“The Woman in Purple”

Acts 16:11-15

A Sermon preached by the Rev. Douglas M. Donley

Mother’s Day

May 9, 2004

University Baptist Church

Minneapolis, MN

 

            You know the 1984 poem by Jenny Joseph entitled “Warning”:

When I am an old woman I shall wear purple
With a red had which doesn’t go, and doesn't suit me.
And I shall spend my pension on brandy and summer gloves
And satin sandals, and say we've no money for butter.
I shall sit down on the pavement when I'm tired
And gobble up samples in shops and press alarm bells
And run my stick along the public railings
And make up for the sobriety of my youth.
I shall go out in my slippers in the rain
And pick the flowers in other people's gardens
And learn to spit.

You can wear terrible shirts and grow more fat
And eat three pounds of sausages at a go
Or only bread and pickle for a week
And hoard pens and pencils and beermats and things in boxes.

But now we must have clothes that keep us dry
And pay our rent and not swear in the street
And set a good example for the children.
We must have friends to dinner and read the papers.

But maybe I ought to practice a little now?
So people who know me are not too shocked and surprised
When suddenly I am old, and start to wear purple.

 

            It’s about breaking with convention.  It’s about claiming who you are.  It’s about no longer caring what other people think.  It’s about the freedom that we earn by our maturity.

            Today, I want to talk about a courageous woman who dared to wear purple.  I want to talk about her because she was a brave woman.  And I have come to believe that one of the bravest thing any woman can do is to be a mother.  This woman is compelling and demands to not only be noticed, but she also draws people to her like a magnet.  She’s the kind of person you don’t say no to, like many of the mothers I know.  Her name is Lydia, which means “offspring”.  Since she was the first European convert and the host of the first church of Philippi, we are kind of like her offspring.

            Let’s review what we know of Lydia.

            She has a name.  Unlike many of the women in the Bible, Luke chose to remember her name.  It only appears in the book of Acts.  Her name could be drawn from the town of Lydia and that she is known as the Lydian.  I choose to remember her as Lydia, however.

 

            She is a faithful person.  She is a person looking for and to God’s purposes.  She was a worshipper of God in a Roman colony.  She was therefore somewhat of a subversive.  I like her already.

            She is the head of a household, possibly a single mother.  When her heart is opened to what Paula and Silas say she sees to it that her entire family is baptized.  There is no mention of a man.  There is no mention of her needing to consult anyone.  This is a woman who knew who she was and had bucked the patriarchal system.  She is the first convert to the Jesus movement in Europe. The early church was begun by strong women, just like it continues to be shaped by strong women.

            She was a woman of means.  She was a dealer in purple goods.  Like Queen Jezebel, she was a person who had power because of this color, because only the rich ones wore purple.  But Lydia was more than that, she was a traveling merchant coming to Philippi from Thyatira.  Philippi was the only church to give Paul and his movement financial aid (Phil 4:10, 15; II Cor 11:8-9)  It was like the first Women’s Missionary Union offering.

            She had her own house and she entertained the entourage of the apostle Paul. Some even go so far as to say that Paul took such a liking to her that Lydia and Paul were married.

            She was a woman who showed hospitality.  Amanda was sitting on Kim’s lap this morning and asked about the article Kim was reading.  The article was about the mother who had twelve sons.  Kim told her how she took care of them all and how good it was.  Amanda said, “It’s kinda like the hospitality work you do, Mom.”  Kim and I both looked at her and said, what do you mean, thinking she was talking about being a welcoming place for everyone.  Amanda said, “you know, you work in a hospital, so your work is hospitality, right?”  Well, kinda I guess.

            After her baptism, Lydia exercised her hospitality.  She invited Paul and his band of merry men to stay at her home.  I love the way Luke tells us this, “And she prevailed upon us.”  This is his way of saying she would not take no for an answer.  She would not be belittled.  She would not be snubbed.  She would not be told that she was of the wrong race, the wrong class, the wrong gender.  She was baptized and therefore equal.  “She prevailed upon us,” says Luke.   “There was nothing we could do.”  This was a dangerous thing to do, for Paul & Silas found themselves in prison shortly thereafter. 

But upon their release, where did they go, but to Lydia’s house (16:40).  Jesus said in Matthew 25:35, “I was a stranger and you took me in.” 

            What do we make of this woman in purple?

