April 27, 2018
The resurrection of Jesus Christ is an invitation to get to work. When we look at what happens in the Bible we see that the resurrection inspires activity on the part of God’s Kingdom. It is not long after the resurrection that Jesus’ disciples go and “start” the church; empowered by Jesus and the Holy Spirit to do so.
One thing that the resurrection is not. It is not an invitation to watch more Netflix. Not that it’s wrong to binge here and there. It is clear however, that the resurrection did not inspire Jesus’s earliest followers to go on permanent vacations.
Instead, what we see in the Bible and in the early history of Christianity is right after his resurrection, Jesus’s people got busy doing the kinds of things Jesus did while he was walking around among them. They started feeding people, healing people, preaching to people, teaching people, challenging those in power, upsetting power structures, complicating economic supply chains, refuting false religions, and, on a few occasions, raising people from the dead. Do you remember the one guy who fell asleep while Paul was preaching and fell out of the window? This talk may go longer and I make no promises about returning you to the living if you have such an accident.
I may be in danger of making an overstatement. However, sometimes, we interpret the meaning of Christ’s resurrection as our personal salvation in such a way that our souls are moved from the damned column to the saved column. Our “work” is to wait until Jesus sucks us up into heaven in order to escape the pollution of this world. But this is not the model left for us by the earliest Christians.
N.T. Wright observes this tendency in Surprised by Hope and sets us straight in much more eloquent and clear prose.
“…left to ourselves we lapse into a kind of collusion with entropy, acquiescing in the general belief that things may be getting worse but that there’s nothing much we can do about them. And we are wrong. Our task in the present…is to live as resurrection people in between Easter and the final day, with our Christian life, corporate and individual, in both worship and mission, as a sign of the first and a foretaste of the second.”
“If you believe in resurrection, you believe that the living God will put his world to rights and that if God wants to do that in the future, it is right to try to anticipate that by whatever means in the present.”
“people who believe in the resurrection, in God making a whole new world in which everything will be set right at last, are unstoppably motivated to work for that new world in the present.” ~ N.T. Wright, Surprised by Hope
So, a point I’ve made before needs to be restated. The resurrection of Jesus should provide us with new desires. If we submit ourselves to live as resurrection people we will begin wanting different things in life. Hopefully, we will receive a desire, or renew a desire to be a part of God’s solution to the world’s problems rather than a regular contributor to them. Generally speaking, God’s new desires do not include endless and free Netflix, Hulu, and Amazon subscriptions.
An example of this new desire is displayed in a Christian known as Philip. Philip was a non-Jewish disciple of Jesus who was named one of the original deacons in Acts 6. He was OD, original deacon.
6 Then an angel of the Lord said to Philip, “Get up and go toward the south 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. He had come to Jerusalem to worship 28 and was returning home; seated in his chariot, he 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 him reading the prophet Isaiah. He asked, “Do you understand what you are reading?” 31 He replied, “How can I, unless someone guides me?” And he invited Philip to get in and sit beside him. 32 Now the passage of the scripture that he 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 him 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?” 38 He commanded the chariot to stop, and both of them, Philip and the eunuch, went down into the water, and Philip baptized him. 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 his 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.
May the words of my mouth and the meditation of all our hearts be acceptable in your sight, O Lord, our Rock and our Redeemer. Amen.
Context, Schmontext The story of Philip and his conversation with the Ethiopian Eunuch requires a little bit of context. Let’s begin with Acts 1:8. You may recognize this verse.
But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you; and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.
There is an interesting geographical pattern behind Jesus’ words to his nearly exclusively Jewish disciples. They will begin their ministry in the city of Jerusalem. The most important city of the Jews. The city of the Temple and, sadly, the city where Jesus is crucified. “Start here”, says Jesus. “Where I was tortured and killed and where all of you scattered. Start here with the good news of the Kingdom of God.”
They don’t stop with Jerusalem, of course. They proceed to all of Judea. This is the region in which Jerusalem is situated. It is the part of the country that was more exclusively Jewish than, Galilee or Capernaum. It was the disciples home territory. It felt right to them to go to Judea because the Judeans were their people.
Then they are to go to Samaria. This is a less obvious route. But, one of Jesus’ last words to his Jewish followers was that they would serve as witnesses to his life and resurrection in that part of the world that the Jews despised. The Samaritans were distant cousins of the Jews in Judea but they were not on good terms. In fact, the two groups despised the other. And after Samaria? Well they are to go to the ends of the earth with this “witness” they carry.
The mission of Jesus’s disciples radiates out from Jerusalem in concentric circles. First, the proclamation is to go the Jews then to everyone else. Literally, everyone.
Back to context. Let’s talk about Eunuchs. (That is a phrase I never thought I would say.) If you are not familiar with the term I apologize for being the one to have tell you about these guys. In the ancient near east, but not among the Israelites, it was routine to identify some young men to serve in the royal households. These young men were castrated. Why? Royal households are concerned with preserving bloodlines. Therefore, any male working in the household could be considered a threat to the women of the royal family. There could be no dalliances that could result in children being born. In addition, these eunuchs became extremely loyal to the royal house because they could not have families of their own. Many of these eunuchs rose to important positions of power in the kingdoms that they served.
