First Sunday after
Trinity, June 2nd, A+D 2024
Our Savior’s and
Our Redeemer Lutheran Churches
Hill City and Custer, South Dakota
True Purple Wealth
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Sermon on the Occasion of a Confirmation
Audio of the Sermon available HERE.
The Altar Guild asked me if we should change the paraments to red for today’s confirmation at Our Redeemer, and we have red flowers, too. I think we associate red with confirmation because very often we celebrate it on Pentecost Sunday. I said green, the appointed color for this 1st Sunday after Trinity, would be fine. But, I should have asked them to switch to purple. You see, Makeda’s middle name is Lidya. Our confirmand, Makeda Sumption, has a wonderful middle name that comes from the Book of the Acts of the Apostles, chapter 16, for those of you keeping score at home. Lydia was a merchant, a dealer in purple dyes, the rarest, and so the richest of colors in the ancient world, the color of royalty, of wealth, of power.
God’s Word is living and active, so I always expect there will be connections between whatever particular part of Scripture we have before us, and whatever situation we find ourselves in. Today is no exception. You see, we worry, even as we rejoice to hear the good confession of Makeda. Our worry is about whether her faithfulness will endure. Will Makeda continue steadfast in the one true Christian faith and life? And of course, we oldsters ask this question not just because it seems so many young Christians drift away. We worry because this question is intensely personal for each of us. Will I remain faithful unto death? Only by the grace of God.
I’m always looking for connections, and it just so happens that Makeda’s middle namesake, Lydia of Thyatira, was a dealer in purple dyes. And, thanks to the Holy Spirit, working through the Lectionary committee and the schedule of Makeda’s life here in South Dakota, today we have a purple background in our readings. The tragic protagonist of our Gospel this morning, who we only know as a certain “rich man,” was clothed in purple and fine linen and … feasted sumptuously every day. Perhaps his clothes were even dyed by Lydia. In any case, our worries about remaining faithful could not be more starkly portrayed than in the afterlife of this rich man. First we hear, Lord willing with shock and horror, of the rich man’s foolishness, his worship of his worldly wealth. The rich man’s god was his money. Lazarus, a poor beggar, lands in the lap of eternal luxury, despite his life of grinding hardship. The rich man sits in torment. Still, to this day, and forever and ever.
And yet, even from Hades, (Hades is the same as Hell, in case you were not sure), the rich man does eloquently express our worries about remaining faithful unto death, our worries for Makeda, each other and ourselves. Resigned to eternal torment, the rich man is worried about his brothers, still living in this world. After learning Lazarus could not bring a drop of water to cool his tongue, the rich man shifted focus. ‘Then I beg you, father [Abraham], send him to my father's house— 28 for I have five brothers—so that he may warn them, lest they also come into this place of torment.’
29 But Abraham said, ‘They have Moses and the Prophets; let them hear them.’ 30 And he said, ‘No, father Abraham, but if someone goes to them from the dead, they will repent.’ 31 He said to him, ‘If they do not hear Moses and the Prophets, neither will they be convinced if someone should rise from the dead.’
As we this morning contemplate the challenge of lifelong faithfulness, we should note that this rich man and Lydia have quite a lot in common. Both were wealthy, in worldly terms. And they were both taught by Moses. The rich man is a Jew, an Israelite, a descendent of Abraham. He lived in a theocratic society, so being non-religious wasn’t really an option. The level of participation in the religious life of synagogue and Temple surely varied from person to person; some were very observant, others not quite so much. But almost everybody, certainly a rich, prosperous man, participated in worship, and so heard the Word of Moses and the Prophets.
Lydia was a God-fearer, a non-Israelite, a gentile, who had been attracted to the worship life of the Jews. A God-fearer was a person who heard Moses and the Prophets, attended synagogue, maybe even visited the Temple, but had not yet fully converted to Judaism. Lydia is a geographic name, as far as we can tell, for she was from Thyatira, a Greek city in the area of the ancient kingdom of Lydia, in part of what is now modern Turkey.
Now, Lydia lives in Philippi, an important city in Greece. And, because she wants to hear Moses and be connected to the God of Israel, she gathers at the river, the place where faithful Jewish women went to pray on the Sabbath, since there was no synagogue in Philippi. And having gone down by the river to pray, Lydia meets the Apostle Paul, and hears the Good News of the Messiah, Jesus of Nazareth, God’s eternal Son, who is the fulfillment of all God’s promises to Israel, and to the world. The Lord opened her heart to pay attention to what was said by Paul. 15 And after she was baptized, and her household as well, she urged us, saying, “If you have judged me to be faithful to the Lord, come to my house and stay.” Paul and his companions accepted her invitation.
What a difference between the rich man dressed in purple and the woman who traded in purple dye. Her wealth must have also been significant, as her home in Philippi is large enough to take in Paul and his companions. They then used Lydia’s home as their missionary base in Philippi, where they planted an important congregation. The rich man’s wealth prevented him from trusting in the greater wealth of God’s promises. But Lydia’s wealth did not conquer her heart. Indeed, immediately after her conversion, she began to put her earthly riches to work to support the spread of the Gospel and the growth of the Church.
