Homily: 5th Sunday of Easter
April 29, 2018
Homily
The 8th chapter of the Acts of the Apostles opens right in the middle of amazing things happening as the witnessing and preaching of the Risen Lord began to spread. It’s sort of like how we find ourselves today, listening to texts that are chosen because we are well into the season of Easter, not yet at the end, and it’s been going on for weeks. But it’s not the end yet. In the midst of life.
I’m not sure when I first became enamored of this little vignette involving Philip and the Ethiopian eunuch. I really think it began in my youth. On his way home an Ethiopian eunuch – that is to say an VIP, an important person – you know you can tell those kind of folks by the clothes they wear and the way the carry themselves. And you can tell by the car they drive. He drove a really classy chariot. In today’s world, I guess, it would be a classy private jet.
Well, he was driving his chariot and reading Isaiah at the same time. I wondered about how he did that? Did he have a book stand on his chariot. Oh, wait, it might have been a scroll. That would be an even more elaborate contraption on his chariot. Looking out for traffic and potholes while doing a bible study. Amazing, I thought.
Philip was walking along, ready to share the good news he had with anyone who would listen – or maybe anyone the Spirit told him to pay attention to. And lo – the Spirit said – there, that one! Climb into his chariot.
Now this VIP is minding his own business, doing his daily chariot bible study, and Philip decides that he needs to ride with him a while. Amazing.
“What you reading?” he asks. The VIP says, “Oh some stuff about a lamb led to slaughter – a lamb who acted like some kind of weird holy man. I really don’t understand. What do you know about this?”
“I know his name. It is ‘God saves.’ Jesus.” We have seen and we have heard. It’s true.
I don’t really know what special words Philip had that day. What insight into human emotional psychology. How did he know that day, under those circumstances how to speak the incisive words of life to a man caught up in his own self-importance. The Spirit gave him what he needed. And that VIP stopped his whole life. He got off his chariot and went down into the water to be reborn.
Philip disappeared in a quick God-delivered scene-change, and the Ethiopian eunuch went on his way, a changed man. He took with him the basic message about Jesus. That may well be the man who started the Christian church in Ethiopia. As a young man I was amazed to learn that one of the oldest Christian communities there is is found in Ethiopia.
That was one of my important discoveries – that not only is the world made up of people who don’t look, act, or think the way I do. The church, also, is made up such people. And I knew I loved it for that great wide diversity.
Mary Pat and I got to celebrate a little bit of the Ethiopian connection when we were leaving Honolulu to move to Rock Hill, SC.
I used to do a mid-week Eucharist at the St. Andrew’s Cathedral. Those services, as is usually the case, were attended by a group of regulars. Among them was a young man, an architect by trade. We got to know him through the weeks and months – learning that he was the son of an Ethiopian priest. His father had been jailed for many years for his anti-government agitation. And here his son was in Hawai’i – a devout Christian, quietly going about his faith with a deep and quiet resolve. Maaza Mekuria is his name.
We had dinner at his house, one of our last nights. He served us traditional Ethiopian food. It was delicious. It was amazing. It was like nothing else I had ever had. And I was aware that night of the breadth and depth of the Body of Christ, spanning the globe, and connecting generations upon generations.
the one who is sent
It couldn’t have happened without the one who was sent saying, “Yes.” And it wouldn’t have happened if the one who heard had not opened his or her ears to the message that could quicken the heart and give life. Maaza was the messenger of the good news to us that evening in Honolulu. We allowed ourselves to be touched.
It was a little thing for us. But it has happened over and over again, in big and little ways, through the ages, down to the present day.
What does it mean to be sent? It means listening for directions. That’s obvious enough when you’re a student in the classroom, waiting for the teacher to give directions. It’s less obvious when you’re a grown up adult, intent on making your own decisions, responsible every bigger and bigger slices of life.
