PROGRESSIVE INCLUSION
Acts 8:26-40
26 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.) 27 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 28 and was returning home; seated in his chariot, he was reading the prophet Isaiah. 29 Then the Spirit said to Philip, ‘Go over to this chariot and join it.’ 30 So Philip ran up to it and heard him reading the prophet Isaiah. He asked, ‘Do you understand what you are reading?’ 31 He replied, ‘How can I, unless someone guides me?’ And he invited Philip to get in and sit beside him. 32 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.’
34 The eunuch asked Philip, ‘About whom, may I ask you, does the prophet say this, about himself or about someone else?’ 35 Then Philip began to speak, and starting with this scripture, he proclaimed to him the good news about Jesus. 36 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?’ 38 He commanded the chariot to stop, and both of them, Philip and the eunuch, went down into the water, and Philip baptized him. 39 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. 40 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 a passage filled with improbabilities. But that is kind of the point of Acts. The Good News is improbable, resurrection faith is improbable, uneducated fisherman leading a church from a denigrated, Jewish sect to planting the roots of a world religion are all beyond imagining. Yet, all of that and more are part of the story of the beginning of the church.
I want to enter the story from two different directions. First, from the point of view of Phillip and second, from the point of view of the eunuch. I think we need to see ourselves from each perspective to appreciate what Luke is trying to teach us.
I asked our Faith in Real Life groups which perspective they found themselves reading from. Almost all said Phillip. We, like Phillip, are called to share the Good News. Paying attention to Phillip can help direct our own efforts. If we can avoid being distracted by the angelic directions and the sudden disappearance and transplantation at the end of the story, we can find rather ordinary present day counterparts to his experience. We are all recipients of the ‘Great Commission’: “Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, 20 and teaching them to obey everything that I have commanded you.” (Matt 28:19) The when, where and how, however, is startlingly unpredictable.
The modern church is likely to utilize focus groups or conduct polls to try find our market niche. We study demographics and community needs to help direct our mission. These tools are valuable but not sufficient. If Phillip depended upon these tools, his destination almost certainly would not have included a desert wilderness road in the heat of the day. A major part of faith is learning that no matter how carefully we plan, the unexpected may be the opportunity that presents itself. Our planning should help prepare us for the unexpected NOT preclude it.
Mary Lynn Darden tells the story of Tully visiting her in the hospital. During the visit, the doctor walked in and asked about the relationship between the two of them. Tully volunteered that he was her pastor and they were about to pray together and then asked the physician if he would like to pray with them! The doctor said yes. It was a simple invitation but one that is rarely offered. After all, we are Presbyterians. For Mary Lynn, it was an unexpected and greatly appreciated moment of grace and intimacy as the three of them clasp hands and prayed.
We get so worried about being intrusive or placing others in ‘difficult’ situations, we forget an invitation is a choice not a demand. Phillip was directed by the Holy Spirit to go to an unlikely place and to meet an unlikely person. Upon hearing what the man was reading, Phillip asks: ‘Do you understand what you are reading?’ The implication is Phillip had something to offer. The eunuch was curious, knew he needed a teacher and invited Phillip to join him. Then they begin what must have been a poignant discussion. We know it ends with the eunuch asking to be baptized and though he never saw Phillip again, he went on his way ‘rejoicing.
For Phillip, evangelism was not about telling someone what they should believe, it was about being open to meeting someone ‘where they are’ and sharing his own experience with them. That is how Jesus lived and how the ancient church lived out their resurrection faith though he died, yet he lives. The church was literally becoming Jesus’ hands and feet. Jesus’ love and inclusion was extending beyond the Jewish religion, beyond the borders of Israel and was extending to edges of the known world. Jesus, and then the church put the promises of God into real life. As Psalm 103 puts it: 11For as the heavens are high above the earth, so great is his steadfast love towards those who fear him; 12 as far as the east is from the west, so far he removes our transgressions from us. 13 As a father has compassion for his children, so the Lord has compassion for those who fear him. 14 For he knows how we were made; he remembers that we are dust. These are magnificent promises and profound faith claims. No wonder this powerful yet powerless man, this erudite but lost seeker rejoiced. He could belong. His life, damaged though he may be, mattered.
Our mission, should we choose to accept it is to identity and articulate the ways we have experienced God’s love. At its best, the church becomes family. As RG puts it, we came because of the music. We stayed because of the people. At its best the church provides deep connections, a sense of being loved and belonging. Though I am painfully aware that the church has fallen short, missed its calling and even done great damage, I an committed to the church because my life is better in it. I believe the world is better for it. If you’ve had that experience, it is incumbent upon us to share as Phillip did-open to the unexpected, curious about others and offering his own experiences without requiring agreement. That is evangelism at its best.
This brings me to my second perspective that of the eunuch. For as much as we are called to learn how to share the Good News, we are first called to receive it. In today’s story, the narrator tells us about the eunuch but very little of what we are told would have been obvious as he rode by in his chariot. He would certainly be seen as a wealthy man. He had a chariot, he had a servant driving it, allowing him to reed a scroll that very few people could have afforded to possess. What would not be readily apparent is that he had journeyed to Jerusalem to worship. It is not until his exchange with Phillip that his pilgrimage to Jerusalem was not rooted in his knowledge as much as it was his seeking. He readily admits he does not know what he is reading. And of course, it is rather unlikely that the casual observer would know that he was a eunuch.
But something about what he was reading captivated him: ‘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.’ This is almost certainly his story. We actually cannot know if he was born a eunuch, volunteered to become a eunuch or if castration was forced upon him. But the most common way such men became eunuchs was a decision of their parents to provide their son’s an opportunity to join the royal court. Boys would be castrated, without knowing what was coming hence the likely personal interest in the words of Isaiah ‘Like a sheep he was led to the slaughter,…so he does not open his mouth. In his humiliation justice was denied him. For his life is taken away from the earth.’ It would be as violent as modern day female circumcision. No matter what the so called ‘good’ reason young boys and young girls lives are irrevocably changed. They would always feel they did not fully belong no matter how wealthy or powerful they appeared.
This is a dramatic, painful story. I can well imagine this eunuch was on a pilgrimage to make sense of his life. Though hopefully far less dramatic, it is a pilgrimage most of us are familiar with. Perhaps I have a skewed experience because of my profession as a counselor, but as I get to know people (and myself), most have a hidden disqualifier. Internally, we say ‘yes’ to the promises of the Gospel. We want and need to be loved but we fear if were truly known, we would not be. We want and need to belong but we fear, if we were known, we would not be. The eunuch would not have been allowed in the temple because he was a eunuch. He could not actually worship in the temple. He could not belong. He could not have progeny, his future, by secular standards was denied him.
His question: “about whom was the passage written?” would almost certainly have been intensely personal. Phillip would have told him that this man Jesus saves because he knew exactly what it was like to have his life taken from him. This man Jesus could provide hope to the most scorned and rejected.
No wonder he wanted baptism. Phillip not only told the story of Jesus, he lived the story of Jesus. That is how Jesus saves. Let be so.
