This sermon was preached on April 28 & 29, 2018, at Trinity Lutheran Church in Connellsville, PA, using the readings for the Fifth Sunday of Easter.
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The story we hear from the book of
Acts is a story about the Holy Spirit. It is a story about insiders and
outsiders, openness and welcome, and God’s expansive, jaw-dropping,
transformative grace.
To set the scene, our characters:
first we hear about Philip, a follower of Jesus. Not one of the original
disciples, Philip was chosen by his peers to be a leader in the newly-formed,
ever-expanding church. Following the persecution of Christians in Jerusalem
arising after the stoning of Stephen, the church is scattered and Philip ends
up in Samaria and proclaims the good news there.
The other main character in this story
is the Ethiopian eunuch. He isn’t named here, just called by his descriptors,
which may serve to emphasize that he is the most outsider of outsiders. Being
from Ethiopia, he is geographically and culturally so far removed from the
church in Jerusalem. As a eunuch, he was also an outsider - the effects of his
castration and the subsequent low testosterone levels would have been apparent
in his development and his bodily traits.
The story finds Philip visited by an
angel of the Lord, who tells him to find his way to the margins, traveling down
a wilderness road from Jerusalem to Gaza. As he travels, Philip comes across a
man in a chariot, bent over a scroll and reading aloud. The man, a court
official of the Candace, or queen, of the Ethiopians, seems to have some
affinity for Judaism, for in addition to reading from the sacred texts of Judaism,
he had traveled to the Temple in Jerusalem to worship. This was no day trip,
but rather a grueling journey of about 1,500 miles - the distance from
Pittsburgh to Albuquerque, New Mexico!
When he arrived, having traveled all
that way, the Ethiopian eunuch would have been banned from entering the Temple
because of what had been done to him. As Deuteronomy 23:1 states, “no one whose
testicles are crushed or whose penis is cut off shall be admitted to the
assembly of the Lord.”
Barred from community, and worship,
with no one to answer his questions or discuss scripture or dive deeper, the
Ethiopian eunuch returns home. As he travels along, he is reading the prophet
Isaiah - even though he had been turned away, even though he doesn’t
necessarily understand what he is reading. But the Holy Spirit nudges him, and
the Holy Spirit nudges Philip - to initiate a conversation, to be in
relationship, to sit together and share stories and discern God’s work among
them.
Having been given the perfect entry in
the passage the Ethiopian eunuch is reading, Philip grabs on to this
opportunity to share the good news about Jesus. Jesus, the one who was always
eating with the wrong crowd; Jesus, whose deep love for all creation led him to
accept a gruesome, unjust death; Jesus, who was constantly pushing the
boundaries and teaching and preaching and living good news that was really
good news.
In the midst of their conversation,
the Spirit is still at work. She nudges some more, and as they pass by some
water - a well, a small pond, a river - the eunuch says, full of excitement and
perhaps some trepidation, “Look, here is water! What is to prevent me from
being baptized?”
And Philip, bless him, gets it right.
Nothing. There’s nothing that stands in the way of you being baptized, of you
being joined to the family of God. Not your ethnicity, not your sexuality, not
your status as an outsider, not your lack of knowledge, not any rules or
regulations, nothing. And so they stopped on the side of this wilderness road,
got down in the water, and the Ethiopian eunuch was baptized. Both he and
Philip were filled with the presence of the Holy Spirit. Going their separate
ways, they rejoice and share and live the grace that has been made known to
them in this encounter.
This is a story about the Holy Spirit.
It is a story about insiders and outsiders, openness and welcome, and God’s
expansive, jaw-dropping, transformative grace. The kind of grace that pursues
us, calls us worthy, and invites us with open arms into the community and
presence of God. This is the kind of grace we are so, so blessed to steward and
share and live! This is a story about us, or it could be.
I wonder if you know what it feels
like to be an outsider? To be turned away, not included, barred from entry because
of something about yourself over which you have no control?
I wonder if you've ever felt the Holy
Spirit’s nudging? I wonder about those times you've taken a deep breath and
pushed yourself forward - into conversation, into relationship, into community.
I wonder when you've found an entry
point and taken it. When you've had the opportunity to tell someone else about
Jesus, or describe how God is at work in your life, or share about a time
you’ve experienced God’s lavish, abundant, transformative grace.
I wonder when you've been open to the
work of the Holy Spirit. When you've had opportunities (and taken them!) to say
“yes” when “no” or “that’s not how we’ve always done things” or “you have to do
this first and then we’ll see” or “there are rules, you know” were perhaps
easier responses.
The Holy Spirit is a wild, untethered
thing. Grace is unpredictable and offensive. I think we need to be reminded of
this, again and again. We need to be reminded of the expansive openness and
welcome of God, because so often it seems that our predisposition is to set up
fences and barriers and rules and hoops to jump through that God wants no part
of.
The God who is love fills us with
love. The God who created us continues to pour out on us a grace that flows
where we least expect it, grace that nudges us to love more, say “yes” more,
welcome more, tear down barriers more, rejoice more. The God who knows what it
is to feel forsaken and alone promises to be with us always in the most
ordinary ways - bread, wine, water, words, community. This is a story about the
Holy Spirit. This is a story about us.
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