Sermon

Philip and E.E.

May 10, 2015
John 15:1-8; Acts 8:26-40
Speaker:

Reading this text over and over this week brings back a vague childhood memory of this story from Acts. It was in my bible story book: the picture was of an exotic, dark skinned, half naked, bald man sitting in a chariot reading. Maybe the lesson was how important it is to share your faith with people who are different from you. Commentators do say that this is a story about the beginning of the church, being spread from Jerusalem to the far parts of the world.

But let’s dig deeper than the picture bible.

Let’s start with Philip, not to be confused with the original disciple Philip (usually in the list near Bartholomew.) This is another Philip who comes along later; he is one of the seven who is appointed to feed the Greek widows since they were being ignored by the Jews of Hebrew origin.

A character who doesn’t make the story today – but is mentioned before and after the Philip tales – is Saul. In chapter 7 we have Stephen preaching a long, historical sermon that really upsets people. In their anger they drag him out to the edge of town and the witnesses laid their coats at the feet of a young man named Saul A few verse laters we read And Saul approved of their killing him (Stephen). Chapter 9 (after the Philip story) we read Meanwhile Saul, still breathing threats and murder against the disciples of Jesus So it could be that these Philip stories (there is another before our story today) are just a little detour to the more important telling of the Saul story. But what an interesting and instructive detour.

Then of course there is the Ethiopian who has traveled a long distance to go to the Jerusalem temple to worship. We are told that he is a eunuch; he will never be a father. In fact, this story is better known as the story of the Ethiopian Eunuch than as a story of Philip.

This man is a court official of the Candace; he is in charge of the entire treasury! In addition, he is a very determined convert, traveling all the way from Ethiopia to Jerusalem. This is a trek that is as long and harrowing as the magi would have taken to see the baby Jesus, though coming from a different direction.

Even more amazing is that this man is so clever that he somehow gets a copy of the Isaiah scroll; there can’t have been that many of them. They certainly were not sold in the local independent book store. Here is an unusual person of purpose and grit, yet we do not know his name.

It is clear that his country of origin, as well as his lack of reproductive capabilities, make him an outsider. In some ways he is just here as a prop in the story; he could be any person of foreign origin that comes to believe and takes the Jesus story to a far off land. Still, today we care about racism and heterosexism. We would never (I hope) call someone “the African gay” as if that is their name, two adjectives being the totality of a person. Yet this man is always called “the Ethiopian Eunuch.”

Can we do a little reparative work and give him the dignity of a name? It is not all that creative and I hope it is not offensive, but let’s call him E.E. If E.E. was good enough for poet ee cummings I hope it will suffice for now, though let’s give this E.E. capital letters and periods.

So, back to the story. E.E. makes his pilgrimage from Ethiopia to the temple in Jerusalem. This takes months and months, across deserts and mountains, through difficult territory. But there is a problem, a fairly big problem. Tradition has it that eunuchs are not ritually pure; they are “ritually challenged” – as I learned in the Allegheny Conference bible study on Leviticus the other week. E.E. has chosen the Jewish people to be his people. He has come all the way from Ethiopia to worship at the temple. The text doesn’t say it explicitly but you can’t help wondering if he is turned away upon arrival. Despite his choosing the Jewish people, it is doubtful that they choose him.

So back onto the road he goes toward the coast. The text tells us, as an aside, that this is a wilderness or desert road but commentators say this was not a wilderness or desert road; it was a fairly well traveled road. “Wilderness” here is code for something else; it is the liminal space where God is met – like when Jesus was in the wilderness after his own baptism. E.E. happens to be on this “wilderness” road when Philip receives a message from the Spirit that he should go out to the road.

Philip, a dynamic and faithful follower of Jesus, is attuned to the Spirit. Though he does not know the purpose, he goes out to the road, and there he sees E.E. sitting in his chariot, reading. The Spirit speaks again to Philip, “Go over to the chariot and talk to him.” Obediently, Philip goes to the chariot and hears E.E. reading aloud from the prophet Isaiah. This can’t be a coincidence; Isaiah is the only place in the Hebrew scriptures where E.E. can read about himself in a positive light. In what we know as chapter 56 Isaiah writes:

Isaiah 56: 3-5

3 Foreigners who would follow YHWH should not say,
‘YHWH will surely exclude me from this people’;
and do not let the eunuch say,
‘I am a dried up tree.’
4 For thus says YHWH:
To the eunuchs who keep my sabbaths,
who choose that which pleases me
and hold fast my covenant,
5 to them I will create within my Temple and its walls
a memorial and a name
better than that of sons and daughters;
I will give them an everlasting name
that shall not be cut off.

