Thomas J Parlette
“An Accidental Encounter, or a Divine Appointment?”
Acts 8:26-40
5/2/21
If you can remember back to the days when you read plays in high school English class, you’ll recall that every play begins with a list of the cast of characters, usually in order of appearance. If you were reading a classic play, like Shakespeare, it may have said “Dramatis Personae.” If we were to do that for this morning’s scripture passage from Acts, we would list four characters – Angel of the Lord, Phillip, the Ethiopian Eunuch and the Holy Spirit. They all play a role in today’s story.
It all begins with an angelic visit, a vision perhaps, that sends Phillip to a remote stretch of road south of Jerusalem that leads to Gaza.
There he meets our next character, the Ethiopian Eunuch. We don’t have much in the way of specific details, but we do have some things to build on. He was a eunuch, of course. He is from Ethiopia. He is in the Gaza strip. He was at least a “God-fearer,” as those who were not full-fledged Jews, but still worshipped Yahweh were called. And we know he had come to worship in the Jerusalem Temple, and was on his way home. We also know he held a pretty powerful and important position – he was “a court official of the Candace, queen of the Ethiopians, in charge of her entire treasury.”
This important detail gives us a window into what this Ethiopian eunuch life must have been like. He was an outsider working in the royal court. We’ve all seen enough of shows like Downton Abbey and The Crown to know that life in these aristocratic settings can be filled with intrigue, treachery, gossiping and scheming.
Walter Brueggemann notes that it is not an overreach to conclude that “this eunuch lived in a world of fear, innuendo, competition and gossip, a collage of rivals always at the edge of violence, with no reliable support beyond the cleverness of his work. The life of a Jewish eunuch in a royal court was quite dispensable. He longed for a better life – a life free of fear.”(1)
When we meet the Ethiopian eunuch he is riding along in his chariot, a symbol of his status. He is reading aloud, as was the custom in that day, from a scroll he had probably purchased in Jerusalem. So we know he is also an educated man. The words are from Isiah 53, one of the suffering servant passages. He could read the words just fine – but he didn’t understand what it meant:
“Like a sheep, he was led to the slaughter
And like a lamb is silent before the shearer
So he does not open his mouth.
In his humiliation justice was denied him…
His life is taken away.”
Considering his station in life, he could understand that feeling. He knew that life was cheap. He knew about justice denied. He lived with it every day. But who was Isaiah talking about?
As Brueggemann says, this eunuch “read and lived in hope for a world other than the world of demand and intimidation and risk in which he lived.”(2)
And then this seemingly accidental encounter turns into a divine appointment. Phillip steps onto the stage and hops into the chariot.
“Do you understand what you are reading?”
“No – not at all. Explain it to me.”
We don’t know exactly what Phillip told him – but you’ve gotta figure he hit the high points. He told him about the miracles and the healings. He told him about God – who so loved the world. He told him that Jesus had just one rule – Love. Love God and love others. He told him that those in power were threatened by his teaching about this kind of Kingdom, one built on love instead of power. And for that – Jesus died. But ultimately God won – because Jesus was raised from the dead and sits at the right hand of God. In the end – love triumphs.
Ah, this is the hope that the eunuch is yearning for. He thinks to himself – I want to live in that world!
So he asks, “What is to stop me from being baptized?”- assuming that since he was a eunuch, perhaps he couldn’t be a full-fledged follower of Jesus. For in Deuteronomy it says that “no one who is sexually mutilated shall be admitted to the assembly of the Lord.” Having just been to the Temple in Jerusalem, and having been denied admittance, he knew this full well. But in chapter 56, Isaiah promises that “eunuchs who keep my Sabbaths will be welcome in the house of God and will receive a name better than sons and daughters.” So which is it. The Eunuch needed to hear from Phillip – can I be baptized or not?
And Phillip answers “Certainly, let’s do it.”
And the eunuch is baptized.
And then we meet the fourth and final character in our drama – the Spirit of the Lord steps in and snatches Phillip away, and the eunuch gets back in his chariot, filled with hope and joy upon his inclusion in the Kingdom of God. He need not live his life in fear anymore, for He is a child of God.
Tom Long points out that part of the reason the eunuch asks the questions he does is because he is wondering if this word from Isaiah is a word from God for him personally or not. Am I included, he wonders, or is this word for someone else(3)
Most of us approach the Bible with that same question. Is this a word for me, for us, for our day and our time – or is it just for the people “back then.”
When we consider the passage from Isaiah that the eunuch was reading, it’s not hard to see modern connection to people who have been silenced in the presence of the powerful. Humiliation is something we see too much of. Justice denied – it still happens all too often. Life taken away – we seem to see it every week. It’s not hard to empathize with the eunuch’s sense of fear. So yes – this is a word for us, in our day and in our time.
In his 2014 book Pay Any Price, James Risen considers the role of fear in our world. He writes:
“A decade of fear-mongering has brought power and wealth to those who have been the most skillful at hyping the terrorist threat. Fear sells. Fear has convinced the White House and Congress to pour hundreds of billions of dollars – more money than anyone knows what to do with – into counter-terrorism and home land security programs, often with little management or oversight, and often to the detriment of the Americans they are supposed to protect. Fear is hard to question. It is central to the financial well-being of countless federal bureaucrats, contractors, sub-contractors, consultants, analysts and pundits. Fear generates funds… Meanwhile counterterrorism experts, many with lucrative government contracts or consulting deals with television news networks – in short, with an incentive to generate public fear and foreboding – had joined forces with zealous anti-immigration advocates to warn that the Canadian border was a dangerously unsecured back door.”
And then Risen adds: “They have built a cottage industry out of fear.”(4)
The threats may change, but fear still sells. Fear still raises funding.
Walter Brueggemann reminds us that “We are all seduced to dwell, along with the eunuch, in that cottage of fear… Fear makes us selfish and self-preoccupied. Fear makes us do crazy destructive things. Fear turns neighbors into competitors and threats and enemies.”(5)
Fear drives us to focus on building walls and cutting ourselves off from the world. Fear drives us to close our eyes and turn our backs on the suffering and injustice all around us.
Well, the eunuch had had enough of that world. He wanted to live in the kind of world that Phillip described; a world filled with the kind of love that John talked about in our passage from 1st John today – the perfect love that casts out fear.
In his baptism, the Ethiopian eunuch was freed from his life of fear and welcomed into a life of love. He is no longer an outcast – he is now a child of God.
And so are we.
All through the Book of Acts, we see the circle of God’s love getting bigger and bigger. The Good News of God’s love, forgiveness and mercy extends beyond Jerusalem, beyond Judaism itself, and spread throughout the world, reaching the Gentile world as well as those who have been exiled and outcast.
This accidental encounter turns into a divine appointment to demonstrate to us the wideness of God’s mercy, then and now.
So let us gather at the table today my friends and celebrate the perfect love that casts our fear and gives us a seat at the banquet of God’s love and mercy.
May God be praised. Amen.
1. Walter Brueggemann, “Diving In and Casting Out”, The Collected Sermons of Walter Brueggemann, Volume 3, Westminster John Know Press, 2020, p139.
2. Ibid… p139.
3. Thomas Long, Feasting on the Word, Westminster John Knox Press, 2008, p456.
4. Brueggemann… p141.
5. Ibid… p141.