            The fact is, we tend to ignore this odd woman.  Even though she was central to the early church, we forget her.  We marginalize her.  We put her on the sidelines of faith discussions.  We forget who she was.  We forget her significance.  And yet she sits there in the background wearing purple.  It’s hard to ignore her all of the time.  She is there.  She is the force of the movement.  She doesn’t so much need us to remember her as she needs us to remember who we are because of her.

            Lydia had power because she prevailed upon Paul.  She was compelling.  She was a force to be reckoned with.  She didn’t take no for an answer.  She didn’t settle.  She is the kind of person who made people sit up and listen.

            Now there’s a difference between someone who is compelling and someone who is annoying.  Both are persistent. Both succeed in making us do things we don’t want to do.  I like to think Lydia was the kind of person that drew people to her because she had the kind of charisma that made you sit up and listen.

            Who are the women in purple who teach us something? Anne Reed has a great song that I first heard her sing at Paul Wellstone’s memorial service, called “Heroes”.

Ann Reed
Heroes

What can I learn from you

That I must do the thing I think I can not do

That you do what's right by your heart and soul

It's the imperfections that make us whole

One life can tell the tale

And if you make the effort you can not fail

By your life you tell me it can be done

By your life's the courage to carry on

Heroes appear like a friend 

To clear a path or light the flame

As time goes by you find you depend 

On your heroes to show you the way



Sojourner Truth, Eleanor Roosevelt

Katherine Hepburn, Sally Ride

Susan B. Anthony, Harriet Tubman

Annie Sullivan, Gertrude Stein



Coretta Scott King, Amelia Earhart

Lillian Hellman, Eartha Kitt

Sacajewea, Ella Fitzgerald

Golda Meir, Dorothy Dix



Louisa May Alcott, Billie Jean King

Emily Dickinson, Lucy Stone

Margaret Sanger, Clara Barton

Billie Holiday, Juliette Low



Elizabeth Blackwell, Rosa Parks

Lena Horne, Beverly Sills

Barbara Jordan, Helen Keller

Indira Gandhi, Agens DeMille



Corazon Aquino, Gloria Steinem

Rachel Carson, Joan of Arc

Babe Zaharias, Marlene Deitrich

Anne Frank, Simone de Beauvoir…

 

            Who are some of your compelling purple-wearing heroes and sheras?

            As I heard people speak of Lou Mata’s daughter, Phyllis, I thought of Lydia.  At the viewing and memorial service, people said, “her door was always open.  She had lots of people around her.  Everyone was welcome in her home.” 

            Sister Bernie Galvin is a diminutive septuagenarian nun who runs San Francisco’s Religious Witness with Homeless People.  She was one of those people I could not say no to.  She was persistent.  She would call me up and tell me about the destruction of housing in the Presdio and persuade me that it was my Christian duty to stand in the way of the bulldozers and not only that, but to also get as many others to join me as possible.  I think of her as a woman in purple.

            The Karen Damann is a Methodist Minister in Seattle who happens to be openly lesbian.  Because she chose to speak that truth about who she is, she has stood trial on heresy charges and survived, for now, efforts to defrock her.  She has gently and powerfully chosen not to back down.  As an offspring of Lydia, she is telling her story and people are listening.  They are listening so much that even though the Methodist church in its General Assembly meeting this past week retained its exclusion of GLBT people as ministers, they chose not to pursue Rev. Damann any further.  The tension remains and we know that creation happens out of chaos. 

            All of these are women in purple.  All of them are bold.  All of them are our spiritual mothers.  And because someone like Lydia once prevailed upon Paul, Silas and Luke, we are her heirs.

            So we just might have to be women and men who wear purple from time to time.  Because of the ones who have gone before us, we have the power, the wisdom and the insight to look at the world from a different perspective.  We have a compelling message.  We have a vision for a new kind of community where we live by hospitality, and love, and mercy, and even though we are in the belly of the beast of empire, we are not defined by its rules.  We dare to wear purple and compel others to catch our vision. 

             We do this because it’s what a mother does.  She looks out for her young, and wants the best for them.  She wants them to grow up and be bold enough to wear purple.  Because she knows the power that results when we dare to be who we are called to be.

            Thank God for the woman in purple and all of us, her offspring.

            Many of whom wear purple

            Many of whom compel us to sit up and listen.  Thank you and thank God for you.