Acts 8:26-40
Presented May 10, 2009, by J.D. Kline
The Fifth Sunday of Easter
The longer I serve in ministry, the more convinced I become that the call to live as communities of God’s people requires a fundamentally new way of thinking; it demands the embracing of thought patterns many would see as countercultural. The prophet Isaiah, you may recall, once proclaimed for God to the ancient Israelites,
My thoughts are not your thoughts,
nor are your ways my ways, says the Lord.
For as the heavens are higher than the earth,
so are my ways higher than your ways
and my thoughts higher than your thoughts (Isaiah 55:8-9).
Indeed, our surprising and sometimes baffling God again and again calls us to grapple with new perspectives, to venture forth onto unforeseen paths, to embrace the risky pathway of discipleship. It is a matter, the Gospel writers tell us, of denying self, taking up the cross, and following in the footsteps of Jesus—the One who little concerns himself with status and position in life, but who instead models a life of servanthood, peacemaking, generosity, and gratitude. Along the way, as we take seriously this call to another way of living, we may well find the tidy plans we have for our lives disturbed and turned upside down!
The 1978 version of the Church of the Brethren Pastor’s Manual includes among its resources for the service of parent-child consecration a statement prepared by the London Yearly Meeting of the Society of Friends. After speaking of the joys and challenges of watching with Christian tenderness over the opening minds of children, the statement urges parents to “remember, at the same time, that there is a unique potentiality in each human being as a child of God, and that the Holy Spirit may lead your children along paths which you have not foreseen.” John Lennon perhaps had something similar in mind when observing that “life is what happens while you are making other plans.” You and I may well find ourselves led in surprising ways by the Spirit of our God.
This morning’s lesson from the book of Acts tells just such a story, as Philip, a leader in the early church, becomes convinced that an angel has come to him bearing the message, “Get up and go toward the south to the road that goes from Jerusalem to Gaza” (Acts 8:26). The church in Jerusalem had begun to experience persecution at the hands of those who found its gospel message threatening. As a result, the early believers were scattered well beyond the confines of the city into the far reaches of the countryside, with Philip in Samaria, home of long-time enemies of the people of Jerusalem. As a newly-chosen deacon, one of the seven selected by the early church to assist the apostles, Philip began with the work of caring for the needs of the widows and the poor among the Jerusalem believers. But soon Philip found his ministry expanding, and in the early sections of Acts 8 we read of the Samaritan crowds “with one accord listening eagerly” (v. 6) to Philip’s preaching. Significant results ensue, as Philip not only preaches the good news and invites the Samaritan people to embrace Christ’s way of compassion, peace, and grace, but also extends healing to all manner of brokenness and disease among the crowds. Indeed, Philip so impacts the Samaritan crowds that the writer of Acts asserts that “there was great joy in the city [of Samaria]” (8:8).
How odd, then, that Philip is prodded by the Spirit to leave this apparent revival behind and head for the deserted area of Gaza, a wilderness land where people are quite scarce. Yet Philip does as commanded, even though, once in the desert, he finds no assembled crowd waiting his preaching. Instead, Philip encounters a lone Ethiopian eunuch traveling in his chariot. The eunuch, a high-ranking official in the court of Candace, queen of the Ethiopians, is returning from a visit to the Jerusalem temple, where he has gone to worship. He is reading from a scroll containing the writings of the prophet Isaiah, and has come to that passage from chapter 53 where the prophet speaks of a Suffering Servant being led like a lamb to slaughter. Included are these words, “He has been humiliated and has no redress. Who will be able to speak of his posterity? For he is cut off from the world of the living” (NEB).
“Go over to the chariot and join it,” the Spirit directs Philip. Hearing the unnamed eunuch reading to himself, Philip inquires whether he understands the message. “How can I?” responds the eunuch, “unless someone guides me?” (8:29-31).
Unless someone guides me. In the journey of faith, who among us does not need one another’s nurturing and guidance? Particularly once we understand, as Peter Gomes reminds us in his book The Scandalous Gospel of Jesus, that the good news of the gospel is seldom received as good news by those who do not wish to be disturbed. For the message Jesus proclaims prods us along the pathway of nonconformity—choosing to wash the feet of those in need rather than pursue our own status and prominence, seeking to be voices for peace when others around us call for war, extending words of acceptance and deeds of compassion to those who are frequently treated as if they are beyond the reach of God’s love.
