Perhaps you’ve seen the funny but kind of edgy Netflix drama called “Orange is the new Black.” It’s set in a women’s prison, which makes all kinds of improbable human interactions possible. I heard an interview with the screenwriter, who explained that an enclosed setting like a prison is the perfect narrative device, because it makes it possible for a writer to create interactions between people who would never otherwise be in the same conversation. Brown, black and white; gay, straight and trans; privileged, pretentious and poor; they’re all locked in the same building.
The great equalizer being the orange of the inmates’ jumpsuits. And because the protagonist in the drama is a woman of privilege who—at some other times in her life—might have spent a lot of time shopping for the right dress, the title is intended to ironically suggest a fashion magazine article. Orange is the new black. Great show title, terrible style advice. At least it would be for me; I don’t look very good in orange.
Which brings me to “a certain woman named Lydia, a worshiper of God, who was… a dealer in purple cloth.” That’s a much better color choice, at least for my coloring. But Lydia was more than someone with good taste. In her day, purple was the rarest of dyes, reserved for the clothing of royalty. Which made her a purveyor of luxury goods. To deal in purple cloth was the equivalent of owning the haute couture house.
I cannot overstate how unusual it is—in Biblical context—to have a record of a woman’s business dealings. Beyond that, however, we know very little about Lydia. In fact you just heard everything the Bible has to say about her. But if you read carefully, the context offers some intriguing clues as to the significance of her ministry.
Lydia was, in fact, the first convert to Christianity—or better said, to the way of Jesus—on the European continent. She was a gentile, but the text calls her worshipper of God, meaning that she was drawn to the Jewish faith. She was evidently an independent thinker, and knew her own heart, as evidenced by the text’s mention that the “Lord opened her heart and she listened eagerly” to Paul.
She is that rarest of Biblical women who is not only named in the text, but also appears to be the head of an entire household who followed her lead in being baptized. In the Orthodox Church, Lydia carries the title “equal to the Apostles,” which is kind of a big deal in a church that doesn’t even ordain woman. Apostle being, in the biblical sense, someone who is sent by God to proclaim the Gospel of Jesus Christ.
So Lydia was an evangelist, the head of her household, and a successful businesswoman who had financial means and the freedom to host visitors. She was evidently a shrewd negotiator, too: how could Paul the evangelist say no to someone who insisted “If you have judged me to be faithful to the Lord, come and stay at my home.”
Which, I should mention, was not at all what Paul had in mind when he set out for Philippi. Remember how our first lesson began? Paul had a vision of a man of Macedonia—modern day Greece—asking for help. And indeed something really significant happened there—the conversion of Lydia—that allowed Christianity to take root among European gentiles. But to our knowledge it never again involved the man in need from Paul’s initial vision. Rather, it involved a woman of means with an open heart and eye for the finer things in life.
No doubt she would have had much to talk about with John of Patmos, whose vision for the New Jerusalem might be seen as the Cartier franchise of the Bible. There’s a whole section of the Book of Revelation that describes the walls and streets and gates of the city, paved with gold and encrusted with precious stones. Those of you who are at church heard that read today.
Now I might have glazed over the luxurious description of New Jerusalem as an curious narrative artifact. Except that Lydia caused me to think again. Just like Paul had to think again, when he went looking for a poor man and was found a rich woman. The Bible is silent about what happened to the man of Macedonia that Paul saw in his vision; if he was ever found it didn’t make an impression on Luke, who wrote the Book of Acts. But I found myself wondering if perhaps the person who ultimately responded to the poor man’s plea was not Paul, but Lydia. Whose conversion called her into greater generosity.
Is it possible that God, too, loves the finer things in life? That God calls the rich into service of the poor, in order that the heavenly city—the renewed Jerusalem—might be a place of great beauty and abundance for all God’s people? That’s a vision we might hold for our country state and city as well. And, perhaps not unlike the prison of “Orange is the New Black,” the heavenly city is surrounded by walls, within which all sorts and conditions of people are gathered. Worshipping the lamb of God. They see his face, and their common denominator is his name upon their foreheads.
I like to imagine that the servants of God in John’s vision—if they were wearing jumpsuits—would all be wearing a luxurious purple. Because in God’s kingdom, the straightjacket of sin and shame will be no more, replaced by the robes of a royal priesthood. Or, to put it more prosaically, purple will be the new orange.
The visions of that our scriptures speak of remind us that God’s imagination is not limited by our present reality. What vision has God given to you? What kind of a world of justice and peace, and indeed of aesthetic beauty available to all, do you dream of? I don’t yet know much about St. Anselm’s—although I look forward to learning more—but your new rector has told me of your February art and music festival, an expression of love for God and the wider community expressed in the beauty of holiness.
I also see your generosity in caring for the least of our neighbors through your support for the Trinity Center and the Lamorinda Care Collective. Those are like the 20thcentury equivalent of Lydia herself caring for the nameless man in Macedonia. Like Paul, and like her, we can imagine a community that is both more beautiful and more kind than the one we currently live in. If we are to be co-creators with God in the renewing of the world, your imagination and your vision matters. Just like Paul’s vision mattered, and in John’s vision of the New Jerusalem: the city where rich and poor alike worship God in glorious light.
For those of us who have been clothed in the purple of God’s love, there is no returning to the prisons of separation, sin and self-doubt. So I invite you to trust the beauty that you see. Share it without hesitation, with poor and rich alike. Continue in the way of Jesus, trust in his grace, and know that you are never alone. There are others who need you to show them what’s possible.
