Sermon for May 16, 2004

A certain woman
Amitiyah Elayne Hyman
May 16, 2004

Welcome to this Sunday’s service, welcome to worship. Welcome to this place of prayer and healing, this sanctuary of the most high God. Welcome Rhythmn Workers Union, welcome family and friends of the Kanayo Duru, welcome visitors and friends of the church, welcome longtime and new members. Welcome to this household, welcome to this family of faith and faithfulness. WELCOME.

We offer you all a welcome because it is the Sabbath day, a day of rest and re-creation, a day that is set aside to gather and to greet the Holy one. This is a day the Lord has made for leaving the fight and frenzy of our restless lives’ pursuit of material things and turning our attention to the acquisition of spiritual things. Come well into this place of prayer, center yourselves now, by the waters of baptism, open your hearts to the hearing and the doings of God. In this place we are all welcome, even when we are not all well.

For into this place too can come the unwell: the sick, the blind, the lame, the paralyzed. Into this place can come the unwell, who lay around waiting to be picked up and carried by others. Into this place can come the haunted and the hurting, the wounded and the wicked. In this place can come those who receive healing, and who leave never to return. Into this place can come those who receive, but do not give. Into this place can come those who meet and greet Jesus once in a while and go on about their lives without a glance back, no further nod to God, no word or witness to the power that has been exercised in their lives. Into this place come many.

Into this place come few. Into this place, every once in a while comes a certain woman, a certain man, a certain child...like the one name Lydia... We learn that she was certain: determined, fixed, not doubting, nor to be doubted, unqestionable, not failing, reliable, dependable, assured, positive, unerring...a certain woman was she. Like us she was at a place of healing, and hope...she gathered there, by the river...near the waters of baptism, because she wanted to pray. Like us she knew the value of sabbat.... Like us she had chosen to find the time to sit with God. For her as for us this act sitting with God produced a certainty. By being grounded in the presence of God, the knowing of God, the listening for and speaking to God, the waiting for God, our woman Lydia...hush, hush somebody’s callin’ her name...our woman Lydia grew in faith and faithfulness. Hush, hush, somebody’s callin’ her name.

I have a sister name Lydia...it is, in our post industrial era, an uncommon name, which our parents gave her, in the early 1940's, because they saw something special in their first born daughter. They saw that she had an aptitude for God. They wanted her to be open to spiritual things, they prayed that she would spend time listening and waiting on God. They dedicated her to attaining much, to being a woman of substance, a seller of purple cloth. They hoped that her life would be threaded by the material purple to weave a fabric for the spiritual, knowing God .

“God”, says Alice Walker, through the mouthpiece of her character, is in “a blade of corn” and in “the color purple”. God is in the color purple. The color purple is the color of royalty. Remember our lenten/advent color...Purple of passion, altar cloths and sacramental wear. It connotes high rank, divinity. When applied to language it connotes strength and vigor, directness.

God spoke directly to the woman Lydia, through the mouthpiece of character Paul...the writer of letters, the architect and builder of the Church we call Christian...fashioned on the teachings and the doings of Jesus. God speaks to us many and often too. This is not unusual, this is the way of God. God chooses to communicate with us. God introduces God self all the time....yahweh, allah, elowhim. In the music and the dance, in the language of poetry and art, in the sound of the drum...God resonates throughout our lives. God can be seen in the face of the water, in the tree by the water, in the sun’s set and rising, there too is God. God is in corn and color. There is nothing unusual about being able to see and hear the presence of God.

What was and remains unusual is that every once in a while, a certain woman, or a certain man, or even a certain child will hear and sense the presence of God and do something about it.

Every once in a little long while...someone will give back to God, like the woman Lydia...every once in a while someone will turn his home, his time, his talent, his material good and gifts into opportunities to serve the purposes of God.
Every once in a while someone with certainty will notice that the sanctuary needs to be built up and maintained, that the congregation needs support, that the preacher requires hospitality, that the school needs supplies, that the teachers deserve recognition. Now and then, there come those who understand that worship/liturgy is more than sitting in the pew on Sunday. Indeed worship/liturgy is the work of the people of God. Worship/liturgy is what we do with our time, precious ticking, frenzied fretful, minute by minute...Worship/liturgy the work of the people of God is what we do with our days, months, years. Every minute counts, every minute matters. They are all gifts from God, not promised, but given.
Every once in a while someone will use them in service to God, by inviting believers to her table, hostessing a meal in her home, every once in a while someone will dig into her pocketbook and tithe a offering...give back 5, 10 20 percent of her earnings to the doings, the comings and the goings of God’s business.
Every once in a while some certain man, woman, child, will become a proactive worker in the sanctuary...an elder or a deacon, a musician AND a member of the congregation, a doer of the word, joining a committee, forming a task force, getting the job done, creating the alliance, developing the plan, funding the activity...
Every once in a while some one who has grown up in the church, been taught in the Sunday school, gone to youth fellowship, memorized bible verses, gone to church camp will come back and stay.
Every once in a while some certain special someone will be hushed long enough to hear that God needs her, that God has laid a divine hand upon his life, that God is owed something for the goodness and the grace.

Hush, hush now, hush....listen for the name you are certain to hear.

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