A sermon preached at Littlefield Presbyterian Church Sunday, May 3, on Acts 8:26-39.
What happens in the story we heard in Acts chapter 8
sounds like something from the Old Testament: an angel of the Lord comes to
Philip and tells him to go to the road to Gaza. So Philip is traveling down the road
from Jerusalem to Gaza—a wilderness road—when
he encounters an Ethiopian riding in a chariot.
Luke tells us quite a lot about both of these men. Philip is one of seven Greek-speaking Jewish
Christians appointed by the Twelve to tend to the needs of others, especially
widows, in the Greek-speaking part of the Christian community. He is known as Philip the Evangelist, who
eventually settled in Caesarea, and has four daughters who were considered
prophets in this Christian community.[1]
Embedded in this story are a number of interesting details.
We’re told that the Ethiopian—a black African—was the treasurer of “The
Candace,” the official title of the queen mother and real head of government in
Ethiopia.[2]
Since he’s traveling in a chariot, we know he’s a
person of status. That he possesses a
scroll of the prophet Isaiah shows that he is wealthy.
Luke tells us that the Ethiopian is a eunuch, which was not unusual for someone in that time and culture
whose life was devoted to serving in the queen’s court. He had probably been castrated,
probably as a child, so that he would be considered trustworthy around all the
women in the queen’s court.
That this man was a eunuch was an important detail to
Luke, because he mentions it five times.
This man may have been an Ethiopian Jew, or I think more
probably a “God-worshiper” returning from a pilgrimage to Jerusalem. God-worshipers, or God-fearers, were Gentiles
who accepted the theological and ethical teachings of Judaism and worshiped
with Jews in the synagogue without becoming full converts.
Philip hears the Ethiopian reading aloud from the book of
Isaiah and asks him if he understands what he’s reading. The Ethiopian says, “How can I, unless someone guides
me?” Then he invites Philip to get into
the chariot and ride beside him.
The passage he’s reading is one of what we may recognize
as one of the “Suffering Servant” songs:
"Like a lamb led to slaughter, in humiliation
justice was denied him and he was cut
off from the land of the living, cut off from all progeny."
Now, according to Deuteronomy 23, castrated males were
not to be accepted into the Jewish community.
The different translations of that passage have interesting ways of
describing this category of people who were excluded: “No one who has been emasculated by cutting
or cutting may enter the assembly of the LORD.”
You can look up the other translations for yourself if you’re
interested.
The Ethiopian may
have experienced exclusion as he tried to worship at the temple in Jerusalem, if
Deuteronomy 23 was being enforced in a rigid manor. We don’t know. If so, he may still have had
his experience of rejection in mind as he was reading Isaiah: “In his humiliation, justice was denied him.” No matter how much this man may have longed to
be a full member of the Jewish community, the religious rules would have excluded
him because of his physical condition.[3] Scripture makes it clear that eunuchs were
not allowed in the Temple—not even in the Court of the Gentiles, which was an outer court.[4]
Here is someone else who has been
denied a full life, cut off from God and people, condemned to have no
generations to follow and remember him. And so the eunuch is curious. Who is
this being described? What has he
done? What is going to happen to him? Of course, what he probably really wants
to know is what is going to happen to him-- the eunuch. Yes, it is as if the
scripture has become a mirror, and the eunuch recognizes himself in it.
Now, before Philip was sent down
this wilderness road, he has been preaching “the good news about the kingdom of
God and the name of Jesus Christ” in Samaria, and as a result, many Samaritans
“were baptized, both men and women.” By
preaching in Samaria, Philip has broken through two important barriers: religion and race. He is convinced that God loves even the
Samaritans, and that they are welcome to join this new inclusive Jewish
sect—the community of the Messiah.
Even though Jesus had commissioned his followers to be
his witness in Samaria,[5]
this breakthrough had apparently raised eyebrows among the Jewish-Christian
leaders in Jerusalem. Can you imagine
them saying, “But we’ve never done
that before! We’ve always believed that
the Samaritans were heretics… “
The enforcers of the religious boundaries sent Peter and
John to Samaria to look into the matter of including the Samaritans, and they
prayed for them, and they received the gift of the Holy Spirit. Peter and John preached the gospel to many
villages of Samaritans on their way back to Jerusalem.
The Spirit was on the move! So I think there are three characters in this story.
The Spirit of God brought Philip to the eunuch, so that he can interpret
the scripture to him. He tells him that
the suffering servant as described by Isaiah has been fully embodied in the
life and ministry of Jesus… and that Jesus’ death and resurrection has led to
new life for all people.
Can you imagine how the eunuch would have responded to
that news? All people? Does Philip
really mean that? New life for all people?
