a gospel that moves us

Fifth Sunday in Easter ● April 28, 2024

Pastor Alexis Lillie © 2024

You can view the full worship video recording at:

https://youtu.be/q68smSHo2UI?feature=shared

Scripture Readings: Acts 8:26-40 (New Revised Standard Version)

The reading text is provided at the end of this sermon.

What do we hear or feel when we hear the word "Evangelism"?? I know I certainly have some negative connotations of what this could mean! I think of colonialism and how some of the evangelism I’ve been exposed to can supersede a culture's understanding of the divine and their culture and customs. I think of how this can lead to exclusivism – a view that there is only one “right” religion (Christianity), and only one “right” interpretation of that religion.

Can we detox from some of these connotations? Because our text today is often one that’s held up as an example of evangelism; as an example of the early Christ communities making good on the exhortation to preach the gospel, or the good news, to the ends of the earth. So can we bring  down this ides of evangelism to its simplest form? Can we understand it as sharing the "good news?” And as part of that, we understand that good news doesn't necessarily have to have a Christian or even a religious tenor! I think this helps to take away some of those charged interpretations. I think about how I might “evangelize” for a book I particularly loved, or a new idea I’ve come across – something that has revealed itself as good news to me.

When we look at Philip on the road with the Ethiopian, what is the “good news” being proclaimed? Whatever it is, it’s so good that the Ethiopian wants to be baptized, wants to commit to this new way of being, right away.

What could be so good??! We don't know, precisely. The text doesn't say what, exactly, Phillip is explaining or how he is "evangelizing." We have to read between the lines to discern how this conversation might have progressed.

I can think of a few things that might do it for me, things I would receive as really good news! I think about the good news of church financial sustainability – being less encumbered by the responsibilities of an old building. I think of the good news of personal financial sustainability – feeling less like every time I walk out in NYC I’m balling up a $20 bill and throwing it into the air! I think of the good news of relational struggles and tensions in my life being softened and resolved. I’m sure among all of us, we could come up with quite a robust list of various types of good news.

And yet, I'm not sure this is exactly what is meant by "good news." Certainly, there has to be important real-world implications for any spiritual or religious good news! And, I also don't think that sharing the gospel – or the good news – implies being handed a set of beliefs and then feeling pressured to pass those along ... or else! Or else you're ... not a "good Christian."

Obligation ... pressure ... rigidity ... that doesn't feel like good news at all! And that's not the spirit we get from this text. There's curiosity, and openness, and generosity, and excitement. Let's look a bit more deeply into all of this. What might this good news actually be??

Turning to the characters in the story, much has been said and written and hypothesized about our Ethiopian sibling. Let's have care for them, even as we try to better understand what their experience with good news could mean for their space and time, and even for ours.

The author of the gospel of Luke is likely the same author of Acts (Luke-Acts). The author's pervasive concern throughout their writing is with advocating for those who in some way are on the margins of society. There are a few ways this is at play with the placement of the court official's experience.

As we mentioned briefly, Jesus' early followers are commissioned to take the good news to the ends of the earth! Ethiopia was very much at the "end of the world" in Greco-Roman geographical imagination. So there is something distant and unique and maybe even somewhat marginalized even just in the proximity of these two places in the world.

Turning to the Ethiopian ... we're told this sibling is a eunuch. Now, this could be a title, but many scholars agree it likely indicates castration. So this person was very probably "othered" –marginalized – physically and religiously, while also holding a position of responsibility in the Candace's court.

We can also imagine that they have experienced some kind of other-ing in their religious practice.They are coming from worship at the temple which is interesting, because eunuchs are excluded from full participation in temple worship in ancient Jewish law. Is he possibly some kind of convert? Curious about the religion? Somehow a diaspora Jew?

As we want to honor and uphold the dignity of this character in the story, we can also notice multiple places where this court official may have experienced marginalization and displacement. And given what we know of the author's focus on these sorts of situations, we can imagine these conclusions are exactly what's intended.

