“Interview with Lydia”

A sermon by Sid Burgess for Edgewood PC, with Patricia Burch as Lydia
6th Sunday of Easter, May 13, 2007

Text: Acts 16:9-15

---

Introduction

Here on the north wall of the sanctuary is a window dedicated to the women of Edgewood Church. This congregation has long stood steadfast in upholding the Presbyterian principle that God calls both women and men to leadership of the Church. The woman featured in this window was, herself, a leader of the Church at Philippi, in Macedonia on the Greek peninsula. We read about her earlier, in our excerpt from the Acts of the Apostles. Her name is Lydia, a dealer in purple cloth . . . . .

Lydia (Patricia Burch) clears her throat to call attention to herself at the lectern. Sid does double-take.

Sid: Lydia? Is that you? How did you get from here to there? How did you get out of that window and up here on the chancel!

Lydia: (Smugly.) I still have resources. I still have friends in high places.

Sid: But why? Why did you come?

Lydia: Well, quite frankly, it gets boring sitting up there all day and I needed a break. Besides, there I’m facing away from the congregation. I get a crick in my neck every Sunday trying to turn around and see all these lovely people. So, I thought I’d take this spot, front and center — get good long look.

Sid: Well, we’re glad to have you, I’m sure. But, you know, these things usually go through a committee. We, uh, have to have approval. The worship committee. The Session. Presbyterians do things “decently and in order.”

Lydia: Oh, spare me, Brother Sid, if we’d been following all the rules back in my day, back in Philippi, I’d still be there — and I doubt you’d have the Gospel here.

Sid: Is that true? I thought St. Paul was big into setting up rules. After all, it’s his rules — his teaching about women, for example, that had the church tied up for centuries.

Didn’t he say they were to keep silent in church,

11 Let a woman learn in silence with full submission. 12I permit no woman to teach or to have authority over a man; she is to keep silent.

1st Timothy 2:11-12, you can look it up! Plus, there is this in 1st Corinthians 14:

34 women should be silent in the churches. For they are not permitted to speak, but should be subordinate, as the law also says.

Plus, doesn’t Paul say wives are to be submissive to their husbands?(See Eph. 5:22. Col. 3:18, Titus 2:5, 1 Peter 3:1)

Lydia: Yes, I’ve read all of the above. Heard men — and not a few women-- “pounce” on those verses for centuries. But some other key verses seem to get lost in the shuffle, like this from Galatians 3:

28 There is no longer Jew or Greek, there is no longer slave or free, there is no longer male and female; for all of you are one in Christ Jesus.

What’s more, the constraints put on women by these rules don’t square with what was common practice in the New Testament church. Truth be told, the early church was often in trouble with the locals for the freedom it gave to women.

Sid: Well, I guess you should know. You were there. Tell us about it.

Lydia: Yes, I was there at the very beginning in Philippi, and I can tell you St. Paul had no reticence about working with women there. You see, there was no synagogue in town. Jewish rules said you had to have a least 10 men to organize one, so I guess there weren’t 10 Jewish men available. But there were a bunch of us women. They called us “God fearers,” that is people who worshipped the God of Israel, but had not yet converted to Judaism.

Sid: So, how did Paul find you?

Lydia: When there was no synagogue, Jewish custom called for a “place of prayer” to be established outdoors, usually beside a moving body of water, such as a river. That’s where we were on the Sabbath, and that’s where Paul found us. He might have been looking for men, but what he found was a group of women.

Sid: What did he do?

Lydia: Paul did what Paul always did: he started preaching. Preaching Christ and him crucified and risen.

Sid: And what did you and the other women do?

Lydia: We listened.

Sid: Then what happened?

Lydia: The Lord opened my heart, made me eager to hear more, so I invited Paul and his buddies to come stay at my home. Like they say in the Letter to the Hebrews: “Do not neglect to show hospitality to strangers, for by doing that some have entertained angels without knowing it"(13.2)

Sid: Well, wasn’t that kind of unusual, you — a woman — inviting men into your home. I mean there is nothing here in the story about you having a husband.

Lydia: Didn’t seem to bother Paul or his buddy, Silas!

Sid: So where did you put all those people?

Lydia: I was fortunate. I had a good business. People who bought purple cloth in those days were people of means. I had a house large enough to accommodate overnight guests, and eventually to house the church we started in Philippi.

Sid: You helped to start a church?

Lydia: Started with just me and my household. Paul baptized us all at the same time, the first Christian converts on the whole continent of Europe!

Sid: So you were a leader in early church, the church at Philippi?

Lydia: Yes, and I was not the only woman in leadership of those early churches. At the conclusion of his letter to our church Paul wrote: “help these women, for they have struggled beside me in the work of the gospel . . . (4.3).

Sid: So there were other women in leadership?

Lydia: Of course. In his letter to the church at Rome (16) Paul names Phoebe as a deacon. And he goes on to name as co-workers Priscilla, Mary, Junia, and the sisters Tryphaena (tri-fee’nuh) and Tryphosa (tri-foh’suh). These and others were simply continuing the tradition of the women whom Luke says accompanied Jesus and his disciples on their journey to Jerusalem, and provided the money to pay their expenses (8:2-3).

Sid: So, Jesus had women in his inner circle?

Lydia: Absolutely. And he treated women with respect — remember the story of Mary and Martha, where he encouraged Mary to sit in on the Bible study. And, of course, Mary Magdalene, who stayed with Jesus all the way to Cross, and then was the first to encounter the Risen Lord. Which brings me to a question for you.

Sid: A question for me?

Lydia: Yeah, what took you so long?

Sid: What do you mean?

Lydia: What took you so long to acknowledge the leadership of women in the church?

Sid: Well, I kinda of thought we were out front on this issue. I mean, back in 1906, Presbyterians authorized the ordination of women as deacons. In 1930 we ordained Sara Dickson as an elder, and in 1956, Margaret Towner became the first woman ordained to the ministry of Word and sacrament.

Lydia: And what about this congregation?

Sid: Well, we had quite a good fight about it. Finally, in 1978, two-thirds of the congregation got mad and left—“thanks be to God. That freed Edgewood to ordain three faithful women to the office of elder: Nell Barron, Irma Kennedy, and the late Estelle Wilbanks.

Lydia: Well, a bit slow by standards of the early church, but I’m glad to see you are making progress. And what about now? Do you have women in leadership now?

Sid: Half the Session are women, and half of the deacons, plus the choir director, the organist, the youth director, and the church administrator.

Lydia: Excellent. Sounds to me like you just got one leap to make. So, tell me Mister Pastor, when is Edgewood going to call a woman pastor?

Sid: Sister Lydia, you be done gone to meddlin’! I think it’s time for you to get back in that window and be silent, just like Paul said.

Sid and Lydia, together:

Blessing and glory and wisdom
and thanksgiving and honor
and power and might
be to our God forever and ever. Amen.