Who will Explain It?

[Acts 8: 26-40]

Who Will We Explain It?
By the Reverend Tom Paine

Preached at Westminster Presbyterian Church

April 28, 2024

As I know most of you know, the heart of making a magic trick work is to get people to pay attention to one thing when something else is happening.  We human beings anticipate what is going to happen next.  

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And if the magician can make use of that anticipation, they can draw our attention away from what’s happening right in front of us. My father, when I was young, used to take a piece of paper, crease it, and break a pencil in two with it. My Mom would ‘take her finger off’ and put it back on. Both stopped doing it as we got older, even though we would beg them to replicate it.  They would laugh and smile but shake their heads and wouldn’t do it anymore.  My uncle once confessed to me he learned the opening of a cantata on the piano, about ninety seconds worth, which he would play at a party and then get up and be like, “Aw shucks, I shouldn’t.”  He said it started many good conversations but also that he would never sit back down because that was all he could play!  People thought though that he was this humble and quiet musician on the side.  Magic.

Our Scripture passage shows us the progression of the Christian message, which doesn’t happen by magic.  Before his ascension, Jesus told his followers to take the Good News to Jerusalem, to Samaria, and to the ends of the earth. And we start to see that play out right here in our reading.  Our subject is Philip, not Philip the disciple but Philip – one of the first deacons – who becomes an evangelist.  When Stephen was martyred, Philip took the message to Samaria. This just sounds like a place to us but theologically and culturally and historically, back in their time, that was a huge jump. Not in distance but in relationships. The Samaritans were the descendents of the people of the Northern Kingdom when David and Solomon’s kingdom had been split in two. The Judeans, the descendents of the Southern Kingdom, had been taken into exile under the Babylonians and when the Persians sent them back, the locals – the ancestors of the Samaritans, hadn’t left and didn’t exactly welcome them. And there had been enmity and discord between them ever since. It is why Jesus’ parable of the Good Samaritan was shocking to his followers.  Who had ever heard of a “Good Samaritan”?

But Philip’s story gives us insight into how, just as Jesus predicted, the Good News would first take root outside of Judea and Galilee in Samaria.  Philips’ story tells us how that happened.  Again, after the martyrdom of Stephen, Philip went to Samaria and began preaching there and the Samaritans began to believe.  Then Peter and John came and to prayed for this new Jesus movement and the Holy Spirit cames on them and many more Samaritans believed. And that is where our passage opens.

Let me pause from the first century and return to the 21st.  How do you think the church is doing today?  I don’t mean Westminster, although that is an important question for us to ponder.  I mean the larger church.  Are we being the people God calls us to be?  Are more people coming to faith in Christ like happened in Samaria? Are we sharing Jesus way in this world? If not, why? Could it be that we are paying attention to the wrong things?

You heard the reading this morning.  Philip is talking with an angel who teleports him to a road.  All of a sudden the eunuch comes by in his chariot. The eunuch was reading Scripture and didn’t understand it.  Philip jumped aboard and explained it was about Jesus. The eunuch asked and was baptized in Jesus’ name.  And then Philip was teleported somewhere else. Is that the basic message?  Is that our take home?  If we go and tell that outline of this story to our neighbors are they going to find it profound?  Maybe we are missing something.  Again, maybe we are not paying attention to the right things if that is our take home.

So, let’s go through this step by step.  Luke says one of God’s messengers, which we translate as Angel into English, tells Philip to leave Samaria and go on the wilderness road to Gaza.  It’s interesting that this comes up nowadays but I will stay in the first century for the moment.  And there he encountered an Ethiopian eunuch who served in the court of Candance, the Ethiopian queen. The eunuch was in charge of the treasury which explains his mode of travel which was, back then, one of the fastest, safest, and most comfortable modes of travel – the chariot.  

Let’s pause and consider something.  Why was he a eunuch?  We don’t know. Perhaps it was an issue since birth. Perhaps he chose that.  But the most likely answer is  because he served with the queen and it was not unusual back in that time period, for males who were going to have daily access to royal families, to be castrated.  This kept the royal bloodlines pure by eliminated the chance for any romances and unforeseen children to appear. But for someone seeking God in this time period, maybe in any time period, but back then being a eunuch was a problem. Because by Levitical law, a eunuch could not go into the temple.  He was excluded.  Which makes his scripture selection most interesting.  He was reading, “Like a sheep he was led to the slaughter, and like a lamb silent before its shearer, so he does not open his mouth. In his humiliation justice was denied him. Who can describe his generation? For his life is taken away from the earth.”  Is it possible the eunuch himself had been humiliated trying to go into the temple? Maybe he felt justice had been denied him.  Maybe that passage really spoke to him.  But he knows it isn’t about him, so who?  But he doesn’t understand it.  And Philip, on the road, has the Spirit urge him to go and ask, “Do you understand what you are reading?”  The Eunuch replies that he can’t understand without anyone to explain it.  Philip offers to explain and the eunuch invites him not the chariot. The eunuch asked Philip, “About whom, may I ask you, does the prophet say this, about himself or about someone else?” And that opened the door.  He yearns for justice.  He wants to be righteous. He is seeking God. And Philip explains how God has made the world right through the righteousness of his son, Jesus.  In Philip’s explanation, the eunuch must have heard about John the Baptist baptizing, about Jesus being baptized, his death and resurrection, and then instructing his followers to go forth baptizing in his name.  And the chariot happend to be passing water. He asked Philip to baptize him and Philip of course does. And that ended their interaction.  And Philip next found the Spirit brought him not back to Samaria but to the Mediterranean coast, to Ashdod, north of Gaza, to continue sharing the Good News.