What made the difference? Both of these rich persons heard the Word of the Lord, heard His warnings against idolatry and His promises of forgiveness, reconciliation and eternal life. What might Makeda, and the rest of us, learn from these two very different hearers of the Word?
We should start by recognizing that the Lord gets all the credit for Lydia’s conversion and commitment to Christ. Jesus did the great work that made the way for sinners like Lydia to be forgiven and saved. And the Spirit of Jesus led Paul to Philippi, opened Lydia’s heart to believe this Good News. Sealing her faith and her place in God’s New Israel through the waters of Holy Baptism, God gave a tremendous start to His good work in Lydia, just as He had converted and maintained the faith of Lazarus through years of poverty and struggle. God worked through His Word and Sacrament to save Lydia, as He is always doing.
And yet, the rich man heard the same Word of God, but rejected it for himself. There is a difficult mystery here, one that our minds cannot fully penetrate, why some hearers are converted, and others remain hardened against God and His plan of salvation. We will not corrupt the Good News that God does 100% of the saving work; we will not look for the difference in Lydia. God saved her, opening her heart to believe. She was not saved by anything she did, but rather by God’s grace, through the gift of faith in Jesus. But, we can discern a few more differences between her situation and that of the rich man, differences which we can be wise to copy in our lives, and in our church.
First of all, while both were rich, their wealth affected them differently. The rich man was clothed in purple and fine linen and … feasted sumptuously every day. His purpose in life, the most important thing, was to enjoy his material blessings, which was a foolish decision. Apparently he was so busy indulging, he didn’t even think to thank the Lord who is the true source of every blessing. Nor did he think to share his bounty with others, not even poor Lazarus, covered in sores, begging at his doorstep. How does your money affect you?
Lydia, on the other hand, was so attracted by the Word of God that she went down from her fine home to join the Jewish women praying at the riverbank. And, after she heard of and believed in Jesus, she immediately reshaped her life, ordering it around Christ, His Gospel and His Church. She was not saved by these good works; every son or daughter of Abraham is saved by faith. But Lydia’s works were wise, for they were good for her faith, and good for the faith of others. By bringing Paul and his companions into her home, she insured that she would keep on hearing more about Christ and His salvation. She and her family would have a solid connection to the ongoing gifts of grace, by which God keeps His children within the fold. And the Church had a place to gather and grow.
Lydia understood that her true riches were not her purple dyes and all the wealth that trading in them brought her and her household. Money is great, for this life, when we receive it as a gift from God. But Jesus Christ, the King of Glory, crucified, resurrected and reigning on high today and forever, He was Lydia’s true wealth, her treasure in heaven. In the wisdom of faith, Lydia made Christ and His Church the center of her life, not just a peripheral thing, not just a once in a while add-on.
Likewise for us: we are fools when we fail to prioritize our faith, fools if we are not deepening our connection to the Word of Christ and seeking to conform our lives to Him. Such foolishness puts us at risk. When we say we believe, but live as if we don’t, we are setting ourselves up to fail. If we hear the Word of God for a while, but then slack off, we are not only starving our faith. We are also giving more room to the preaching of the world, the preaching of demons, who promise to give us all that we want, right now. But demons are liars, the world is blind, and the goal of Satan is to do whatever it takes to break your trust in Jesus.
In Lydia’s day, the Christian Church was tiny, surrounded by many powerful religions that promised many blessings, now and forever. In our day the Christian Church is still very large, but we’re losing our place, at least in the western world. It seems we are headed in the direction of Lydia’s world. Today, simple, Biblical Christian faith is considered to be madness by all the “best and brightest people.” According to the yardstick of the world, Christ and His teaching have been found lacking. And we hear such voices every day, that pound our ears and hearts with a constant drumbeat of the denial of God’s Word. So, in wisdom, and for joy, as we seek to endure, we like Lydia are called to center ourselves, our thoughts, our actions, and our lives on the Truth of Christ revealed in His Word.
We might even take another lesson from the work of our dealer in purple dyes. In the ancient world, purple dye came from the bodily secretions of sea snails. Harvesting the snails and drawing out their dye was tedious, difficult work. There was nothing glamorous or easy about the purple dye industry. But, the beauty of a purple dyed cloth made it all worthwhile.
It is similar, only more so, with Christian faith and life. It’s not easy to endure as a Christian in our world, and never has been. It requires an ongoing connection to the Source. It calls for sacrificing other things, things that contradict the Way of Jesus. But such commitment and sacrifice are entirely worth it, both in eternity, and today. Only the grace of Jesus gives you a good conscience, free from guilt, because you are forgiven. Nothing gives purpose like being a child of eternity, set free and called to serve others, today. Nothing gives peace and joy like the sure and certain hope that is yours, in Christ Jesus, your Royal and Suffering Servant, who now reigns in glory, preparing a place for you, and all His believers.
By God’s grace, our faith will not be merely an outward acknowledgment – not like the rich man. God grant us true faith of the heart. God give us eyes to see past the riches of this life, to behold and focus on the true purple cloth, the riches that are only found in Christ and His Word.
We rejoice to be gathered here today, to hear the good confession of Makeda, and to repeat our own confession, of sin, and faith, of repentance, and trust in the goodness and love of our heavenly Father, who gave His only-begotten Son into death, so that we could be dressed in the royal purple robes of heaven, today, and forever and ever, Amen.
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