Speaking Compasionately

Love is something if you Give it Away

Sermon 5 in Kingdom Basics Sermon Series

Acts 16:11-15

Basic #4:  Speak Compassionately

Scripture

We set sail from Troas and took a straight course to Samothrace, the following day to Neapolis, 12and 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. 13On 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. 14A certain woman named Lydia, a worshipper 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. 15When 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.

Page 1:  The Margins

            Lydia left her house that Saturday morning like she did every Sabbath – grateful for Elohim’s blessings in her life.  First there was her freedom.  Her late husband had rescued her from a life of slavery in Thyatira, a thriving center of commerce and fabrics in Asia Minor.  Then, there was her work in textiles.  Her purple weavings were known and sought after throughout high Roman Society.  The opportunity to be an business woman was more than she ever expected.  Keeping up with manufacturing, maintaining relationship with customers, and getting her product to market was a challenge she readily accepted each day.  As she closed the outside gate to her home in Philippi, Lydia looked back.  What a blessing to own a home and run a household as an independent woman in a Roman colony.  She still grieved her husband who made much of these blessings possible.  Still, as we walked up the slate stone street she thought how blessed I am by Elohim to live and work in Philippi and support some many people. 

            Lydia made her way up the streets in Philippi as the morning sun slowly rose over the acropolis above the town.  She passed men with healed scars and amputations as they came out of their homes for their morning chores.  Since Octavian and Mark Anthony had defeated Brutus and Cassius on the open plains outside of town, Philippi had become a colony for retired Roman legionnaires and their families.  The presence of these strong and dedicated men made Lydia - as a single female business owner - feel protected while she was in in the city. 

            She passed through the Forum with it marbled street and columned buildings.  The business and government of the colony was just beginning to wake up. 

            Finally, she walked outside the city gates.  In the distance she saw the Via Egnatia – the Great Roman Road which crossed from Roman to the Black Sea.  Even this early she saw Soldiers and traders packed up and moving West towards Rome.  The site of the traders reminded her of the many tasks which lay ahead in the coming days – orders and customers which needed her personal touch.

            The Sabbath was not business, though.  Shaking her head, she steered clear of the road and moved through the tall grass toward the small stream making its way beside the city.  She could already hear the women.  Others had beaten her to their spot of worship. The small voices of chitchat ceased as Lydia walked down the bank to the gathered women.  As she saw them, she realized as she does every week - all of these women are Jewish by heritage and faith – all accept Lydia. 

            She had accepted this divide long ago after her husband died and she went searching for spiritual help.  She found no help in the pagan gods whose statues dotted the cities and the countryside.  These gods gave her no comfort when she tackled the tough spiritual questions of life.  When she discovered Elohim in the Jewish Scriptures something drew her to him.  While she could never be completely Jewish, nor have the divisions of the law completely removed, she found comfort and peace worshipping with these women beside the river. 

            As she found a place to sit on the bank, she heard the grass moving behind her.  Four men had made their way off the road and were now headed their way.  A short, bow-legged Jewish man with a huge, bald head quickly led the way.  His face brimmed with excitement as we weaved himself through the unfamiliar tall grass.  Behind him walked three other men:  The first, I came to learn was Silas or Silvanus - a serious man whom I barely saw smile once in all my years of knowing him; second was Timothy -  a young, beautiful man with a boyish face and honey color ringlets of hair falling over his face; and third was Luke – a middle age man who carried himself with authority. 

            Saul, as he introduced himself, sat down with us to pray.  The other men followed.   Saul did all of the talking.  Lydia found it unusual and a bit uncomfortable for a Jewish man, an actual Pharisee trained under a great rabbi in the Jewish temple in Jerusalem to be sitting with her and the women.  Jewish men barely noticed the other women – the true Jewish women – and they never spoke to her.  One of the women once told Lydia that her husband didn’t trust her – “A gentile, former slave woman has no place in the synagogue” – he described her.  As much as she tried, Lydia had never been able to break through this barrier, but here was this man, Saul – speaking directly to her. 

