Acts 8:

2018 04.29 Acts 8:26-40 26 Then an angel of the Lord said to Philip, Get up and go toward 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. 33 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. 1

Get Up and Go During my second year of seminary I and three other friends were tasked with coleading an intentionally multicultural worshiping community. The new ministry was the idea of the senior pastor of the Korean American church that I was attending. I was surprised because the church already had an English ministry; indeed, that was the worship service that I attended. But the make-up of the English ministry was entirely Korean American, except for me. The pastor wanted to reach a more diverse community. He was motivated by gratitude. He was grateful for the way the neighborhood had welcomed the church, and he in turn wanted the church to reach out to the wider community. He wanted to take the gospel beyond the borders of the church parking lot. It was a situation not unlike what we find in Acts 8. The early church was centered in Jerusalem, not the suburbs of New Jersey, but staying within the borders of Jerusalem made a lot of sense. The church was attracting many new believers, the majority of whom were converts from Judaism. In fact, they were not so much converting to a new religion as they were remaining Jews, but Jews who recognized Jesus as Israel s Messiah. The church was doing quite well in Jerusalem. There was no need to go beyond its borders, but the Holy Spirit had other ideas. The spread of the gospel in and around Jerusalem is told in the book of Acts chapters one through seven [SLIDE]. But the church s early success within Jerusalem is short lived. Things take a turn for the worse with the death of Stephen, the first martyr for Christ. Stephen is a Jew who proclaims the gospel of Jesus Christ to his fellow Jews. For doing so, he is brought before the religious council and put on trial. Rather than deny the charges against him, he proceeds to preach a lengthy sermon. The sermon so enrages the council that they don t wait for a verdict. They drag him out of the city and stone him to death. 2

According to Acts 8:1, the day of Stephen s death marks the beginning of a severe persecution against the church, not by Rome but by the Jewish religious authorities. One of the church s foremost persecutors is a zealous Jew named Saul, who even enters believers homes and drags off men and women to prison. Believers in Christ are no longer welcome in Jerusalem. As a result of the persecution, the church is scattered to places beyond the city. Philip goes to Samaria [SLIDE], as in the parable of the Good Samaritan, and proclaims the gospel with great success. (This is not the Apostle Philip, one of the original twelve, but Philip the Evangelist, who is first mentioned in Acts 6.) In Samaria he casts out unclean spirits. He heals the paralyzed and the lame. Through his witness many believe and are baptized. Just when you think it might be time for Philip to settle down in Samaria where the gospel message has been so warmly welcomed maybe plant a church and make himself head pastor God intervenes. Philip gets new marching orders [SLIDE]: Then an angel of the Lord said to Philip, Get up and go toward the south to the road that goes down from Jerusalem to Gaza (Acts 8:26). Just as the disciples didn t leave Jerusalem on their own accord, but left only after facing persecution, so too Philip leaves Samaria not by his own will but at the direction of the Spirit, which in this case comes through the word of an angel. Get up and go, the angel commands. He is to go to Gaza, which is quite a ways from Jerusalem and even further from Samaria. He doesn t know what awaits in Gaza. He doesn t know whom he will meet there. But, willingly or not, he goes. When we follow the urging of the Holy Spirit, we are sent to people and to places we would not go to on our own. When I began that multicultural ministry with my fellow seminarians, I envisioned us drawing people from all different backgrounds and walks of life. I think that s what all four of us envisioned. We would attract a group that was as diverse as we were. We were male and female. In our twenties, 3

thirties, and (in my case) forties. We were black, white, Hispanic, and Asian. Our religious backgrounds were Catholic, Episcopalian, Presbyterian, and Baptist. Surely we would draw a young, diverse, energetic congregation that would mirror the way we saw ourselves. But that s not what happened. The worship service never drew more than a handful of people. Our most might have been ten for our opening worship, but those were mostly people who already knew us. The ministry faced all sorts of obstacles, the biggest one being that after a few weeks we lost our worship space and had to move into a classroom in the church. We had a lot of enthusiasm to begin this ministry, but we could have used more time to properly plan. We had just one faithful attendee every week. Gary was referred to us by a member of the Korean church who was his doctor. Gary lived alone in a run-down apartment that smelled of cigarettes and cat hair. He had a lot of health issues, even for a man in his fifties. He had a bad back and he walked with a limp. His disability prevented him from working. His only income was his monthly Social Security check. He also had diabetes, and he was a lifelong smoker, which you could hear in his voice. His voice sounded like two pieces of sandpaper rubbing together. I don t think that Gary even identified as Christian. His doctor brought him to us with the hope that he would receive the gospel. Regardless, Gary rarely missed a service. He would tell us in advance if he wasn t coming, because one of us had to pick him up. He didn t own a car and the bus didn t stop near the church. I don t think I was the only one of the four of us to feel that Gary was not easy to like, let alone love. His life was one of endless needs. Money. Rides. Errands. He had selfdestructive habits. He told inappropriate jokes. He was his own worst enemy. But looking back now seven years later, although the ministry never became what my friends and I hoped it would be, it just might have been what it needed to be. We 4

