June 18 2017 Sermon
Acts 8:26-40
“Then an angel of the Lord said to Philip, ‘Get up and go towards the south to the road that goes down from Jerusalem to Gaza.’ (This is a wilderness road.) So he got up and went. Now there was an Ethiopian eunuch, a court official of the Candace, queen of the Ethiopians, in charge of her entire treasury. He had come to Jerusalem to worship and was returning home; seated in his chariot, he was reading the prophet Isaiah. Then the Spirit said to Philip, ‘Go over to this chariot and join it.’ So Philip ran up to it and heard him reading the prophet Isaiah. He asked, ‘Do you understand what you are reading?’ He replied, ‘How can I, unless someone guides me?’ And he invited Philip to get in and sit beside him. Now the passage of the scripture that he was reading was this:
‘Like a sheep he was led to the slaughter,
and like a lamb silent before its shearer,
so he does not open his mouth.
In his humiliation justice was denied him.
Who can describe his generation?
For his life is taken away from the earth.’
The eunuch asked Philip, ‘About whom, may I ask you, does the prophet say this, about himself or about someone else?’ Then Philip began to speak, and starting with this scripture, he proclaimed to him the good news about Jesus. As they were going along the road, they came to some water; and the eunuch said, ‘Look, here is water! What is to prevent me from being baptized?’ He commanded the chariot to stop, and both of them, Philip and the eunuch, went down into the water, and Philip baptized him. When they came up out of the water, the Spirit of the Lord snatched Philip away; the eunuch saw him no more, and went on his way rejoicing. But Philip found himself at Azotus, and as he was passing through the region, he proclaimed the good news to all the towns until he came to Caesarea.”
This is the word of God for the people of God. Thanks be to God. Amen.
Will you pray with me?…
Something occurred this past week that I think points back to the work of God and the movement of the Spirit in this morning’s text from Acts of the Apostles. It is racial in nature. As the Southern Baptist Convention convened this past week, it was presented with a resolution originally authored by Pastor Dwight McKissic that condemned white nationalism, white supremacy, and the alt-right political movement.
The Southern Baptist Convention represents about 15 million church members throughout the United States.
The American denomination whose social foundation is partly rooted in a historical defense of owning slaves was given an opportunity this week to denounce vile forms of racism and ideology that view some human beings as less than others. On the first pass, the Resolutions Committee declined this opportunity to make a public statement against white supremacy and white nationalism. A public backlash ensued because the church missed its opportunity. There are some things that are or at least should be self-evident from a Christian perspective and racial equality and the diversity of God’s creation are among those things. It looks terrible when the church gets together and has to debate whether individuals, white and black, gay or straight, Mexican, African, or Middle Eastern are beloved in God’s eyes.
After social media and news outlets picked up the story, it didn’t take long for the Southern Baptist Convention to reverse course and adopt a resolution that denounced racism in every form, including alt-right white supremacy. Churches should be on the front edge of teaching, proclaiming, and modeling what racial inclusion looks like, not trailing behind struggling to keep up with other organizations and institutions. Our history as told in Acts is of a God on the move to extend grace, love, and transformation to all of creation. Not just part of it.
Racial, sexual, and religious identity frame our reading of this morning’s text. The eunuch is not Jewish. He is a gentile but could be called a God-fearer. He is a monotheist but not fully included in the Jewish community. There are provisions in Deuteronomy that prevent him from fully participating in community worship. He is perceived as being less than fully male as a eunuch. He might be from modern-day Ethiopia but there is a great likelihood that the author is using Ethiopian as a way of identifying black Africans. The cue that he oversees the treasury of Queen Candace is an indication that he is likely from Nubia, or modern day Sudan (where Queen Candace was believed to rule). On every account, race, sexuality, and religious identity, he falls outside the scope of the Jewish apostolic community that is beginning to tell the good news of Jesus in Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria, and to the ends of the Earth. The Ethiopian eunuch becomes an unlikely story teller of the good news of Jesus Christ.
As we’ve heard in previous weeks, the Spirit of God is directing individuals and larger bodies of folks into sent ministry. Pentecost has given the early church its energy and its direction, as a fulfillment of Jesus’ promises at the Last Supper and on the day of the Ascension.
