, First Presbyterian, Baptist Church of the Covenant, Woodlawn United Methodist, and Beloved Community Church in Avondale. The one-day event will likely be held at Pilgrim Congregational Church’s new facility in the Lakeview district of Southside.
For some of us, this initiative may be a bit like St. Paul and New Testament Christians reaching out to Gentiles like Lydia, accepting their hospitality, sitting down and eating with them, and coming to understand that beyond labels of race, creed, color, nationality, and sexual orientation, we are all beloved children of God.
I remember a story told by the mother of my childhood friend Donnie. She sent Donnie off to spend the night at another friend’s home with clear instructions to mind his manners. When Donnie returned the next day she grilled him on his performance. ‘Did you remember to put your napkin in your lap?’ ‘Well, Momma, they didn’t have any napkins; they just had these little cloths.”
Were my Mother among us today, and able to express herself, she would likely be concerned about what the neighbors might think about us co-hosting an event for the Gay Christian Network. She apparently felt that our family’s hold on middle class respectability was so tenuous that just about any break with convention would send us spiraling down the road to ruin. Considering the hardships of her childhood during the Great Depression, this is perfectly understandable. But with all due respect to my dear Mother, she is not the role model we are given today. That distinction belongs to Lydia. In today’s excerpt from the Acts of the Apostles God opens her heart and, immediately, Lydia opens her home. May God open all of our hearts, so that we may, in turn, open our home—our church home—to whomever God may send our way.
To Jesus Christ, who loves us and freed us from our sins by his
blood
and made us to be a kingdom, priests of his God and Father,
to him be glory and dominion forever and ever. Rev. 1: 5,6