Fifth Sunday of Easter
May 10, 2009
The First Reading: Acts 8:26-40
Sermon: "St. Philip"
The Rev. Dr. Vicki L. Smith, Rector
The First Lesson: 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.) 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 and was returning home; seated in his chariot, he was reading the prophet Isaiah. Then the Spirit said to Philip, "Go over to this chariot and join it." So Philip ran up to it and heard him reading the prophet Isaiah. He asked, "Do you understand what you are reading?" He replied, "How can I, unless someone guides me?" And he invited Philip to get in and sit beside him. 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.
- In his humiliation justice was denied him.
- Who can describe his generation?
- For his life is taken away from the earth."
The eunuch asked Philip, "About whom, may I ask you, does the prophet say this, about himself or about someone else?" Then Philip began to speak, and starting with this scripture, he proclaimed to him the good news about Jesus. 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?" He commanded the chariot to stop, and both of them, Philip and the eunuch, went down into the water, and Philip baptized him. 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. 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.
Acts 8:26-40
St. Philip May 10, 2009
Throughout the Easter season, we are privileged to read from the Book of Acts, which is all about the church becoming much more than its initial members expected. Christ gave his disciples the commission to proclaim the good news to the whole world and that took them into situations and places they never dreamed of. It took Paul to Ephesus and Rome; it took John to Cyprus and Peter to Athens; and it took Philip to a wilderness road between Jerusalem and Gaza.
Philip, whose story we just read, heard God call him to step out of his comfort zone and embark on a journey. On that journey, he was presented with an opportunity to proclaim the good news of the savior and at the urging of the Holy Spirit, Philip stepped forward. He began a conversation with an Ethiopian Eunuch. Though we are never given his name, we know that this person was not your usual Jewish man—he wasn’t Jewish, to begin with. He was necessarily impotent, which made him unclean and he was a foreigner. He didn’t look, act or believe as Philip did. Yet, Philip set aside his discomfort and fear and he talked to the man. And because he did, the Ethiopian came to know Jesus and began his own faith journey, and the church grew a little more that day.
We, as Jesus’ present day disciples, as individuals and as St Thomas Church, have a great deal to learn from the book of Acts, and especially from Philip. The church, our church, can become more than we ever expected. When we come into St. Thomas, we expect and we find a fairly small church with lots of long term members that cares for one another and does good work in the community. This is a good place that serves God well.
But just as God asked more of the early church, so God asks more of us. I think that God calls us, as individuals and as a parish, step out of our comfort zones, as Philip did, so that the church can become more than we ever expected. When Philip responded to the Spirit and stepped out of his comfort zone he was immediately given an opportunity to live out his faith—to live out and proclaim Christ’s love and salvation. We certainly witness to the love of Christ and our salvation with each other—we do that well. But perhaps Christ expects more of us, perhaps he expects us to follow Philip and reach out to those who are not quite so like us, to those who don’t already know us and our church.
I know that can be scary. We are naturally afraid of people that we don’t already know and the 24 hour news cycle has only made that worse. We are wary of people who are different from us. We are also afraid that if we reach out to people we don’t know, we’ll be laughed at or rejected. We’re afraid of being taken advantage of, feeling foolish or being uncomfortable. I’m sure that Philip has all those fears and then some.
But Philip knew the teaching from the First Letter of John, the teaching that we were reminded of this morning: Beloved, let us love one another, because love is from God—and a little later one: God’s love is perfected in us and perfect love casts out fear. The great preacher William Sloan Coffin once said: The opposite of love is not hate; the opposite of love is fear.
It is natural for us to be fearful of those we don’t know, but for the love of Christ and love of all his children, Philips set aside his fear and reached out to the Ethiopian Eunuch. Perfect love casts out fear.
Notice that the Ethiopian said, when asked if he understood what he was reading, “How can I unless someone guides me?” How can I unless someone guides me?
How can anyone know and understand the gospel unless those of us who believe it are willing to guide them. How can I unless someone guides me? That’s what all the unchurched people in Reidsville are saying to us right now. How can they know the love of God and the value of Christian community unless someone shares it with them?
If we love them, with the love Christ first gives us, then we need to reach out to them. They need us, just as the Ethiopian Eunuch needed Philip. Our community needs us to live out our faith—to seek out those who are searching, to develop relationships with those around us, to live out with our actions what we proclaim with our words. As was the case with Philip, those the Spirit sends us to probably won’t be just like us. They may be of different races or speak different languages; they may be of a different economic class or have a different level of education, they may be interested in different sports and eat different foods—who knows? But I can assure you that they need us. As with Philip and the Ethiopian, it is our task to share with them God’s love and the good news of Jesus Christ.
And if we embrace that task, we will fulfill Christ’s commandment to be his disciples and bear much fruit.
Perhaps, for the foreseeable future, we need to hold Philip up as our example. Let us ask the Spirit to empower us to do as he did-- step out of our comfort zones and into our city, reaching out and bringing in those who may be as different from us as the Ethiopian was from Philip. With the power of the Spirit, we as individuals and as a church can be much more than we ever expected. We can be Christ’s disciples, love one another and bear much fruit in his name.