Our scripture today comes from the Book of Acts 8.1-8, 26-39:

Transcription

1 P a g e 1 June 25, 2017 Rev. Brittany Barber Our scripture today comes from the Book of Acts 8.1-8, 26-39: And Saul approved of their killing him [Stephen]. That day a severe persecution began against the church in Jerusalem, and all except the apostles were scattered throughout the countryside of Judea and Samaria. Devout men buried Stephen and made loud lamentation over him. But Saul was ravaging the church by entering house after house; dragging off both men and women, he committed them to prison. Now those who were scattered went from place to place, proclaiming the word. Philip went down to the city of Samaria and proclaimed the Messiah to them. The crowds with one accord listened eagerly to what was said by Philip, hearing and seeing the signs that he did, for unclean spirits, crying with loud shrieks, came out of many who were possessed; and many others who were paralysed or lame were cured. So there was great joy in that city. 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

2 P a g e 2 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. Here ends our reading. We are now in week 5 of our summer sermon series, a Bible study of the Book of Acts. Simultaneously ancient and always contemporary, the Book of Acts shows us the purpose of the church. Issues that were critical to the early Christians 2000 years ago are also issues that are critical still today. Acts is a highly organized narrative that is more a biography of a group of people, than a straight history of the church. It shows that the Spirit filled community of faith that has become the embodiment of the will and purpose of Jesus of Nazareth. Both the Gospel of Luke and Acts are letters addressed to Theophilus, and it is very helpful to know that Theophilus was a Greek name, but it also literally means God lover. It is a book written to all who love God; this book could be addressed to you, just as much as being addressed to some Greek who lived 2000 years ago. Today we are looking at two of the major themes of Acts, having read the beginning and end of chapter 8. In the beginning, we trace this theme of the persecution of the early church. Then in the last part of the chapter we see Phillip newly appointed Hellenist disciple in an interesting encounter with an Ethiopian eunuch. This story traces another major theme

3 P a g e 3 of this book, the theme of the ever expanding expansion of the Jesus movement under the leadership of the Holy Spirit. Each of the last two weeks our scripture passages have started with someone getting out of jail. We have been in the part of this story that is told from the point of view of the fledgling church, today we flip the script beginning from the viewpoint of Saul. Who stood holding the cloaks of the others who stoned Stephen in the passage just before where we began our reading today. With the beginning of the scripture today, we find out that Saul is not just an innocent bystander instead he supported the actions of the others. He and others then stepped up the persecution of the early followers of Jesus. Here it says that they ravaged the church, and the disciples scattered into the countryside, fleeing the wrath of the religious leadership. From this scene the text skips to the travels and ministry of Phillip who in fleeing the persecution goes into Samaria to preach and teach. There he experiences the growth of the movement, led by the Holy Spirit to expand to the Samaritans (people who were considered to be undesirable to the orthodox Jews) and then his path is guided again by the Holy Spirit who sends him out on a wilderness road, a lonely road for another unusual encounter. As Carol Miller puts it in the Kerygma Study (1998), The spread of the Gospel has nothing to do with human plans. People do not set the agenda; they do not decide who is a candidate for conversion. God is leading the church to people

4 P a g e 4 and places they would have thought to be either off-limits or hopeless. But the Christian faith is not off limits anywhere, and no one is hopeless. As we consider the story of the Ethiopian eunuch a bit closer, we need to ask ourselves some questions: Where are the people today who put up barriers to the Gospel? Who are they, and why do they think that they have that power? Who have we made to be outside the Gospel? Who have we cut off our ministry from? Who does society tell us that are beyond the redeeming power of Jesus? So the last time that we, as a congregation considered the story of Phillip and the Eunuch was towards the end of our ONA process, or we were newly Open and Affirming. It was early May 2015, and that morning before I read the scripture to you, I showed a short video entitled Meet Ryland Whittington about a small child who changed the whole way his parents and greater family felt about gender. Ryland was born, and declared to be a girl by the doctors in the hospital. For the first four years of her life, she was all bows and dresses, largely because she was dressed by her southern mom, who gave her those options. But very early, after overcoming profound deafness and delayed speech, once she could talk, Ryland began to share her story telling her parents that she was really a boy. This was not a phase, this was not the confusion of a small child, this was not just wanting to be a Tom boy. Instead this was the persistent, consistent, urgent message needing to be heard. So Ryland s parents began to explore, learn, and eventually helped Ryland transition to become a boy

