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This incident
in
Acts 8
is just so interesting and so dramatic. It relates
well to where the church was in its situation back then and it has so much
to say to us about our contemporary situation.
Dealing with outsiders was not a problem for Philip.
You see, he was himself
an outsider. This Philip is not to be confused with Philip of Bethsaida, who
was one of first Twelve Disciples.
This Philip was a Greek, a Gentile believer who
had been living in Jerusalem. This Philip was one of the Seven who were
chosen and appointed to run the food pantry, the clinic and hospice program
for the Jerusalem church, so that the Twelve could
preach and teach. And this was what Philip did, until Stephen was martyred,
following which the Jerusalem church scattered.
And so we find Philip on the road to somewhere.
And there he meets a Court Official from Ethiopia.
Just as now, the road to Gaza was not the safest
place in the region. It
was a crossroads for traders and travelers and
runaways and renegades. Think Star Wars: the scene
in the space station where Luke and Obiwan meet Hans Solo.
All the drifters and grifters from across the
Galaxy – that was the Gaza road!
If Philip was an outsider, then
the one to whom he was sent was THE great outsider: a foreign
person, with a strange vocabulary and accent.
A person of color, wearing strange clothes.
A person of what we might say “complicated”
gender, a plenipotentiary of a foreign power. On his way home from Jerusalem
where he had gone to worship, we know not with or
without the permission of his Queen, he is reading the prophet Isaiah. Aware
that he is stuck on the outside of these divine words, he asks for help, and
Philip responds willingly and gladly.
There are people even today driving around our communities.
Not in chariots, but in
cars and SUV’s and trucks, who need us to be their Philip! Not that we are
in any way experts, but they are stuck, unable to
get past some of their past experiences or preconceptions about Church or
Bible or faith. They want to make that connection.
They have taken some steps forward themselves but
there is still something missing.
They can’t engage directly with God and with God’s
grace to us in Jesus Christ; they are stuck, stuck
on the outside! They are waiting for people like you and me to be
willing to share our faith with them openly and honestly.
until we can give voice to our desire for faith, our struggle to understand
and believe, this is the challenge we face in
living according to our beliefs. These friends and neighbors and
acquaintances of ours are waiting for us and asking us to relate with them –
one human being to another!
The Ethiopian could read the words for himself, but at least part of what he
read left him cold, uncertain, ashamed. The more he read about God and God’s
goodness, the more he sensed the gap that was preventing him receiving all
these promises for himself. If this faith, this faith of love
and justice and peace and mercy all came down to circumcision and he
himself was dismembered, there was surely no hope
for him. After all,
that was what the words said, that was the teaching he had heard repeated in
Jerusalem.
Our contemporaries likewise, most of them anyway,
can read what the Bible says. But
where they need you and me is to interpret the message of God’s love in
terms of how we are asked to live and change today. They need our help to
assist them in laying aside and overcoming all the historical, cultural and
political overtones that are barriers to their experiencing the truth of the
grace and goodness of God. They need our help to be patient in sitting and
listening and wondering and speaking and sharing in such a way that each and
all of us can find our faith nurtured, our lives enriched, our believing
increased.
At the end of the Gospels and in Acts 1, Jesus
instructed his disciples to be his witnesses in Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria
and to all the ends of the earth. It was by means of encounters such as this
one that the disciples were witnesses to Jesus. The Ethiopian certainly
represents the ends of the earth culturally. While the official in this
story is a convert to Judaism and a worshipper in the temple in Jerusalem,
he is culturally very far removed from those who had been born into Judaism.
As a Royal Official, a person of privilege, he
also represents another “end of the earth” – those in power. As the story of
the early church is related in Acts, we see the good news of Christ reach
devout Jews (2:5,41),
those who are poor (3:1-10),
and temple priests (6:7).
Now the gospel touches the lives of those who live
with the promise and the peril of wealth, and influence and power.
Many of those to whom we must go today are people of great power and
privilege because of their life situation, their access to wealth, their
real or perceived position in the community. Many such people find it very,
very difficult to imagine that they owe a debt to anyone, including God.
They need help to hear the ringing claim of Jesus, who says follow, obey,
trust, serve, give, lose your life for my sake and only then can you truly
find it.
It is one of firm conclusions that I seek to carry forward in my ministry
here at Northminster Presbyterian Church: that God
is asking us,
God needs us,
to become a Philip Church; welcoming and
hospitable to all, ready to partner with them in making a faith journey
together with and to Jesus Christ and the purpose that Jesus has for this
world.
The next time you feel like God can’t use you, just remember...
NOAH had a drinking problem....
ABRAHAM & SARAH were too old....
ISAAC was a daydreamer....
JACOB was a liar....
LEAH was not pretty like her sister....
JOSEPH was abused by his own family....
MOSES was a murderer....
GIDEON was afraid....
SAMSON was a womanizer....
RAHAB was a prostitute....
JEREMIAH and TIMOTHY were too young....
DAVID was an adulterer....
ELIJAH was suicidal....
JONAH ran from God....
NAOMI was a widow....
JOB went bankrupt....
JOHN the Baptist was eccentric....
PETER denied Christ....
THE DISCIPLES fell asleep while praying....
MARTHA was obsessive....
MARY MAGDALENE was demon possessed....
The SAMARITAN WOMAN was divorced.... five times....
ZACCHEUS was too small....
PAUL was a Klansman....
TIMOTHY had an ulcer....
AND LAZARUS WAS DEAD!!!!
No more excuses now! God
is waiting to use your full potential to be Philip's
one for each other, and for all the people we will encounter and meet in our
lives.
So, look out for those you can assist and take
heart and let God work in and through you! Amen. |
