Lydia’s listening
is it true, is it loving, is it necessary?
The baptism of St. Lydia and her household is recorded in Acts 16. Her feast day is August 3. That just happens to be the date when I was baptized. For a long time, I had the shirt I wore during my baptism. It was the upper half of some blue surgical scrubs. It became quite a bit raggedy, as I wore it many times afterward, and it acquired some green stains due to a summer job I had, painting machines for a factory.
Several years ago, it disappeared under mysterious circumstances. I repeat, mysterious. And please note, this word “mysterious” will reappear.
A photo from 2010 in which I am holding the mysterious shirt.
I begin with this talk about baptism because the story of Lydia—her story of baptism and the change of heart and mind that goes with it—is a key moment in the early church.
Earlier in chapter 16, the apostle Paul is in Asia Minor, where he has a vision in the night of a Macedonian man who says, “Come over to Macedonia and help us” (v. 9). So Paul makes his first journey to Europe. He and his friends go to Philippi, where they encounter Lydia and her friends.
After they part company with Lydia, Paul and his group meet a slave girl who we’re told can predict the future. There is a spirit of divination within her. The girl’s owners use her as a fortune teller, and the biggest fortune is the one they make off her! After a few days of her pointing out that Paul and his friends are “slaves of the Most High God,” the apostle gets irritated and casts the spirit out of her (v. 17).
Seeing that their source of income has been cast to the winds, her owners grab Paul and his friend Silas, have them viciously beaten, and tossed into jail, with their feet locked into stress positions. They could have felt they were being buried alive.
On the matter of being buried alive, I’m reminded of something that happened to me not long before we left Jamestown. I had an MRI as a check-up for the first time in two years. Something happened that never in my life have I experienced: I endured a bout of claustrophobia.
Beforehand, the technician’s assistant asked the usual questions, like, “Do you have any metal in your body?” (Metal in a body undergoing magnetic resonance imaging is not recommended.) I noticed a cartoon on the wall in which a woman is being rolled into the MRI tube. The doctor’s telling her that they need to scan her brain to figure out why she has claustrophobic episodes! I laughed about that with the assistant, saying, “Yes, let’s put you in this coffin and figure out why you have claustrophobia!”
It turns out I laughed too soon. A couple of times I was on the verge of squeezing the little signaling device they give you. I didn’t want to disrupt the scanning process, but I was also ready to get out of that thing! Some deep breathing (and some prayer) enabled me to get through it. Afterwards, I realized I’ve never understood how terrible it is to have claustrophobia.
In any event, that night there’s an earthquake which knocks all the doors loose, but Paul and Silas refuse to escape.
(They’re not ready to get out of the MRI.)
In the morning, the Roman officials find out they are actually Roman citizens, and they have rights. The order that they be arrested and beaten was an illegal one, so they want Paul and Silas to leave town quickly and quietly. (They don’t want this getting out!) But Paul says, “Are you serious? I’m not moving an inch until they come and apologize!”
After that, they still have one more stop to make. They can’t take off without saying goodbye to Lydia. So we come full circle back to this woman whose name has been preserved for us, and that’s a rarity with women in the Bible.
So who is Lydia? The first thing we learn about her is that Paul meets her at “a place of prayer” on the sabbath (v. 13). That would sound right, since we’re told she’s “a worshiper of God” (v. 14). That’s a term used to describe the so-called “God-fearers.” They were Gentiles who admired and followed the Jewish faith. We’re also told she is “a dealer in purple cloth.” That’s a lucrative trade, so she’s got to have some money.
What’s so remarkable about this godly woman of means? The scriptures say that the “Lord opened her heart to listen eagerly to what was said by Paul” (v. 14). In his paraphrase called The Message, Eugene Peterson said, “As she listened with intensity to what was being said, the Master gave her a trusting heart—and she believed!”
Lydia is the first European convert in Paul’s ministry, and that involves a number of dynamics. Being the leader of her group, Paul and his friends would necessarily have to deal with her at first contact. That would be a problem in a culture in which men and women simply didn’t start talking with each other. Eyebrows—severe eyebrows—would be raised. Hold that thought on one side of your head, while I get ready to hit you on the other side.
