Sermon May 6, 2012

Acts 8:26-40
Psalm 22:25-31
1 John 4:7-21

 John 15:1-8

  “Reaching Out”

There have been folks over the years that I have been preaching that have said that I talk about love too much—or that complain that we don't focus enough on what people are doing that is immoral or unethical or just plain evil. And we do--I do--talk about love, grace, forgiveness, welcome and acceptance a lot.

Most of the time when I've heard complaints about too much love I believe many of those folks see evil in diversity. And that concern comes out of a need for clarity in the choices that they themselves make. If I have a problem, a situation, or a question to answer, then one answer is right and the other answer or solution is wrong. In the context of love—I love what is right, good, safe and familiar. I don't love what is wrong, bad, dangerous and strange. And more significantly, I love the person who is right, good, safe and familiar. I don't love the person who is wrong, bad, dangerous and strange.

Yet is that truly what the gospel is about? Did Jesus promote following along with the expectations of religious traditionalist or those who had authority? Did Jesus say that love was an emotional bond? Or did Jesus reveal in himself that love meant sharing life with one another through care, communication, contact, intimacy and interaction with others and with God in Jesus himself?

The scripture from Acts 8 is one of those texts that can be used for teaching lots of things. In some of my baptism and membership curriculum, it us used to describe the need for education and some knowledge before one makes a commitment through baptism. It can be seen to express the need to understand scriptures introducing Jesus as suffering servant and messiah—as wisdom about Jesus' suffering, crucifixion, death and resurrection. And those are integral to the story, absolutely key to what happens, but that's not all that happens.

Philip, who had been chosen as a deacon—a servant to be in daily contact with the needs of the widows and others in need—was whisked off, in some way to this road between Jerusalem and Gaza. Once he found himself there, he saw the chariot of a eunuch from Ethiopia, who had been to the Jerusalem to worship. It seems that he probably wasn't a convert to Judaism, but someone who did connect with God through the rituals and scriptures of the faith. When Philip saw the chariot, he heard the eunuch reading and recognized that he was reading from Isaiah, so he was urged again to approach the man in the chariot and help him understand Isaiah's prophecy. So Philip to told the eunuch about Jesus—how he had been killed by crucifixion and how he had been resurrected on the third day. And Philip must have told him that he could be a part of The Way that Jesus taught by baptism. When the eunuch saw water, he asked to be baptized and Philip baptized him. Then he was whisked away, once again.

Philip, in this story, has a unexpected kind of openness to the eunuch. The eunuch was a powerful figure in the court of a foreign monarch, the Candace of Ethiopia, so he was foreign. He was strange because he was also a eunuch. According to laws in the first testament of the scriptures, he would have been prohibited from serving as a priest and wouldn't have been terribly welcome with the men as they worshiped at the temple. Some of the laws in the first testament are often suspect of people or objects or ideas that are not purely one thing or another—and many didn't know how to treat with a man who had had part or all of his reproductive organs removed. In that day, a person was a man or a woman—and without the particular physical signs of one or the other, then what?

So, the eunuch was, well, a eunuch; he was foreign and he wasn't even a Jewish convert. Circumcision was a complicated question and the blessing of eternal life through reproduction, which was seen as an integral gift of God was null and void. He was also a powerful member of another culture's government. But Philip, at the urging of the Holy Spirit teaches and baptizes him anyway—and the baptism is seen as a sign and success because of the very clear witness and action of the Holy Spirit within the whole strange story.

This story even occurs before Peter was given the vision from God that allowed and encouraged him to take the gospel to the Gentiles. In this case, it is about the power of the Holy Spirit in Philip and how that Spirit moves us to reach beyond normal expectations because normal isn't where we live anymore.

Without the urging of the Holy Spirit to get him over the hump, so to speak, can you imagine what Philip's assumptions about the eunuch might have been? Okay, he's foreign, that might be the first thing he notices and that he's likely traveling in style—so he lives in wealth, too. And he has a copy of the prophet Isaiah, that indicates wealth in that day, too.

