Along the Road -- Fifth Sunday of Easter

Acts 8:26-40

April 28, 2024

 

            Ethiopia is one of the oldest civilizations in the world. Modern day Ethiopia is landlocked now, but its ancient boundaries bordered the Red Sea. The Queen of Sheba, who traveled to Israel to test the famed wisdom of King Solomon, was Ethiopian.

In north central Ethiopia in Lalibela, the Emperor Lalibela ordered rock hewn churches to be built when he reigned in around the 12^th century. When you hear the phrase, rock hewn, you might think of rough, rustic structures that are more like openings into caves. At least that’s what I thought. I couldn’t imagine what these churches might look like. These churches, which are a UNESCO World Heritage Site, and a place of pilgrimage for people of faith, are some of the most magnificent structures I’ve seen – and I’m going only from pictures. They are solid rectangular churches of granite that rise up from deep trenches. They were sculpted inside and out with magnificent detail. Even the roofs are sculpted with ornate crosses, which makes sense when you realize that the first sight of these churches comes from above. There is nothing primitive or rustic about these ancient churches. Instead they are a testament to the advanced architectural skills that have existed in Ethiopia for centuries.

            Ethiopia is also known for being one of the first countries in the world to make Christianity its state religion in around 300 ce. While it’s quite likely that with the trade routes between Ethiopia and the lands surrounding ancient Israel, word of this new religion, this Way, would have reached Ethiopia through multiple means, the credit is given to the story from Acts that we have before us this morning.

            Everything about this story of the encounter between this Ethiopian eunuch and Philip is both strange and wonderful. Unlikely is the word that comes to my mind. Philip’s story alone is remarkable. Just a few chapters before this one he and twelve others, including Stephen, were commissioned to feed and care for the widows in the community. That meant they oversaw food distribution. The apostles needed time to pray and spread the word so they laid hands on these twelve so that they would also be empowered by the Spirit to do their own unique work.  But the Spirit is never to be underestimated and it blows where it will. It moved Stephen to speak to the powers and principalities even though it meant his martyrdom by stoning. And Philip? After Stephen was killed, Saul led a severe persecution against all the believers in Jerusalem. So, except for the apostles, all the other believers were scattered. Philip traveled into Samaria. He had not been commissioned to preach or evangelize, but a calling is a calling. He preached to the Samaritans. And his preaching was extraordinary and powerful. The enmity between Israel and Samaria had not lessened since Jesus told the story of the Good Samaritan, but that human animosity could not hinder the Holy Spirit working through Philip as he preached. His preaching expelled unclean spirits from those who were possessed.  Folks who were lame or paralyzed walked again. Philip’s preaching even converted a magician named Simon. Simon was baptized, and although he once performed acts that amazed all those around him, now he was amazed by the miracles and signs that happened through Philip because of the Holy Spirit.

Regardless of what the original intentions were for Philip’s ministry, the Spirit blows where it will. It directed Philip in a completely different way than any of the apostles or Philip could have imagined, and the results were astounding!

If this were another kind of story in another kind of context, we might have heard that Philip was promoted to the next level of leadership. After all, his results in Samaria were incredible, why shouldn’t he move up the ladder of success? But that’s not the story we have before us. Instead of allowing Philip to remain in Samaria and continue his work there, Philip is told by an angel of the Lord – which is another name for the Holy Spirit – to get up and go south.  Take the wilderness road that leads from Jerusalem to Gaza.

The word wilderness in this road’s name is exactly what it implies: a wilderness, desert, little or no life, arid, dangerous, wilderness. One commentator I read pointed out that telling Philip to “go south” was not only a direction but a time. He would have been told to go about noon when the heat of the day was at its most extreme.

Let’s recap. Philip is told to travel the wilderness road, the arid, deserted, possibly dangerous road in the heat of the day. No one should have been traveling on that road at that time of day. No one should have been on that road to encounter, much less to preach or witness to. And if no one was there to preach to, what use would God have for Philip to journey along that road? It was all completely unlikely.

But if Philip questioned this directive, we don’t read about it in our text. He just got up and went. 

As he walked along that unlikely road at such an unlikely time, something else completely unlikely happened. Another traveler came down that dusty, deserted stretch, and an unlikely traveler at that. An Ethiopian eunuch, an official of the court of Queen Candace, indeed the person who oversaw her treasury, was in his chariot leaving Jerusalem for home. The Spirit tells Philip to go over to the chariot. Philip ran to it and when he did he heard the eunuch reading aloud from the prophet Isaiah. Philip asked him if he understood what he was reading, and the eunuch invited him to join him and guide him in the interpretation. 