            The words he spoke penetrated deeply into Lydia’s soul.  He spoke of a man named Jesus –whom he called the Messiah – who had lived, been executed, and resurrected in Jerusalem.  Saul opened up the Jewish scriptures in ways she had never heard before and showed her how all that had happened to Jesus had been written long before.  Then, Paul said these words –that thrilled the heart of Lydia –

“For all of you who were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ. 28 There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free man, there is neither male nor female; for you are all one in Christ Jesus. 29 And if you belong to Christ, then you are Abraham’s descendants, heirs according to promise.

Movement 2:  The Need

            The words of Saul speak compassionately to Lydia and allow God to transform her life.   

In the world of 1^st Century Philippi, Lydia lives on the margins of society:  she is a woman, she is a freed woman – a former slave, she is an independent woman living and working without a male protector.  In this this story from Acts 16 – she is literally and figuratively outside the city gates – in the margins of the community.

            When Paul arrives on the banks of the river outside Philippi for this women’s prayer group – he does not arrive by happenstance or coincidence.  In the first part of Acts 16, Paul stands across the ocean in a town called Troas on the edge of what was called Asia Minor – in present day Turkey.  All of his attempts to head east – further into Asia and present day Russia - have been stopped by the Holy Spirit.  In Troas, Paul has a dream of a man across the ocean in Macedonia – Europe.  The man stands across the ocean and begs Paul to bring the Gospel to him and others like him.  The Macedonians, the Greeks, the Romans and the rest of the world – need the Good News of Jesus – they are begging for someone to bring it to them. 

            Paul sets himself on this journey.  The first people Paul encounters are the women on this bank.  The first European to hear the words of the Good News and respond is a woman on the margins of society. 

            People on the margins need the words of God’s Good News spoken compassionately. 

            Yet, in our American Society – the very folks who most need to hear the Good News of Jesus – have blocked the voices of Christians because they have not heard words spoken with compassion.  Instead, more often than not, they have heard our attempted words of Good News to often spoken with self-righteous anger.  NonChristians now know more about what we as Christians are against than what we are for. 

            David Kinnaman, president of Barna polling, and Gabe Lyons, documents how nonChristians hear Christians in their book:  unChristian: What a New Generation Really Thinks About Christianity ... And Why It Matters.

Kinnaman and Lyons spent three years polling young, unchurched Americans to find out what they thought about Christianity. Millions of young people, they discovered, see us as judgmental, hypocritical, anti-homosexual, too political, insensitive—and boring.

            A shocking 50 percent of respondents said they base their negative views on personal contacts with Christians.  As the authors write, "Many of those outside of Christianity ... reject Jesus because they feel rejected by Christians." 

            Move beyond the Bible belt into places where Baptist churches do not dot the landscape and ask someone what it means to be a Baptist – more than likely, they will tell you about what we are against – alcohol, Disney world, abortion – than whose we are.             

            The fact is individuals throughout our world need Jesus - desperately.  The world needs Good News.  Friends from Mt. Airey to Seattle need a word spoken with compassion which points them to Jesus. 

            One Wednesday nights, we’ve been working our way through John Ortberg’s book “Everybody’s normal Til you Get to know them.”  In this week’s lesson, the chapter was called “Put down your stones:  Acceptance.”  We examined the story form the Gospel of John of a woman caught in adultery and brought to Jesus in order to trick him in the eyes of the growing throng of followers.  The woman stands before Jesus, a bed sheet barely covering her body, with a crowd of self-righteous religious folks surrounding her with rocks in their hands waiting for Jesus the Rabbi to give them the word. 

            Instead, Jesus begins to write in the sand – words or doodles lost to the winds of time.  When he is done – he turns around and everyone has dropped their stone and walked away.  He turns to the woman – fearful and afraid, trembling in her own sin – and says, “no one condemns you, go and sin no more.” 

            I asked our participants to reflect on this statement by John Ortberg – “Why is it that in ancient times women like this so often ran toward Jesus, where in our day they so often run from his followers?”  I think it has to do with our language – spoken both our words and our postures.  Our language and our actions too often carry stones rather than life.

            Ortberg says, “radical acceptance does what condemnation and judgmentalism and self-superiority could not do: produce a changed life”

            Our task as Christians is not to be right, or to win an argument or even to change society’s laws –we are called as Christians to be a part of transformed lives in the name of Jesus. 

