Pew Sheet, Sunday the 25th of May, 2025 The 6th Sunday of Easter

Before the reading contained in Acts today, Paul is intent on going to Bithynia in Asia Minor, on the northern Black Sea coast of modern day Turkey, but is stopped by ‘the Spirit of Jesus’ from doing so, and instead receives a vision of a man in Macedonia, in exactly the opposite direction he had intended travelling, who beseeches him to come and help he and his fellow countrymen.

The word boetheson used by the man in Paul’s dream for ‘help us’, literally means, ‘take pity on us’; and the vision sets Paul and his companions off in a totally different direction to the one they had anticipated. That Greek word meaning ‘take pity on us’, is only used in one other place in the New Testament, when the friends of a blind man beg Jesus to take pity on him at Bethsaida, and the man is subsequently cured of his blindness, although told to go straight home and tell no one what has happened to him.

We do not know if Luke used this word deliberately to remind his readers about this earlier miracle, but it is clearly intended to relay both the spiritual blindness of those to whom Paul and his associates are being sent, and to the urgency of their journey, for we are told that they prepared to go there immediately, which would require them to ‘cross over’ in both a literal and a missional sense from Asia minor to mainland Europe so that they could minister to the gentiles there instead of Derbe, Lystra, and Iconium, where they had been ministering to local Jewish believers - one of the reasons why Paul had caused Timothy (raised as a Gentile) to be circumcised, so as not to offend the Jewish believers there.

And so Paul and his entourage travelled from Asia Minor to Philippi by way of Troas, Samothrace and Neopolis, seemingly without breaking their journey or stopping on the way to preach or teach in any of the places they passed through en-route. As they travelled, they were moving further and further from the small and widely dispersed Christian communities of Asia Minor which had supported them in their ministry there, and were in many respects, travelling into the unknown, beyond those sources of support they had been used to.

And so it was, that Paul and his companions set out on that first Sabbath evening in Philippi to find a local synagogue or somewhere to pray with other Jews or Christians as as was their custom, which was located this time, not in the city centre, but on its margins, far removed from the idolatry and cultural practices of the Gentile Greeks who lived there. Paul’s intention to visit a place of prayer is clear, for the writer uses the word ‘enomizomen’ in relation to Paul’s expectation that he would find somewhere to pray ‘as was his custom’, but is waylaid before he gets to a synagogue and engages instead, in conversation not with a group of Jewish men or Christian converts, but an unknown number of women gathered on the riverbank.

We do not know if Lydia and her friends were Jewish, but she was a god-fearing woman ‘who prayed regularly’ and was open to the message which Paul had brought with him. What happens next is equally surprising, for not only does she receive the Gospel gladly, but insists on Paul and his entourage staying in her home which, as a single, though wealthy woman, would have been judged unseemly if not disgraceful in both the Jewish and Gentile societies of the day.

The story teaches us three things about responding to the promptings of the Holy Spirit. The first is that hearing the voice or calling of God is to engage in a journey of discovery which will take us to new and unexpected places. At times, the journey will be short and at other times it will be long; but it is more than anything a journey of the heart, the soul, and the mind into a fuller obedience to the Holy Spirit which is, perhaps, the greatest journey of them all.

Paul was very much a man’s man, a pharisee of pharisees; and yet he does not consider it beneath his dignity to sit and talk to a group of women meeting together on the riverbank on a Sabbath evening. His undoubted intention of praying with other men as was his custom (and the established custom of the time) is quickly forgotten as he encounters the true reason for his leaving the city in search of a place to pray. He is attentive to the Holy Spirit and seizes the opportunity to respond to the situation to which God has led him, no matter how socially inappropriate or unseemly that might be.

The second is that Paul does not set preconditions on what God may or may not be doing and holds to his first ‘revelation’ lightly. Yes, he had received a vision of a Macedonian man asking him to come and take pity on him, and yet the very first person he meets, and who responds to Paul’s message is a woman, and perhaps not even a Macedonian at all. The dream of the Macedonian man was the means of his calling, but it was not the totality of his call.

