An Amazing Detour (May 22, 2022) Acts 16.9-15

We have all encountered detours. One cannot drive along a road and not sometimes encounter them. They can be an annoyance. But sometimes they can take us to places that we would never have gone to if we had stayed on the road. They can take us to amazing places and amazing sights. Sometimes the detour can be the best thing that happens to us on the journey which we are taking.

We can also have detours in our lives. A couple of stories. When Jackie (who told me it was ok to tell this story) was in high school, her goal was to go on and become a chemistry teacher. She took all the classes required to make that goal possible as she prepared for college and worked hard to achieve this goal. But then she found that she needed an elective to complete her high school requirements. There were not many classes she wanted to take, so she found an accounting class. When she took the class, she found that she loved accounting and that she was good at it. And with that her whole goal was changed. A small detour changed her whole life from that time to now.

Or take me for instance. In junior high I decided that I wanted to be an electrical engineer. They made good money and were a respected profession. And so, I set out make my goal a reality. And then in high school God gave me Algebra II. I was sent a detour that showed me that this career was not the one for me. So, I set out to be a history teacher. I pursued a history major in college and was good at it. I loved history (still do) and learning from the past. And then I was asked to be the student assistant chaplain to the school chaplain. This was something entirely new for me. I had not considered anything to do with the ministry. I was completely out of my depth. I had been sent a detour that would change my life.

I finally gave into God and moved into a ministry track. While in seminary I did the required classes and thought that I was moving in the way God wanted me to go. But I now know that I was not ready for ministry at that time. God sent me another detour that was a long one this time. I took me over 15 years to come back to seminary and move along the path to where I am today. A detour certainly changed a lot in my life.

Today we come upon a detour. We find that the main character in Acts has moved from being Peter to being Paul. Paul is on a new missionary trip and is with Silas and Timothy moving from place to place bringing the Gospel.

Paul has been preaching in the area of Jerusalem, Antioch and other cities of areas we know as Israel, Syria, Lebanon and southern Turkey. And he is wanting to continue in this area. This is where his people are. Remember, Paul is a Jew and the vast majority of Christians at this time are Jews with a very small, actually miniscule, number of Gentiles.

What Paul has been doing is going to a town or city, finding a local synagogue, going in on the Sabbath and, because he is a rabbi, speaking before the congregation about Jesus. There have been some followers of the way and churches founded in several places in the areas he has visited.

Now, he is wanting to go north into the heartland of the Anatolian Peninsula (what we know today as Turkey or Asia Minor). But he and his companions are forbidden by both the Holy Spirit and the spirit of Jesus (side note: no one really knows what this means. It could be Jesus forbidding him or another name for the Holy Spirit. The title is not important. The fact that they are forbidden to go where they wish is). And so, they continue to travel, not sure where they are going but certain of where they are not to go.

In this manner they end up in the port of Troas on the Aegean Sea. And here Paul receives the vision of a man pleading with him to come across the Bosporus Strait to Macedonia and to help them there. When Paul awakens, he tells his companions who all agree that this is a vision from God. They immediately try to find passage to Macedonia. Notice they don’t form a committee to study the issue and see what the possibilities in the area are. They don’t look at their finances and wonder whether or not they have the funds to do this at this time. They don’t wonder if maybe Paul should not have eaten that third lamb gyro with tzatziki sauce from that shady looking street vendor last night. They don’t think about any of these things. For them this is a vision from God and they must go immediately.

It interesting to note here that the Acts of the Apostles is named as it is. It should be named the Acts of the Spirit. It is the Spirit that plays a major role in all of the Acts of the Apostles. Here the Spirit puts a detour in the way of Paul and his companions and sends them to a place they might never have thought of going to on their own.

When they arrive in Macedonia, they go straight to the first big city that they find, the city of Philippi. I know there are those who pronounce the word Phili-pi, but I went to school in a town where they called it Philippi. This was a city named for Philip, the father of Alexander the great, and was known for its fertile plain and the gold that came from the mountains surrounding it. It was also known for being a site of victory of Marc Antony and Octavian (later known as Augustus). For this reason, it was a Roman colony where there would have been a population of various members of society, from veteran soldiers, to freed slaves, to the upper classes who made the ruling body. It was cosmopolitan and bustling with trade as it was along a major road.