needed to learn that our vision of the church was too narrow. We were expecting young, active professionals of diverse backgrounds, but what we got was Gary, a sickly, middle-aged white man from New Jersey. I wonder what Philip was expecting when he heard the angel tell him to get up and go [SLIDE]. Get up from Samaria, where his preaching of the gospel had met with wild success, and go toward Gaza and the unknown. Get up from preaching to packed houses full of enthusiastic believers and go start all over again in a new location. Did Philip imagine that he would go to Gaza for one man, a man who did not at all fit the profile of the majority of early Christians? Whether he goes willingly or reluctantly, one thing is clear: the idea to get up and go is not Philip s, it is God s. God sends him from Samaria, down through Jerusalem, on the road toward Gaza. Luke, the writer of Acts, adds the curious detail that this is a wilderness road. Philip will be traveling off the beaten path. And when you wander off the beaten path, you never know who you might run into. On that wilderness road Philip encounters an Ethiopian eunuch. Eunuch is not a word that comes up all that often in casual conversation. Nor would the sight of a eunuch have been a frequent occurrence, even in first-century Judea. A eunuch is a male who has been castrated. While they were not common in the general population, they were frequently found in royal courts where they served as attendants and even advisors. This particular eunuch serves in the court of the Ethiopian queen, whose title (not name) is Candace. Given that he is in charge of her entire treasury, he is a man of great importance. In terms of the royal court of Ethiopia, he is an insider. But as regards worship in the temple of Jerusalem, he is an outsider. The eunuch is on his way back home to Ethiopia after visiting Jerusalem. He had come to Jerusalem to worship. Judaism is generally not a missionary religion. Jews don t seek to make 5

converts of non-jews. Most people who convert to Judaism do so through marriage. But this man is a eunuch. He is not married. He most likely is what Jews of the time called a God-fearer, meaning a Gentile who was attracted to Judaism. The temple accommodated such people, to a degree. The inner courts of the temple were off limits to Gentiles, but the outer court was actually called the Court of the Gentiles. But even if the eunuch were not a gentile but a full convert, he would have been forbidden to enter the temple. Why? It s right there in Deuteronomy [SLIDE]: No one whose testicles are crushed or whose penis is cut off shall be admitted to the assembly of the Lord (Deut. 23:1). (Now, that s not a verse we ask children to memorize!) While eunuchs could enjoy a certain amount of status within the royal court, from a religious perspective they were regarded as inferior. They were scarred, defective men, unable to fulfill the command to be fruitful and multiply. This eunuch went to the temple to worship, but how far did he get before he was told that he could go no further, either because he was a gentile or because he was a eunuch? One way or the other, under a strict interpretation of Deuteronomy, he would have been turned away. I wonder what was Philip s initial reaction to seeing the eunuch passing by in his chariot. What did he think of this stranger, this foreigner, this man but not-a-man? Luke gives us a hint [SLIDE]: Then the Spirit said to Philip, Go over to this chariot and join it (Acts 8:29). Again, as the Spirit had commanded Philip to get up and go toward Gaza, so again the Spirit commands Philip to join the stranger. It is not Philip s idea to approach the eunuch. The Spirit moves him. Philip approaches the chariot and hears that the eunuch is reading aloud from the book of Isaiah. Philip asks him whether he can understand what he s reading. How can I, unless someone guides me? You can almost hear the frustration in the eunuch s voice. 6

