Easter V, 2006

Acts 8:26-40 Alleluia! Christ is risen! Christ is risen indeed! Alleluia!

Guess Who’s Coming for Baptism

The title of this story in Acts is usually the bland "Phillip and the Ethiopian Eunuch." How boring. A much better title would be something like "Guess Who’s Coming for Baptism." In one of the more dramatic stories Luke tells, this is a story that would challenge the special effects repertoire of a Hollywood director!

Right from the beginning, extraordinary things are at work. Philip, not the Philip of the 12 disciples of Jesus, but the Philip who was chosen to be one of the first deacons of the church, waited on tables and distributed food to the widows; he was sort of an original "meals on wheels" guy.

But before Philip could really develop his abilities as a deacon, the persecutions against Christians started and the church went under-ground. Soldiers were going door to door, searching every house in Jerusalem for Christians, and dragging men and women off to jail. If you were lucky, you got the word in time and fled the city. Philip was one of those lucky ones. He went down the city of Samaria and started preaching there.

He turned out to be really good at it: a 1^st century Billy Graham, and his first time out too. He is the first to go to Samaria, where no self-respecting Jew would be caught dead in those days. In fact, Philip was the first disciple to leave the neighborhood. Back in Jerusalem, Peter and John heard about Philip’s success, that one of their deacons had traded in the apron for a pulpit. They heard about how the Samaritans had actually accepted the Word of God from the rookie and had been baptized, which sounded like mission impossible to them. But the reports were true: Philip, the deacon, had converted a whole city of Samaritans. Who would have thought it?

It was a major coup for the Christians; their first big missionary success. I bet Philip, the deacon, couldn’t wait for his next assignment. I bet this deacon was pumped when he saw that angel of the Lord coming with another assignment, bearing a message he could just imagine: "Your mission, should you accept it, is to continue north to the biggest urban challenge yet: the city of Caesaria..."

But you know what the angel said? "The wilderness road....Jerusalem to Gaza. To the Desert, Philip. High noon. Be there!"

I bet Philip was stunned. He must have thought: "Don’t you think I could really contribute more, make better use of my gifts, if you send me to a big city where there might actually be people there to listen to the Word?"

But no, the angel is firm. "The wilderness road...the desert...high noon. Be there.

We are assigning you to a deserted stretch of road without a single village." What a waste of talent. No human in their right mind would do such a thing– which is our cue, by the way, immediately to suspect that God is involved. In the bible, God is always bringing the really insane ideas.

What Philip finds is not the deserted road he expected, but a traveler who is nothing less than dazzling. "An Ethiopian eunuch, a court officer of the Queen, Candace, in charge of her entire treasury." We know that he was African, and in antiquity there was much stress on the blackness of Ethiopians. In that world, this was not seen to be a reason for stigma, but was a cause for exotic wonder, handsome and admirable. For Philip, the Ethiopian probably represented someone who came from the ends of the earth to Jerusalem, and so this represented the mandate to evangelize to the ends of the earth.

The Ethiopian is also interesting because he is a eunuch, which means that because his body was mutilated; he was castrated; he could not fully participate in the Jewish religion. It was common for eunuchs to be used in royal courts of the day, often to manage or guard the harem. This eunuch’s job was treasurer. He wrote the checks, and was therefore a person in power.

This guy is extraordinary in every way, a person Luke’s audience would find intriguing and highly significant.

This is a lesson of richness and novelty. This is a story that deals with issues such as world-wide evangelism,... racism,... or discrimination against people because of physical handicaps.

Acts 8 stresses that there is an openness of Christianity when it comes to the impaired. That openness did not exist in the rest of that society. To be physically mutilated the way he was, does it have comparable examples in today’s world? Perhaps it is symbolic of people today who are challenged by:

Autism

Attention Deficit Disorder

Tourette’s syndrome

Obsessive Compulsive Disorder

Anxiety Disorder

Depression

Bi-polar disorder

Developmental disabilities

Cerebral Palsy

Multiple Sclerosis

Speech or hearing impediments

Dyslexia

Add to that list all the hidden disorders of our lives.

On a day when our society recognizes the gift of motherhood, and all those who express motherly care in our lives, mothers perhaps better than anyone know what it means to love and to accept children who face these physical and mental challenges.

This powerful, exotic, yet disabled Ethiopian is reading from the prophet Isaiah:

"As a sheep led to the slaughter or a lamb before its shearer is dumb, so he opens not his

mouth. In his humiliation justice was denied him...for his life was taken up from the

earth."

"Do you understand what you are reading?" asks Philip

"How can I, unless someone guides me?" says the eunuch, and invited Philip to come up into the chariot and sit with him. Philip then opened his mouth, and beginning with this scripture told him the good news of Jesus Christ. He told him that Jesus became the Lamb who was so humbled, crucified, died and buried, and that God raised him from the dead, to redeem you.

"Here is water; what prevents me from being baptized?" And both went into the water, and Philip baptized him....and the eunuch went on his way rejoicing."

Who are you in this story? Who are you?

Are you Philip, who wonders why God sends you into such unpromising situations and places, seemingly void of the opportunity to do something significant, finding yourself on a "wilderness road?" Are you Philip, whom tradition has it was the first disciple to preach the good news to Africa? Are you Philip, who did not allow the strangeness of this man keep him from climbing up into the chariot to speak the good news to one who asked for understanding?

Or, are you the Ethiopian eunuch. Different, either obviously or hidden, because you have a handicap, an impediment, perhaps known to others, or perhaps known only to loved ones, or even more likely, perhaps known only by yourself. And you wonder if you would be so loved and accepted if others really knew that about you?

Are you the Ethiopian eunuch, who, when he heard the good news of Jesus Christ, went on his way rejoicing in his baptism into the faith?

Alleluia! Christ is risen! Christ is risen indeed! Alleluia!