Sermon 05.04.2025: The Spirit's Invitation

The Book of Acts continues the story began in the Gospel of Luke. The Good News of the Gospel is being taken to the ends of the Earth, because the Spirit is on the loose!

From being a movement of people who knew Jesus, and people who had heard him teach and speak, it grows. Exponentially.

From Jerusalem, to the rest of the Middle East, and then to Europe, Asia, and even San Francisco. 

This is the Good News--that God's Spirit will not be limited or constrained. 

How do we welcome and celebrate the differences that come with the Spirit's invitation? How does hospitality create, and re-create the church?

Scripture

Acts 16:6-15

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

We set sail from Troas and took a straight course to Samothrace, the following day to Neapolis, 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. 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. A 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. 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.

Sermon

The "Man from Macedonia" sounds like a TV show from the 60s, with lots of intrigue and drama. And in the Book of Acts, he is an intriguing and enigmatic character as well. 

The recently converted Paul has been traveling around, preaching the good news of Jesus Christ. He’s been trying to get into parts of Asia Minor to preach but we’re told the holy spirit of Jesus did not allow them to go there. 

We aren’t given details of what that looked like, exactly. I’m sort of picturing a giant ghostly dove blocking the road and pointing them in other directions. 

I suspect it was less clear than that. You know those times in your life when you were convinced you were headed one direction? And then nothing in the universe conspired for that dream to come true? So then you ended up going in a different direction, and realized that it was where you belonged all along? 

Honestly, that sort of describes how I ended up here at Calvary. I thought I was supposed to stay in Boise, pastoring the congregation I loved there, serving the community where we raised our kids. But the Holy Spirit of Jesus kept turning me toward San Francisco because a lot of people kept saying, “Hey, there’s a church in San Francisco looking for a pastor, and I think you’d be a good fit.” I had never once thought in my life that I should move to California—you have earthquakes! And no parking! And now I’m here and I cannot imagine being anywhere else. I thought I was supposed to be going one direction and the Holy Spirit of Jesus sent me on a different path. 

Do you have moments in your life that were like that? It can be hard to remember how disorienting it is when it happens, because once you live into the goodness of the change, we forget the difficulty of the change. 

Remember the disorientation and dislocation of change as you think about Paul’s experience in Macedonia. 

Paul is in a place where his plans to go to Asia are not panning out, and then he has this vision of a man in Macedonia, which today we’d call Northern Greece. And Paul pivots and takes the Gospel to the continent of Europe instead of to other parts of Asia. 

The Holy Spirit calls us to places that are unfamiliar to us, places we would not choose to go on our own, places where people have different customs, different languages, different politics, no parking, etc. 

I confess, there are moments I wish the Book of Acts said that the Holy Spirit of Jesus called Paul to go exactly where he wanted to go, where he already had friends and knew the customs and his life was easy-peasy and nothing bad happened. 

I suspect I am not alone in that confession. 

This story reminds me that God calls us into spaces and places, not because they are easy, but because God has something good for us in the complexity and the difficulty. 

And God does not send us there, only to abandon us there. Any place God sends us, God goes with us. We are never apart from the presence of God, no matter how dislocated we may feel in the moment. 

Paul goes to Macedonia, a place where he knows nobody, and goes to church to find some community. Well, he goes to the river on the sabbath. Philippi didn’t have a synagogue, so he knew the river outside the gates of the city would be the place for people to gather to pray. 

Luckily, Paul finds a friendly church, a group of people where he is welcomed as he is. And he is treated as a guest, not just a visitor who happened to wander in off the street. 

He meets Lydia. 

Lydia is not local to Philippi. She, too, is from another place. She’s from what would be today in Turkey. So maybe she knows what it is like to need hospitality. Maybe someone welcomed her in when she was new to town, and she wants to pass it forward. 

Or maybe nobody welcomed her, maybe they didn’t like her accent, or they told her to go back home to her own country, and she wants to be sure others don’t have to experience what she went through. 

Either way, the Lord opens Lydia’s heart when she hears Paul preach, and she asks to be baptized and then she invites him to come stay with her. 

Lydia reminds us that the good news of Jesus brings us into relationship, across our differences, and calls us into community. 

But community isn’t just a word you say. Community is a verb. It requires action, inconvenience, compassion, flexibility, and grace. 

Lydia could have heard Paul’s amazing sermon and then said “Thanks. Hope you find a place to stay even though hotels and Airbnbs haven’t been invented yet! Hope I see you again sometime.” 

Instead, she takes him into her home. A guest. 

As I mentioned at the start of worship, the word in Greek for Hospitality translates as “love of strangers.” 

And the world needs hospitality, needs us to love strangers, more now than ever. As government officials and their executive orders try to make us fear others, and isolate from each other, we can recognize the insecurity and fear that is behind their hatred. 

I confessed earlier in the sermon that I wanted the holy spirit to send us to places where everyone is alike, and nothing is complicated. 

I believe the racism and the cruel policies of deportation without due process start from that same place of fear and insecurity. If you think you’re supposed to fear difference, rather than welcome and learn from difference, we can see why they believe what they do, even if we believe it is wrong. 

Because the Holy Spirit of Jesus sent Paul to strangers. The Holy Spirit of Jesus would not let Paul only travel to people who agreed with him, who spoke his same language, who had his same customs. We have to follow the Spirit when it sends us into relationship with people who are different than we are. 

And in that experience, Paul was changed. The Holy Spirit of Jesus sent Paul to a place where he would need to receive help and hospitality for his work to happen. 

Who are the people the Holy Spirit of Jesus is sending our way, in need of hospitality and welcome so they can do what God is calling them to do? 

I ask that in the broader sense of our national conversation right now. We are a nation of immigrants. All of us here, unless we are Ramatush Ohlone tribal members, came here from somewhere else. Our ancestors came here from somewhere else, strangers who received hospitality in a foreign land. 

The welcome of immigrants and strangers is a biblical command. We must advocate for policies that give to other people what we have already received. 

I also ask the question in a narrower sense. In your own life, who is the Holy Spirit of Jesus sending your way, in need of hospitality and welcome so they can do what God is dreaming for them to do? 

And who is the Holy Spirit of Jesus sending to Calvary? What can we do as a congregation to make sure that when people like Paul are sent to us by the Holy Spirit, how can we be like Lydia to them? 

Today is legacy Sunday, which you’ll hear more about in a few minutes, but I’m grateful for the legacy of hospitality and welcome here at Calvary. Our ancestors in faith, over the past 171 years, have provided hospitality and welcome in our community. We are the beneficiaries of their legacy. 

What can we do to create a legacy of welcome and hospitality that will benefit future generations? 

Adam Grant, in his book Hidden Potential, writes: “It’s more important to be good ancestors than dutiful descendants. Too many people spend their lives being custodians of the past instead of stewards of the future. The responsibility of each generation is not to please our predecessors—it’s to improve conditions for our successors.” 

As we think about what hospitality means in our own lives, and in our corporate life as a church, I hope it becomes a watchword for us, a guiding light that leads us to the welcome of God.