Practicing Resurrection: 5th Sunday of Eastertide
April 28, 2024 – Practicing Resurrection: 5th Sunday of Eastertide
Welcome to the 5th Sunday of Eastertide. Christ is risen. He is risen indeed! Alleluia!
Scripture of the Day: Acts 8:26-40
26 As for Philip, an angel of the Lord said to him, “Go south down the desert road that runs from Jerusalem to Gaza.” 27 So he started out, and he met the treasurer of Ethiopia, a eunuch of great authority under the Kandake, the queen of Ethiopia. The eunuch had gone to Jerusalem to worship, 28 and he was now returning. Seated in his carriage, he was reading aloud from the book of the prophet Isaiah.
29 The Holy Spirit said to Philip, “Go over and walk along beside the carriage.”
30 Philip ran over and heard the man reading from the prophet Isaiah. Philip asked, “Do you understand what you are reading?”
31 The man replied, “How can I, unless someone instructs me?” And he urged Philip to come up into the carriage and sit with him.
32 The passage of Scripture he had been reading was this:
“He was led like a sheep to the slaughter.
And as a lamb is silent before the shearers,
he did not open his mouth.
33 He was humiliated and received no justice.
Who can speak of his descendants?
For his life was taken from the earth.”
34 The eunuch asked Philip, “Tell me, was the prophet talking about himself or someone else?” 35 So beginning with this same Scripture, Philip told him the Good News about Jesus.
36 As they rode along, they came to some water, and the eunuch said, “Look! There’s some water! Why can’t I be baptized?” 38 He ordered the carriage to stop, and they 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 never saw him again but went on his way rejoicing.40 Meanwhile, Philip found himself farther north at the town of Azotus. He preached the Good News there and in every town along the way until he came to Caesarea.
[Moment of silence]
Listen to the voice of the Spirit speaking to the Church. Thanks be to God.
Message
Do you remember Philip? He was one of the seven appointed by the apostles in Jerusalem to make sure the food was distributed equally among the new Greek and Hebrew followers who were still gathered in Jerusalem after Pentecost. These seven were described as well-respected and full of the Spirit and wisdom.
You may recall that one of the seven, Stephen, was stoned to death after some who were jealous of him persuaded others to lie about him blaspheming God. When he was asked about the truth of the accusations, Stephen gave a fiery sermon which ended with saying the listeners were deaf to the truth, accusing them of killing the Messiah, and then seeing a vision of heaven. The Jewish leaders sort of went berserk and dragged him out of town and stoned him. After that everything went south for the believers and they scattered, which meant the Good News was then spread just as Jesus had told them to do.
Philip headed to Samaria where he shared the Gospel. Then the Spirit sent him down the road towards Gaza where he found an Ethiopian who had been to Jerusalem to worship at the Temple and was on his way home.
Here are some things we can pick up about this man from the scripture.
We know he was a eunuch, which means that probably when he was young he was castrated in order to serve the women of the court. In this man’s particular case, he served as the treasurer to the queen, so his rank would have been high. He would have been a man of means. We know that because he has a scroll of Isaiah from which he is reading, and scrolls like this were not available to just anyone. He may have been a Jew. There were Jews in Ethiopia. Even the queen might have been Jewish. He would have been in Jerusalem to worship at the Temple. But even if he were Jewish, as a eunuch, he would not have been allowed into the inner courts of the Temple. If he was a Gentile and had gone to Jerusalem to worship as a God-Fearer – a person outside the Jewish community who reverenced the God of Israel – he would not have been allowed into the inner courts either. He would have been considered an outsider in the Jewish context. Someone on the margins.
What strikes me about this man is that despite his being prohibited from the full worship experience, he has traveled some distance to worship in Jerusalem. I looked it up. It’s 1500 miles! It would have taken him, according to one source I found, nearly a month one way! How many of us would make that kind of journey even for a significant worship experience, let alone knowing we would be excluded from fully participating in it once we got there?
The interesting thing too was the passage he was reading. He was trying to make sense of it. He may be wondering if it has anything to do with him. There are passages in Isaiah that indicate someone like him would be welcome in God’s house, but other passages of scripture in Deuteronomy make it plain he would not be welcome because he is not a whole man physically. He has to be wondering, which is it? And who is this person who has suffered just as he has suffered? He’s reading this passage aloud – people didn’t read silently back then – and his mind is seeking understanding.
