The Man of Macedonia

Scripture Reading

New Revised Standard Version: Updated Edition Acts 16

6 They went through the region of Phrygia and Galatia, having been forbidden by the Holy Spirit to speak the word in Asia. 7 When they had come opposite Mysia, they attempted to go into Bithynia, but the Spirit of Jesus did not allow them; 8 so, passing by Mysia, they went down to Troas. 9 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.” 10 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.

The Conversion of Lydia

11 We therefore set sail from Troas and took a straight course to Samothrace, the following day to Neapolis, 12 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. 13 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. 14 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. 15 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.

Kids to the Knowing Place

Matthew 25 Introduction

We are continuing our series on the seven marks, which is the first of three focuses of Matthew 25 congregations.

Building vital congregations.

Dismantling Structural Racism

Eradicating Systemic Poverty

Today we’re on the third mark of a vital congregation:

An outward focus. Our church is not a place to escape from the world, but rather our gateway to our community where we may be the hands, feet, heart and mouth of Jesus Christ for people who are suffering or marginalized.

Sermon Introduction: 31 Doors

When I was serving at Westminster, one of our pastors preached a sermon that was so good that it hung around the collective consciousness for years.

This pastor went around and counted, there were 31 doors into our building.

And she used them as a metaphor.

There are 31 ways into this building, but there are even more ways into the community.

We had youth groups, and adult bible studies, and support groups, and zumba classes, and even for a while there PIckleball.

The point of the sermon was that there were lots of ways for folks to get into the building, and even more to get in to the community.

We have 22.

Don’t worry, I did the homework!

I went around the outside of the building and counted, Beulah has (if you include the garden doors) 22 doors in to the building.

More if you want to include the chapel too!

And like Westminster, there are lots of ways to get into the community!

We too have youth groups, and adult bible studies, and support groups, and I would certainly be down to start a pickleball ministry if only to be able to say pickleball a lot!

All of that is super great!

But it’s actually the wrong way to think about our doors.

Scripture Study

The Spirit Says No

For starters, I was so intrigued that this story starts with the Spirit saying…no.

Paul and his crew want to go to Asia. The Spirit says no.

They tried to go to Bithynia, but the Spirit says no.

You have to wonder why?

Surely there was good ministry to do in Asia!

Surely there was good ministry to do in Bithynia!

There were people who needed to be saved in those places, right?

Plus, maybe if the church had taken hold there the names of the towns wouldn’t be so difficult to pronounce!

So why is the Spirit throwing up roadblocks?

The good can so often be the enemy of the great

Do you all remember when Michael Jordan played baseball?

You’d be forgiven for forgetting, as it was a uniquely mediocre career.

Don’t get me wrong, he was “good” at baseball!

Certainly better than me!

But he was great at basket ball.

So often in life we let the things we’re good at get in the way of of what we’re great at.

That ministry program is good, but is it great?

That mission opportunity is good, but does it allow us to focus on what we’re best at?

A busy church is a good thing, but is it the best thing?

Our ability to listen to the Spirit will guide us in what our priorities ought to be.

A vision: The Man of Macedonia

Eventually the answer comes.

Paul has a vision of a “man of Macedonia.”

There are lots of detailed and vivid visions in the scripture.

This isn’t one of them!

It doesn’t seem like this vision comes with checklists or details or GPS.

Paul just sees in the Spirit someone who needs help.

The word immediately hits hard here, right?

After a season of the Spirit saying no, Paul jumps right on the Spirit’s yes.

“A place of prayer.”

They usually high tail it to a synagogue.

At this point, I’m still not convinced that Paul and his companions are trying to create a new religion, so much as they are trying to reform Judaism.

Which happens. Martin Luther tried to reform the Catholic church and wound up creating protestantism.

So in most of the stories in Acts, Paul and his companions head to the local synagogue to preach.

But not here.

Surely Philippi would have had a local congregation.

But they don’t go.

I wonder why!

Maybe word was already out about them?

Nothing but trouble!

Maybe they knew something about the synagogue in that area?

Their pastor had a beard or didn’t wear a robe in the summer, he was bad news.

Or maybe they were just opening themselves up to the Spirit showing up in weird places.

Thin Places

Celtic Christians held that there were places on earth where the veil between heaven and earth were particularly thin.

