“Ethiopian Eunuch Baptized” Acts 8:26-39

 Have you ever had an experience where you felt a nudge, or maybe even a firm push to do something? How did you respond? And how did you figure out of that push/ nudge was from God or not?

Philip is one of the folks who was selected along with Stephen to serve as a deacon as an early church - one of those people trusted with the task of distributing food fairly to all of the widows. Now we know that those were respected people full of the Spirit’s power and wisdom. But in this particular part of the book of Acts, Philip isn’t fulfilling the role of food distributor but he still shows a keen sense of discernment. 

Luke writes that the angel of the Lord said to Philip “Go towards the South on this particular road.” Philip must of intuited that the angel meant now - because he didn’t ask any questions - he simply got up and went. He didn’t know why he was going - the angel didn’t give that detail. He didn’t know where he was going beyond the directions given. He simply went.

Whenever I think about Philip having this encounter, I am struck by his faith. A few months ago I was journaling during Advent about Mary’s encounter with the Angel Gabriel. We tend to downplay Mary’s yes - thinking well an angel showed up, of course she is going to do whatever he says. But Mary says “yes” to this journey that is ultimately into the unknown - no one else has come to have a child the same way she will. No one else has given birth to the Savior of the world - there isn’t a book for this sort of thing. She has no map, no guide, just step by step she goes forward. There is so much power in her words “Let it be” when you take it within this context. And as I was journaling I found myself praying about whether I would be willing to say this sort of “yes”.

Because truth be told, I want that book. That map. I want to know the plan. Not just follow one simply command like Philip did or say “yes” like Mary did, even with all of the unknowns. 

For those of you with children or grandchildren, you probably have had the opportunity to watch Disney’s Frozen 2, perhaps many, many times. There is a song that Queen Elsa sings in that move called Into the Unknown, where she says after she hears this voice calling her beyond the castle walls. “What do you want? 'Cause you've been keeping me awake. Are you here to distract me so I make a big mistake?” That is a lot more like me, friends, someone who sometimes doubts the call to go and overthinks it in the midst of all of those details.

But Philip, thankfully did go, and because of his faithfulness he had the opportunity to encounter this unnamed eunuch along the road. Eunuchs were men who had been castrated, mostly so they can serve in a position close to royalty. Which is true of this man, because he is the chief financial minister to Candace, queen of the Ethiopians. He is in an important position of power and if that wasn’t hint enough, the chariot he was riding in would have given that away.

Now, in this particular position, there is next to no way that he was Jewish. Yet, there is something about the Jewish culture that speaks to him, because he is returning from worship in Jerusalem. And there is something about the Jewish text that has captured his heart, because he finds himself reading a scroll with Isaiah 53 written on it in that chariot.

Scripture has this ability to just speak to our hearts sometimes. That’s one of the reasons we refer to it as the living Word of God, because some days it can just hit us at the right place and right time in our lives that it leaves a lasting impact. But there are other times, when Scripture is confusing, friends. When you can read the same thing over and over and over again, and you can’t quite grasp what it is trying to say. The eunuch wants one of those soul quenching experiences, but right now he is having one of those puzzling experiences.

Enter Philip. Philip who has been faithful to respond to the call of God. Philip who again feels a nudge to go up to this complete stranger and ask if this man understands what he is reading. And once again, Philip is faithful. 

Through is faithful response, Philip is able to lead the eunuch through this amazing story. Like Stephen before him, he weaves together the story of Jewish history and unite it with the teachings of the prophets to one connected story that tells of the Messiah. The one who has come to set the people free - Jesus Christ. But what is most exciting about this story, its not just for the Jewish people. Its for the eunuch as well. And he is so moved that he asks to be baptized. Being one of the first people in the book of Acts who shows that the Good News of Jesus - it goes far and wide to change lives. 

This story of Jesus is open to everyone to hear and everyone to respond to. And the eunuch’s response that day was let me be baptized! Let me be part of this Good News myself. Let my life be changed as well. 

Philip has this spiritual ear that was attuned inside of him to hearing the will of God and responding with a “yes.” The word we use for that is discernment. To sort out which of those nudges I feel are from God and which are from me or other people. Philip clearly knew. He had been so practiced at discernment, at listening for God, that he just knew.

It can be like that for us as well today. The more we practice discernment, the more we listen for those nudges and work out what is from God and what isn’t - the easier it can become. I know one of the ways that I can be nudged is to have someone come to my mind. For the longest time, they would come to mind and I would just let it slip by. Then after time, folks would come to mind and I would pray for them. Now, folks come to mind and I reach out to them, letting them know that they have been on my mind and I would like to pray for them. Sometimes people just look at me funny when I say that, which is fine. But more often then not I will hear something like “how did you know that I was having a difficult day? Or that I’m facing this thing? Or I have been having this struggle?” To which I reply I didn’t, but God did.