Philip began with that Isaiah passage and told him, to quote the old hymn, the story of Jesus. When they came to some water, the eunuch was moved to ask for baptism. More specifically he said, “What is to prevent me from being baptized?” 

The chariot was ordered to stop. They got out. Philip baptized the eunuch. When he and the eunuch came out of the water Philip was snatched up by the Spirit and taken away. Apparently the eunuch was not surprised by the unlikeliness of Philip disappearing from the road, because still drenched from the waters of baptism, he went on his way along that road rejoicing. Unlikely as it may have been, Philip found himself in Azotus. From there he went through each town proclaiming the good news.

            What was a court official of a queen doing on that road? What was a man, who on the surface seemed to have no qualifications to preach or evangelize or baptize, doing on that road? What was water doing on that road?! It was a wilderness road, an arid, desert road in the middle of an arid, desert land! But there it was, there when it was needed.

            And this eunuch, who was doubly an outsider – both a foreigner and one who would have been considered to be without gender, who would not have been allowed to be in the temple in Jerusalem – was not only traveling away from Jerusalem where he worshipped the God of Israel, he was also open-minded and open-hearted enough to have a stranger join him in his chariot and interpret scripture for him. Even as a eunuch, this man had greater social status and power than Philip did, but that did not prevent him from listening to Philip and trusting Philip to act in the name of Jesus.

            And Philip who was commissioned to table fellowship and nothing more has followed the Spirit’s call to preach, to witness, to go to unlikely places and unlikely people and tell the story of Jesus. Because of his willingness to go, he meets an unlikely person along that unlikely road and the good news of the gospel is shared, the Word of the Lord is heard and believed, and the world is changed once more. It’s all very unlikely.

Everything about this story, from beginning to end, resounds with the unlikely. None of it should have happened, yet it did. But why do I find the unlikeliness of this story surprising? I shouldn’t be surprised at all. None of us should. The word unlikely should really be the subtitle of scripture. The Holy Bible: An Unlikely Story about Unlikely People Being Called in Unlikely Ways to Bring an Unlikely Message to Unlikely People from God.

Abraham and Sarah, an unlikely couple who were childless and older than dirt, were promised by God that their descendants would number more than the sand on the ground and the stars in the sky. Jacob, their grandson, was a scoundrel, a schemer, a cheater, a liar, completely unlikely. But his name became Israel, and he was the father of a nation, God’s chosen people who would bring God’s blessing to the world. Moses should not have lived to see his first birthday, but the unlikely circumstances of his rescue and the unlikely way he was called by God, began the exodus of God’s people out of Egypt.

Ruth, a Moabite who should have gone back to her own people, stayed with her mother-in-law, Naomi, and married Boaz in the most unlikely of ways. Their unlikely marriage resulted in a grandson named Jesse and in a great-grandson named David. David was an unlikely choice for King, but King he was.

But what was most unlikely was that the Word became flesh, the Divine became human, starting off in life the way we all do – tiny, helpless, and powerless. And when that unlikely baby was born, the first tidings of his birth were announced to an unlikely group of shepherds! That tiny baby grew up to be an itinerant preacher and called together a woeful band of followers who never seemed to get it right; even when their teacher told them exactly what was going to happen. He would die but death would not win. In the early hours of the third day, without witnesses, he would be resurrected, the most unlikely event of all.

The expression says that “God moves in mysterious ways.” I would change the word mysterious to unlikely. God calls unlikely people to do unlikely deeds in unlikely ways. That’s how God’s purposes seem to be worked out – in the unlikely.

Our faith seems to be based on all that is unlikely. It doesn’t follow logic. To some it even sounds a bit nuts. But it seems to me that it is the unlikeliness of it all that makes the good news the Good News, because unlikely in God’s eyes does not equate to unworthy. Unlikely is not the same as unable. God’s purposes for good and for love and for life are worked out through unlikely people in unlikely places and in unlikely ways. That includes those whose call some might question. That includes foreigners and outsiders and Others. That includes all of us. God’s purposes for good and for life and for love are worked out through all of us, unlikely as we may be. And for that I say, thanks be to God.

Let all of God’s children say, “Alleluia!”

Amen.