Now What? Acts 8:26-39 May 6, 2012 (Re-Dedication Sunday) 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.) 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 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. +++ 1
So what do Ethiopians, eunuchs, and impromptu road-side baptisms have to do with our re-dedication Sunday? It s a fair question. This peculiar story gives us a window into the beginning of the Christian movement. The story of Philip and the Ethiopian eunuch describes for us the trajectory that the Holy Spirit had in mind when it created the Church. At its heart, the purpose of the church is to be inclusive. It is to reach more and more people with the good news of the gospel. It is to increase the boundaries of who makes up the people of God. It is to share the joy of the Christian life with as many people as possible. That is the Holy Spirit s agenda with the Church to include. In today s passage, it all comes down to how Philip answers the question posed to him by this Ethiopian eunuch: What is to prevent me from being baptized? And let s get serious Philip could have come up with a reason. As a eunuch, the Ethiopian was considered to be impure by the normal standards. As an Ethiopian, he was a foreigner, and thus considered suspect. As someone just beginning to be interested in the Christian faith, he had not been through the new member class to know what he was supposed to believe. Moreover, as a newly-minted deacon, Philip really didn t have the authority to make the decision. Philip could have come up with a reason that would prevent the Ethiopian eunuch from being baptized. Instead, he followed the nudge of the Holy Spirit and answered the eunuch s question with the truth: That nothing was preventing him from sharing the waters of baptism. That there was nothing standing in the way of God s grace. That there were no obstacles to God s claim on the eunuch s life. No barriers to understanding his identity as child of the covenant. *** 2
Four years ago, when all of this started, I have to admit that I wasn t sure I appreciated the scope or the impact of what it meant to renovate, reconfigure, and restore every-single-square-foot of our church s campus. What I am now convinced of four years later is that, however good our intentions were, God s purpose through this project is for our church to widen the circle of who we include in our life together as a community of faith. Four years ago in fact four years ago yesterday the Fulfilling the Vision Steering Committee held their first meeting to start discussing the Capital Campaign that the Session had just authorized. Four years ago this building we are re-dedicating looked a bit different. Maybe you remember: Four years ago, our roof had holes in it. One of our members (who is no longer with us) would sit right there when it was raining, so that he would be the one to get wet instead of someone who might be visiting. Four years ago, we had a church filled with small rooms and hallways but few spaces that lent themselves to fellowship. Four years ago, most people entered our church through a back door that led into a taupe corridor, next to a time clock, and a collection of wheelchairs. Four years ago, the window that is one of our only pieces of history from the downtown church was lodged in a stairwell and covered by a landing. Four years ago, electrical panels were so dangerous that they had to be padlocked. Fire suppression consisted of a few, well-placed fire extinguishers. Handicap accessibility meant a small, temperamental, slow-moving elevator that did not reach all floors. Water and bathrooms were limited to a little more than half of the building. 3
Four years ago, our congregation s well-deserved reputation for hospitality was at risk of being overpowered by a facility that said the opposite. And today, here we are! So now what? It has been a journey. You can measure the journey of the past four years a number of ways. In the constant and tireless effort of church members who have given their time to meet, dream, strategize, organize, clean, pack, unpack, pack again, unpack again In generous and sacrificial contributions of money. In gallons of paint. In yards of wire and pipe and carpet and tile. In financial spreadsheets. In change orders and architectural renderings. In the past four years we ve had 113 people join the church. We ve had 64 people die. We ve had 27 babies born. And here we are. Here we are, four years and $14M later with a space befitting the majesty of the God we worship; with a space designed to facilitate the up building of community. So now what? You could look at what we ve just done and say that we ve spent all of this money on ourselves. But that s not what this has been about. What we have just done is to prepare a place of welcome. And now we need to be about the practice of welcoming. 4
Welcoming those whose curiosity about God and us and our ministry and our rekindled passion for our place in the city draws them alongside us in our journey of faith. Welcoming those who live right down the street, but whose names and stories and life experiences we do not yet know. Welcoming those who have given up on the church because all they hear about are the ways that churches try to prevent people from joining the community of believers. Welcoming those who have fallen out of the habit of participating in the church, and wonder if they will be judged if they decide to come back. Four years and $14M later, now it is time for us to be about the practice of welcoming. *** Last week, I had a preview of our future with this building serving as a place of welcome. A week ago Saturday, our church hosted a wedding for a delightful young couple. It was the first event to take place in our renovated space. Ahead of the service, I milled about talking to the bridesmaids getting ready in the renovated bride s room, the groomsmen lounging and twiddling their thumbs in the gracious PW suite, extended family relaxing and reconnecting in the gathering area and the library, and early-arriving guests poking around and exploring the place. Most of the people in the church last weekend had no idea how much effort went into creating a space in which they could feel so comfortable. They didn t know about the endless meetings. They didn t know about the incredible amount of patience required by the congregation and the staff to live amidst total chaos for four years while this place was being fixed up. They were just here to witness vows, celebrate with family, and worship the God at the center of the covenant between a new husband and a new wife. 5
And that is what all of this is about not a building, but a place of welcome. A place where all people might find joy and comfort and hope. *** At the end of our story in this morning s scripture after Philip assured the Ethiopian eunuch that nothing would prevent him from participating in the life of faith through baptism, and after the two of them came up from the water that had been used for baptizing at the end of the story, we find Philip being taken away by the Spirit presumably to continue the work of including more and more people in the life of the church, and we find the eunuch rejoicing in his newly-found identity as a follower of Jesus. I can t imagine a better outcome for those who come into contact with the body of Christ that is the church that, experiencing the liberating love and barrier-free welcome of our Lord, they would be moved to rejoice. May it be so through us. Let us pray: We give you thanks, Holy God, for the welcome that you offer us and the whole world through the gift of your Son, our Lord, Jesus Christ. And as we are his body and now, renovated, reconfigured, restored help us to embody your welcome in the ways we live out our faith. In the name of the one who came not be served, but to serve Amen. 6