The classical historian Josephus records that many Jewish traders in fine linen had been banished from Palestine to Macedonia by Antiochus Epiphanes some 160 years before Jesus’s birth, so Lydia could have been the descendent of one of them. Her wealth and evident social standing suggest that she and perhaps her family before her were well established in the region, though her fortune may have been entirely self-made. She is described as ‘god-fearing’ however, which is usually applied to Gentile followers of Jehovah (or Yahweh) rather than those born into the Jewish faith, or who were born into a mixed marriage as Timothy himself had been, with a Jewish mother and a Greek father. Neither of them would be defined by their family origins or background however, but by their response to God’s calling upon their lives, and the important thing is that having been stirred into action by the Holy Spirit, Paul and his followers did not allow themselves to be constrained by the vision he had first received; but continued listening and responding to the promptings of the Holy Spirit even as he waited to see what the final outcome of that vision might be. In doing so, Paul was guided by that self-same Spirit which Jesus promised to send to his disciples in today’s Gospel reading, and promises to send to all who believe in him still.

The final lesson, is that if the Holy Spirit prompts us to do something, we need have no fear that God will provide all we need for that journey or task because, as our Gospel reading reminds us, and Lydia’s hospitality clearly demonstrates; it is God who will provide everything we need for that journey, not as the world gives, but in the fullest possible measure. And, if any further reassurance were needed, Jesus assures us in the Gospel that God will give us that deep-seated sense of peace, his shalom peace, which only God can give as we obey him, no matter if our hearts may be troubled or afraid at the initial prospect of doing what God is asking of us, for the ‘Spirit of Jesus’ walks with us as we go.

Collect

Risen Christ, by the lakeside you renewed your call to your disciples. Help your Church to obey your command; and draw the nations to the fire of your love,
to the glory of God the Father.

Acts 16:9-15

During the night Paul had a vision: there stood a man of Macedonia pleading with him and saying, “Come over to Macedonia and help us.” When 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.

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.

John 14:23-29

Jesus answered Judas (the son of James not Iscariot, also called Jude or Thaddeus), “Those who love me will keep my word, and my Father will love them, and we will come to them and make our home with them. Whoever does not love me does not keep my words. The word that you hear is not mine but is from the Father who sent me.

“I have said these things to you while I am still with you. But the Advocate, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, will teach you everything and remind you of all that I have said to you. Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you. I do not give to you as the world gives. Do not let your hearts be troubled, and do not let them be afraid. You heard me say to you, ‘I am going away, and I am coming to you.’ If you loved me, you would rejoice that I am going to the Father, because the Father is greater than I. And now I have told you this before it occurs, so that when it does occur you may believe.

Post Communion Prayer

God our Father,
whose Son Jesus Christ gives the water of eternal life:
May we thirst for you, the spring of life and source of all goodness,
Through him who is alive and reigns, now and forever.

Monday (Augustine, first Archbishop of Canterbury, 605)

Bell Ringing, 7.30pm in St Laurence. Contact Jan on 07835 461361.

Julian Prayer Group, 8pm St Mary’s or Zoom: 996 4332 0665 password: Julian.

Tuesday (Rogation Day)

Zoom In Morning Prayer, 9.00 am, Meeting ID: 539 3978774 password: TuaR0T or contact Sue on [email protected] (The 0 in R0T is a zero not an ‘O’)

Wednesday (Lanfranc, Prior of Le Bec, Archbishop of Canterbury, 1089)

Morning Coffee, 10.00-11.45am in the St Laurence Room.

Midweek Holy Communion, 12.00 noon, St Laurence.

Thursday (Ascension Day)

Thursday Home Group, contact Jo on 07803 942 687 for more details.

Friday (Josephine Butler, Social Reformer, Joan of Arc, Visionary, 1431)

Junior Choir at 6.30 pm followed by full Choir Practice at 7.30pm. Contact Derry on [email protected] if you would like to join in this term.