April 29, 2018
Acts 8:26-40
By Jennifer Garrison Brownell
In today’s scripture story, one of the early apostles, Philip, meets a eunuch. A eunuch occupies that which we are coming to understand as the wide space between the genders we call male and female. Some of our friends who occupy that wide space in this time have requested the pronoun “they” rather than the pronoun “he” or “she.” To honor those friends, as well as the eunuch’s experience, I have changed the NRSV scripture reading today to use those preferred pronouns. As you listen, you are invited to experience how this reading feels to you, translated in this way.
26 Then an angel of the Lord said to Philip, “Get up and go toward the south[a] to the road that goes down from Jerusalem to Gaza.” (This is a wilderness road.) 27 So 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. The eunuch had come to Jerusalem to worship 28 and was returning home; seated in a chariot, and was reading the prophet Isaiah. 29 Then the Spirit said to Philip, “Go over to this chariot and join it.” 30 So Philip ran up to it and heard them reading the prophet Isaiah. Philip asked, “Do you understand what you are reading?” 31They replied, “How can I, unless someone guides me?” And the eunuch invited Philip to get in and sit beside them. 32 Now the passage of the scripture that the eunuch 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.
33 In his humiliation justice was denied him.
Who can describe his generation?
For his life is taken away from the earth.”
34 The eunuch asked Philip, “About whom, may I ask you, does the prophet say this, about himself or about someone else?” 35 Then Philip began to speak, and starting with this scripture, he proclaimed to them the good news about Jesus. 36 As 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?”[b] 38 They commanded the chariot to stop, and both of them, Philip and the eunuch, went down into the water, and Philip[c] baptized them. 39 When they came up out of the water, the Spirit of the Lord snatched Philip away; the eunuch saw him no more, and went on their way rejoicing. 40 But 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 first thing you need to know is that they were in the wilderness. Godless wasteland – difficult, dusty, dangerous.There was no respite in the wilderness, no oasis, no safe place – only the danger from wild beasts and wilder humans, made desperate by hunger and hopelessness.
The second thing you need to know is that Philip was no trained preacher. Philip most definitely wasn’t a scholar or rabbi. He was a table server, one of those who had been called by God and the second generation of disciples (after those who had known Jesus personally) to attend to the logistical and bodily needs of the church – feeding people, especially.
It’s fair to assume that if Philip was really a waiter, that he had a heart for the poor, the least and the last – those who would really truly go hungry if they were not cared for by the church. He loved those who had little, so he knew just what to do when he encountered them. He would pull out a scrap of the extra bread he always carried tucked into his robe, hand it to them, and the faces of both Philip and that previously hungry person would glow.
So when the angel of God came to him and told him to go to the wilderness road, Philip must have positively rubbed his hands together with glee. In the wild, in the wasteland, in all that dust and danger, he was bound to meet someone who needed his help – the kind of help he was best at giving. Maybe he tucked a few extra loaves of bread in his robes, ready to meet the desperate ones, the hungry, the homeless.
But there on the wilderness road of all places (you remember they were in the wilderness, right?) Philip sees a vision coming toward him. At first, he thinks it’s a mirage – the light shining off — not a donkey, not even a carriage but a CHARIOT – a chariot of GOLD, a chariot from the palace of the queen of Ethiopia herself. And this chariot of gold is occupied by a court official and not just any court official, but the one in charge of all the queen’s money. That chariot was not only gold, it was covered in ornate designs, jeweled patterns. Blinding! And riding in the chariot, surrounded by their entourage – which would have consisted of servants, animals and soldiers – guards carrying creatively cruel and definitely deadly weapons was a person dressed in the most marvelous and strange clothing – as bright as the chariot and flashier. Now Philip knew (even we would know, were we to join him on that road) that whoever was heading up this decadent entourage was a eunuch. Because only someone who – by accident or design – could not have children of their own to pass wealth onto would be entrusted with these vast treasures.
The eunuch is on their way home from Jerusalem after worshiping in the temple, so the story says. This was not to convert. This was kind of cultural tourism. In our day, we might say of the Eunuch that they were “spiritual but not religious” – the kind of dabbler a guy like Philip who’d gone all in would have nothing but disdain for.
What does Philip, lover and feeder of the poor, seeker out of the lost and forlorn when he sees this egregious display of consumerism and militarism, this ridiculous foreigner in their outrageous outfit, what might Philip think when his vision clears and he realizes this is NOT a mirage after all?
Well, Philip heaves a sigh of relief. THIS is not the kind of person God calls HIM to, thank you very much. God calls HIM to the TRULY DESERVING. So Philip steps to the side of the road and casts his eyes down, waiting for the whole absurd parade to pass him by so he go find someone else, someone who is justified in receiving the kind of help that Philip knows he is uniquely able to give.
But then. Philip gets that shove. That Spirit shove. How does the Spirit shove come? A pull in the pit of his stomach? The thought that, like a familiar song, will not go away? A weight on his shoulders? Or before he feels it anywhere else, do his legs just start moving? However it happens, the Spirit shoves Philip, so he lifts his head, takes a few steps into the road and looks, really looks, at the eunuch.
