The Ethiopian

Acts 8:26-40

The question: How can I understand if there is no one to teach me?

That question--that singular question--should inspire every one of us in this church on this morning to get out there and work for the Kingdom. Never has a directive been so clear and so complete. 

The issue is so utterly basic--how can Christ transform the world if those who claim the name of Christ do not get out there and live the redemption of Christ, revealing it and explaining it to the world? If the world is to hear the good news of salvation, then it is we within the Church who have to share it. There is nothing so certain.

The Ethiopian speaks for so many.

We assume Christ is so easily comprehensible--

Jesus loves me

This I know

For the Bible tells me so!

What’s hard about that?

Well, to begin with--there is the problem of us--you and me inside the Church. We proclaim one thing, but our lives so often reveal something different altogether. We proclaim the love of neighbor as ourselves, yet the news is full of Christians speaking no less than raw bigotry, denouncing those who are different just because they are different. We proclaim the radical stewardship of Christ--go, sell all that you have and give it to the poor--yet, folks enter the bookstore where tomes by smiling preachers propound that God wants us rich, rich, rich, with three Mercedes and a mansion as God’s grace revealed. We preach the revolutionary message of loving one’s enemies, yet there on TV are self-proclaimed Christian politicians obscenely insulting their political rivals. Oh, how we trip on our own feet again and again, proving mainly that the Church is every bit as human as it members despite calling ourselves a holy community of God. 

Recall that the Ethiopian felt this spur himself. The community of God declared him less than human despite his being a unique act of God’s creative will who was broken by human action, not God’s--a eunuch was seen was impure, therefore, beyond the pale of righteousness. Yet, he sees within the Word something that transcends the cacophony of human wordiness all around him. But how can he understand any of this without someone to teach him?

If our inconsistencies confuse the world, then maybe we had better get busy explaining ourselves and the message we preach.

Enter Philip the Apostle.

The first thing the apostle does is listen. He wants to understand what has caught the Ethiopian’s attention. He wants to hear what the Ethiopian heard. What he heard was the prophet Isaiah. The prophet makes the extraordinary proclamation that there will be one who will suffer for all, redeeming them in the process. He is unsure of whom the prophet speaks--which is understandable. I am sure the Ethiopian heard a bit of self-righteous blather in and around the Temple--it goes with the territory, sadly. So, the Ethiopian wants to know--is this the community of faith speaking--the same community that closed its ranks against him--or someone else? You can almost hear the unspoken plea--please be someone else because I so hunger for God. Philip listens. He gets it.

The world needs for us to listen. It needs for us to stop talking--preaching at it--and just listen. The world so hungrily needs for someone to listen to its hurts, pains, and suffering--not in judgment--but in compassion. Folks have had enough of being closed out by the self-professed righteous. Folks have had enough of being told they don’t measure up. They know their own lacks--as painfully and intimately as a eunuch--so they don’t need anyone reminding them of them. They need someone to listen, to hear, and to accept them. They need to be loved.

So, Philip speaks. 

Having heard the Ethiopian, he now answers him with what he knows the man needs. The man is rejected--the Temple sets fences around him to keep him from defiling everyone, so Philip lowers the barriers--Christ accepts him. The man is broken by his incompleteness, so Philip redeems him by assuring him that in the eyes of God, he is complete--he is still God’s child--it has been human action that marred him, not God. The man wants to belong, so Philip welcomes him, baptizing him, entering him into the community of grace wherein what matters is what he believes, not who he is. The man wants to be faithful, so Philip sends him on his way to proclaim the good news of redemption as one of the redeemed. Philip loves him. That is what the man needs. 

So do myriads of people all around us all of the time.

As we take on the responsibility to live our faith, embodying what we find here, we should speak to what the world needs. Love is never out of fashion. The world needs love. Our neighbor with the noisy dog needs to be loved. The city council needs to be loved. Everyone in Georgia needs to be loved. All Americans need love. North Koreans need love, as do Arabs and Jews, Russians and Swedes, Africans and Asians, Hispanics, Indians--EVERYONE. They need no more pain from us, they need healing. Become Philip for someone. It does not matter where you are, that someone is right there. Welcome them. Meet them in grace, compassion, and openness. Meet them.

So, the Ethiopian’s question hangs in the air before us. 

Answer him. 

Teach him.