The Ethiopian eunuch can scarcely believe that Philip is willing to share the scandalous good news with him. Though he yearns for meaningful encounter with God, he has just returned from a pilgrimage to Jerusalem, where no doubt he had suffered the humiliation of being barred from entry into the Temple. In many areas of the ancient world eunuchs—castrated males—occupied positions of high responsibility and influence in royal households, but in Israel eunuchs were outcasts, excluded even from entering the worshiping congregation. Deuteronomy 23:1 asserts that the eunuch “shall not enter the assembly of the Lord.” This seeker of God could not even enter into the Temple’s outer court of the Gentiles; there was no place for the eunuch in God’s family, or so he was told.
Amazingly, the eunuch is not embittered by this experience, but continues to thirst for a connection with God, poring over the unfamiliar scriptures, looking for clues for spiritual vitality. Philip senses the deep yearnings of the eunuch, and begins to tell the story of Jesus pouring out his love for the sake of all humanity. Can you not hear the eunuch questioning, “All people? Even me?” And when this one who has had the doors of the Temple slammed shut in his face, this one who found himself on the outside peering in, hoping to hear perhaps just a snippet of the prayers and songs and interpretation of scripture—when this eunuch hears the good news of Jesus’ compassionate mercy and grace, he is overjoyed. Seeing water in the desert he cries out to Philip, “Look, here is water! What is to prevent me from being baptized?”
Consider what this meant for Philip, a new deacon certain to face harsh criticism for mingling with the Samaritans, preaching and baptizing them, now asked to take the even riskier step of baptizing an Ethiopian and a eunuch. According to United Methodist writer William Willimon, Philip no doubt sighed and muttered to himself, “They were upset at First Church Jerusalem when I baptized those Samaritans. They’re gonna kill me for this!”
It is our fears—is it not?—that keep us from fully living and proclaiming the inclusive love of the gospel. And yet, as Peter Gomes, pastor of Memorial Church at Harvard University, reminds us, “If the gospel is truly good news, it has to be good news for everyone, for it is either an inclusive gospel or no gospel at all.” The scandalous truth is that Jesus spent a great deal of his life and ministry welcoming into God’s realm those who had long been banished to the fringes of society. Indeed, it was this radically inclusive love that so disturbed many in his day, and many yet in our own day. Still, the seeds of that compassionate, welcoming, inclusive love could be found in the Hebrew Scriptures. The prophet Isaiah foreshadowed what Jesus would later so powerfully embody, crying out in words recorded in chapter 56:
Do not let the foreigner joined to the Lord say,
“the Lord will surely separate me from his people;”
and do not let the eunuch say, “I am just a dry tree.”
For thus says the Lord:
to the eunuchs who keep my Sabbath,
who choose the things that please me and
hold fast my covenant,
I will give, in my house and within my walls,
a monument and a name better than sons and daughters;
I will give them an everlasting name that shall not be cut off.
And the foreigners who join themselves to the Lord…
these I will bring to my holy mountain
and make them joyful in my house of prayer…
Thus says the Lord God, who gathers the outcasts of Israel,
I will gather others to them beside those already gathered (56:3-8).
This “gathering” God of ours continues to invite the foreigners and eunuchs of our day into loving embrace, for at the very heart of the gospel stands the promise of reconciliation—the bringing together of that which has been broken, separated, and estranged. And our calling as followers of Jesus is to take hold of the ministry of reconciliation, to embrace the gospel’s affirmation that in Christ there is neither male nor female, slave nor free, gay nor straight, Jew nor Greek, but all are one in Christ Jesus. The challenge before us is to be a people in the business of tearing down walls of suspicion and misunderstanding, building safe places where the hurting, the forgotten, the lonely, the broken might find healing and wholeness, becoming a world without borders.
The noted cellist, Pablo Casals, captured something of this sentiment when once observing, “To love one’s country is a splendid thing, but why should love stop at the border?” And Henri Nouwen, in his writings about Christ’s way of peace, reminds us,
Brothers and sisters, peacemaking starts every time we move out of the house of fear toward the house of love. You and I will always be scared somehow, somewhere. But if we keep our eyes fixed on the One who says “Do not be afraid, it is I,” we might slowly be able to let go of that fear and become free enough to live in a world without borders, to see the suffering of others, and to bring good news and receive good news.
This is indeed the challenge before us: to let go of our fears, to take hold of God’s gracious embrace, to become both bearers and recipients of God’s light and love, to seek to live as if ours is a world without borders. As the choir anthem puts it,
Facing a world filled with sorrow and suffering,
offering your gifts to a world in need.
The silence is broken, the world starts to change,
when one lonely voice starts to sing.
Sisters and brothers, let us blend our voices into a symphony celebrating the good news of the gospel—the promise of an inviting, renewing, challenging, transforming love that one day will make it clear that we are strangers no more, but part of one humanity; strangers no more, but members of one family. Amen.