Every once in a while, we have stories in our lives where the Holy Spirit was up to something, and the Spirit leads us in a completely different direction than we expected or were planning, and it shapes our story forevermore. I’ve had a few moments like that in my life, but the one that sticks out to me in the middle of wedding planning, is that I was almost committed to a different college. In fact, I was absolutely not going to go to my Alma Mater…sorry, Concordia! The first time I visited, I was genuinely prepared to cross it off my list for good. I think it was largely at my grandmother’s prompting that I gave it one more chance… it was in that visit that I knew I was supposed to go there, in a move that shocked many people in my life. So much so that one of my home pastors stopped giving me instructions for how I was supposed to be helping with worship that night in order to find my mom and ask what happened (I was planning to go to this pastor’s Alma Mater); you should also know that each of the clergy at my home church went to one of the three ELCA colleges I was visiting and would sing their school songs at me randomly, while I was working at church, in order to convince me to choose theirs!
Now, this might not have seemed like as big of a deal to me at the time, but it was at Concordia where I would meet the campus pastor who would help me reconnect with my faith and who took me on a visit to Wartburg Seminary, where I would later go for my Master of Divinity. It was at Concordia that I was introduced to the concept of Interfaith Studies, which allowed me to go to training conferences and eventually have an internship working with Interfaith cooperation training programs across the country. I was able to present research on a national level and travel to the Holy Land for the first time. Almost every solidifying moment of my call happened when I was at Concordia.
Concordia was also where Emily went, and while she was a year older than me and we never actually talked on campus…something about me having a crush on her and being too scared to talk to her so I would take back hallways to avoid any interactions… we had so many mutual friends, which was how we then later connected after graduation. I can’t help but think that my life would probably look quite different had I gone with my original college choice and major. Maybe it wouldn’t have changed much, but I’m quite happy with the way the Spirit’s prompting changed things for the better! Either way, I shouldn’t have said I was never going to marry someone from college (in my defense, I thought I was safe after graduation), because the Spirit had a different idea about that one too!
While it’s not a sappy love story, our reading in Acts today has a similar Spirit moment in which Paul and his fellow disciples are redirected by the Spirit and end up meeting the woman, Lydia. Even just the fact that she is named means we should be paying attention to who this woman is, because women aren’t named very often in Scripture. But, beyond the fact that she is named, Lydia’s story is a really powerful one for the beginning of the church and our understanding of how God is active in the world, through those who were often the least expected. In a similar vein to last week’s Acts reading, about the Gentiles not being excluded, this week’s encourages the disciples to think about discipleship in a new way.
When we hear about Lydia, we hear about her business selling purple cloth (purple was the color of royalty after all) and her household. Notice the important details here, where we have a wealthy woman who runs a business and a household, and there is no mention of a man! She was a respected leader in her community, and it’s said that she would go on to be influential to the establishment of the early church. All of these details are so important because her story is so different from anything we expect to read about women in the Bible, which means it also likely would have been a new experience for Paul and the disciples. I love the part where she challenges Paul, saying, ‘If you have judged me to be faithful to the Lord, come and stay at my home’ (Acts 16: 15b). She knows that she is faithful, and she is trying to get Paul to admit that this woman and her household are also considered worthy in the eyes of Paul and the disciples. She doesn’t need them to do this, after all, she could have let them continue on their way. She would still know that she was faithful to God, and would have received what Paul felt most important to teach her. But, by doing this, she urges them to think differently about who God is working through.
Before we move on to the Gospel, I also want to note another important detail in this Lydia story. In the 14th verse, Lydia is described as “a worshipper of God.” This is the first description we receive of Lydia, as she is listening to Paul and the other disciples teach. But, she is described in this way before she hears the teachings and asks to have her household baptized! Her faith is nurtured by Paul, but her faith did not come from hearing Paul and the others preach. That was only through the Holy Spirit, and requires us to recognize that God was working in and through her before it was recognized as such by Paul. This has major implications for how we understand God’s presence in the world, and forces us to acknowledge the faults of the savior-type mentality of missionaries. Just because God relates to people differently than God relates to us or to me, that does not mean that God isn’t present with them! Lydia didn’t become a worshipper of God after Paul showed up to teach her about it, but instead, Lydia ends up teaching Paul and the others a bit about faith too! None of this would have happened if the Holy Spirit hadn’t redirected their course.
I think I’ve shared before that one of my professors in Seminary said that the Book of Acts should really be called “The Acts of the Holy Spirit” not “The Acts of the Apostles,” because the apostles are only able to do their work because of the Holy Spirit. I love that in the Easter season we get so many readings from Acts that highlight what the Spirit is up to because it helps us to understand what Jesus means when he tells the disciples in today’s Gospel that the Spirit will come to them and will continue to teach them and remind them about all the things that he has already taught them (John 14: 26). Today’s story from Acts is a great example of that, because Paul is being prompted to remember the ways that Jesus went to and was impacted by the people that were least expected. Had Paul been stuck in his way and unwilling to go where the Spirit called, or unwilling to teach Lydia and her household because they were not what Paul had expected, the early church wouldn’t have existed in the way that it did. Which would have also impacted the church as we know it today.
This reading from John is important for setting up for the disciples and us what it will mean to receive the Holy Spirit and be in relationship with God in this new way. Jesus promises the Holy Spirit and peace as the disciples will have to wrestle with a new way forward, one in which Jesus will no longer be with them (John 14: 25-29). Jesus is not going to be there to hold their hands and walk them through each situation, but is empowering the disciples to really take to heart and be shaped by the teachings they have received.
With the Spirit on our side, it allows us to be co-creators in this world, a way of intentional relationship by also great responsibility and agency in our world. This isn’t always the way that we think about the Holy Spirit, but I think it is such an important addition to our understanding as we bridge the time between Easter and Pentecost. Today’s story gives us another understanding of the Holy Spirit, and helps us to see that the Holy Spirit is more than just tongues like flames, but is up to some amazing work in the world that we are invited to participate in, if only we will listen to where it is calling us. Because often the Spirit’s promptings are the things that will change us for good, when we let ourselves be shaped by the guiding and teaching the Spirit has for us.
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Sunday May 18th, 2025 Worship