Readings: Psalm 22:25-31, 1 John 4:7-21, John 15:1-8, Acts 8:26-40
Preached at Bridgehampton Presbyterian Church, NY, April 28, 2024
Who is the gospel for? Is it for me? Is it for you? Is it just for Christians? Or is it for everybody? And if it is for everybody, how inclusive is our idea of everybody? Does it include people who are different from us, strangers to us, maybe even ‘curious’ to us?
Such are some of the questions that our reading from the book of Acts raises for us, as it chronicles a Holy Spirit initiated meeting between the disciple Philip and an Ethiopian dignitary who is returning home from Jerusalem. However before digging deeper into the story, I want to tell you about Carmarthen, a small Welsh market town.
Most times I ever visited Carmarthen it rained. It was usually a gray day. Not that Carmarthen doesn’t have its sights worth seeing. When the sun shines it certainly does. But on a gray day, its streets of gray buildings bustle to and fro with graying older ladies in gray anoraks and farmers in muddy boots, overcoats that have seen better days and large brimmed hats or sturdy black umbrellas. Sort of like television before color was invented.
One of the first times I visited Carmarthen was whilst I was a student in seminary, and I responded to an invitation to attend a Missions conference organized by the Council for World Mission that was held on the campus of Carmarthen’s educational college. Also in attendance were some visiting missionaries, including from Africa a gentleman by the name of Samuel Ateimo.
Samuel and I became buddies over the weekend and on a rainy, rather windy, and certainly gray afternoon had some free time to wander into town. Samuel was interested in visiting the market. So off we went.
I, in my dark clothes, and coat buttoned up and hood to keep the rain off. Samuel, in a brilliant white suit, a dark shirt, a bright yellow tie, carrying a brilliantly colored umbrella, his dark ebony skin emphasizing an enormous Cheshire cat smile and saucer like brown eyes.
Suffice to say, people noticed Samuel. There was soon a little trail of children following us. Little old ladies faces broke into smiles when he said in response to their stares, “Hello and how are you today.” Farmers raised the hats or pulled their pipes out of their mouths for an extra puff of smoke.
The teenage girls working the market stalls giggled and nudged each other and pointed. Even the sun came out for a while from behind the clouds as though the sun wanted to see what was going on in usually gray Carmarthen.
Our story from Acts gave us this account of the African, a servant of the Queen of Ethiopia, traveling in a fine chariot, returning from Jerusalem. I would imagine that he had attracted his fair share of smiles, double takes and whispers, rather like Samuel Ateimo experienced the day he wandered into Carmarthen market.
It didn’t take a brain the size of a planet to figure out, “Buddy, You ain’t from round here, are you?” Phillip could have mingled with the Jerusalem crowd, not so the Ethiopian.
He was different, curious even. Compared to Phillip not only would he look different and dress differently, not only was he of a different race and culture, he was also in a different social class. This guy was about as close to royalty as you could get without actually being royalty.
Whether he was a Jew or Gentile, we do not know. There is an ancient tradition that speaks of African Jews as a lost tribe of Israel. We know also that, as the Queen of Sheba honored Solomon with her presence. It was not unknown for a leader of a different nation to pay homage to another nations Deity.
One thing we do know for sure about him. That despite his social status and beliefs, he was returning from Jerusalem, traveling through the wilderness, with a great deal of confusion in his mind. Going to worship had not satisfied his seeker instincts, and he is struggling to understand a passage from the book of Isaiah as he travels along the road that leads home.
Sometimes coming to worship God can get us like that. Sometimes the experience leaves us with more questions than answers. Sometimes it doesn’t all fall neatly into place, even though we’ve been in the place where everything is supposed to fall into place. You’re driving home from church, “Now what was that preacher getting at, I just don’t get it!” We get our bibles out and read and pray and ponder and still we don’t get it! And that can be very frustrating!
Am I the only one who has ever been in the situation of praying along the lines of, “Lord, I believe in You, even though I’m not so sure what I really believe. I know that You are there for me, but I just can’t quite piece together, why or how or when. I know Your Word is true, I just truly don’t know what it means for me right now!”? Some days I can wholly identify with the person in the scriptures who prays, “Lord, I believe. Help thou my unbelief.”
And that’s the situation of this Ethiopian Official. He’s returning from a place where he stuck out like a pork chop at a Bar Mitzvah. He can’t get his head round the Scriptures. He’s in the wilderness. And I’m guessing that He believes enough about God to have asked for God’s help.