I don’t know what your nudge moment is. Maybe its feeling like you just need to go a particular place at a particular time and you have no idea why. Or pick up the phone and call someone. There are lots of ways that God can nudge us, but we need to be used to listening to God in order to have the courage to respond. Especially when following God doesn’t always come with clearly laid out plans with the smallest details. Saying yes, that takes trust, which can only come from knowing God.

May we be open to a life of faith and pray that breaks through in the most unexpected of ways. Let us be surprised by the movement of the spirit in our lives. And let us respond with “yes’s” that transforms hearts and lives… including our own. Amen and amen. 

“Stephen’s Witness” Acts 6:1—7:2a, 44-60

 Often when people think about the Book of Acts certain things will come to mind. First is usually the Pentecost story, this phenomenal moment in Acts, chapter 2, where the Holy Spirit comes down upon the disciples and they begin to speak different languages to proclaim the Gospel message. Sometimes its the thousand up thousands of people who were added to the church’s numbers because people were going forth and preaching the Good News and lives were being transformed. Still other times its this idea of what the early church looked like - being in each other’s homes, worshipping together, eating together, and sharing everything in common.

If it is the later, by Acts, chapter six, no longer is the idilic form of the early church from Acts chapter two present. Now there is dissension brewing. Part of having everything in common was this daily distribution of food to those in need. Only now some of the Hellenistic Jews are saying that the Hebrew Jews are favoring their own widows instead of looking out for all.

And the disciples have a problem.

But let’s take a moment to unpack what that problem looked like. We have heard time and again the commands throughout the Hebrew Scriptures to look out for the widow, the orphan and the stranger. However, now a very particular issue has arisen about that command. See, the first line of defense for taking care of those who may be marginalized is the family. The blood family. Think back to the story of Ruth and Naomi, where Boaz helps take care of them because they are blood. If that fails, then the wider community is supposed to step in and take care of those in need.

However, now there is this additional layer - baptism. See when folks became baptized in the early church, it would often cause a rift between them and their blood family. If their whole household isn’t baptized with them, they may become cast out. Or even if a house hold is baptized, they may no longer have the wider support of the extended family or community.

When people joined the early church, they truly needed people to step in and fill the gaps where the family and Jewish society would have been before. Now was that system perfect? By no means. Think back to all of the times in the prophets when God charges the people of not looking after the widow, the orphan and the stranger. But now what they once would have known, even in its imperfections, has to be replaced by the new spiritual family, the church. 

So a serious question is being raised here - we say that we are all part of this new family, but are some people being favored over others? Are those who are Hebrew Jews being treated as more important than the Hellenistic Jews?

To see what happens when there truly is such favoritism in the body of Christ, look no further than 1 Corinthians. The apostle’s certainly do not want this to be true in perception or action so they need to come up with a plan and fast. 

So the twelve bring together all those who call themselves disciples and essentially say that the church is growing so fast that they need to both attend to the social ministries before them but not lose sight of the proclamation of the Gospel. In other words, the magnitude of the work is way too large for just the apostles any more. They affirm their call to preach, but start looking around for wise, Spirit-filled people to be in ministry.

Enter Stephen. Along with Philip, Procorus, Nicanor, Timon, Parmenas, and Nicolas. 

While on one hand, the wording of the apostle’s about not waiting on tables would make it seem like they were looking down on the ministry of these men. But in truth, they were fulfilling both the vision of the early church, from its very inception, that Acts, chapter 2 view of being in community, as well as fulfilling God’s command found in Scriptures. They were prayed over and sent to do all that God had called and equipped them to do.

And the word of God spread even farther.

But now that the dissension from within had been dealt with, dissension from without starting to bubble up. Some translations even go so far as to call it “opposition” who argue with Stephen. Only as the Spirit was empowering Stephen to speak, no one could speak against his wisdom and truth. 

So when the arguments didn’t work - then came the lies. “Have you heard about Stephen? He’s saying all sorts of things wrong about God. He’s leading people astray. In fact, he says that temple is going to be destroyed and all that Moses has taught doesn’t matter.”

One lie led to another. Until Stephen was called before the high council. And friends, he didn’t even need to speak, because the glory of God just shone right through him. And when he did give voice to the truth, he took it the whole way back to scripture, leading people from the time of Moses to Jesus to today.

And people didn’t want to hear the truth. So they had him killed.

Recently, I was talking to my dad about times when the church has got it wrong. Chiefly about science. For those of you who don’t know, one of my brothers is a chemist - his fancy title is medicinal chemist, but I just tell people he makes drugs. And he loves Jesus. This is the way that he honors and serves God, by using his gifts to bring God’s healing to the world.

So, here my dad and I were talking about the people that the church has excommunicated through the years for saying true things that they just didn’t want to hear. Things that they didn’t believe to be true - like the earth orbits the sun, and the sun doesn’t orbit the earth. For this, Galileo was condemned of heresy. People just didn’t want to hear it.

