St. Paul’s United Methodist Church
Acts 8: 26-40
Marianne Niesen
May 3, 2015
Water in the Desert
The Book of Acts is the second of two volumes written by the evangelist we know as
Luke. Some time in the 80’s, Luke wrote a ‘gospel,’ proclaiming the story of Jesus as good
news for all people and he followed that with the Acts of the Apostles. Where Luke’s gospel
ends, Acts begins. Acts is raw footage of how the scattered and scared disciples of a crucified
criminal pulled themselves together and became courageous proclaimers of the good news, the
gospel. It gives us a glimpse into the challenges faced by the earliest of Christians as they
formed what we call the church.
Today’s text is a case in point. The church was in the beginning stages of getting itself
organized. There were identified leaders in the community, like Peter and John. There were
emerging leaders like Philip and Barabbas. And there were charismatic leaders like Paul. And
there was that pesky ‘Spirit of God’ that kept stirring things up, challenging boundaries and
prompting uncomfortable changes (like new software often does today!) In other words, even
though times have changed, the challenges facing the church are fundamentally similar across
the ages. How do we keep open to the embracing power of love and grace while maintaining
good order, reasonable boundaries, and acceptable rules? How do we organize to facilitate
(rather than try to contain) the movement of the Spirit? That’s been a struggle of the church in
any age.
Back to the story . . . Philip had been appointed to the role of ‘deacon’ in the new
community. It was a new role and one of the ways power was being organized and distributed.
Philip was specifically commissioned, along with six others, to preach, teach and see to it that
works of charity were being fulfilled.1 He was to organize so that the vision of Jesus could erupt
freely, infecting new populations, arousing new enthusiasm. You see the problem, of course . . .
organizing eruptions can be tricky! His mission first took him to Samaria, considered a
suspicious and pagan place for Jews and Jewish Christians. In Samaria, he preached and cured
people of illness. Many were drawn in – and were then baptized - because of his work. That
was a surprise to the apostles. How could so much good come from such a ‘no-good’ place?
Were those conversions real? Peter and John, those apostle bigwigs, traveled to Samaria to check
it out and, sure enough, they saw that the Samaritans were filled with the Spirit. ‘On fire’ with
good works. Erupting with faithful witness. So, Peter and John, put the seal of approval on the
Samaritan believers. That was an important precedent-setting moment in the Christian
movement . . . Organized eruption was working.
It was after that Samaritan adventure that today’s text picks up the story. Listen . . . Acts
8:26 – 40.
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Acts 6: 1-6.
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Biblically speaking, whenever an ‘angel of the Lord’ appears, you can be sure something
big is about to happen. And, sure enough, Philip was sent on the wilderness road from Jerusalem
to Gaza. That road to Gaza led to Egypt, to Gentile country. It was a road for trade, traveled by
many caravans, and many different kinds of people. To be sent to that wilderness road was to be
sent to the edge, to a risky place, to a place erupting with the potential for transformation or
transgression. Philip, the courageous deacon, fresh from Samaria, listened to the Spirit and went
on the road. And it was there that he met someone who is arguably one of the most interesting
characters in the New Testament. The Ethiopian eunuch would have been the epitome of the
‘outsider’ for the early church . . . a Gentile, a foreigner, black, rich, and sexually different.
In my years of pondering this text I came across an ‘aggadah’ on the story. An ‘aggadah,
found in rabbinic literature, is a creative way to help people understand the meaning of a text.
And it does that by imagining how it might have been. But, the rabbis aren’t the only ones who
can write ‘aggadahs’! Ralph Milton, a blogger, tried his hand many years ago at imagining what
life was like for the Ethiopian Philip met that day.
If I had chosen my own name, it would be something that means, "try harder."
Because that's what I've been telling myself, my whole life. "Try harder! Harder!"
I didn't get to choose what I would be. When I was a child, my parents had me
castrated. They weren't being mean. They were trying to guarantee me a place in life –
work in the royal palace where they hired “those kinds” of men to guard the harem.
So I'm grateful to them – and I hate them for it. Because when teen years came
along and my friends found their voices dropping and their parents talking marriage, my
voice stayed high and my parents said, "No, you cannot be married. You are different.”
And my friends snickered at me and taunted me. "Yoooo-nuck! Yoooo-nuck!"
The only thing I knew was to try harder, to be a better scholar, to excel at everything –
more capable, more responsible. I was a model teenager.
And it worked. I went to work as a guard in the harem, as my parents had
arranged, and soon I was chief guard. Before I knew it, I was Chancellor of the Treasury.
But it was never enough. People feared me, but nobody loved me. I seldom got invited to
social functions, but when I did, the men, especially, found me embarrassing. They would
avoid me, if at all possible. Sometimes I caught snippets of conversation like "half a
man," and "he's a freak."
So I tried even harder. I worked all the time. The Queen sent me on diplomatic
missions to Egypt, to the Nabateans, to Damascus. Each place I went, I learned
everything I could, especially about their gods. But there was no god anywhere for half a
man like me. A eunuch.
When the Queen sent me to Jerusalem, I visited the Hebrew Temple, a
magnificent place. I read their scrolls that told me of a god who led a people out of
slavery, a very different kind of god who at times seemed to actually love people. They
have a most unusual prophet, the Hebrew people – a prophet named Isaiah. I bought the
scroll and took it with me. The priest who sold the scrolls had to check with his council to
see if it was legal to sell a Hebrew scroll to a black man. It was, provided the black man
paid three times the going price. I paid. I wanted that scroll.