This person in our story today is from Ethiopia. He is a black African and a person who stand out among the other people coming to worship in Jerusalem. And, he was basically the secretary of the treasury for the kingdom of Ethiopia. He was wise, industrious, and trusted.
Eunuchs were not fit to be members of the covenant community of Israel. They couldn’t be Jews nor could they be converts to Judaism. This poor guy, no matter how much he wanted to, would never be allowed to join the synagogue. Evidently, he was a “godfearer”. One of those people who worshipped in Jerusalem but who remained an outsider.
Castration was always forbidden among the Jews, interestingly among their animals too. However, Isaiah, in a beautiful passage hints at a new future for eunuchs. (It also includes a little double entendre.) From Isaiah 56:3.
Let not the foreigner who has joined himself to the Lord say,
“The Lord will surely separate me from his people”;
and let not the eunuch say,
“Behold, I am a dry tree.”
4 For thus says the Lord:
“To the eunuchs who keep my Sabbaths,
who choose the things that please me
and hold fast my covenant,
5 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.
To bring this contextual portion to a close, let us recognize that this Eunuch from Ethiopia represents the “to the ends of the earth” portion of Acts 1:8. Not only is he an outsider ethnically but biologically also. A single male. A sexual minority. Maybe the Isaiah passage is not just for literal eunuchs but for all those outside of the covenant who draw near to God?
Philip, the Running Man Does anyone else have the silly image in your head of Philip running like Forest Gump half-way across the country to catch up with the eunuch? Whether by God’s magical transport or just on his own, Philip comes to the Ethiopian on the road. Note, God told Philip to go to the road south of Jerusalem. He did not tell him what to do when he got there until he got there. I think there’s a lot for us to ponder on that but I’ll let y’all do that at home. (mini-sermon, choose your own ending portion)
When he sees the Eunuch, Philip sees that this is the man he is to talk to so he joins the Ethiopian in his chariot. Which I envision as a really slow moving, ground bound, business jet. He is, after all, a man of means and status in his home country.
Philip must have been a bit surprised to find the eunuch reading from the book of Isaiah. And, he asks a pretty simple question.
Isaiah — “Do you understand what you are reading?”
the Ethiopian Eunuch — “How can I, unless someone guides me?”
I guess God could have done all of this differently if he had chosen to. But, instead of angelic messengers, God has chosen people kind of like you and me to guide people into the family of God. God has always relied upon human witnesses (martyria) and mentors to introduce people to the faith. There is the occasional, unmanned Gideon Bible in the drawer of a hotel that does it, but generally speaking, people come to faith in Christ through people.
The Ethiopian Eunuch is at, on, or beyond the outer boundary of Jewish existence and is being brought near, not merely because they showed up, but, because Philip, by being obedient to God, went and got him.
Some modern commentators on this passage like to point out that the Ethiopian Eunuch exists in that realm of the non-binary sexual person. There are some points to argue against that reading but I think their concern is well taken. However, I think we should note something more simple, more obvious and completely undeniable about the eunuch. He was single.
Society needs functioning families to survive but the church does not. Don’t misunderstand me, I want families in the church. But, the church will live on if we all stop marrying and bearing children. We evangelize. Sometimes better, sometimes worse. But, the church grows by regularly adding numbers to our ranks.
I hope Wheatland can be an example of how a church can be full of families, couples, and single people. None of those groups looking to change their status.
The Ethiopian Eunuch tells us clearly, that God wants those who live at the margins, those whose lives have been claimed by others more powerful, and the sexually oppressed and depressed.
Baptism: Well, why not? After reading about the suffering servant, the eunuch asks to be baptized. Immediately, without catechism, or any kind of waiting period, he jumps into the water. This baptism is the mark of the covenant. It is not the mark of the Jewish covenant but it is the mark of the Christian covenant.
The marker of the covenant in the Old Testament were limited to males. In addition, these males were expected to marry and have children. Not marrying was not an option for a Jewish man. Circumcision, something denied eunuchs, was anything but universal. The mark of baptism relativizes the circumcision of the Old Testament.
Baptism is the all-inclusive symbol of Christian faith and initiation. Through it, the Jewish males, to whom Christ was initially closest to, the disciples, have their circumcision surpassed. Through it, Jewish females, who for logical reasons cannot participate in circumcision are marked by and for the covenant themselves. Through it, an Ethiopian eunuch, unable to bear children, unable to be a threat, barely male or female, is brought close to God and initiated into his family.
… for in Christ Jesus you are all sons of God, through faith. 27 For as many of you as were baptized into Christ have put on Christ. 28 There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is no male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus. 29 And if you are Christ’s, then you are Abraham’s offspring, heirs according to promise. – Gal 3:26-29
It is worth noting that the primary mark of Christian identity is available to all people regardless of gender. All that is required is the capacity to get wet.
Resurrection, an invitation to work and to have our desires exchanged for those things that bring God’s Kingdom near. Things like telling foreigners who are wondering how they fit into God’s family, and seekers who are waiting for one of God’s people to tell them what they are reading, and getting in the water with eunuchs wanting to be baptized.
TANGENCE 