If E.E. had heard about or read this passage previously, no wonder he imagined that he would be allowed into the temple. Now he is confused as he reads this from Isaiah 53:

          You are like a sheep being led to slaughter,
                   you are like a lamb that is mute in front of its shearers;
                   like them, you never open your mouth.
          You have been humiliated and have no one to defend you.
                   Who will ever talk about your descendants
                   since your life on earth has been cut short? 

Thankfully, Philip appears at the right time asking if E.E. needs help understanding what he is reading. And in fact E.E. does have a question. “Please, get in the chariot and let’s ride.” And after a while E.E. says, “Tell me, who is the prophet writing about, himself or someone else?” E.E. may also have an unspoken question. “Could this be about me?”  He has been humiliated as it says, with no one to defend him from castration. No one will ever talk about his descendants, he will never have any. It is as if his life has been cut short.

So as they go down the road toward Gaza, Philip tells E.E. all about Jesus, his life, death, and resurrection and new ways of understanding the ancient texts. Perhaps they even read Isaiah 56 where the faithful eunuchs are given an everlasting name that will not be cut off.

E.E. takes it all in with wonder and excitement. As they approach some water E.E. has a brilliant idea. If the religious leaders will not have him in Jerusalem, why not join with the devoted out in the “wilderness” who are teaching a new way? “What is to prevent me from being baptized?”

What indeed? E.E. stops the chariot; he and Philip both get out and plunge into the waters of baptism. As they walk out of the water Philip disappears, snatched up and taken away by the Spirit, never to be seen by E.E. again. E.E. is not troubled by this; with new joy, he continues on his way.

For his part, Philip finds himself at the coastal town of Azotus, some 25 miles north of Gaza. From there he makes his way north another 50 miles to Caesarea, preaching the good news of Jesus all the way. (We have only one other mention of Philip, in Acts 21. He has settled in Caesarea and is called Philip the Evangelist; he has four unmarried daughters with the gift of prophecy.)

What an interesting and exciting illustration of the Jesus story and the church being spread far and wide, even to unlikely people. It wasn’t enough that people from all over the world gathered in Jerusalem for Pentecost and heard a mighty wind. That wind is now so powerful it can blow one servant of God out of the picture while another continues on his way.

As fantastical as it is, this story is important for us to ponder. I started out by calling E.E. “the Ethiopian.” I did this out of politeness so as not to speak of the childhood tragedy he endured at the hands of the powerful when they crushed his reproductive possibilities. But the two named personal qualities are intertwined; being Ethiopian and a eunuch are both important to who E.E. is and his place in this story.

E.E. can help us begin to understand intersectionality. Intersectionality is a term that was coined in 1989 by Kimberle Crenshaw, an African American feminist who named that being black and feminist is different than being a middle class white feminist. Crenshaw taught that the intersection of multiple forms of oppression reinforce each other to create a whole other kind of discrimination.

As an Ethiopian, E.E. is certainly different from the Jews. He thought he could become one of them and then he learned. And as a eunuch he is a pawn in another oppressive system of power. When he meets Philip, we see E.E. find joy and a new understanding of himself.

The story is not so simple for those who live under multiple systems of oppression in this country. Baltimore, Ferguson, Cleveland. Just as “wilderness” is a code word for where we meet God, calling out the names of these cities is code for where police violence has caused people to respond to the oppression they have been living with for generations. We hear it said that what we need are police body cameras or more money for housing, or more money for education. These may help.

And I wonder what it would be like to be available, as Philip was, for an invitation to sit and talk with the people who live under multiple systems of oppression. What would it be like to make ourselves available to listen to the pain, the anger, the stories, the questions. What would it mean to walk with those who carry oppression in their bodies alongside the search for meaning and freedom.

I am under no illusion that making ourselves available to the Spirit would bring immediate joy and happiness to those living under oppression today, as seems to happen for E.E. and Philip. In fact, we don’t know what happens to E.E. when he returns to Ethiopia, if he returns. And he never sees Philip again.

Multiple systems of oppression are powerful and entrenched, in this country and in the world. Yet as followers of Jesus, we are part of a long line of people who live as if change is possible. We believe that “the arc of the moral universe is long and bends toward justice.” Stepping into the unknown, on the “wilderness road,” is a risk – and the beginning of impossible things happening right in front of our eyes. God give us the courage to listen and act.