Who Will You Invite?

Scripture: Acts 8:26–35

In the chapters leading to Acts 8, the Holy Spirit has come to the church and begun acting through the disciples. Peter and John have been arrested and released, and God’s word has been shared with thousands in Jerusalem. The believers have made decisions about how to live in community with one another, all while performing miracles and suffering persecution.

God’s plan includes the expansion of the church beyond the Hebrew people, however. This is made apparent when the disciples are approached by some Hellenists, who were Jews that spoke a different language. They expressed concern about the widows in their midst. The disciples were open to these new voices, and they appointed seven from among them, “full of the Spirit and of wisdom,” to ensure the widows had enough to eat. These seven are sometimes referred to as the first deacons, and they include Stephen, who would be martyred for his faith, as well as Philip.

Despite his recent status as an outsider, Philip is immediately inspired by the Holy Spirit and takes the gospel outside Jerusalem — to the Samaritans! This is quite a feat, especially considering the disdain in which the Samaritans were held. Then an angel came to Philip with another opportunity to accumulate frequent walker miles.

Philip was sent to a wilderness road on the way to Gaza to await further instruction. When a chariot approached and he heard the occupant reading from Isaiah, the Spirit sent Philip to share the Word with yet another outsider — and, by extension, to the highest authorities in a new land.

Philip doesn’t do too bad for someone who wasn’t part of the original twelve disciples. He’s not the most prominent figure in Acts, but some credit him with playing the key role in the gospel reaching Africa, which is now home to some of the oldest Christian communities and scripture translations in the world.

I enjoy reading the book of Acts, but sometimes it makes me feel like a slacker. The early church is growing by leaps and bounds, extending to new continents without the benefit of trains or planes or telephones or social media or the printing press. The believers live modestly, making sure all among them are fed. The apostles heal the sick, and their sermons get so many likes we’re reading them 2,000 years later.

By contrast, in our day and age we frequently hear statistics from Pew Research about how the church in America is shrinking, aging, and losing relevance. I’ve seen many from my generation stop attending church, while many Millennials never started attending in the first place.

It’s somewhat understandable. For a long time, we’ve been coasting on the crumbs of Christendom. For most of its history in the West, the church was tied to the government. Your official faith would result from which side of a border you lived on, and sometimes it would change — literally — overnight. You might go to bed a Catholic and wake up a Protestant. Or vice-versa. (Especially if you lived in the UK during the 16th and 17th centuries.)

Along with this, many who emerged from the Protestant Reformation spent a lot of time theologizing our tradition into a corner. In an effort to distinguish themselves from other sects, the authors of some Christian confessions refer to other faiths and traditions with zingers like “filthy,” “horrible harlots,” and heretics. Even John Calvin, one of our spiritual ancestors who brilliantly wrote the first systematic theology for Reformers, articulated and made prominent the idea that some people are destined to suffer eternal damnation regardless of how they live their lives.

Please don’t get me wrong: I’m not here to say that there’s no merit in the writings of John Calvin or the Presbyterian Book of Confessions. In fact, I regularly refer to them when writing prayers. But will we be invited into someone’s chariot to engage in discussion if what we’re known for is divisive and complex theology? Might our loyalty to tradition and other excess baggage sometimes distract us from scripture’s core messages of love and justice?

I don’t know the answers to all of those questions, but I received a gift as I was in the midst of mentally composing this sermon. While driving down Route 15 thinking about why people might be hesitant to attend church, I was passed — on a road with no passing lane, mind you — by a white Chrysler Sebring. After the car sped by, I noticed the prominently-placed “Jesus” sticker on its bumper. Then I chuckled as I offered thanks to God for such a perfect illustration of why people might be hesitant to attend church.

Returning to our scripture passage and a road far from West Fairview, we learn that the individual in the chariot is from Ethiopia, and an official for its queen. As such, he is educated and literate, a person of high class in his native land. He is probably a devoted follower of God, since he has come all the way to Jerusalem on a pilgrimage.

He is also a eunuch, and that made him an outsider. As biblical scholar Michal Beth Dinkler writes, “first-century society demonized eunuchs, associating honor with masculinity and shame with femininity.” Because of that, he was likely not permitted to become a Jew. If that was part of his intent in visiting Jerusalem, he was probably crushed and humiliated to be denied that opportunity.

When Philip meets him, he is reading from what we know as Isaiah 53. This is one passage from Isaiah that we often associate with the person and suffering of Jesus. It talks about a sheep being led to slaughter, and a lamb being silent before its shearer. Perhaps the verse that resonates most to him, though, is “In his humiliation justice was denied him.” Relating to that injustice, the eunuch invites Philip to his chariot to explain the passage.