At the same time we don’t' want to create additional bigotry by viewing the official as an oddity ... or by gawking at their distinctiveness. On this razor's edge we ask ... what could be the good news that would (to mix metaphors) thread this needle? That would see, celebrate, and include this unfamiliarity while not commodifying or tokenizing it.

Some argue that the good news here is the revision of a religious belief that had been used to keep folks from full inclusion. That the encounter on a road connecting Jerusalem to Gaza is about expanding horizons. The good news for the court official is their inclusion, moving them from someone who isn’t able to experience full participation in Jewish worshipping life, to someone who is centered and seen.

Because of this, this text is sometimes used as to emphasize the inclusion of those often considered outsiders - especially folks in the LGBTQIA community and folks who don't conform to one gender identity or expression. And this is very good news!

However, some womanist and liberationist interpretations shy away from fully embracing this interpretation in its entirety as the good news it claims to be. On the one hand, they offer, the court official is an example of horizons expanded and the marginalized included. But ... on the other hand, in spite of the official's embrace of new teachings, his marginalized status doesn't actually change.

We can extrapolate out to a whole host of places from here, up to and including a present-day Christianity that still colonizes; that still largely portrays Jesus and his followers as white cishetero male; that still has factions remaining complicit in "othering" beloved siblings who represent many of the same things the Ethiopian did.

The court official receives the good news .... but maybe the good news doesn't receive them.

Thus "expanding horizons" to include people, communities, viewpoints, sexualities, experiences that weren't previously included is beautiful and indeed good news, and it is only part of the story. In and of itself it's not (totally) good news.

Expanding horizons necessitates a change, a call to action. A shift in behavior and reality – from the community that is having its horizons expanded. Maybe this is why a forced call to share the "good news" in the traditional sense of evangelism like we explored at the beginning feels disingenuous to many of us.

We want - we need - we deserve - the boots-on-the-ground, concrete-ness of the good news receiving us.

I have an illustration I've shared with some of you that helps me make sense of the need for these two things to work in tandem. In my faith communities of origin, women were (are) not allowed to lead in any sort of real or official capacity, certainly not allowed to be pastors. As I have walked this road to ministry that led to seminary, and ordination, and eventually pastoral ministry, my formational communities have been interestingly, surprisingly supportive. They are engaged and genuinely interested in the work I do and I am blessed by this gift.

And yet, many I know continue to hold the belief that women should not be pastors, should not lead in churches. I have tried to make that make sense, and over the years I have had to let go of my desire to square the circle for them. I can't, it's not my responsibility. It would be my fervent hope that a horizon that expands to encompass the good news of my inclusion in ministry could expand into action that would be good news for even more people.

Action that would mean boundaries broken and prohibitions lifted.

Action that would reveal the good news was more than skin deep.

Good news that I don't just receive ... but also receives me back!

The good news Phillip offers the Ethiopian is clearly expansive and persuasive in its boundary-breaking and prohibition-lifting. And if we listen to the critiques, we can see its potential to fall short of deeply changing the reality in which the Ethiopian lives.

I think this text, for us, is a call to continue doing what we're doing, what I think COTV does well. Letting folks in on the good news that in the kin-dom of the divine our so-called traditional scripts are re-written -- up is down, marginalized is centered, othered is included. This is good news. And we must go further. And so I leave you with opportunities for reflection, expansion, and action:

How can good news that re-writes tradition and expands horizons move through our hearts and into our hands, so to speak?

How are we changed because of the boundary-breaking good news, and how does that have an effect on the world around us in concrete ways?

Acts 8:26-40 (New Revised Standard Version)

Then 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 Philip 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 the eunuch reading the prophet Isaiah. 

Philip asked, 

“Do you understand what you are reading?”

The eunuch 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 the eunuch 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 

proclaimed to the eunuch 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.