And what is the eunuch doing? Oh, just what bored travelers have done on long uncomfortable journeys for millennia. That eunuch is reading. Holding a big scroll open and reading aloud. Philip can see their lips moving, but can’t quite hear what is being read.
“Go on,” the Spirit prods, “get closer.”
Now, scripture makes it sound like the next part is the easiest part, but believe me when I tell you it most certainly is not. This is the ice cream man knocking on the window of the limousine to see if anyone wants a cone. This is the guy with the beard, wearing blue jeans, stopping the president’s motorcade so he can have a chat.
This is a space-crazy child trying to hitch a ride on a NASA shuttle for goodness sake.
This is two worlds that have nothing to do with each other and nothing in common colliding there on the wilderness road.
Philip is just a dusty dude and probably kind of dumpy-looking weighed down as he was with those pieces of bread he’d stuck in this pockets.
“Go on,” the Spirit prods again. So he strides up, right past those guards with their ingeniously terrifying instruments of death – as if he has all the business in the world being there. Somehow they do not kill him on the spot. How a roughly clad wanderer got right up to the chariot of the keeper of all the queen’s wealth….well. Who knows how he did it?
But he was there, right there by the side of this sexually ambiguous, outsider, wealthy, flashy, foreign person, he could not help but despise.
When he got close,Philip heard what the eunuch was reading then – it was Philip’s own scripture. The story of HIS people.
Ok, (although it is not written) I’m pretty sure Philip had a little conversation with the Holy Spirit at this point.
“I mean, look at this guy. Really? THIS is the one you want me to talk to? Can’t you send me to someone hungry instead? Someone who will just take the bread and be grateful, so I can move on?”
But that spirit shove does not lessen – in his guts or his shoulders or his feet – and so Philip takes a breath and…
Does not greet the eunuch at all. Doesn’t say the things travelers say to each other “Hey, there, hot enough for ya?” “Well, hello stranger, where you headed?” or even “Haven’t seen the likes of you in these parts.” Instead, he dives all the way in – “do you even understand what you are reading?”
The answer is pretty friendly, considering the abruptness of the query – “How can I? I’m doing this all by myself. Come up in the chariot with me, friend, lets open the word together.”
And then Philip – who loathes rich people and religious wannabes, who hasn’t had a bath in a while and who was just looking for someone to give those loaves (getting uncomfortably heavy now) to – THAT Philip, clambers up into that chariot and listens as this stranger read his Scripture, the scripture of his people, from the book that Philip, if he did not know by heart, would have heard read and recited dozens, maybe hundreds of times: In his humiliation justice was denied him. Who can describe his generation? For his life is taken away from the earth.
And the strange, shiny, foreign, unspeakably wealthy, spiritual-but-not-religious, gender-queer person sitting beside him, looks into Philips’ eyes and asks:
“Whose story is this? Whose story is this?”
And Philip, who has heard those words a hundred times, hears them now as if for the very first time. He takes a breath, and right there he begins to tell the story of Jesus. And then they are riding along and he finds that the two of them are telling each other the story, reading and discussing the scriptures together, as they are meant to be read. Not by individuals trying to puzzle it out on their own, but as partners, as perhaps, friends. Good news, good news!
Remember the first thing you need to know? They were in the wilderness. Dry, dusty wasteland as far as the eye can see and the road they travel. But all of a sudden – a miracle! An oasis! – they are at a place of moving water.
The eunuch notices it first
Look! A stream! What’s to stop me from being baptized?
Philip who has been speaking pretty eloquently up to this point, starts opening and closing his mouth like a fish out of water. What’s to stop you from being baptized? His mouth is trying to say, Well, a whole darn lot is what!
“For one thing, there are RULES about that. I’m not a baptizer, I’m just barely a waiter, for heaven’s sake. And there are special words you have to say, and doesn’t there have to be witness or something?”
Philip fortunately does not say any of those things. Philip closes his mouth, and jumps down from the chariot, and there and then, Philip goes with the eunuch into the river, and baptizes them.
And what happened next?
Good old Philip. He lived a nice long life. He had four daughters, the scripture tells us, and they were all prophets. Those prophets, those girls who became women who knew what it meant to draw close to God, who paid attention to what it was like when God came close to people, grew up hearing and telling this story – the story of the time the Spirit pushed Philip into the path of the eunuch.
And I don’t know for sure, but maybe this is what happened next, maybe this is the story he told his daughters around the fire at night, after their work was done:
“And then I was Caesarea, the city that Herod built on the sweat and blood of my brothers, the very center of the empire. And there I met all kinds of flashy, foreign, religious wannabes, and I just kept listening to their stories and when it was my turn to talk, telling them the story of the good news. Before, I was pretty sure I knew who God wanted me to be, what kind of service God had called me to. But I was wrong. After that, I got out of my own way. It seemed like I vanished on that road, and in a way I did. Because I saw that the only thing that prevented me from following the Spirit wherever She led was my own stubborn insistence that I knew best. After that ride with my friend the Eunuch (and my one regret is that I didn’t catch their name), I stopped being so sure of what God wanted me to do all the time… I realized then that I had as much to learn as I had to teach. I realized then that The Spirit would push me in directions I never intended or even wanted to go, and that I could thrive there. I learned to pay attention, every day, every minute, even–especially–in the seemingly godless wilderness.