What does not seem to be in this city are 10 Jewish men who would be the heads of households. Because of this situation there was no synagogue for Paul to preach. It would have been the first thing that Paul would have sought out as well as trying to find the man in his vision.

So, what to do next? It seems that this detour is not turning out as they might have expected. They would have expected a place of worship and a group to preach to. After all, did not God send them to this place? Where to go from here was their thoughts, I am sure.

Well, they know that when there is no synagogue that the faithful would meet in place for prayer. It seems that the place to gather for this would have been alongside a river. We don’t really know why, but to the river they go. And there they encounter some women who are God fearers, ones who have heard of the God of the Jews and worship this God but have not made the leap to becoming Jews themselves. And so, Paul and his companions go up to this group and begin talking to them about the faith that they have come to proclaim.

One of these women was named Lydia. Lydia is an anomaly among the women of the Bible. She is a business woman (she sold purple cloth, something only the nobility could buy and wear), she is head of her household, and she is one who listens and converses with Paul. In other words, she is her own woman without anyone to whom she answers. A very rare woman in the ancient world where patriarchy reigned supreme. A rare woman today as well.

She has come to the river bank to meet with those who are worshiping and praying. She has come because for all the success in her life, for all the influence she most likely has, for all the things that she can accomplish and has, there must be a feeling that there is something more. And so, when she and the others meet Paul and his companions, it is a new experience. Listen to the text once again: “The Lord opened her heart to listen eagerly to what was said by Paul.” So, she believes and her household is baptized. This would have included all of her family, any servants and anyone else connected to the household. When the head of the house did something, the whole house did it.

Then her response to the gospel is to invite these preachers into her home without ever knowing anything about them except that God had brought them here. In fact, her statement of “If you have judged me to be faithful to the Lord, come and stay at my home." could be said “I have believed what you said. Prove to me that you believe me by staying in my home. Otherwise, how will we know you believe us?” How could Paul, Silas and Timothy refuse?

This is an interesting story. Paul is again seen as a hero of the faith, taking the Gospel to those who have never heard. He even goes out and reaches out to women in a foreign area, speaking to them and acting as if they are equals. The scandal that must have caused. It still causes scandal today when we realize just how little we have changed since that time.

But Paul is not the hero of this story nor is Lydia who could have been as she is the first convert to the faith in Europe. Her being the hero would have been easy because of her coming to the faith and then taking the companions into her home, showing hospitality that would have made them like family.

Paul and Lydia are held up by us as heroes because we like to have our heroes. We like to have people to whom we can look up to. Yet, throughout this whole time and in other stories before this one, it is God who is the hero. It is God the Holy Spirit who is preventing Paul from going where he wants to go and instead sends him west with the vision of the man from Macedonia. And it is the Spirit, I am sure, who moved Paul and his companions to go to the river bank outside the gates and told them to step out and speak to these women, particularly Lydia. Almost like the Spirit telling Peter to not call unclean what God made clean. In the case of Lydia, it is God who “opened her heart to listen eagerly to what was said by Paul”.

Paul took a detour given by the Spirit. As mentioned before, he and his companions did not question what the Spirit was doing. They just went. And with this detour they find the first convert in Europe. With this one then it moves on to several. Then it continues to grow. The detour brought about something that was completely unexpected.

Are we like Paul, Silas and Timothy? Do we follow a detour from our lives? Or do we wonder about what we have heard and should we not tell anyone because they might look at us with suspicion that we have lost a bit of reality?

When we talk about a vision for the church, is it really from God or is our vision that we would like to see implemented? Is it God moving or us? Are we letting God move us or are we trying to control God?

That is the thing with detours, we cannot control them. When they come up, we have to follow them or else turn around and go back the way we came. God sends us detours from time to time. How often do we take them?

When we take the detours, we will find that God works in ways we might never have expected. I am sure Paul was as surprised as anyone that the Spirit led him to Lydia and the group of women with her. But he went. He proclaimed the Gospel and lives were changed.

Where are the detours we find from God in our lives? We have been called to take the gospel into the world and that is not easy. We would often rather that the Gospel be heard here in the church and not take it out. What would people say? But we are called and we must go. The best way to do this is to build relationships as I am sure Paul did with Lydia and the women who were listening to him preach. When we build relationships with people, they come to see us as trustworthy and they will listen to us. Then we might find that a detour is put in front of us and calling us to go to a place we never imagined. The detours are a part of our faith. How we respond is a call for us all. Amen.