Philip eagerly accepts the invitation, and he shares the gospel. I doubt he mentioned double predestination or the shortcomings of other faith traditions while doing so; the justice and hope and love made evident by the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus were more than enough to inspire the eunuch.

I do wonder if Philip encouraged him to read a little bit further into Isaiah. If he did, he would find hope there as well. In chapter 56, it says

For thus says the LORD:

To the eunuchs who keep my sabbaths,

who choose the things that please me

and hold fast my covenant,

I will give, in my house and within my walls,

a monument and a name

better than sons and daughters;

I will give them an everlasting name

that shall not be cut off.

The eunuch asks to be baptized on the spot, and despite his being an outsider he is welcomed as a disciple of Christ.

We don’t know for sure if this interaction is what introduced the gospel to Africa, but we know the eunuch was connected to the queen of Ethiopia, and thus the potential was certainly there. Regardless, by admitting that he didn’t have all the answers and humbling himself to hear a different voice, the eunuch was able to realize the connection to God he sought by making the journey to Jerusalem.

Not long before I wrote this sermon, my morning devotions included a period of Lectio Divina. If you’re not familiar with it, Lectio Divina is a spiritual practice in which you meditate on a passage of scripture. You read it slowly, contemplate, read it again, and sometimes by doing so you notice something you hadn’t before.

I was meditating that morning on Acts 8, our scripture today. It’s a familiar passage, so I’ll admit to not expecting to see anything new. When I read it, I typically identify with Philip, and am challenged to be so bold in proclaiming the gospel.

That morning, though, I eventually saw the passage from a different perspective. I had spent the prior two weeks on a seminary retreat learning remotely from teachers in another country. By spending that time listening to people whose reality differs from my own, I had in effect been inviting them into my chariot and they were helping me see things in a new way. I was reminded that what I consider to be normal is not the norm for most of our Christian sisters and brothers around the world, that in many ways I am the outsider among most Jesus-followers.

If you look at the body of Christ from a global perspective, you’ll find a different story from that told by the statistics in our country. The church in the global south — which includes Africa, much of Asia, and South America — is growing. There are more Jesus-followers in Asia than in North America, and arguably more committed Christians in China than in the United States. Half of the world’s Christians live in Latin America and Africa. So paying attention to the movement of the Holy Spirit in those places may help us realize such movement in our own country.

Many faith communities in the United States are not reaching younger generations, so we might need to listen more closely to their voices as we move forward.

Those from Generation X might remind us that we need to be open to hard questions, and that meaningful replies to those questions don’t fit on a bumper sticker. Millennials can show us how to move toward being anti-racist, and an ally to those in the LGBTQ community. From Gen Z we can be inspired to be protectors and stewards of God’s creation.

These are all manifestations of the teachings of the prophets and of Jesus himself, and we can rejoice that authenticity and justice are valued by so many of the young people we know. By demonstrating humility, inviting them into our chariots, and listening to their voices, perhaps they can help us realize things about God’s Word that we never have before.

In closing, I have more from Isaiah 56:

And the foreigners who join themselves to the LORD,

to minister to him, to love the name of the LORD,

and to be his servants,

all who keep the sabbath, and do not profane it,

and hold fast my covenant —

these I will bring to my holy mountain,

and make them joyful in my house of prayer;

their burnt offerings and their sacrifices

will be accepted on my altar;

for my house shall be called a house of prayer

for all peoples.

Thus says the Lord GOD,

who gathers the outcasts of Israel.

That is good news for us foreigners, outcasts, and outsiders.

Thanks be to God. Amen.

References

Dinkler, Michal Beth. “The Acts of the Apostles” in Fortress Commentary on the Bible: The Old Testament and Apocrypha, edited by Gale A. Yee. Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2014.

Jacobsen, Douglas. Global Gospel: An Introduction to Christianity on Five Continents. Grand Rapids, Michigan: Baker Academic, 2015.

Powell, Mark Allen. Introducing the New Testament: A Historical, Literary, and Theological Survey. Grand Rapids, Michigan: Baker Academic, 2018.

Walaskay, Paul W. Acts: Westminster Bible Companion. Louisville, Kentucky: Westminster John Knox Press, 1998.

Wall, Robert W. “Acts,” in New Interpreter’s Bible, Volume IX. Nashville: Abingdon Press, 2015.