Have you ever had a spot, some place where no matter what you were going through when you were there, you felt God’s presence in a unique way?

That’s the idea.

So Paul and his mates find a thin place, a place of prayer, and the post up to talk to whoever shows up.

Lydia

She worshipped God

Again, pointing to the fact that there was a healthy Jewish contingent in Philippi, Lydia knows who God is.

Specifically, the way Luke is writing this, Lydia knows the God of Israel.

Remember at this point that Paul and his group had traveled beyond the friendly confines of Israel.

They’re in territory that would have been most marked by Polytheism, if there was any religion at all.

But they find Lydia, and they find a receptive audience.

Dealer in purple cloth- probably a wealthy person!

It’s good to have friends in high places!

She gets the evangelistic mission: Her whole family is baptized.

This is kind of shocking on a couple of levels:

First of all, a woman making decisions for the whole household would have been unheard of at that time.

The patriarch decides what the “whole household” does.

Women didn’t have much of a say in what went on culturally at that point.

Which leads to a bit of a side point, but an important one:

If you carefully study the scriptures, there are countless examples of women leading the church, particularly in it’s infancy.

As it’s been in the news a little bit lately with our brothers and sisters in another denomination, it just felt like it was worth saying that we affirm the gifts of all to be in leadership in the church.

But secondly, the fact that Lydia has her whole household baptized after just one meeting with Paul and his team, she is all in!

The Lord opened her heart, and she ran with it.

Why do things half way?

Why wait?

Let’s go!

In fact, she has an even more ridiculous offer.

Set up my house as a base of operations.

Lydia kind of lays out a guilt trip.

“If you have judged me to be faithful to the Lord…come and stay at my home!”

But think about how big of an offer that is!

She’s essentially saying that they should use her house as their base of operations in Macedonia.

This traveling band of preachers, who are constantly in trouble with the religious, political, and civic leaders?

The ones who are constantly arrested?

The ones who whole villages keep trying to stone?

Why don’t you use my house as home base?

She recognizes that they are going to be coming and going, but that they need a place to stay in the mean time.

She recognizes that it’s going to be dangerous work, but she’s open to it.

She recognizes that the gospel needs to get out there, and she can support it.

Lydia has welcomed the disciples in, so that they have the opportunity to go out.

In or Out?

A door swings both ways.

Attractional Church- The doors welcome folks in.

Everything an attractional church does is to try to get folks to come here.

Let’s have another event so that folks will come in the building.

Let’s invite our friends to church so that they come in to the building.

Let’s set up our pastor’s office like a tiny apartment so that he can just live here. (Did you all know I have a shower in my office?)

The shadow side of an attractional church is that we can loose track of what’s going on out in the world.

If we wall ourselves off in here, then we don’t really know what’s going on in the culture around us.

And in fact, this has gotten worse in recent years.

With the possibility of news and social media echo chambers, we Christians could conceivably create our own reality.

We could set things up so that we never hear from anyone with whom we disagree.

And that might be a comfortable way to live, but it’s a lousy way to make disciples.

That’s what happens when the 22 doors only swing in.

Missional Church- The doors usher the church out.

The missional church says that the 22 doors open us up to the world.

The 22 doors allow us to go spend time in our neighborhood, to ask what they might need.

The 22 doors allow us to go participate in community events, like sporting events or concerts or farmers markets, wherever our neighbors are most active.

The 22 doors allow us to learn more about our neighbors, about their hopes, their hurts, their dreams and their nightmares, so that we know how best to serve them as brothers and sisters in Christ.

The mission church has a shadow side too.

If we spend too much time outside the walls of the church, out side the confines of our spiritual selves, we can pretty quickly be absolved into the culture.

We could, conceivably, lose our sense of the church, the church family, and our spiritual homes.

Though, admittedly, most churches I know have wandered so far from missional thinking that they’re not likely to see that shadow side any time soon.

The best churches have a good balance.

The best churches use their doors to welcome in, and to exit out.

The best churches open their doors to welcome the community to their space, to assist in whatever way we can.

And the best churches use the doors to go out into the community to ask what they need.

The best churches open their doors and invite folks to experience the life of a caring congregation, a family of faith.

And the best churches use the doors to go out into the community to see what their family looks like.

The best churches open their doors to the kinds of things that the Spirit is allowing them to participate in.

