Year C Easter VI Acts 16:9-15 John 14:23-29

Journeys! How do we travel in this day and age? For most of us, travel mean’s a trip to the beach in summer or perhaps a skating rink in winter. We fly, take the train, drive to visit friends and family, or perhaps to see distant places. Our reasons for travelling are usually based on business, family gatherings, or pleasure. And before we leave, we plan. For long trips we plan what we will pack, make sure our documents are in order, make all the necessary reservations, and up until the last minute are checking our list to be sure we remembered everything. In our society, travelling is rarely, if ever, something one does spontaneously.

In today’s lesson, we are joining Paul, who is travelling. We catch up with him in the early stages of his second great missionary journey. On his first journey, he traveled with Barnabas to Cyprus and Galatia to proclaim the Gospel and establish small Christian communities. On his second missionary journey, Paul is traveling with Silas. Their plan is to retrace the steps from Paul’s first journey, checking to see how those who became believers on his first journey are fairing. They definitely had planned out their route and knew their purpose.

As we join them in today’s reading, Paul and Silas have been somewhat successful. They have been able to visit some of the places, but unable to visit others. Starting from Caesarea Philippi, they have traveled north to Antioch, then generally northwest through Asia Minor. Now they have arrived in “Troas”, a seaport. 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.’

If any of us had a vision, in the middle of one of our trips, a vision which asked us to change our travel plans and head for a place to which we had never been, to help someone we didn’t know, we would probably fluff it off as a very vivid dream. If we thought it was more than that, when we got home we might check in with our primary care physician to see if we needed to be seen by a psychiatrist.

But if, on the other hand, we actually took such a vision seriously we would probably be stopped in our tracks. Think of all the fuss and bother trying to rearrange current plans, our reservations, etc., in order to adapt to this unexpected change in direction. To say it would be complicated and that we would grumble is an understatement.

When Paul had seen the vision, he and Silas and Timothy immediately tried to cross over to Macedonia, being convinced that God had called them to proclaim the good news to them.

Paul doesn’t waste time. He doesn’t grumble. Like Jesus’ mother Mary, who went in haste to visit her cousin Elizabeth when she knew she was carrying Jesus, Paul is open and receptive to whatever mission God gives him, even one that bids him to, for the very first time, enter Europe, and there spread the Good News of Jesus . Without further questions or fuss, Paul goes in haste.

On his arrival in Philippi, a Macedonia seaport, his first stop is to visit the Jewish community who met “outside the gate by the river”. There, Paul and his companions “sat down and spoke to the women who had gathered there.” For Paul and his companions to have done this is unusual in the extreme. Paul, a good Jew, had been taught to avoid any contact with people like Lydia, a gentile, and had been taught not to be seen in public with women. Yet here he is talking to Lydia and her companions.

Lydia is a fascinating person. Along with her family, she will be the first person in Europe to convert and be baptized. When we first meet her, she’s a businesswoman, one who like other gentile women, has been attracted to Judaism because of its high ethical standards. We know only a little about her, where she was from and what she sold. She was from the city of Thyatira [thia tyra] and a dealer in purple cloth (which is to say, luxury fabrics).

On this day, she sits with the other women outside the gate and hears what Paul is saying, what the Good News is offering her and her family, and The Lord opened her heart to listen eagerly to what was said by Paul. She believes what she hears. She doesn’t wait or grumble or try to figure out, before she takes this life changing step, before deciding to be baptized, whether it is a wise move or “the right” move. Lydia moves with haste to answer the call of God.

In this first Lesson we have two people to whom the Holy Spirit reaches out, and when they respond, their lives and the lives of others are forever changed. They don’t take time to analyze the experience, or wonder if maybe they should think twice. They immediately answer the call of God.

And we think to ourselves how much easier our lives would be if that sort of thing happened today. Certainly, it would be helpful if we had some form of contact with the Holy Spirit, some direction from God, some clarity, to help and guide us. What we have forgotten is that we already have exactly that.

Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you. I do not give to you as the world gives…

Today’s Gospel reading, like the one last week, comes from what the Church calls the Farewell Discourses. Jesus is leaving His disciples, and He wants them to be prepared. They are undoubtedly frightened by the thought of His departure, being left in the world without His strength and guidance. They are anything but peaceful, and He is intent on steadying them. Do not let your hearts be troubled, and do not let them be afraid.

Then He gives them peace. This is more than gently wishing them peaceful lives – Jesus gives them peace. This is not a wish. This is a profound gift. And it is not a passive peace. This peace will propel the disciples and later the Church, and remember, we are the Church today, into active ministry, into living lives of love and service. It is this peace, given by God in Jesus’ name, which enables the disciples and us to live lives of faithfulness. What then is this peace of which Jesus speaks?

The Peace of Christ is the Advocate, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, [and it] will teach you everything, and remind you of all that I have said to you.

The peace of Christ, the Peace of God, is the Holy Spirit, that gift we all received at our baptism. And the Holy Spirit is a living Spirit, it is one of the Three Persons of the Holy Trinity, it is God, with us, among us, and in us.

We are people filled with the Holy Spirit, and Jesus expects us to be ever open, and ever responsive to this Spirit. We are the ones who are called to be the bearers of this peace to the world, called to be holy people, but the world keeps us busy and distracted.

The difficulty we have today – is making the time to cultivate our relationship with that Spirit, with God. There are so many worldly responsibilities in our lives. We don’t make time during the day for quiet centering prayer, also sometimes called meditation. We don’t think to pray about every problem, or, for that matter to thank God for everything. We don’t, as we were told to do, pray without ceasing. And worse, we don’t listen. We are surrounded by worldly noise, filled with personal noise, and focused on all these sounds, which surround us and fill us.

We therefore think that to be heard, the Holy Spirit must speak in volume greater than the noise in which we live. Surely God should speak to us in thunder and lightning, in terrifying power that passes our understanding. But this, of course, is not true. Mother Teresa once pointed out, “It is in the silence of the heart that God speaks”. But what does that mean, and what good is that information if we have no experience of it? Or do we?

Sometimes we hear the whispers, we have that sudden unexplained sense we should do something, phone someone, buy an item we see at the store (and I don’t mean compulsive buying). And we act, though we may not even know at that moment the reason why. Later we are surprised to find that our letter, our phone call, or that item we bought were very important to us or to someone else. When this happens, we have heeded the quiet whispering of the Spirit.

And have you ever had an “ah HAH” moment? It is a moment of complete clarity when you have your answer or you know exactly what you need to do. You have not the slightest doubt about it. It is simple and clear. It is a moment that is also filled with goodness, offering a loving response to your need for an answer or direction. And you act on it immediately – because it leaves no doubt in you.

These experiences are the Holy Spirit speaking. That Voice has overridden your noise and the noise of the world. That is the “still small Voice of God’.

What gets in our way and keeps us from always hearing that Voice is the simple fact that we are human, we are sinners, and we find it difficult to disentangle ourselves from the well-known and sometimes much loved noises of life. But the Holy Spirit, is not going to constantly override our noisy inattention. We have our part to play. That Voice calls to us daily, and we are meant to be listening. This is one of the most important jobs we have been given as Jesus’ followers – to listen. And it is something that is doable. We simply need to do it.

When we listen, Jesus calls us, and God the Holy Spirit directs us. Then we find clarity that stops us in our tracks, fills us with strength and assurance and joy, and compels us to go with haste to spread God’s love and peace in the world.

Let us pray:

O God, by whom the meek are guided in judgment, and light rises up in darkness for the godly: Grant us, in all our doubts and uncertainties, the grace to ask what You would have us do, and the patience to listen quietly for Your answer, that the Spirit of wisdom may save us from all false choices, and that in Your light we may see light, and in Your straight path may not stumble; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.