Acts 16:9-10, 13-15; June 1, 2025; Seventh Sunday of Easter
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Last week we heard about Jesus doing the right thing. Didn’t matter that the man he helped was an invalid. Jesus was going to do the right thing.
Because that’s just how He does.
The other thing we noticed is that there are no constraints with Jesus. No barriers. No restrictions or laws that can get in his nor the Spirit’s way.
Because that’s just how He and the Spirit do.
You could be whoever, a nobody without a name like last week, or a woman like Lydia this week. Whoever you are, wherever you are, down by the pool or down by the riverside, God can find you.
Because that’s just how God the Almighty does.
It doesn’t even matter when you are. At the beginning of your life, or at the very end. On a Monday, a Friday, a random Tuesday, or Sunday. God can and will be with you.
Because that’s just how the LORD, Emmanuel, does.
Did you catch that the main event this week also happens just as it did last week, on the Sabbath? Even then if it’s on a mandated day of rest, God can and will work for us.
Because that’s just how God our Creator does.
And amazingly, it will, more often than not, happen on these unexpected days, in these unexpected interactions that, on the surface, aren’t expected to be very amazing at all. Rarely in thunderclaps. Rarely with trumpets blaring and the sky splitting or the sea parting. But rather, in the most ordinary moments of all where God’s grace so often meets us, arrests us, and ultimately changes us.
Because that’s just how God does, especially, if we are open to seeing and hearing God doing it.
If we are open to God’s Spirit, my friends, moving in and out of the stops and spots between our originations and destinations; in between getting from A to B; in these chance encounters, where an unseen power is in the background connecting the dots, bringing people and events together for all of our benefit. Indeed, for what I believe to be a greater and better purpose.
And oh, there have been so many of these intersections, these constellations, documented throughout our history! Both in scripture and our everyday lives.
For instance: July 6, 1957, on a hot and humid summer day in England, at an annual fair with food and music, a 15 and 16-year old, coming from different schools and different neighborhoods, met for the first time in a church auditorium.
The 16-year old, part of a musical act called the “Quarrymen” had just struggled through a set, at times forgetting his own lyrics and playing bum notes on his guitar. But, mysteriously captured by both his swagger and showmanship, the younger 15-year old waited around to be introduced to the older boy.
At first, the 16-year old couldn’t be bothered, as he slumped himself into a collection of chairs and disregarded the younger lad. But then, the 15-year old did something unexpected, and he pulled out his own guitar and began playing a song by Eddie Cochran. And now, it was older one’s turn to be mystified.
Two weeks later the 15-year old was asked by the 16-year old to join the “Quarrymen” and three years later, these two young men started a new band called… “The Beatles.”
Yes, the 16 year-old was John Lennon, my friends, and the 15-year old was Paul McCartney.
You like that? Well, here’s another that I just recently read online:
“After Theodor Geisel wrote his first book, he had no luck finding a publisher. Following yet another rejection, he was ready to burn the manuscript and find a 9-to-5 job. Then one day he was walking down the street and encountered an old Dartmouth classmate. Once they’d exchanged hellos, and what-have-you-been-up-tos, Geisel told him about his failed efforts.
As it happened, this old friend was the son of a publisher. The friend borrowed the manuscript, showed it to his father, and the father offered Geisel a contract — and from there… Dr. Seuss was born.
Years later, Geisel wondered what he would have ended up doing for a living had he walked down the other side of the street that day.”
You like that one, too? Well, here’s one more then, but this time, more to the point for us today:
Paul was once sent a vision at night. This vision was of another man, who asked him to come immediately to Macedonia to help him.
Paul and his cohort leave immediately. But instead of ever finding this man, Paul instead finds a woman. A woman down by the riverside named Lydia.
Because that’s just how God does.
We don’t know much else about her besides that she was simply there. Apparently, a worshipper of God, but with little to no knowledge of Jesus.
It is also said that she dealt in purple cloth, which, mind you, wasn’t just some random cheap trinket to make or sell; and, that she operated in Macedonia, the seat of power and influence under King Phillip II in northern Greece.
Which must have meant that she was also a strong woman. An independent woman. Who was successful in her trade, in a male-dominated world and system.
Because that’s just how God do.
That she is recorded at all, and that this interaction, captured in just a couple of verses, made it into the narrative and the retelling of Acts, and has remained here for us to read 2,000 years later, is both telling and… just how the Author of our lives does!
For this chance encounter where Paul met Lydia, and Lydia met Paul, when Paul was instead supposed to meet a man, is reminding us that God is once more at work in surprising ways, in unexpected places and people, through whom, without barriers or restraints, God gets things done.
Because that’s just how the Giver of all things does.
And, my friends, the chances of these two meeting that day, in that very place, were like so tiny… so small. For, in the verses right before our own, in the ones you didn’t hear this morning, it explicitly states that Paul and his companions had attempted to go to Bithynia instead, but… they were not allowed. And, “so, passing by Mysia they went down to Troas, and there during the night, Paul has his vision of the man telling him to come to Macedonia.” And… well, you know the rest.
So, you see, if they had gone to Bithynia as they had originally planned, none of this would have ever happened! But they didn’t, and it did. Because that’s just how God, our Father, does.
And, what’s just as amazing, and even more telling and worth remembering, is that when they did – when Paul and Lydia meet — they share and rejoice in the grace of God! Paul baptizes Lydia, along with her household, and in return, Lydia opens her home to Paul and his friends.
For, as it is recorded, “she prevailed upon us.”
She prevailed upon them and us! Because, my friends, that is just how God, our Mother does!
If we are willing to be turned this day, if we are willing to be course-corrected tomorrow, we will be so wondrously surprised every day by the unexpected people and chance encounters in whom God is also at work; mystifying us, changing us, for all of our benefit. Indeed, for what I believe to be a greater and better purpose.
Amen.
