May 6, 2012 – Acts 8:26-40; I John 4:7-21
Acts 8:26-40; I John 4:7-21
Fifth Sunday of Easter – May 6, 2012
First Lutheran Church – Winnipeg, MB
I’ve been away quite a bit recently, and it’s usually helpful because
it gives you a little perspective on the things you normally do.
Part of the time Sue and I were away in Chicago and
Part of the time Sue and Theo and Peter and I were away in Regina for
Sue’s mom’s funeral.
Recently Sue and I spent a couple of days together in Grand Forks.
And when you have this time alone away from the familiar you find yourself asking questions.
You’re shaving and you think, “Is it really a good idea to shave without my contacts in?”
Or you’re contemplating the texts for this Sunday and you wonder,
“What is the deal with this Ethiopian eunuch?”
And then you start to think about the church – about First Lutheran Church – and
you ask yourself: what is the point of the church?
Well, let’s start with the eunuch, which is a funny place to start because
The eunuch thinks of himself not as a starting place but as an ending place.
He thinks of himself not as the beginning of a sentence but it’s ending: a period.
Not as the beginning of a story but an ending.
The eunuch is what the biblical people called a proselyte, a non-Jew who was
Attracted to and worshipped the God of Israel but who did not belong to
The community of Jewish people.
In this case, because of a law in Deuteronomy, he could never be admitted to full membership
Because he was a eunuch.
He didn’t fit in. He was uncategorisable. He wasn’t normal. Whatever.
Yet he’s full of curiosity and he’s full of questions.
He’s just been to Jerusalem where, presumably,
he’s been worshipping this God of mercy and justice he’s learned about.
And he’s continuing to learn about this God by reading the prophet Isaiah.
Now just a few chapters from the place where Phillip finds him reading,
He no doubt has read Isaiah’s vision of a time when eunuchs will be admitted to
Full membership in the community of God’s people:
The eunuchs . . . and the foreigners . . . 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. The says the Lord GOD, who gathers the outcasts of Israel, I will gather others to them beside those already gathered. (Isaiah 56:6-8)
Eunuchs could not have children.
Their names and their lives were therefore “cut off” in biblical language.
But here, in his chariot, riding away from Jerusalem, he reads Isaiah and comes across
Something kind of extraordinary.
He reads about someone very special to God,
someone who is given a special place in God’s sight.
Someone, like him, whose life was – not “taken away” as our translation has it – but
Whose life, like his, has been “cut off.”
We call this person the suffering servant and among other things he is beloved by God and
Intimately wrapped up in God’s life.
The eunuch is astonished at this and desperately wants to know who this person is.
There seems to be some good news in this for him.
So he asks Phillip: who is this person?
This person who like a sheep was led to the slaughter,
who like a lamb was silent before his shearer?
And so Phillip tells him about Jesus.
And the eunuch suddenly has this tremendous identification with Jesus.
Jesus, who had no children, whose life was cut off, who was denied justice.
The eunuch comes to understand that in Jesus God comes to identify very closely with
Those whose lives had been cut off, with outsiders, with those who don’t fit.
The eunuch comes to understand that in Jesus God joins God’s very self with him.
And so this great desire wells up in him to have himself joined with God in
the waters of baptism.
“Look!” he says, and you can hear the eagernesss in his voice as Phillip tells him that
All he needs to do to be included, to join God’s community, to be part of the
Great including thing God is doing is to be baptized!
“Look!” he says as he excitedly points out some water to Phillip,
“there’s some water right there! What’s to prevent me from being baptized?”
Together – and the together is important – together they get into the water and
Phillip baptizes him, and so God grants him full membership in the church,
Full inclusion into the body of Christ.
One of the many interesting things in this story is how Phillip plays the part of Jesus in
The Road to Emmaus story in Luke’s Gospel.
In that story, on Easter evening, the risen Jesus himself appears to two disciples walking along a
road away from Jerusalem opens their understanding to the meaning of scripture and
their eyes to his presence with them.
This is precisely what Phillip does for the eunuch: Phillip intentionally is Jesus to the eunuch.
And the eunuch, presumably, having been fully incorporated into Christ, will now
Intentionally become Jesus to others perhaps even further off from God than him.
In the resurrection it’s as if this loving, including force with its origin in God radiates from
An empty tomb through the women who came there then through Jewish disciples then
Through Jerusalem to the Gentiles of Asia minor then through even eunuchs of
Ethiopia to the ends of the earth.
It is seemingly unstoppable this force.
And it has a name, this force: we call it love.
At the conference my wife Sue was at in Grand Rapids, the singer-songwriter Bruce Cockburn was
present and offered this definition of love:
the name we have for the force that comes from the Divine.
Not bad: when I saw him later I wanted to high five him. But I resisted.
God is love, the writer of First John says.
If we [in the church] love one another God lives in us and his love is perfected in us.
This love that was unleashed into the world through the resurrection is not a warm,
Fuzzy feeling according to the biblical writers.
It is a force expressed in action, in loving action.
God’s loving action to send Jesus into the world, to come in person to our place of greatest need
At great cost, even at the cost of his life.
In that is love.
No one has seen God, says the writer of First John, but if any want proof of God’s existence,
If any want to see the force that comes from God embodied and in action,
Let that person look to a loving Christian community.
We have no need to offer rational proofs of God’s existence:
For those who seek some demonstration of the reality of God,
says New Testament professor Brian Peterson,
the church should be able to point to its mutual love and say, “come and see.”
(http://www.workingpreacher.org/preaching.aspx?lect_date=5/6/2012)
Here is the force that comes from God embodied and living.
Phillip surely had better things to be doing on that day long ago.
But when God said to him “Go tell and demonstrate to that crazy Ethiopian eunuch
That he too is included within the compass of my love,” he did.
Because Phillip himself knew the distance God had come for him.
What is the point of the church?
The writer of First John speaks of love, this force expressed in action, 29 times in 14 verses.
And he’s talking not about an emotion within individuals he’s talking about
action embodied in community life.
The oh-so-cool ultra-hip and heavily tattooed Lutheran pastor in Denver Nadia Bolz-Weber is
Fond of saying this:
When your mom dies your Yoga teacher isn’t bringing you a casserole. You need a church.
(http://www.workingpreacher.org/preaching.aspx?lect_date=5/6/2012)
My family and I have experienced this in the last couple of weeks.
As most of you know, my wife’s mom died almost three weeks ago.
Since then we have been the recipients of a lot of that force from God we call love.
It’s been personal and it’s been alive.
We’ve been the recipients of concern, of many hugs, of loving questions, of countless cards with
Beautiful handwritten notes, and – yes – of casseroles, of food made by hand,
Made with love, to sustain our bodies in a tough time.
Through all this, you have borne to us the living Jesus and his resurrection life into
the midst of death, and given us hope for the resurrection life that awaits us all.
Our lives, finally, are not cut off, even by death.
Even the dead are precious to him and are included within the circle of his loving care.
In the midst of death we have experience life and love,
The name we have for the force that comes from God.
This is a place made for us by God to dwell, all those who’ve always belonged and for
Those who feel like they belong nowhere.
Here you are welcome. Here you have a home. Here God is living. Here is Jesus and his love.
So together let us say, “Amen.
Pastor Michael Kurtz
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