P.S. There’s More: From Isolation to Connection (MTKA)

Acts 8:26-40

Then an angel of the Lord said to Philip, “Get up and go towards 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 the 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. 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.

In her book “An Altar in the World,” the Episcopal priest and author Barbara Brown Taylor talks about the wisdom and writings of the Desert Fathers, an influential group of Catholic hermits, ascetics and monks who lived mainly in the Scetes desert of Egypt beginning around the third century A.D.  She writes that “the wisdom of the Desert Fathers includes the wisdom that the hardest spiritual work in the world is to love the neighbor as the self, to encounter another human being not as someone you can use, change, fix, help, save, enroll, convince or control but simply as someone who can spring us from the prison of ourselves, if we will allow it” (Brown Taylor 93).

Many of you tend to this work individually — thank you. It’s holy work; it’s the kingdom work God calls us to as disciples of Jesus Christ. We’re also called to do this work collectively — as the church, as the Body of Christ alive in the world.  

Last May, following the murder of George Floyd we focused our efforts in a particular way to engage in this spiritual work together. We called a pro in to help us. We turned to Joyane Larson, member of Bethlehem and founder and president of an organization whose purpose is to equip people in the work of becoming more interculturally competent. She facilitated monthly learning webinars called Bold Conversations. I’m grateful for the many of you who participated. Bethlehem leadership also attended a series of workshops, learning effective practices for moving toward racial equity. The leadership is still learning… and is now identifying next steps for particular ways to continue in this work as a congregation. 

Our learning with Joayne has increased self-awareness, challenged assumptions, and broadened our perspectives. We live with a particular perspective based on our experiences and culture. But your perspective is not the norm. Neither is mine. There are a variety of stories, cultures, experiences that contribute to the richness of who we are. The spiritual work of loving neighbors includes holding space for every person’s story to be heard.

Today’s story is pretty familiar for those who are part of church. It comes up in the assigned reading on a regular basis — often referenced as The Conversion of the Ethiopian — the message being that we, like Philip, have a story to tell about God’s love revealed in Jesus, and we should be ready and willing to share the story with anyone because the Gospel is good news for everyone. 

The story is told by Luke (writer of the book of Acts) from Philip’s perspective. How might the story be different if told from the perspective of the Ethiopian? Or the Spirit? 

Hearing the story from Philip’s perspective isn’t wrong — it’s just not the whole story. To engage more deeply with the story’s fullness we need to engage our imaginations and wonder what we might learn from a different perspective.

The paths of the two characters in the story never should have crossed — but they do, thanks be to God, who continually creates connections in spite of our never shoulds.

The Ethiopian is a high-ranking black official, part of the royal court, head of the treasury for the queen. He moved through the world with the comfort, privilege and ease that are attached to wealth. We never learn his name but he was important. He was educated. He was rich. He was riding in a chariot, after all. By all appearances, he has it all. But listen for his perspective and we learn what he’s missing. He longs for community, acceptance and belonging.  

Riding along in his chariot, he’s reading Isaiah. He’s confused because he knows the law: according to scripture, as recorded in Deuteronomy, he is forever excluded from the community of God. He is a eunuch and this reality keeps him from ever being right with God or worthy to be part of the community of faith. But he seeks God anyway. He’s on his way back from Jerusalem, where he traveled to worship, all the while knowing that because of the law, he would be turned away. And he went anyway. 

Heading home, he reads the words of the prophet Isaiah — words that contradict the law and stir up in him lots of questions: Can he be part of the community who seeks God or not? Is he worthy of God’s love or not? He needs a guide to help him make sense of what he reads. And God sends Philip.

Philip doesn’t show up on his own. The Spirit prompts Philip to go to the wilderness. It’s the Spirit who nudges him toward the stranger. It’s the spirit who whispers:  “Go and join him.”

Philip is vastly different from the Ethiopian. He’s got no clout, no money, no power. He’s part of a rag tag group of scattered leaders called to build new communities of Jesus followers. But Philip is part of a community in which he knows the gifts of acceptance, belonging and being beloved. This is all he needs for meeting the stranger. 

The Spirit called Philip to this particular place, in this particular moment, to join someone he never would have encountered if it weren’t for God. Philip honors the spirits nudging. He goes, he joins, he enters the conversation from a place of humility: he begins with a question. 

Could it be that the Spirit was at the same time whispering in the Ethiopian’s ear to invite Philip to join him? Philip was representative of all that clings to the laws of God and would be one to reject the Ethiopian from God’s house. Still, the Ethiopian makes the invitation. It’s a holy way of showing up for the neighbor:  Go… join… invite… ask questions… The conversation transforms them both. The Ethiopian sees the water and leads them there. He asks Philip:  what prevents me from being baptized? Philip’s silence is the answer:  nothing. They go down into the water together and emerge no longer strangers, but as witnesses to God’s expansive love.

These past couple weeks I’ve started tuning into a virtual prayer tent. It meets online every morning at 8:00 am for 30 minutes. Faith leaders from every tradition offer a brief reflection and then we’re invited to stay quiet for 9 minutes and 29 seconds to hold space for each other and to pray bringing to God the pain and suffering of the world and all in need of God’s care. We enter the space as strangers but the time together changes us and we emerge as witnesses to God’s expansive love. 

In the prayer tent this past week, Don Samuels, co-founder of Healing Our City, challenged us to hear God’s call to the church: our job, he said, is to imagine God’s kingdom, to be open to the Spirit’s promptings, and to act to make it so. 

The external and internal forces that work to sort and separate us are significant. But Jesus revealed there is another force at work in the world. Jesus shows us the way of life — Jesus breaks down the barriers that divide us and opens us to discover joy and beauty in the presence of God and one another.

And so let us be on our way rejoicing, looking for where God’s kingdom comes, listening for the Spirit’s promptings, knowing the Spirit is always nudging us toward the stranger, that all encounter God’ expansive love.