Faith In Real Life Blog

“See the Eunuch In Yourself”

Rev. Vernon Gramling

Decatur Presbyterian Church

December 8, 2022

 

ISAIAH 58:6–9a

6 Is not this the fast that I choose: to loose the bonds of injustice, to undo the straps of the yoke,to let the oppressed go free, and to break every yoke? 7 Is it not to share your bread with the hungry and bring the homeless poor into your house; when you see the naked, to cover them  and not to hide yourself from your own kin? 8 Then your light shall break forth like the dawn, and your healing shall spring up quickly; your vindicator shall go before you; the glory of the Lord shall be your rear guard. 9 Then you shall call, and the Lord will answer; you shall cry for help, and he will say, “Here I am.”

ACTS 8:26–39

26 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.) 27 So he got up and went. Now there was an Ethiopian eunuch, a court official of the Candace, the queen of the Ethiopians, in charge of her entire treasury. He had come to Jerusalem to worship 28 and was returning home; seated in his chariot, he was reading the prophet Isaiah. 29 Then the Spirit said to Philip, “Go over to this chariot and join it.” 30 So Philip ran up to it and heard him reading the prophet Isaiah. He asked, “Do you understand what you are reading?” 31 He replied, “How can I, unless someone guides me?” And he invited Philip to get in and sit beside him. 32 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. 33 In his humiliation justice was denied him.  Who can describe his generation? For his life is taken away from the earth.” 34 The eunuch asked Philip, “About whom, may I ask you, does the prophet say this, about himself or about someone else?” 35 Then Philip began to speak, and starting with this scripture he proclaimed to him the good news about Jesus. 36 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?” 38 He commanded the chariot to stop, and both of them, Philip and the eunuch, went down into the water, and Philip baptized him. 39 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. 

 

We have been in a four week series on ‘GO TELL’ which also coincides with the four weeks of Advent.  In my mind the two do not go together well.  Advent is a time of waiting and anticipation. The Good News is  a blurry prophecy. It is ill defined and in many cases, is a misdirected expectation of relief.  Hope is surrounded by disappointment.   In contrast, telling the Good News requires experiencing it, finding the words to communicate and the willingness to share what we have been given.  The long expected light is finally clear enough for us to see.  In terms of our church year, telling comes after Christmas.  So, with that bias, I look at these scriptures differently.

The traditional way to look at the Acts passage is to enter the story through Phillip.  Phillip is called to engage a foreigner, interpret scripture and share the Good News.  His spirit inspired boldness leads to the eunuch’s conversion and baptism.  It is an example of the great commission in action (“Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit…” Matthew 28:19-20).  Go and do likewise.  It is a model for us as we engage the world.

I will return to this theme but I want to begin by entering the story through the eyes of the eunuch rather than Phillip.  We know little about this man.  He is almost certainly a Jewish convert.  We know he is a foreigner. We know he has come to Jerusalem to worship.  We know he was a man of some prestige and authority as an officer in the queen’s court. And we know he is searching for meaning—he was reading Hebrew scripture on his own. He readily admits he doesn’t understand what he is reading—but he is embarking on the journey of faith in any case. (Any of us who have been in a bible study group know about that problem).  But, by definition, he is also a broken, mutilated man.  How does anyone find hope when the ordinary aspirations of life—a partner and children—are denied him?  How would he be perceived?  Would the casual observer have any idea what he had been through or what it was like for him? 

These speculations became my jumping off point to reflect upon how often it is that we are carrying uncertainties, fears, doubts and anxieties that the casual observer is clueless about.  There is usually a lot going on under the surface. I asked our FIRL group members to identify a particular personal concern that probably would not be obvious in casual conversation.  The list was varied.  One woman left church Sunday feeling guilty because she had lunch that day with two homeless people.  She felt terrible because she was returning to a warm home with an extra bedroom.  Another was worried about the practical difficulties of a long flight to see family.  Another is waiting for medical clearance in order to drive.  Others have had medical procedures delayed—adding to an already anxious situation. And of course, many are all too well acquainted with grief. As one person said: “That never leaves me.”  

When any of these concerns stay locked in our secret hearts, we isolate ourselves.  We make difficult situations more difficult.  Sometimes we are silent because to speak aloud is to sharpen the pain.  Other times, we don’t want to impose.  Others, because ‘Everybody has their burdens, I don’t need to add mine.”  It doesn’t really matter why we stay silent, the consequence is that we make it much more likely we will remain unseen.  And it is really hard to receive care if we are unseen.  Our natural world has a rather narrow range of people that are seen—the rich, the powerful, the attractive.  It does not include the oppressed, the hungry, those unjustly treated, the recipients of all varieties of prejudice.  The young, the old and women are routinely dismissed, patronized and talked down to.  We have hundreds of ways of not seeing what is in front of us.  And we have hundreds of ways of cloaking ourselves so that we are unseen.  

A pastor once said to me, “It is easy for me to forget that the old were once young.”  She has no corner on that market.  My father (who is 98) was furious this week because the nurse would not tell him if he had Covid when he asked the results of his test.  He had been stereotyped into irrelevance by his age and his residency in a memory care unit.  As an older man, I am embarrassed by my inability, as a younger man,  to tap the experience of my seniors.  I was too busy doing it by myself to utilize the reservoirs of experience of the people around me.  And of course, the reverse is true, older people often are so confident in their own wisdom, they cannot learn from the young. It is frighteningly easy to only see through our own eyes and miss the people in front of us. The mechanism may be different but the outcome is the same. We must be seen to receive love.

Jesus took the Isaiah passage very seriously.  He spent his life seeing people —the widows, children, lepers, the poor, tax collectors and even his enemies—and loving them.  That is the Good News.  If you feel anxious and alone.  If you grieve.  If you are dismissed because of your age or appearance.  If you have been treated unjustly.  The Good News is for you. Find the ways you carry secret pain.  Find the ways you fail to be kind.  Find the ways you discount yourself.  Find the way you feel oppressed by the expectations of others.  In real life, I think most of us are more like the eunuch than we care to admit.  We live more in the predicament of this stranger in a strange land trying to find meaning in his life. That is the reality of advent.  

Let the Good News wash over you.  No wonder the eunuch ‘went on his way rejoicing’.  We all need to  be seen.  We all need our hearts to be known. And we all need to be loved.  One particular dimension of the Good News we discussed in FIRL that I promised to include in this blog are the times we are guilty—when we do not do what we think we should.  That too, needs to be brought into the light.  We did not realize it when we chose the Christian faith journey but we signed up for a life of secular inadequacy and a life of never ending discernment.  Who knew?  By any secular standard, we will never be enough.  And no matter how hard we seek to discern what is good and right, there are always complexities beyond our ability.  We regularly fall short of Godly expectations as well as our own. But the Good News prevails. God does not hold our sins against us.  God sees us.  God knows us.  God loves us.  There is no better news. It is the foundation that allows us to serve.  

None of us can be Phillip until we have found the eunuch in ourselves.  It is required reading in order to receive the Good News.  Then we can rejoice.  Then we can join the chorus of believers.  Then we can tell of the wondrous things God has wrought. 

Let it be so.