Meanwhile, Phillip is having one of those curious encounters with God that can come to us. Ever had that experience where you just get a feeling that you really should call so-and so, or you should buy that card in Hallmark, even though you can’t think of who on earth it applied to right then, or that you should maybe drop in to see such and such a person and you really don’t know why?
That’s the way the Holy Spirit works in our lives on occasions. And on this occasion things are really specific. Philip gets a message, some translations say it was through an angel, others simply use the word ‘messenger’, however the notion comes, he feels he just has to get up and start heading south on the road that goes from Jerusalem to Gaza.
Phillip’s having an “In tune with God” day. He acts on the notion. I wish I could say that we were always as in tune with God and available to God as that, but I don’t think we are. We tend to rationalize, to want to know what the second and third steps are, before we are prepared to take the first ones. We don’t like taking risks that have the possibility of making us look foolish.
What if Phillip had met the apostle Peter coming the other way? ‘Hey, Philip, where you headed?” “Well, Peter, I’m actually headed South.” “You got an appointment or something?” “No, Peter, not exactly, just you know, out jogging, Got to watch that cholesterol!’ “O.K. Phillip, whatever you say, catch you later, may be!?” And Peter goes on his way thinking, “That Phillip, now he’s out there somewhere!”
Faith. Acting upon what we perceive the Holy Spirit may be leading us to do, can be risky. In this instance though, it pays off. There would be no story to tell if Phillip hadn’t acted in the way he felt God was leading him.
That’s not to say we should go through our lives waiting around for a voice or an angel before we get out of bed and start the day. If faith were dependent on angels and voices, Christianity wouldn’t have survived the centuries. Central to this passage is not only the work of God’s guiding Holy Spirit, but also the study of the Scriptures on the part of the Ethiopian Official. It’s not an either/or situation.
Church history shows how an over-emphasis on the Spirit can lead to all kinds of excesses that could be avoided by an intellectual grasp of the Scriptures, but at the same time, if faith becomes purely an academic pursuit that leaves no room for the fire to burn in our hearts or the unexpectedness of resurrections to take place then it can be equally unpalatable.
The Scriptures, the prayers of the Ethiopian, the guidance of the Holy Spirit, the obedience of Phillip:- it all works together in this passage. The conclusion is that Phillip leads the Ethiopian out of the wilderness to a step of commitment, and the Ethiopian is baptized in water, and he goes on his way, a much more assured and committed person, and who knows how his faith influenced others or what became of him. The Scriptures don’t tell us.
We are told that after Phillip’s encounter with the Ethiopian is over, he finds himself in a place called Azotus, and he continues proclaiming the Good News in the way he felt called to do. The language of the passage suggests that the Holy Spirit whisks him away to a new episode, rather like that Sci-Fi program “Quantum Leap” (If any of you remember that one).
All of which goes to underline what I was saying earlier about our faith, sometimes we just can’t understand how or why things work out. They just do! That person we called was just thinking of calling us. That Hallmark card suddenly had a purpose. That visit we made encountered a situation that we weren’t aware of, and we were glad to have been around. ‘God moves in mysterious ways.’
And Samuel Ateimo who I mentioned earlier? He went back to Kenya and God kept guiding his life as God has kept guiding mine over the years.
In 2003 (many years after I had wandered around Carmarthen market) I volunteered as a small group leader for the Montreat Youth Conference that is held every year in North Carolina. I’m sitting in the training session and I see this guy who looked familiar sitting across the room. Somebody mentions he is from Kenya. I’m about to say; “I knew this guy from Kenya” and I look at his nametag. Go figure. It was Samuel Ateimo! No longer in a brilliant white suit, but still with a smile as broad as a Cheshire cat.
We spent some catching up and sharing the unlikely stories of how we had ended up once again in the same place as each other and how we were still on a mission from God. I have never seen him again since that week. We never did get around to exchanging addresses or phone numbers... because sometimes that’s just not what’s on your mind.
The Kingdom of God surely does set us up for some unusual encounters. We meet the most wonderful people and share in the most unexpected of adventures. And anybody and everybody is invited by Jesus to discover that for themselves. He had all of us in mind when He said “Come and Follow Me.”
Which brings me back to the question I started out with. Who is the gospel for?
It’s for us to be faithful to.
It’s for others to discover.
It’s for the curious. And the stranger.
All those that are near and far off.
Everybody whom the Lord calls to Himself.
It’s for you and it’s for me, and it’s for us and for them.
“Go into all the world” said Jesus “And preach the gospel to all creation.”
To God be the Glory. Amen.
The Reverend Adrian J Pratt B.D.
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