What a golden opportunity for Philip! As an evangelist, Philip is leading a charmed life. The Samaritans welcomed his preaching and now a stranger invites him to explain the scriptures. If only evangelism for us were this easy! If only we could just run into someone with an interest in the Bible who would ask us for help in understanding it. Does that ever happen? Perhaps if we are as open to the movement of the Spirit as Philip it just might. The eunuch is reading from Isaiah. He s reading one of the servant songs. Isaiah has four such songs, or poems, that speak of a servant of Israel who will gather and lead the people but who will also suffer on behalf of the people. That suffering is highlighted especially in the fourth and final song. So strongly do we associate this suffering servant with Jesus that we always read this passage on Good Friday, the day that we set aside for remembering the suffering of Jesus Christ. It s this song that the eunuch is reading when Philip meets him. In this song the servant is likened to a sheep that is led to slaughter. He goes silently, not resisting, not even opening his mouth [SLIDE]. The last line reads For his life is taken away from the earth (Acts 8:33). What appears as verse 33 here in Acts can be found in Isaiah 53:8. The wording is slightly different in Isaiah: For he was cut off from the land of the living (Isa. 53:8b). It s at this verse that the eunuch stops reading. He has a question for Philip. He wonders if the prophet is writing about himself. Is this autobiography? Or is he writing about someone else? Perhaps he asks this question because the eunuch knows something about being cut off. Not to be too blunt about it, but as a eunuch a part of him has literally been cut off. In addition, his status as a eunuch has also cut off the possibility of him joining the worshipping community at the temple. Remember, he has just come from the temple, so the experience of being cut off is likely still fresh in his mind. 7

Philip treats the eunuch s question as an opportunity to proclaim the good news of Jesus Christ who himself was cut off and cast out and hung up on a cross. Jesus Christ was cut off so that all might be brought in to the fellowship of the God of Israel, both Jew and gentile, insider and outsider, including eunuchs, including this particular eunuch who comes from what was then the far reaches of the known world. No matter. There is no distance that Christ s outstretched arms on the cross cannot reach. The reach of Jesus Christ on the cross is all-embracing. I wonder if even Philip fully appreciated the reach of Jesus Christ. The early Christian movement was centered in Jerusalem. It might well have remained there if it weren t for the persecution the church eventually faced. It was persecution that pushed the church beyond the boundaries of the holy city, to places like the wilderness road to Gaza on which Philip met a eunuch from Ethiopia and shared with him the Good News. The eunuch hears the Good News as just that good news. It is good news for him. As he and Philip continue on the road he spots some water and he is struck with inspiration: What is to prevent me from being baptized? (Acts 8:36). Baptism? So soon? Well, I don t know. You need to attend our new member class first. And then you should really take the baptism class as well. There s an order to this sort of thing. Let s not be too hasty. If the eunuch were to walk into a church today seeking to be baptized on the spot, he would probably hear some version of that message. Slow down. Let s do this properly and in decent order. The early church thought this way, too [SLIDE]. You may have noticed that verse 37 is missing. That s because the oldest manuscripts of Acts don t have a verse 37. It was added later, probably because someone felt uncomfortable with how quickly 8

this baptism happens. The verse, which is often added as a footnote, reads, And Philip said, If you believe with all your heart you may [be baptized]. And he replied, I believe that Jesus Christ is the Son of God. Now that s more like it! A profession of faith. That s orderly. Listen, I m not saying it s wrong to desire order in the church. I think baptism classes are important, even necessary. But there are limits to our desire for rules and order. Sometimes the breath of the Holy Spirit blows down our manmade borders and boundaries by which we seek to bring order to the church, by which we say that someone is in or out, welcome or unwelcome, or not now but later. The Spirit blows where it will. It blows into our churches spiritual seekers who might surprise us or challenge our sensibilities. And it blows in the other direction as well. It blows at our backs, pushing us to Get up and go. Get up from our comfortable seats (with new armrests!) and go along the wilderness road, off the beaten path where there are no borders or boundaries. Go carrying the Good News of Jesus Christ s all-embracing love. I wanted to end the sermon there. It feels right. But there s one more thing I feel compelled to add. We often think of Judaism as a religion of laws. A religion of strict rules. Of black and white, right and wrong, insider and outsider. Like Deuteronomy 23:1, which was probably used to keep the eunuch out of the temple and cut off from the community of the faithful. But there are other voices in the Old Testament. Later voices. Voices less concerned with rules and more about grace. A voice like we hear in Isaiah 56, which offers a vision of Israel in which those who were once on the outside are invited in. And so I want to end with the Word of the Lord as spoken through Isaiah [SLIDE]: 9

3 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. 4 For thus says the Lord: To the eunuchs who keep my sabbaths, who choose the things that please me and hold fast my covenant, 5 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 (Isa. 56:3-5). 10