Monday, May 23, 2022

Sermon (May 22) by Rev. Robert McDowell

     As we approach Memorial Day, I was reading about the first woman to receive the Purple Heart award. Her name was Army Lieutenant Annie G. Fox.

     She received this prestigious military award in 1942. She was recognized for her heroic actions that were taken during the December 7 Pearl Harbor attack a year earlier.

     During the Japanese attack, she remained calm and successfully directed the hospital staff under her care to tend to the wounded who were brought in from the harbor. 

     More specifically, “she administered anesthesia to patients during the heaviest part of the bombardment, assisted in dressing the wounded, taught civilian volunteer nurses to make dressings, and worked ceaselessly with coolness and efficiency, and her fine example of calmness, courage and leadership was of great benefit to the morale of all with whom she came in contact…”

     The color of this award is purple because it’s a color that is traditionally associated with courage, bravery, and sacrifice. 

     I know it’s not the same thing, but in today’s Acts scripture reading, we read about another woman who demonstrated courage and sacrifice. Her name was Lydia. 

     We are told that she was a business woman who made and sold very valuable purple cloth to people in the greater Greco/Roman world. We are also told from our reading that she was someone who had an open heart. And because of this, I like to think of Lydia as being someone who had a Purple Heart.

     Here’s why. Lydia became the very first person on the continent of Europe to become a follower of Jesus. The very first one!

     And after she and her household were baptized into the Christian faith, she immediately offered her home and her resources to the Apostle Paul so that he would be able to have a base of operations in sharing the good news of Jesus. Without Lydia’s open heart, Paul would not have been able to continue in his missionary journey. 

     Lydia’s sacrificial spirit is what Paul desperately needed especially since just before this story, we read how Paul had been turned away again and again from continuing to share the good news of Jesus to the wider world. This story reminds us that even though we will face obstacles and challenges in living out our faith, God has a way of putting the right people along our path who will help us to continue to move forward.

     What makes this story even more amazing is that Lydia wasn’t even Jewish. She was a Gentile who had a curiosity about the Jewish faith which is why she and some other women had gathered by the river on the Sabbath. They had gathered to pray. Our scripture reading even refers to that area by the river as a place of prayer.

     Think about all that Lydia was risking in becoming a follower of Jesus. By all indications, she was well off because she was a dealer in the much sought after purple cloths. In that time period, only the wealthy including Roman senators would have been able to purchase this very expensive cloth.

     There would have been absolutely no social advantage for this successful business woman to be associated with this new and strange movement called Christianity, not to mention her curiosity with the Jewish faith, since both were considered to be fringe movements in the Roman Empire during that time. 

     And yet, when Paul shared the good news of Jesus with her, she was willing to not only be baptized and become a Christian, but to go all in by offering her home and her livelihood in any way she could. 

     Lydia truly had a Purple Heart!  

     I’m sure you can think of some key people in your life, who like Lydia, were people of Purple Hearts, people who just when you were thinking all hope was lost, and you were facing yet another dead end, enabled you to keep moving forward.

     This Tuesday will mark the 284th anniversary of John Wesley’s heart-warming experience in London, England. Wesley, the founder of the Methodist movement of which we are heirs today, said on that day during a prayer meeting that he was attending, “I felt my heart strangely warmed.” He said this because he knew in that moment without a doubt that his sins were forgiven and he belonged to Christ. 


     This is why Methodists are known as people of warm hearts, because of this wonderful gift of assurance that Wesley had been missing in his life and was now just receiving. Even though he had preached about the good news of Christ many times, he had never experienced this assurance of faith himself. 

     But what is sometimes forgotten about Wesley’s famous quote are the events that led up to that heart-warming experience.

     For the past several years, Wesley was feeling spiritually empty inside. Even though he had been busy preaching and organizing class meetings to help reform the Church of England, he was struggling with his own relationship with God.

     In 1735, three years before his heart-warming experience, Wesley led a missionary group to Georgia here in the new world with the goal of converting the Native Americans to the Christian faith. Wesley and his group failed to convert anyone during that trip. 

     In his journal about his frustrating experience in America, Wesley writes, “I went to America to convert the Indians, but who shall convert me?”

     While on a ship back to England, the Atlantic storms frightened him. And during those storms he noticed this strange group of people who were known as Moravian Christians who didn’t seem afraid at all. 

     During those storms, they sang hymns and prayed; men, women, and children, they all were undaunted by those storms. They seemed to have full confidence in God and were not fearful of death because they knew that they belonged to Christ as the scriptures remind us.

     That voyage on the way back to England helped Wesley to see what was missing in his life. An assurance of God’s love. An assurance of God’s forgiveness. An assurance of God’s peace.

     Like Lydia in our scripture reading today, those Moravians had Purple Hearts, hearts that were open to God, hearts that by their example would lead this troubled Anglican Priest to have his own heart-warming experience, not too long after arriving back to England.

     We are a people of warm hearts but we are also a people of Purple Hearts. 

     I don’t know that Lydia knew at the time that she was being courageous and sacrificial when she offered her home and her resources to help Paul continue his missionary journey. 

     I think she was so overwhelmed with her own new found faith in Christ, that she was willing to do whatever was needed so that others might come to know Jesus who died on the cross for our sins and offers salvation, peace, joy, hope, and new life. 