As they’re traveling along that wilderness road, they come
to some water. The eunuch impulsively jumps up and with great excitement,
proclaims, "Look, here is water!
What is to prevent me from being baptized?"
What is to prevent him from being baptized? A lot of people would want to say, “God says
no. God says you’re not even allowed in the
Temple, because you’re a eunuch. We’ve
got a couple of Bible verses we can quote to prove it. Like in
Deuteronomy chapter 23. It’s what we’ve
always believed. God says no.”
But that isn’t what happened. An
angel of the Lord had sent Philip to encounter this Ethiopian eunuch. This God-fearing eunuch who was studying the
prophet Isaiah invites Philip to ride with him and lead him in Bible
study.
I wonder if, during the course of their Bible study in the chariot,
Philip and the eunuch read the next few chapters in the scroll of Isaiah. I wonder if they got to chapter 56, where
Isaiah proclaims:
“Thus says the LORD: maintain justice, and do what is right,
for soon my salvation will come,and my deliverance will be revealed….
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."
For thus says the Lord:
To eunuchs
who keep my sabbaths,
who choose the things that please me
and hold fast my covenant,
I will give in my house and within my walls,
a monument and a name
better than sons or daughters;
I will give them an everlasting name
that shall not be cut off. “[6]
Over the years, scholars have wondered how Isaiah could have said such a
thing. Surely he knew the holiness code
as written in Deuteronomy. A eunuch was
excluded from the assembly of the LORD.[7] Why would Isaiah have said this after the
exile, when the survival of the remnant of the people of Israel was at
stake? This was a time when having
children would have been a priority… and when purity and boundaries seemed
critically important. And yet, in just
such a time, Isaiah wrote that foreigners and eunuchs would be welcome in the
household of God.
Could it be that the Spirit of God was hovering over the text and over
the prophet, bringing forth a different word to overturn the word of exclusion?
The Spirit of God has been on the move. Surely it was no coincidence that the story
in Acts 8 of an Ethiopian eunuch brings together the two categories of Isaiah
56 together in this one person. Luke is
steeped in the writings of Isaiah from the day in Nazareth when Jesus read
from Isaiah’s scroll[8] to this
day on the wilderness road.
The work the risen Jesus began on the Emmaus road, opening and
interpreting the scriptures, Philip is continuing.
Through his storytelling and his actions, through his
relationships with people, Jesus proclaimed the gospel of the kingdom of
God—the gospel of love.
When people asked Jesus what the most important
commandment was, Jesus said: “Love God
with your whole being. Love your
neighbor as yourself. On this hang the
whole of the Law.”
Jesus’ teaching and ministry were all
about love and compassion and healing.
He reached out to people on the margins
of society—people the good religious people
of his day thought of as sinners and outcasts.
The eunuch listens to Philip as he shares the good news of Jesus. And then with longing and excitement, he
asks: What is to prevent me from becoming part of this
living, welcoming Body of Christ?
What does Philip do? He sets
aside the narrow confines of purity laws and exclusion… and throws open the wide doors of God’s love and
mercy. He embraces the spirit of the law, and baptizes the eunuch.
This is gospel in action. That’s what happens when we really study
the Bible. It’s transformative. It
changes our minds. It changes our lives. And, like the Ethiopian eunuch, we go
on our way rejoicing.
That’s a very different thing from when people pick a
verse or two or three to support what they already “know” and say, “No. God
says no.”
He went on his way rejoicing! Tradition tells us
that the Ethiopian eunuch was the first one to take the gospel to Ethiopia, and
that makes sense to me. He went on his
way rejoicing—so full of joy and gratitude that he would have wanted to share the good news.
The eunuch goes on his way rejoicing, for he has become a full member
of the household of faith. Then the
Spirit sends Philip on to share the good news in new places. The Spirit is on the move.
There is good news for us and for all
God’s people today. God continues to come
to us and to work in the lives of women and men who abide in Christ. By that same Spirit, God unites us to Christ
in the waters of baptism.
God gives us grace to abide in
Christ, so that we can rejoice and grow in grace and produce the fruit of God’s reign in our lives. We are
sent forth to share the amazing wideness of God’s love… to make everyone feel welcome in the heart of God.
This is the Good News of the Gospel.
May it be so for you and for me.
Amen!
Littlefield Presbyterian Church
Dearborn, Michigan
[1]
Acts 21:8-9.
[2]
Paul W. Walaskay, Acts (Westminster John Knox Press, 1998), p. 86.
[3]
Walaskay, p. 86.
[4]
Deuteronomy 23
[5]
Acts 1:8
[6]
Isaiah 56:3-5
[7]
Deuteronomy 23:1.
[8]
Luke 4
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