Today’s sermon focuses on a slightly obscure but extremely important Bible story from Acts 8 about Philip encountering an Ethiopian eunuch. Despite a whole list of reasons this person seems to be an outsider, the Holy Spirit directs Philip to approach and share the good news of Jesus with him, revealing that God’s love is for him too.
It’s a wonderful lesson for us today about the extravagant, unexpected love of Jesus overcoming human obstacles. The man asks what prevents him from being baptized, and the answer is nothing. Nothing can keep us from God’s love when the Holy Spirit is at work!
Today’s Scripture reading is Acts 8:26-40 and this sermon is mostly a repeat (that I’ve been waiting six years for the opportunity to preach again!) of my sermon Cut Off and Restored from April 29, 2018, for which I found helpfulthis post from Meetinghouse.xyz and this post from Pastor Cory Driver. Here’s the sermon podcast audio and worship livestream from Christ the King.
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Grace to you and peace from God our Father and our risen Lord, Jesus Christ. Amen
How many of you have ever watched The Price is Right? My father-in-law records it just about every day. It’s surprisingly quick to watch when you skip over all the commercial breaks, but it’s a fun show.
I know it’s going back a while, but do you remember what Bob Barker would say at the end of every episode? Drew Carey says it now too. He ends every episode by asking the audience to “Help control the pet population—have your pets spayed or neutered.”
That’s as detailed of an introduction as I’m willing to come up with for the main character in Acts 8. In the story, the apostle Philip encounters a person described as an “Ethiopian eunuch.” This man’s condition isn’t quite the same as a neutered pet, but it’s pretty close. You get the idea.
His condition isn’t just a side detail either—five times he’s referred to explicitly as a eunuch. His condition defines him. It’s a significant part of the story’s point.
In the ancient world, eunuchs were not uncommon. Sometimes, people were castrated as punishment for a crime, but it was also common for people in important positions like this guy, a court official to the Ethiopian queen. How’s that for a job interview question?
The reason why it matters is that eunuchs were considered trustworthy, unlikely to betray their ruler. Often, they were the only ones trusted to guard a queen or princess’s bedroom, or to work with a royal harem. One reason, of course, is physical limits to what they could do.
The other reason to trust a eunuch to be in charge of the entire royal treasury is that a eunuch isn’t able to have children. Theoretically, it reduces palace intrigue, because a eunuch won’t have in-laws or any ambitions of setting up their own dynasty. No divided loyalties.
As the royal treasurer, this guy has both power and great personal wealth. For one thing, he’s riding in a chariot, which is very expensive and luxurious, and second, he has his own scroll of the book of Isaiah. Having your own copy is extremely expensive in an age when everything is hand-copied by scribes.
So this wealthy foreign official had come to Jerusalem to worship at the temple. That in itself is not odd, since there were Jewish people all over the ancient world. He’s probably a faithful Jew who’s been on a pilgrimage to the temple, the house of the Lord.
Many in Ethiopia were considered Jewish as descendants of King Solomon and the Queen of Sheba.Or, perhaps he wasn’t Jewish, and he’d just been in Jerusalem on the queen’s business and he was curious enough to go worship. He could have purchased this expensive scroll in Jerusalem, or maybe he brought it with him. We don’t know.
Whether or not he’s Jewish wouldn’t have been a problem at the temple, since there was a place for Gentile God-fearers to worship. It wouldn’t have really mattered that he’s from a foreign country, or that he’s an African. But he would have run into a problem.
Deuteronomy 23:1, a verse that never comes up in our lectionary, bans anyone with crushed or cut off genitals from entering the house of the Lord. Now, it’s not like there was a body check or TSA scan of everyone who came to the temple, but as a eunuch, he looked different. Thanks to the operation done to him—probably forcibly against his will—he would have had very low testosterone and not gone through puberty. So, he’d look and sounded different, feminine. He wouldn’t conform to the expected gender binary.
Almost certainly, when he got to the temple, he wouldn’t have been allowed in. Imagine traveling 1500 miles to worship and then being excluded, denied entry.
On his long trip in his chariot back home to Ethiopia, he’s reading aloud from Isaiah. Thinking about him as a eunuch unable to have a family, listen to a few verses from the chapter he’s reading.