Peter is preaching, telling how the life, ministry, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ is a continuance of the covenant God first established with Abraham and Moses. He’s calling on folks to change their hearts and lives and to believe in Jesus Christ. Philip is sent out to Samaria to proclaim that Jesus is the Messiah before we find him in today’s reading in which he baptizes a non-Jew from North Africa. Saul of Tarsus is about to have his Damascus road experience where the Risen Christ initiates a converting experience that turns him from one of the church’s fiercest persecutors to one of its most effective evangelists. Peter will soon receive a vision from God that is a sign that ministry among the Jews needs to be extended to non-Jewish regions as well. The culmination of these episodes of Spirit led movement is the Jerusalem Council in which the early church witnesses and declares that the Spirit of God descends upon all of creation, no distinctions.
Abruptly, today’s episode begins with an angel of the Lord visiting Philip telling him to get up and make a trip down the wilderness road from Jerusalem to Gaza. Along the road Philip finds this Ethiopian God fearer who has made pilgrimage to Jerusalem to the temple reading the prophet Isaiah. Again the Spirit of God tells Philip, that’s the man you’ve been sent to meet. Go to him and strike up conversation.
Philip must’ve heard him reading from the prophet Isaiah, a section that is most familiar to us during Lent and Holy Week, pointing toward the suffering of Jesus like a lamb led to slaughter. Do you understand what you are reading? How can I? Somebody needs to explain it to me. So Philip answers his question about who the prophet Isaiah is referring to. Like Peter, he positions the ministry of Jesus as the fulfillment of God’s promises and the writings of the ancient prophets. Philip doesn’t outline a doctrinal statement of faith that the eunuch must give assent to about who Jesus is, what he does, and how he does it. Formulaic understandings of God and Jesus come hundreds of years later. At this point, I imagine that Philip is telling stories like the feeding of the thousands, turning water to wine at Cana of Galilee, giving sight to the blind, and teaching about the inclusive, abundant grace of God that transforms life. But who knows exactly what Philip told the eunuch. All we’re told is that it was good news about Jesus and that might have stirred the heart of the eunuch toward baptism.
Maybe Philip had told the eunuch about John’s ministry of baptism in the Jordan River calling folks to change their hearts and lives. Perhaps Philip remembers the day that the heavens split open, the Spirit descended, and God spoke words of blessing at Jesus’ baptism. Or maybe the eunuch remembers the day that he sought out the cleansing water of baptism and was told he wasn’t permitted to participate in that ritual because of his sexual identity. He wants the promises of God in baptism but is tentative in asking Philip if it’s a possibility for him. What is preventing me from getting baptized in this pool of water? The way the question is asked presupposes that Philip is going to tell him something stands in his way to experience God’s grace in this cleansing ritual. But such is not the case. Nothing stands in his way or your way to come wash in the waters of baptism. So Philip baptizes him and then the eunuch continues on his journey both rejoicing and proclaiming the good news of Jesus.
Once you’ve experienced the grace of God, what else can you do other than tell your story? Why would you not tell the story of divine grace catching up with you and changing your heart and life?
You know because of Philip’s willingness to go to Samaria and out on the wilderness road to meet the eunuch, that this is the earliest recorded story of the Christian witness going to Northern Africa. Later a community of Christians that fled Roman persecution settled in Ethiopia. Quite some time later Christianity takes a stronger hold in Ethiopia because of a young man named Frementius who was captured and enslaved. He was allowed years later to return to his home but chose to stay in the court of the queen. There he secretly promoted the Christian life until he had the opportunity to meet with Pope Athanasius of Alexandria. Frementius requested that missionaries be sent to Ethiopia to share the witness of Christ; instead, he was made a bishop and sent back to Ethiopia where he influenced kings and rulers to formally adopt Christianity as it had been adopted by Emperor Constantine.
I tell the long, meandering history of the early church on the move because it gives us a fresh model for ministry. We are a sent people to meet neighbors where they are, in whatever lot of life they are in, and to establish relationships in which stories about Jesus, the power of holy communion and baptism, and the fellowship of the church can be told. There are stories of transformation that we tell in community for the building up of the body of Christ. There are stories that need to be told beyond this place but we also need to listen well for the stories of others. Like we see in the sharing between Philip and the eunuch, the movement of God’s spirit and transformative grace is located in the space between radically different folks.
Let us go to that liminal space, led by the Spirit earnestly seeking to grow inclusive community among our neighbors as a sign of good news of God’s kingdom.
Bless you in the name of the Almighty, Son, and Spirit. Amen.