Do you make assumptions based on those things? He's foreign and he's rich? There's a strangeness here, what will he expect of me? What language will he understand? Will he be rude or will I seem rude if I do something wrong? How will I share the gospel with him if he is so different than me? Differences sometimes intimidate us. Are they too young to talk to or too old? Are they different looking or just seem strange? What makes us hesitate to talk to others? Is it just me?

Okay, so those differences might have been the most obvious ones. He was also a eunuch, which probably was obvious to some in that day. If he had been a eunuch from a young age, there were physical difference that might have been obvious. He would have had less hair, a higher and softer voice and a less muscular body type than the typical man. As a servant of a female ruler, a eunuch would have been an expected choice, so yes, Philip probably saw that a mile away, too.

Gender, in Judaism and in many religious traditions, is a very clear indicator of how people treat one another, then and now. So did Philip think, is this a man? I treat him like other men? At the command of the Holy Spirit, he did. He ran to the chariot. He spoke to him as an equal and he listened to his questions with respect. Then he made this man—a foreign, influential, perhaps wealthy, questionably gendered (in his day) stranger—a part of the body of Christ through baptism. Then he was whisked on to take part in the rest of his life as a servant, a deacon within the way of Jesus Christ.

Reading this text in relationship to the others in today's lectionary may seem a stretch, but I think they all speak of love in different ways. Philip showed love to this stranger. He didn't embrace him or speak sentimentally to him, but loved him by giving him the gift of baptism and including him in the immature body of Christ—a body still seeking to define who and what and where and how were they to live and survive in this world. He broke down some pretty significant barriers to love and community in this one act, by bringing this man into the early church.

The letter of 1 John speaks of love as one thing—you can't love God if you hate a brother or sister and if you do say that you love God and hate another person, then you are lying, probably to yourself. Suddenly the qualifications that make us acceptable to God are less about right and wrong and more about loving and not loving. That doesn't mean we have to hug everyone, so relax, but love does mean connection—to Christ and to one another, perhaps like a vine. I can't reject the other branches without reject the true vine—the main vine and the vine-grower. So as one who believes that God is love, I have to know that God loves everyone that God loves, so it's not my decision who to leave out, not now not ever.

Love is difficult for that reason. Love makes our decisions more objective. Living in Christ means loving others because love bears fruit and love bears fruit because it is one of Jesus very clear commands, “Love one another as I have loved you.” The letter 1 John takes up that command and expands upon it, but clearly still holds up that command, “Love one another because God is love.”

Again, I say, that doesn't mean that we have to hug each other—but we do have to know that we are intimately involved in each other's lives, no matter how weird or difficult that might be. We are all annoying sometimes and we all insult one another intentionally and unintentionally. We say things and do things that are misunderstood and some that are clearly meant to annoy or otherwise bother someone else, though we may not mean to actually hurt someone.

We are difficult people and guess what? So is everyone else in their own particular, unique ways, but I don't know one person who doesn't or hasn't annoyed someone else, at least a little bit. So we get annoyed and don't like someone. But that being said, that's not love. Love is being what someone needs when someone needs it. Philip was the interpreter of scripture and instrument of the baptism of Christ, when the eunuch was in need of it. Jesus is the vine for us, connecting us, not only to him, but to one another and to the branches of the vine in all times and in all places. Love is knowing that we are connected and one with one another in a complicated mess that only vines can produce.

Love is sacrificing our wants and desires for the needs and survival of others—not to be rewarded, but to be witnesses to the gospel of Christ and all that it has meant to us. So we reach out with Philip, to the unexpected person who needs to be shown who Jesus is, in us. We reach out as a branch on the vine, holding onto the Christ to be the vessel for love in this world. We reach out to one another in love, because to know God is to know love. And to love God is to love everyone, with God's help because we can't do it any other way.

Let us love one another, to the glory of God. Amen.