What if our issue in the church today is that we want to focus on the wrong thing?  The core of this story was about someone who was excluded by race, by gender, and even by location but who yearned for justice and righteousness. He was a leader who obviously was not getting that even serving in the court of one of the most powerful people in the ancient world, But he learned of God and of justice and righteousness in the scripture of a foreign people likely while on a business trip for the queen.  And wants to get closer to God.  He can’t there but he must have yearned for it so much he bought his own copy of Isaiah – which would have cost him something back then. And God sent one of his own to include him, to explain it to him, and to welcome him. And, I have no doubt, the eunuch ended up being one who helped spread the Good News to what they thought of then as the ends of the earth.

In 2017, I was the chaplain at McMurdo, a science station in Antarctica for seven weeks. And while I met a lot of folks, and learned some fascinating things, I wondered what I could do to build up the chapel program.  I was the only one there working on spiritual matters.  I had no staff.  Sunday worship services drew about fifteen people.  But there were about eight hundred people at McMurdo back then. And I was happy to worship with the fifteen or so – whoever comes – but it always felt like I could do more.  When I was visiting one of the shops about halfway through my tour I met a guy who was a Christian and lamented we didn’t have more in worship and he said, “Offer a Bible study.”  A Bible study?  If they aren’t coming to worship how many would I get for a Bible study?  In week four I started putting up posters.  In week five I got five folk to come to the BIble study.  In week six I get ten.  In week seven I had as many in the BIble study as I had gotten in worship.  And then I had to leave.  I always wondered how it would have gone if I had offered the BIble study in week one. These weren’t the people from worship. You never know what people are looking for until you ask.  Philip asked the question.  He didn’t run up to preach a sermon.  He asked him if he could help.  Do we ask?  

And do we have doubt that there are people out there today with a passion for what is just and right and who want to be a part of it? Don’t we think there are still people who yearn for their spiritual hunger to be satisfied?  And are we allowing the spirit to guide us to them and ask questions or are we saying, “Let’s pull out our checklist and see if you fit in with us?” The Presbyterian Church has been fracturing over my whole twenty five years of ministry over sexuality. The Methodist church had a new denomination form this past year over people who are none too different than this eunuch.  Are we paying attention to the right things?  We have churches, some big ones, that think the church should be all about getting involved in government policy and setting policy for other people – no matter what they believe.  Is that the Good News?

Maybe the powerful part of the story wasn’t the angel talking to Philip or the Holy Spirit dropping off Philip in some new place.  If we think it is, maybe we aren’t paying attention to the right thing.  Maybe it is that a new follower of Jesus was now included, one who had been long excluded. 

Overall, Philip the Evangelist’s heroism and leadership are understated. I confess before studying the passage – I assumed incorrectly that this was a story about Philip the disciple and apostle.  It isn’t.  Philip the evangelist and deacon was an amazing man of deep faith and great courage to go where others didn’t want to go and cross boundaries that hadn’t been crossed for centuries.

If the church is to thrive again, we need to be the go to places and look for people who yearn for what is true and what is just. In the 21st century, people are not just seeking to hear old stories repeated they have heard since childhood. They are seeking to be part of a positive change in our world.  There are still people who want to make a difference.  Do we help facilitate that, in the name of God, or are we guardians of the status quo?  Are we trying to set the parameters of who can approach God as the eunuch would have experienced in Jerusalem? Or are we more like Philip, going to where they are, and asking if we can help.

There absolutely were churches in the first century but the Christians didn’t grow the faith by just having a nice place for people to gather to worship. It wasn’t just about magically invoking the name of Jesus either. They went to where the people were and listened and shared their faith. Jesus is the just one.  Jesus is the gracious one.  Jesus is the righteous one.  Let us be attracted to people who yearn for the same. We, absolutely, are called to do the same, not just in Jesus’ name but in the way of Jesus.  I always think it is powerful for us to consider that the first Christians were called – people of the way.

Let us be those people – today.  Christ is still risen. Let us help them find the justice and the righteousness they seek. And may we always go where the Spirit leads us.  To God be the glory, forever and ever, amen.