And the best churches use the doors to go find the Man of Macedonia when he’s calling, and help in whatever way we can.

Are we hitting the mark?

A quick, gut level question: Which chariots did you get close to this week?

I’ll tell the story afterwards just in case he comes today, but this week I had an experience where the Spirit was very clearly inviting me to listen to someone’s questions in my own neighborhood.

It was kind of like the Spirit checking me on my sermons, like “are you ready to put your money where your mouth is.”

And honestly, it was a magnificent conversation, whether he comes today or not.

I hope you had an experience like that.

I hope that you got to hear the Spirit nudging you toward some conversations you wouldn’t have otherwise had.

Because in a lot of ways, this is what we’re talking about this week too, isn’t it?

Who is our Man of Macedonia?

Paul and his team gear up because someone needs help, and they are willing.

Who is it around us who might be calling out to us?

Perhaps our Man of Macedonia are parents, already tired and weary from trying to figure out kids being off from school for the summer and getting their work done.

Perhaps our Man of Macedonia are the residents of a neighborhood that has changed quite a bit in the last handful of years.

Perhaps our Man of Macedonia are older adults, those who are struggling with loneliness and depression in their new and limited reality.

When we’re listening for this, we need to make sure we’re listening just as hard for the Spirit’s no as we are the Spirit’s yes.

I bet we could come up with a whole bunch of really good ideas.

The Spirit will call us to the very best idea, and we need to have our ears open to what the Spirit has for us.

How can we increase our outward focus?

Let’s go to the games!

When I was a youth pastor, I spent more time than I can recount at sporting events that my students were taking part in.

Do you know how wild and brutal a game field hockey is? I didn’t!

I even once went to a Mathlete’s competition, which is way less exciting in person than they make it seem like in the movies.

I was watching kids take a test!

But I went!

And for as long as I’ve been in this game, the Church has been complaining about how busy students and families are particularly on Sunday morning.

We have noticed that they’ve stopped coming in our 22 doors on Sunday mornings.

So let me pitch an idea here church…let’s go to them!

What if we as a congregation descended on a young person’s football or hockey game?

What if we as a congregation showed up to cheer for a local school’s band concert?

What if we as a congregation, whether we knew the students involved or not, went out one of our 22 doors and supported the students of this community?

Not just them either…we could be a listening ear to the parents in the stands too.

The doors swing both ways.

We can be upset that fewer folks are using our 22 doors to come in...

Or we can dedicate ourselves to using our 22 doors to go out!

Let’s serve our neighbors!

The other day, I totally caught a neighbor kid being sneaky.

He was mowing a lawn, and then I watched him walk down the street to his own street.

He was mowing one of his neighbor’s lawns, and trying to do it without getting caught.

I am absolutely certain we wouldn’t have to look too hard to find a Man of Macedonia even on our block, would we?

Someone we could serve by mowing their lawn.

Someone we could serve by bringing them a meal.

Someone we could serve by being a listening ear.

Here’s a hard question, and one that I think our brothers and sisters in churches around the country have made harder for us:

Can our neighbors count on the church to be there for them when they need us?

Can they count on us to serve them well?

But there might be a step before that...

Let’s meet our neighbors!

Do you know the name of your neighbor two doors down?

(Pastoral confession time, I don’t!)

I think that’s because so many of us have changed our relationship to our neighborhoods.

We wake up early in the morning, go to work, stay late, come home after dark, and never actually see our neighbors.

Maybe for us as a church, before we even get around to serving our neighbors, we ought to get to know who they are.

What are their names?

What are their occupations?

What has changed for them in the last couple of years?

Why do they like calling this place home?

Start with getting to know them, on back porches and around grills this summer.

Because even those can be a place of prayer if we’re open to it, can’t they?

This is home base…out there is the work!

Lydia set up a place for Paul and his companions to rest, to renew, and to be reminded of who they were.

We can be that.

We can be a place to remind each other of the love of Christ.

We can be a place to rest from our travels.

We can enter into the 22 doors around here find Jesus waiting for us, absolutely.

But this is home base.

Once we’re rested, once we’ve been reminded of Christ’s love, and once we’ve been renewed by our Church family,

Then it’s time.

It’s time to go out the 22 doors of this church, and into the world.

The Man of Macedonia is calling.

Who’s ready to answer with me?