Something related to that is 1 Corinthians 9:3-5. “This is my defense to those who would examine me,” said Paul, referring to his detractors. “Do we not have the right to our food and drink? Do we not have the right to be accompanied by a believing wife, as do the other apostles and the brothers of the Lord and Cephas?”
That term, “believing wife,” has a history of debated meaning. It is mysterious. (I issued the proper warning earlier!) It literally means “a sister” and “a woman (or wife).” [αδελφη (adelphē) and γυνη (gynē)] “Wife” could be literal or spiritual. It has been acknowledged that missionaries would often travel in pairs—male and female. Therefore as verse 13 says, because “we sat down and spoke to the women who had gathered there,” no suspicion would be aroused, since women accompanied the men.
Bam! There goes the other side of your head.
(Actually, this is comparable to observations made of Banu’s and my ministry throughout the years. It’s not impossible we could relate to members of the opposite sex, but it has been incredibly serendipitous at times. One might say, God’s blessing! And that also informs my deeply held belief that forbidding ordination of women is a severe hindrance to the gospel.)
There’s more on this female / male aspect.
There is the vision of a man who calls Paul to the woman Lydia, to whom he brings the good news under joyful circumstances. He brings the good news to the female slave under sorrowful circumstances. Lydia has made it a practice to listen to the Spirit during faithful times of prayer. The slave girl has been forced to listen to the spirit controlling her for the profit of unfaithful men. (Males are on either side of the equation.)
So there’s the theme of listening. Why is listening so important? Why do we listen? Do we listen? We listen to go deeper. We listen to go deeper into life, to not stay at the surface of life.
What is the result of Lydia’s listening? It’s her conversion. In her essay, “Opening the Heart to Listen: Becoming Mystics and Prophets Today,” Judette Gallares says conversion “involves much more than a moment, it is a process which involves long periods of time… It involves relationships that…are woven into [our] life story.” (4)
It takes a certain depth of spirit, a certain willingness to listen, to demonstrate the courage that Lydia does.
Gallares puts it this way: “In today’s fragmented world, which [has] different levels and degrees of homelessness, our mystic spirit, our sense of ‘belonging to God’ must open us up to others and to the world, to offer ourselves, our communities and our planet earth as a hospitable place for humanity and the whole of God’s creation.” (8)
How can we imitate that Lydian listening? It involves finding that place within ourselves and within the community, the world around us. It’s not either/or; it’s both/and.
In his book On the Threshold of Transformation, Richard Rohr, on this subject of listening, mentions what has been called the “three gates” through which our words should pass.
First, we have to ask ourselves, “Is what I’m saying really true? If it’s not true, then, of course, don’t bother.” The second gate has us ask, “Is it loving? Am I about to say something that will build up life and trust, or will it tear them down?” He says the third gate is “probably the most difficult,” and I think I agree. “Is what I am about to say really that necessary? If it’s not, why clutter up the moment with more words and more noise competing for space and attention?” (341)
So to sum up: is it true; is it loving; is it necessary? Imagine how our private and public discourse would look, including social media on the internet, if we took those things to heart!
The current fighting in Israel / Palestine is a heartbreaking example of how we fail. [That is, the fighting at the time this was posted, though I fear it will last for much longer.] We act from our fear and pain and shattered dreams. And our rage. We point with worn and weary fingers until we have nothing left but to become tragic mirror images.
And even now, as I’m uttering these words, I have to be aware of the true-loving-necessary dynamic I just mentioned. I might too easily give the impression that I really understand what’s going on.
Listening is the posture of faith. Before speaking—before speaking even good words—we have to listen. We have to listen to hear the call to conversion—the call to baptism—the call to ongoing conversion. We must listen for the word of God. We must listen like Lydia.
When we imitate Lydia’s listening, we also give a great gift to the world, to each other, and to ourselves. However it happens, may we be open to the Spirit of Christ and listen. Just listen.
Jesus said, “If you have ears to hear, then hear!” (Mk 4:9).