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This Isaiah seemed to prophesy a ruler, a leader who was a servant, a leader who
earned the right to lead through suffering with the hurting people of the world. A most
unusual prophet. I found my heart warmed as I read his scroll. I too had suffered, far
more than I admitted even to myself. Yes, I was strong and I was powerful, but I was
only half a man.
On my way home, as my carriage bumped along the road, I was reading the scroll.
"Like a sheep he was led to the slaughter, and like a lamb silent before its shearer."
I had to laugh. That was me all right. I was six weeks old when they cut me. You can't
protest when you're six weeks old. I read on. "In his humiliation, justice was denied him."
Is this Isaiah talking about people like me or what?
I looked up and saw a man walking along beside my carriage.
"Do you understand what you are reading?" he asked.
"No," I said. "I haven't the faintest idea what this is about. Do you'?"
"Yes," said the man. So I invited him up into the carriage. His name was Philip.
"Who is this Isaiah talking about?" I asked. "Is he talking about himself? About someone
else? It almost seems as if he is talking about me!"
"May I tell you a story?" Philip asked. Then for an hour or two or three – I have
no idea how long – he talked about a man named Jesus – a prophet from a little jerkwater
town who touched so many of the hurting people – tax collectors, prostitutes, widows,
lepers, foreigners.
"They killed him," said Philip. ''They accused him of sedition. He was crucified.”
“I’m not surprised." I said. I felt sad.
But it was not the end of the story. Not by a long shot. Philip talked about a
resurrected Jesus, a Jesus who is the Messiah – the chosen one this Isaiah was talking
shout – one who came to save the weak and the lost – the people nobody else cared
about.
I asked. "Would Jesus care about me?"
"Of course," said Philip.
"Do you know that I'm a eunuch?"
"I guessed. But why should that make a difference?"
"I'm black. I'm a foreigner. I serve a Queen. And, I’m rich."
"That's all obvious," Philip laughed. "But again, why should that make a
difference. Jesus loves you. He doesn't care about all that other stuff. Jesus loves you."
It took me almost an hour to stop sobbing. I felt as if a huge, heavy load had been
lifted from my shoulders and tossed over onto the roadside. I was a real man, a real man
because I was loved by a real man named Jesus who lived and died and rose again and
danced among his people.
Our carriage was moving past a wadi full of recent winter rains. "There's water
there, Philip. Can I have that thing you called ‘baptism’?"
"Yes," said Philip. "Yes! Yes! Yes!"
Philip held me under that water for an eternity, it seemed. But it was a glorious
eternity, in which my fears and shame dissolved into the water And when he raised me
up, I knew I was new – whole. No longer half a man.
I stood there in the warm, spring sunshine, thanking this new God that I had
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found, this God who sent such a Messiah. And I knew that everything had changed. I was
made new. Yes, it was the same body but I wasn't ashamed anymore, because I knew
God loved this body of mine, loved all of me. Unconditionally. Even if I didn't try harder.
I opened my eyes. "Thank you Philip," I said. But when I looked around, he
wasn't there. I looked down the road in both directions. He was gone.
But it didn't matter. I bounced back onto my carriage. "Hurry! Let's go! I've got
some wonderful news to tell folks back home!'2
There the story ends and yet we know it didn’t really end – because the eunuch went on
his way and, though we never hear about him again, he carried the gospel – the good news - with
him. Presumably he returned to Ethiopia, to the Queen’s court. Presumably, he told them about
his meeting with the man Philip and how Philip told him of the Messiah, Jesus, who loved and
accepted him. Very likely he stayed in service to the Queen, doing the job he knew so well. And
remember - the healing that happened for the Ethiopian was not a physical one . . . he wasn’t
changed into someone who would have been more socially acceptable. His was an inner healing.
A healing of spirit. A new and abiding conviction that he was a beloved son of a God whose
embrace was wider than anyone had ever imagined, a God whose love had poured out fully in
the man Jesus who was the human face of divine love. Very likely, he told them that this
Messiah promised to the Jews came for everyone. Even Egyptians and eunuchs and the rich and
the poor and the outcasts.
And is not that simple message at the heart of what the good news of Jesus is all about?
Jesus meets us on the wilderness roads of our lives, in the desert, in our moments of deep thirst
and endless longing and reminds us that we are - and will always be - part of the family of God.
There is nothing we have to do. There is nothing we have to earn. Baptism for that Ethiopian
was not so much a sacrament of the church . . . the church didn’t even have sacraments or official
rituals or a book of law yet. But, it was a mysteriously wonderful moment nevertheless because,
you see, finding water on a wilderness road would have been nothing short of miraculous. Water
on a desert road was a precious commodity. And so when Philip took that water and touched the
Ethiopian with it, or poured it over him, it was a profound moment of transformation. You, my
Ethiopian friend, are as precious as water in the desert. And it was that message that Jesus lived
and died for. And our job is to spread the word that God’s love and grace are bigger than we
ever thought. Our job is to spread the embrace of love - not proclaim boundaries of exclusion.
That’s why Philip was sent to the desert roads of his time. That’s why we’re a reconciling
congregation, reaffirming that the eruption of grace happens still and is open to all.
May we never tire of looking for water in the desert and celebrating the eruptions of
grace that happen still. May we never tire of proclaiming a gospel that is still good news for
everyone. In fact, it is the best news imaginable: God’s love embraces all! All means all! May
we be instruments of that grace today.
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Ralph Milton, Aggadah on the Ethiopian Eunuch, found in blog, Rumors ©1994, used with
permission. I first saw this Aggadah in Aha preaching magazine in 1994. Milton’s last blog was
April 1, 2010 but, as of today, this can still be found online in the blog archives.
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