He was oppressed, and he was afflicted, yet he did not open his mouth; like a lamb that is led to the slaughter, and like a sheep that before its shearers is silent, so he did not open his mouth.
By a perversion of justice he was taken away. Who could have imagined his future? For he was cut off from the land of the living, stricken for the transgression of my people.
Sounds pretty relevant to him, right? This is a guy who understands a perversion of justice, who’s had things done to him. No wonder he’s interested in knowing who the prophet is talking about.
Listen to what he would read just a little farther down his scroll, in Isaiah 56:3-5.
Do not let the foreigner joined to the Lord say,
“The Lord will surely separate me from his people”;
and do not let the eunuch say,
“I am just a dry tree.”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.
This is the scripture he’s reading as the Holy Spirit points him out to Philip. This is the easiest evangelism opportunity ever!
He asks Philip who the prophet is talking about, who this is who’s been cut off but is being restored, and Philip tells him the good news of Jesus. This foreigner will never have a literal family, but he’s invited to become a Christian and be joined to Christ. He doesn’t have to live as just a dry tree; he can be grafted onto the true vine, Jesus.
Imagine how good of news this is for him. Imagine how it would feel to have been excluded your whole life. He had a luxurious, wealthy life, to be sure, but as a eunuch, he would always have been treated as less than, as only half a person, and then to hear that in Jesus, there is a place for you.
Imagine hearing, maybe for the first time, that you’re not just a servant, but a person in your own right, a child of God. God’s love is for you; God understands what you’ve gone through. You can be included. You are welcome in God’s kingdom.
He asks Philip, “Look, here’s some water. What is to prevent me from being baptized?” and you can imagine what he’s thinking. Is this good news really for me? Do you know who I am?
I’ve only just had this explained to me—do I need to keep studying? Can God really want me? Am I good enough? Do I belong? He’s been excluded before, so there must be some obstacle.
But there isn’t. There is nothing to stop him from being joined to Christ in baptism. No wonder when he comes up out of the water, he goes on his way rejoicing!
I wonder if you’ve ever felt that kind of joy. Have you ever been excluded, and then given new hope? Have you been welcomed when you thought you were an outsider?
This story tells us something great about God’s love, and about how the church ought to be. This is such an important story for us as we consider who we are as a church, for who belongs here, for what it means to say all are welcome.
This story is part of a whole series in the book of Acts of the Holy Spirit widening the circle of who’s included.
In the previous chapter, Philip had preached the good news of Jesus to the Samaritans, to people despised by the good Jewish people of Israel, and the Holy Spirit showed up and welcomed them in. Even a sorcerer converts and becomes a disciple.
Then in this story, even a eunuch gets to be included in the community. If you keep reading, the next story is the conversion of Saul, an archenemy of the Christians who’s going around persecuting the church.
One after another, the Holy Spirit overcomes the barriers keeping people out. Over and over, where people assume someone is too different to be included, too far gone, the wrong kind of person, the Holy Spirit gathers them into the church.
As followers of Jesus, we ought to be removing the obstacles that keep people out, tearing down the barriers separating people from the good news of Jesus. Of course, we don’t always live up to that.
There’s a great story about a pastor starting at a new church, and she came in dressed, well, not the way you’d expect a pastor to dress. Dressed like someone on the street, someone homeless, to see how the congregation would react.
And the ushers let her in, but directed her to the back row, to keep out of the way of the regular worshippers, to not offend anyone else who would come in. At the beginning of the service, this apparently homeless person got up and introduced herself as the new pastor.
What a great way to figure out how your congregation feels about people who appear different, to see if “All are welcome” is just a phrase on the sign or something we actually believe.
I wonder what kind of barriers we put up in our congregation, certainly not intentionally. What would make people think they wouldn’t be welcomed by God here? The way they dress? Their skin color?
Their sexual orientation? Gender norms? Their age? Whether they grew up in a church or not? Singing ability?
How hard it must be to come into an unfamiliar church, worrying about what will keep you out.
Fortunately for all of us, Jesus is far better at loving than his church sometimes is. If you’ve ever been excluded from the church, first of all I’m sorry, and second, what a great story this is for you.
Hear the good news from Philip and the Ethiopian eunuch. There is nothing that prevents you from receiving God’s grace.
God accepts you and loves you. You are a child of God. You are created good. You belong here.
Thanks be to God.
Amen