     Maybe you have noticed some Lydias along the way, people whose hearts are open toward others and who share whatever resources they have in sowing seeds of faith along the way.

     I was attending a school event several years ago when I noticed a woman who was cleaning up the leftover trash from the students who had just left the school cafeteria.

     And as she was spraying the tables and wiping them down she said to me, "Pastor, I'm a Christian. And I know that I'm not supposed to force my faith on any of these students. That's why I simply try to sow some seeds of my faith here and there with these kids. They call me 'grandma' around here because of my age and I think they feel that they can talk to me if they're having a problem."

     "God bless you," I said to her as I was leaving the cafeteria. And as I drove home from the school, I thanked God for the people he places throughout our schools and communities who like that woman at the school sow seeds of faith in loving and caring ways.

     There are Purple Hearts all around us who are sowing seeds of faith and hope. 

     For the past several months our Leadership Board has been guiding us through a visioning process. We started this process last fall while we were still in the height of the pandemic because we thought it would be a good time to start thinking ahead to God’s preferred future for our church.

     During our first visioning meeting, you could sense the positive energy that was present during that time of discussion, prayer, and reflection on where God might be leading us. 

     It had been a long time since we had dreamed about the future together since most of our energy and time had been focused on our church’s response to the pandemic. I am so thankful for your support, encouragement, and patience during that very long and challenging time for our church. 

     The Leadership Board began the visioning process by conducting a SWOT analysis in which we identified our church’s strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats. While we did identify weaknesses and threats to our church, our list of strengths far outnumbered both of those other categories combined! 

     We also included the thoughts and ideas of the wider congregation through a visioning questionnaire this past Winter that was sent out to everyone.

     The Leadership Board continued to meet and pray about all of these new ideas and it’s so exciting to see that we are beginning to live into this new vision for our church. 

     After each of those vision meetings, I remember leaving feeling so positive and hope-filled for our church. We were so excited to share that vision with all of you this past March during a morning worship service. 

     God has so much in store for us as we continue in our mission of making disciples of Jesus Christ for the transformation of our community and world! I thank all of you, the people of Athens First United Methodist Church, for your open hearts, your strangely warmed hearts, and your Purple Hearts especially over these past two years when we were facing the challenges of ministry during a global pandemic. 

     Like Lydia, who opened her heart and offered her resources so that the mission of the church would be able to continue, you also have opened your hearts in offering your prayers, presence, gifts, service, and witness when we needed them the most.

     Friends of Athens First United Methodist Church, in gratitude for the many seeds of faith that you so faithfully have sown and continue to sow for the mission of Christ and his church, on this the 22nd day of May, 2022, I present to each of you this Purple Heart. 

     Well done, good and faithful servants!


A Purple Heart

Sermon Discussion Questions
Acts 16:9-15
May 22, 2022

In our Acts scripture reading, we are introduced to Lydia who was a woman known for her expensive purple cloth retail. We are also told that Lydia had an open heart in providing her home and her resources to help Paul continue in his missionary journey. Lydia lived on the European continent, thus becoming the 1st Christian convert in Europe. In combining these two features of her having an open heart and a maker of purple cloth, Pastor Robert has given her the distinction of being someone who had a “Purple Heart.”

What do you think the writer of Acts means when it says that Lydia had “an open heart?” Why is it important to be someone who has an open heart?

Thanks to Lydia’s open heart and her willingness to share her resources, the Apostle Paul was able to continue with his missionary journey.

Who are the Lydias in your life who have shared their open heart and resources to help you during a time when you didn’t know how you would be able to continue in reaching a goal?

Share a time when you were a Lydia for someone through offering your open heart and your resources. 

Pastor Robert shared about meeting a school cafeteria employee who was known to the students as “grandma” because of her open heart and kindness. She said to him, “I know that I'm not supposed to force my faith on any of these students. That's why I simply try to sow some seeds of my faith here and there with these kids.” 

What other examples have you witnessed where people are simply trying to “sow some seeds of their faith here and there.”

May 24 will mark the 284th anniversary of when John Wesley, the founder of Methodism had his “heart-warming” experience in which he received an assurance in his faith that his sins were forgiven. That experience led Wesley to continue in his remarkable ministry of sharing the good news of Jesus Christ with people that the Church of England was not reaching. Just before his heart-warming experience, Wesley met some Moravian Christians who demonstrated an assurance of faith and a sense of peace that he was seeking in his life. Those Moravian Christians were like Lydia for him. Their open hearts led Wesley to have a “warm heart.”

Who has helped you to have a “warm heart” along your faith journey? In what ways can we help others to have warm hearts and an assurance of God’s love and peace?

Close your time by offering this prayer from Sunday’s worship service:


Gracious God, open our hearts to listen eagerly to what you want to say to us. Open our our hearts to receive with joy your message of salvation. Open our hearts to become partners with each other in sharing your good news. Open our hearts to use our gifts and resources for the building of your kingdom here on earth. Open our hearts to be faithful with the tasks you have entrusted to our care. Forgive us for any time that our hearts have not been open to you. With our hearts open wide, we offer this prayer. Amen.

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