May 2, 2021 Sermon

Sermon title:  "Philip and the Ethiopian Eunuch"

Scripture:  Acts 8:26-40

(Other lectionary suggestions include Psalm 22:25-31, I John 4:7-21, and John 15:1-8.)

Acts 8:26-40

26Then an angel of the Lord said to Philip, "Get up and go toward the south to the road that goes down from Jerusalem to Gaza." (This is a wilderness road.) 27So 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 28and was returning home; seated in his chariot, he was reading the prophet Isaiah. 29Then the Spirit said to Philip, "Go over to this chariot and join it." 30So Philip ran up to it and heard him reading the prophet Isaiah. He asked, "Do you understand what you are reading?" 31He replied, "How can I, unless someone guides me?" And he invited Philip to get in and sit beside him. 32Now 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. 33In his humiliation justice was denied him. Who can describe his generation? For his life is taken away from the earth." 34The eunuch asked Philip, "About whom, may I ask you, does the prophet say this, about himself or about someone else?" 35Then Philip began to speak, and starting with this scripture, he proclaimed to him the good news about Jesus. 36As 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?" 37And Philip said, “If you believe with all your heart, you may.”  And he replied, “I believe that Jesus Christ is the Son of God.” 38He commanded the chariot to stop, and both of them, Philip and the eunuch, went down into the water, and Philip baptized him. 39When 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. 40But 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.

The sermon title almost sounds like the beginning of a joke: "There was this Ethiopian eunuch and..." But, of course, it's NOT a joke, and the fact that we have this story in the book of Acts is an indication that the early church thought the story of Jesus was for everyone, even black people, and even people who were somehow different. The eunuch is different in that he had had himself castrated - or somebody ELSE had had him castrated - the Bible doesn't say.  But does it matter? The point is that this man was different in that he supposedly had no sexual desire, and thus he could look after the women in the king's harem.  By the way, we are told that he worked for the Candace of Ethiopia, a queen. And Candace was not her name but her title......just as Pharoah in Exodus isn't a name but the title of the ruler of Egypt. (As an aside, I have known girls named Candace but no boys named Pharoah!)

It is interesting that this eunuch was not in charge of women but of the queen's treasury. Nevertheless, he was different, whatever the reason, and Philip was sent by the Holy Spirit to help him understand and eventually to baptize him into the new Christian faith. You may wonder why this government official had come to Jerusalem to worship. Here's why:  in the ancient world with its panoply of gods and goddesses, who had sexual relations with humans (if you believe what you can read in mythology), there was an attraction to Judaism, with its high moral standards. Also, Judaism had only one God, not a host of Zeus and Hera - the Romans called them Jupiter and Juno - plus a whole bunch of lesser deities. "Hear, O Israel, your God is One" is what every Jew heard from childhood. And such a concept was popular with those ancients who were sick of the loose morals of most of the Greek and Roman population. THAT is why this seeking eunuch from Ethiopia had come to Jerusalem to worship. In those days, such non-Jews were called proselytes and God-fearers. Proselytes went the whole way and got circumcised (if they were male), whereas God-fearers wouldn't go quite that far: they would attend synagogues and read the Hebrew scriptures, but they didn't want to undergo circumcision. This Ethiopian eunuch was either a proselyte or a God-fearer - we don't know which. And he obviously wanted to know more. That's why when Philip caught up to him he was reading from the book of Isaiah. Tradition has it that this Ethiopian spread the Gospel to his native country. But the important part of the story was that he was of a different race AND he was also different sexually, whether by his choice or somebody else's. Let me just add that people who are against gays or lesbians or transgender people may have overlooked this passage in the Book of Acts. The guy was black and he was different sexually, and an angel of the Lord sent Philip to him.

As I was contemplating this passage, it occurred to me that current Biblical scholarship thinks that the same person who wrote Luke also wrote the Book of Acts. This writer is the only Gentile writer we have in the New Testament. All the other writers are Jewish followers of Jesus - but Luke is the only Gentile writer. He's a follower of Jesus, of course........but he didn't get there through Judaism. Also, Luke seems to be concerned for the outsider. Where do we find the story of the Good Samaritan? In Luke, and ONLY in Luke! And the Samaritan was certainly an outsider, wasn't he?! In Luke's Gospel we also find "certain poor shepherds in fields where they lay". What were shepherds, but outsiders? They had to look after the sheep so they couldn't always go to the Temple, and since they had to work with animals, they weren't always the cleanest! Again, outsiders! Luke was concerned for the outsider. Luke also has the story of the Prodigal Son - nobody else does. Is there an outsider in that story? Maybe two:  the younger son who leaves home, and then the older son who remains outside and doesn't join the party when his younger brother comes home. Again, Luke has concern for the outsider. And getting back to today's Scripture, the author of Acts and presumably the author of Luke has Philip go help out another outsider:  a black guy who is also sexually different. The Bible is wonderful, isn't it? Especially when it points out our failings of not accepting people who are somehow different from you and me! Thanks be to God for his Holy Book......and thanks be to God for forgiving us when we don't always accept all of his children! Amen.

 Pastor Skip