Listen to the audio of today’s Reflection:
https://soundcloud.com/hapearce/reflection-for-july-6-2023
Acts 8:26-40
Philip and the Ethiopian
26 Now an angel of the Lord said to Philip, “Go south to the road—the desert road—that goes down from Jerusalem to Gaza.” 27 So he started out, and on his way he met an Ethiopian eunuch, an important official in charge of all the treasury of Candace, queen of the Ethiopians. This man had gone to Jerusalem to worship, 28 and on his way home was sitting in his chariot reading the Book of Isaiah the prophet. 29 The Spirit told Philip, “Go to that chariot and stay near it.”
30 Then Philip ran up to the chariot and heard the man reading Isaiah the prophet. “Do you understand what you are reading?” Philip asked.
31 “How can I,” he said, “unless someone explains it to me?” So he invited Philip to come up and sit with him.
32 The eunuch was reading this passage of scripture:
“He was led like a sheep to the slaughter,
and as a lamb before its shearer is silent,
so he did not open his mouth.
33 In his humiliation he was deprived of justice.
Who can speak of his descendants?
For his life was taken from the earth.”
34 The eunuch asked Philip, “Tell me, please, who is the prophet talking about, himself or someone else?”35 Then Philip began with that very passage of Scripture and told him the good news about Jesus.
36 As they traveled along the road, they came to some water and the eunuch said, “Look, here is water. Why shouldn’t I be baptized?” [37] 38 And he gave orders to stop the chariot. Then both 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 suddenly took Philip away, and the eunuch did not see him again, but went on his way rejoicing. 40 Philip, however, appeared at Azotus and traveled about, preaching the gospel in all the towns until he reached Caesarea.
The Acts of the Apostles strikes me as an under-appreciated book of the New Testament. It’s understood that Luke wrote Acts as a kind of “Volume II” of his gospel, to tell about the beginnings of the church after Jesus went back to heaven. There are quite a few stories that have a surprising relevance to life as a follower of Jesus in our time. And this story of Philip and the Ethiopian is one of those important stories.
In our reading for today, an angel of the Lord sends Philip south along the road that runs from Jerusalem to Gaza. Along that road, Philip encounters an Ethiopian who is returning home after worshiping in Jerusalem. We’re told that the Ethiopian is a eunuch, and that he is an important official in the government of Ethiopia – in charge of the country’s treasury.
The custom of making eunuchs seems barbarous to us, but in some cultures of the ancient world, it was standard practice for officials in important positions to be eunuchs. And there was a logic to it. The eunuchs could become wealthy and powerful, but because they didn’t have families or households of their own, they were presumed to be more loyal to the ruler and more devoted to their duties.
But as far as the Hebrew religion was concerned, being a eunuch would exclude this man from full participation in the life of the covenant people. The man could be a worshipper of the God of Israel, and read the scriptures and travel to Jerusalem on a religious pilgrimage. But he could never become a convert to Judaism, and he would never be permitted to enter the temple precinct.
And even if he were not a eunuch, this Ethiopian man might well have been prevented from entering the inner temple precincts because of his race.
So when you think about it, this ancient story is about a man who is denied full inclusion into the people of God because of his race and his sexuality. So it’s probably more relevant to our own circumstances than it might seem at first glance.
In the story, Philip comes upon the Ethiopian as the man is struggling to understand a passage in the book of the prophet Isaiah. It’s a passage that foretells the sufferings of Jesus. Philip recognizes the meaning of the passage, but the Ethiopian doesn’t. So Philip strikes up a conversation that allows him to tell the story of Jesus, and explain how Jesus was the fulfillment of the passage.
There’s something we need to know about this passage the Ethiopian man is reading – something that’s not apparent from the text. It’s a part of Isaiah that foretells that the coming of the Messiah would inaugurate a time when God would specifically gather to himself the eunuchs and the foreigners. This Ethiopian man doubly represents the fulfillment of that prophesy. For him, the passage would be profoundly meaningful.
The man’s heart is so moved by Philip’s explanation of how the prophesy has been fulfilled in Jesus that he asks to be baptized in the first water they come to. In fact, it’s interesting that the way the story is told, the man asks, “Why shouldn’t I be baptized?” If he had asked a similar question about becoming a Jew, he would have been told that his sexuality prevented it, and maybe that his race prevented it. But to the followers of Jesus, he is a recipient of the grace of God to be accepted as a full member of the community of faith. There’s no reason why he shouldn’t be baptized.
It seems important for those of us who follow Jesus to notice that when the Ethiopian man asked what the Bible was saying, Philip was ready to explain how the whole Bible points to the role of Jesus in salvation history. Some parts of the Old Testament can still seem confusing and disturbing when you read them in isolation. But when you understand them as pointing toward Jesus, their meaning becomes a lot clearer.
With the coming of Jesus into the world, the community of faith was opened to a lot of people who had been excluded before – gentiles, women, notorious sinners, people with jobs that made them ritually impure, people with medical conditions, and others. In fact, when you think about it, most of the people of the world were “outsiders” under the original covenant. But through Jesus, a way had been made for all those outsiders to be accepted into the family of God. And in this passage, we see a case of that acceptance being extended to a man whose race and sexuality had made him unacceptable to the people of God before.
Let’s pray. Lord, we thank you that in Jesus, you have extended welcome and friendship – even membership in your own family – to so many who were outcasts before. Help us to be willing to extend your radical welcome to all those who are hungry and thirsty for your peace and rest. Amen.
Grace and Peace,
Henry
(The listed readings for today are Psalms 67 and 68; I Samuel 13:1-18; and Luke 23:13-25. Our readings come from the NIV Bible, as posted in Biblica.com, the website of the International Bible Society.)
Recent Comments