So for most of us, it entails recognizing that we’re not the ones in charge. That I am not the captain of my life. Those stripes belong to someone else. Luke in today’s reading calls it the Spirit.
As we navigate the difficult passages of our life, we try to manage them by taking control. In the end it is only be letting go that we are able to truly sail through the rapids and shoals, the whirlpools and eddies as well as the rapid descents and falls of our life.
Sometimes the words that bring life can be as simple as, “I love you.” or sometimes it is “I forgive you.” or “I accept your forgiveness.”
On occasion when a person has served me in some way I will say to them, e.g., “You have a pretty smile.” If the person is especially busy they might not really hear. They might say, “What did you say?” thinking I’m asking them for something. When I repeat myself it breaks in and they smile and say, “Thank you.”
I experienced it on that day, waiting in the drive-up line at the Chick-fil-a. When I came up to pay, the cashier said, “Your order has already been paid.” In my instinctive hard hearted way, my first thought was, “I hope the car behind us isn’t a van filled with people.” But happily my second thought was, “Yeah. I get to pay it forward.” That particular day I was able to get past the hard heart, I took it in, and smiled at the grace.
To Receive News / words that give life
If at times we are the ones who are sent to bring the incisive word of life, there are also times that we have to receive those words from another. It was an important discovery for me, many years ago, that it is often harder to receive than it is to give. When one gives, that person is in charge. To receive is to be vulnerable.
The Ethiopian that day had to get off his chariot and receive what Philip had to give. He made himself vulnerable. He humbled himself. Then he could receive the piercing words of life.
Many are the times in my life that I was challenged to acknowledge that I needed help. Oh, and I resist it when I do. When I let down my guard, however, and the one who is sent is there, I have let someone into my life who has the precious pearl of great price.
It is worth it.
The world of diversity
Maaza fit wonderfully in the vibrant community of Hawai’i. It’s a place with all kinds of people. It’s a place where no one ethnicity is in the majority. It’s like the world we live in – the wider world.
One of the themes of the Book of Acts, is that the Good News of Jesus was taken to the whole wide world. “I’ve got the whole world, in my hands.” My mother used to play Tenessee Ernie Ford singing that song.
It’s a sign of a healthy community when you look out and see all kinds of people: young and old, rich and poor, educated and uneducated, reflecting many cultures, nations, and languages. I would challenge any community that if that’s not what you see, then ask yourself what barriers have you erected to prevent it from happening.
in the midst of life – God breaks in
The Ethiopian that day wasn’t planning on having a baptism. He hadn’t sent out invitations. He hadn’t figured out when his aunts and uncles could be there. He was just living his life, VIP that he was.
Then along came this God thing. It broke into his life. He let it happen and he knew he had been changed. He looked out and found the most ordinary thing – water. In that part of the world it was also one of the basic ingredients for life. It was the desert, the wilderness, and one died without water. Ordinary water. The stuff of life. He said, “I want that.”
Not so Episcopalian
What happened that day wasn’t a particularly Episcopalian sort of thing. I became aware of some of those dynamics after ordination and I was charged with baptizing folks – usually, but not always, infants and children.
This narrative about Philip and the Ethiopian eunuch stood out for me in that context as a challenge to the way my church had always done things.
It helped to persuade me then – and I am persuaded now – that the church must slough off the way we’ve always done things if it is to receive the true words of life that we are offered through the God-event of Easter. We must be ready like the Ethiopian eunuch to get off our chariot of focus on our interests and our ways of doing things. We must be able to let Philip into our lives – whatever he looks like and however he talks – so that the Spirit can speak life-giving words to us.
In that sort of place we will find what John describes for us today – “those who abide in love abide in God and God abides in them.” We will find a place love casts out fear so that those who are sent have the courage to go and those who are called to receive the incisive words of life have the humility to open their ears and hearts. Above all, we will find a place where “those who love God must love their brothers and sisters also.”
For such a place, a gift from above, we give thanks this day.
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