5 P a g e 5 just before he entered Kindergarten. Ryland at the end of the video with short hair and male clothes on, radiates joy and health, as his parents share they are happy to have a son. So that was the crux of our message in Today as we see this story within the context of the Book of Acts, we note that this is the part of the greater story of how the Gospel spread outward from Jerusalem to the rest of the world. In this story we see how the Holy Spirit continues to cross all human barriers, moving outward geographically from Jerusalem but also working in ever greater circles out from the center of the known Jewish faith. The Ethiopian eunuch represents the crossing of many of these barriers of religion, region, and crossing the barrier of what had previously been considered to be unclean. To unpack this a bit more, we turn to Lillian Daniel, who wrote the UCC s StillSpeaking study of Acts 7-15 ( 2009). She writes about how it is noted that the eunuch is returning from pilgrimage in Jerusalem, which seems to indicate that he is not Jewish by birth, instead that he was fascinated by the Jewish faith and scriptures. In fact, as Phillip encounters him, he is reading from the writings of the prophet Isaiah. Specifically, he is reading from what we call the passages in Isaiah about the Suffering Servant, a text which the early Christians had already identified as reflecting what had happened to Jesus. With this scripture to build on, Phillip teaches the eunuch about Jesus. The eunuch is converted and

6 P a g e 6 wishes to be baptized. A pond mysteriously appears, and Phillip baptizes him. The Spirit has moved again beyond the human expectations. Lillian Daniel makes a few notes her that we should know: This man is from Ethiopia, which would have been considered exotic at the time like the edge of the earth. He would have been dark skinned and people from Jerusalem would have easily been able to identify him as an outsider. He was a high level Ethiopian civil servant, an official of the Queen. He represents power, and yet likely lived in a very precarious place himself, with little personal power. As Lillian Daniel puts it, After all, he was a eunuch. What was a eunuch? This was literally a man who had been castrated, likely at a young age, as someone who was to be a servant of a royal court. Lillian writes: Who would choose such a thing? They agreed to this, or sometimes it was decided for them at a young age, so that they could perform certain jobs. There are many cultures that had eunuchs in ancient times, from Asia, to Africa, to Europe, and these men would work in royal courts, bathing and tending to the intimate household needs of powerful people. They were rendered incapable of reproduction in order to make them safe in the private bedrooms of the powerful. When one lives in a government that is dependent on the bloodlines of the leaders, that bloodline is defended and this is one way that Kings insured that their spouse s children were indeed blood heirs to the throne. Lillian goes further though, pointing out that by rendering them sterile, eunuchs were also valued by government leaders because they would not be married, and would not have

7 P a g e 7 divided loyalties. Eunuchs would never need to earn money to support a family or save money to bequeath to their children. This might lead one to believe that eunuchs, who might rise to high rank in the government, might be esteemed by society, but instead because of their physical condition they had a lower social status. On one hand, eunuchs had the private ear of the rulers; on the other hand, they were quite vulnerable. It was not an easy life. As a eunuch, even on pilgrimage, this man would have been denied access to the Temple, as one who was designates as unclean because his genitalia had been mutilated. Lillian Daniel points out that this story has, always had particular significance for gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender people who may have been excluded from a church in their past. For all people who have felt excluded by religious status quo, this story shows a different way. The story culminates with the miraculous, spontaneous baptism of the converted eunuch. The Spirit speaks, Phillip listens and so does the eunuch who is converted, baptized, and goes forth rejoicing! As Christians today, as we read this scripture, we are challenged by the bold witness of Phillip and his responsiveness to the real human being who the Spirit puts in his path to be ministered to. We ask ourselves, if we were in a similar situation, what would we do? Would you get into his carriage to discuss the scripture? What do you think appealed to the eunuch in the story of Jesus teachings, and his subsequent persecution and execution and his resurrection? What is the Good News here?

8 P a g e 8 In closing, consider these closing words from preacher and teacher Jim Wallis. He said, Christianity is not just a religion that gives some people a ticket to heaven and makes them judgmental of everybody else. Rather, it is a call to a relationship; and one that changes all our other relationships. Jesus calls us into a new relationship to God; and he says that also brings us into a new relationship with our neighbor, especially with the most vulnerable of this world, and even with our enemies. You don t always hear that from the churches. But that transformation of all our relationships, when lived out, has always been the best thing for what we now call the common good. Today may we know that the Holy Spirit is still at work today, prodding us onward to overcome the barriers that have been put in place in the name of religion. Let us remember that first time that the scripture confounded us, and that hopefully a teacher or friend came into our lives to help us understand. Let us remember our baptism, and the reasons that we or our parents (on our behalf) had for being baptized. May we be transformed by our relationship with Jesus and may that transform all our relationships with others. The Spirit is alive in this early church and in our congregation as well. May we with faith and grace become ministers living in the vein of Jesus. Amen.