And here comes Philip, guided by the Holy Spirit, to help this man discover the truth of what he is reading. On this side of the Resurrection, everything in scripture is interpreted by as his followers through the lens of the Jesus story. The one who has suffered and was led like a sheep to be slaughtered, who was humiliated and denied justice, was, of course, Jesus. Philip goes on from there to tell the Ethiopian man the whole story, complete with, apparently, Jesus’ instruction to his followers to go lead more people to follow in his way, including being baptized.
Again, the man shows his curious nature. He asks is there anything to prevent him from being baptized in this water, which just happens to be available alongside this particular stretch of the road? He’s asking more than if Philip is willing to baptize him right then. He’s asking does all of this story allow for me, someone who is on the outside of the faith of those who worship the God of Israel? Can he be fully included in this body of believers of the way of Jesus?
Of course, the answer is absolutely! No one is excluded from following the way. In fact, Jesus came precisely for those who were found on the margins. And, suddenly, the man who had traveled so far to worship God discovers God on the road and is changed forever. The Spirit snatches Philip up and sends him to the next place to preach the Good News, and sends this man from Ethiopia, now a follower of the Way of Jesus, towards home to spread the Gospel to all those he encounters as he journeys rejoicing.
I think there are some interesting lessons to be learned from this story.
If we are open to the Spirit, we might very well be led to someone who needs a word from God. Sometimes our accidental encounters with other people might be divine appointments. I believe what we did yesterday with ForColumbia was a divine appointment. I believe the Spirit sent us to the homes where we simply helped to make them more beautiful. The smiles on the faces of the people who lived there as we worked alongside them were evidence of God’s love in the midst.
I had another one of those accidental encounters as the day’s work was coming to a close. We had packed everything up and I was missing my water bottle I had taken with me. I had looked all over and just figured someone had picked it up thinking it had been left behind. I thought maybe I had taken it with me when we picked up our lunches at the office for the townhomes, so I trekked over and sure enough, there it was! The social worker was still there, and we began to chat.
We had chatted a bit earlier, which is when I had learned she was the social worker for the residents of the townhomes. She asked me now, “Did you say you were the pastor of a church? What church was that again?” I told her and asked if she was a regular attender somewhere. She explained that she had become frustrated with the church she had been attending and had not gone for about a year. She was beginning to look for a church. We talked about how she was trying to stay faithful on her own with her children, but how a church community was important. I told her about us. She asked some questions. And she told me she would like to check us out.
What do you think? Was this an accidental encounter? I believe it started out that way, but I also believe the Spirit was at work. If I hadn’t left my water bottle there, we wouldn’t have had an opportunity for conversation. I think it became a divine appointment.
Reading scripture can sometimes be confusing, but it helps to look at it through the lens of the story of Jesus. It’s become kind of cliché, but it is still helpful to ask, “What would Jesus do?” Or “What would Jesus say?” Or “How would Jesus react to this situation?” Jesus’ perspective was surprising to those who were his first followers, to the crowds who listened to his teachings. Sometimes it still surprises us when we realize how he had a habit of turning things on their head.
Sometimes we need help interpreting scripture – like from another trusted believer, or a biblical scholar, or a theologian, or your Sunday School teacher, or even sometimes your pastor! I think the point is, that we need to look at scripture together in community, because we need each other’s wisdom and experience.
Always be curious. Being curious helps us to grow spiritually. Asking questions helps us to be open to the Spirit’s leading. If we think we know all the answers, we become closed to new ideas, new possibilities, new ways of seeing God in the world.
Are there any other helpful learnings in this story?
The Ethiopian eunuch practiced resurrection when he stopped the chariot and asked to be baptized, then went on his way rejoicing in his new vision of the world. Philip was practicing resurrection when he listened to the Spirit’s leading and boldly approached the important looking man reading from Isaiah in his chariot and then boldly explained what he was reading was about Jesus. Practicing resurrection means responding to the Good News and to the Spirit’s prompting. It’s as simple and as complicated as that.
Will you pray with me?
Spirit of God, empower us to seek your leading. Help us to respond to the Good News of the Way of Jesus. Show us who needs an encouraging word from you. Help us to think about what you would do or say. Help us to seek the wisdom that comes from this body of believers. Empower us to keep asking questions. We pray these things in the name of the one who lived and died and is living still. Amen.
Invitation to Be Curious
It takes intentionality to be open to the leading of God’s Spirit. It means paying attention all the time, so that accidental encounters can become divine appointments. To follow God’s Spirit means staying curious, asking questions, being open to the possibility that there is always something new to learn. As children of God, which all of us are, we need only remember that all we have to do is trust that God loves us, all of us, and God wants the absolute best for us, and God’s spirit will never lead us astray. So let’s keep on following the way.