Movement 3:  The Transformation

            This is what we see in Paul’s encounter with Lydia.  When Paul sits down on that bank with these women – he doesn’t start by telling Lydia how far in the margins she lives.  She is aware of this every day of her life.  When she tries to pray and doesn’t know the language.  When she tries to sale some of her cloth only to be undercut by the good ole boy system.  When she tries to care for her household and the government questions her authority to own property.  Lydia doesn’t need to be reminded of the margins.

            Instead, she wants to hear the Good News spoken with compassion.  She wants to know she is accepted and loved by God.  She wants to know that others accept her for who she is.  She wants a community of faith which can accept her gifts and use them for the glory of God.

            When Saul begins to speak about Jesus, telling the women of his life as a Pharisee and how he met Jesus on the way to Damascus as he attempted to arrest more followers – Lydia’s heart begins to open.  When Saul explains the whole salvation story – from creation to crucifixion to consummation – Lydia gets it.  Her heart opens up to words spoken with compassion.  She welcomes Jesus into her life.  She is baptized with her whole household and becomes the center of the new church that meets in her home.  God transforms Lydia’s life and it happens because Saul intentionally speaks compassion to someone in the margins. 

Movement 4:  The Formation

            Consider for a moment the chick-fil-a controversy over the summer as it relates to speaking compassionate Good News to people in the margins of our world.  As you may know by now – The Spivey family loves Chick-fil-A.  We ate there 8 times in the first week our new store opened in the spring.  This summer Chick-fil-A got caught in the cultural wars which rage in our country.  For several weeks, eating a Chick-fil-A sandwich no longer became a matter of hunger, but a political statement.

            On August 1^st people from around the country and here in Habersham rallied behind Chick-fil-A.  People posted pictures of their Chick-fil-A sandwiches on their facebook pages.  In our desire to be right about Gay Marriage in our country – our words and actions did not speak compassion to a world on the margins.  Instead, I fear we did more to push the margins farther away from Jesus. 

            One of our members sent me a pastor’s blog in reflection on that day.  It was called “5 REASONS WHY THE CHURCH FAILED YESTERDAY.” 

1.      Christians all over America ignored the second greatest commandment: to love our neighbors.  While this was not hated – it was not love.

2.      People felt hate and we ignored that.  Whether we intended it or not – people on the margins, in need of God’s good news – missed it that day.

3.      By rallying behind CFA, Christians put an issue above people.

4.      The mass actions of Christians built another wall of distrust between the Church and the GLBT communities. 

5.      Nothing we did that day proved that Christians don’t hate gay people.

Once this issue, though, dropped from the news cycles, Chick-fil-A did not stop working to address this issue with words of compassion.  Last week The Charlotte Observer ran a story about Shane Windmeyer, Campus Pride executive director in North Carolina.  After the events of the summer Campus pride launched an educational campaign known as Five Simple Facts about Chick-fil-A in their attempt to get college kids to stop eating at the campus restaurants. 

This campaign quickly gained the attention of Chick-fil-A executives. Thus, Campus Pride was one of the first organizations that the company contacted.  Windmeyer said he has met with Chick-fil-A executives – including Dan Cathy, CEO, – twice in Atlanta.  Shortly after, Windmeyer suspended his Five Simple Facts campaign.

Here is how Windmeyer described his experience with Chick-fil-A:  In order to listen to someone you have to put down your sticks,” “I didn’t want to continue the campaign without at least acknowledging that they’re making a good faith effort to reach a common ground with us.”

While the cultural war raged out of their control pushing people farther to the margins, Chick-fil-A chose to speak compassionately into those at the margins.  They spoke compassionately by listening.  By allowing others to feel valued and understood.  In evangelism language – we call this type of listening – winning the right to be heard.  When we listen before we speak – we speak compassionately.  In so doing, we truly displayed the Good News of Jesus – one person at a time. 

      Speaking Compassion is Kingdom Basic #5.  When we begin to develop this basic into our lives, our lives begin to be formed more into the image of Jesus.  We begin to look more like Jesus than we do ourselves for the sake of the world.  This is spiritual growth – as we make intentional steps of faithful living – we are being formed biblically, connecting spiritually, worshipping boldly, going intentionally and speaking compassionately – our lives are shaped more into the image of Jesus as we are used by God in the redemption story of the world.  This is what spiritual growth is – looking more like Jesus every day.  This week – let us move beyond what feels natural to speak compassion to the people in the margins of our lives and world.  Amen.