When we read Stephen’s words today we think “of course!” Of course he was speaking the truth! Of course he was doing the work of God! Of course he was given wisdom from on high! How did these folks miss it?

They missed it, friends, because they thought he was a heretic. They were trying to protect what they always believed to be true - thinking his words were a threat that would lead people astray. Sure, he may be doing some good work with the widows, but that’s only because they have been caught up in this new practice that tore them away from their homes and communities.

Friends, there may be times when people think that we are saying or doing the wrong thing. There may be times, when even those closest to us may disagree with us. There are certainly going to be times when our faith and life is Christ is costly, but we still bear witness. We bear witness to the way of truth. We bear witness to the lives God is reaching out to in care. We bear witness to the life transformation that can only come through Christ.

Stephen could have walked away that day - but he no longer would have been the person the community called forth and trusted with important things. He could have saved his life, but lost his soul. Friend, let us not be people who set aside our heart in order to preserve the crowd. Let us be people of passion and service. Love and action. Truth and grace. Amen. 

"Emmaus Road" - Luke 24: 13-35

  If I say the word “hospitality” what comes to your mind? Maybe its opening up your home to let a friend stay as they are traveling through the area. Or perhaps its cooking someone their favorite meal.

But I would venture to guess, that for most of us the word hospitality is at least marginally connected to a vision of providing for people we know or who we have some level of association with.

But not so in the ancient world - and even the not so distant past.

I get together with a group of people spread out across the United States to pray several times a week over the telephone. We are configured around the prayers of this person who is known as Saint Benedict, who in the 500s wrote a rule, or a book about how to live in community with other Christians. One of the things that he focused on was hospitality - in particular to the stranger - where those following the rule were encouraged to open up their home, which at that point would have been the monetary, to whoever showed up at the door.

When I hear that, I am taken back to being really young and learning the phrase “stranger danger”.

And yes, there was danger to opening up space for strangers. You never knew who would stop by. Yet, for Benedict, all were to be treated as if they were Christ.

The irony of today’s scripture passage is of course that people who knew and loved Jesus while he was living didn’t recognize the resurrected Christ walking amongst them. For Luke, this is one of the first accounts of Jesus encountering his disciples, with the next story being is appearance to some of those whom he was closest to. But these disciples, Cleopas and the unnamed disciples, should have recognized him. They had spent time with him. They may not have been one of the apostles, the twelve, but they were close enough to be called his follower or disciple. 

Yet as they are walking along the road, this seven mile stretch from Jerusalem to Emmaus, they were talking about everything that had taken place. Jesus’s arrest. His trial or rather trials. The people yelling “crucify him.” Seeing his body on the cross. His death. All of the sandiness and pain and heartache. And now the word is that his body is done. Who in the world would do something so cruel?

And in the midst of this discussion this seeming stranger comes up and walks right beside them. Now to most of us, that would seem odd in our Western context, but it doesn’t seem to phase the two walking along the road. They just keep talking, until the man beside them asks “What are you talking about?”

And they stop.

Dead in their tracks they stop and sorrow is written all over their faces. How could this man not know? How could he not have heard what happened less than seven miles away?

Cleopas reminds me a little bit of Peter at this moment when he blurts out, “Are you the only one visiting Jerusalem who does not know the things that have happened there in these days?”

But Jesus, still being Jesus, answered in his most characteristic way - with a question - “What things?”

They told him what had taken place. He unraveled scripture for them about the words of the prophets of old about the Messiah, until they got to where they were headed. As Jesus seemed to be going on they called out to him to stay - moving him from a stranger they met along the road to their guest - inviting this one that they had just met into the home, to the table.

It was there, as he blessed and broke the bread their eyes were finally opened and they realized that this whole time they had been blind to the one right in front of them - Jesus.

In Biblical times, just like the times of Saint Benedict, hospitality was an important thing. People were to welcome in, even the stranger, with lavishness - the sharing of food, the place to rest, the act of the washing of feet.

We all so often talk about the act of loving the stranger, and here is Jesus himself coming in the form of the stranger, yet today, as I’m talking about hospitality, how many of us are finding our hearts beating just a bit faster. Surely, Pastor Michelle isn’t going to ask me to feed the hungry and welcome the stranger. Doesn’t she know how dangerous that is.

And my friends, I do know. We live in a day and time where we fear people who seem to be different than us and we fear the stranger. I too am confronted with the deep and difficult questions about what it means to be a person of hospitality, in a day and time when that word has lost so much of its meaning. How are we to share life with the people that even we are afraid of.

If I’m brutally honest, I probably would have tried to move to the other side of the road when Jesus showed up as a stranger. I certainly wouldn’t have engaged in a conversation or invited him into the house. 

And what would I have missed.

What would Cleopas and the unnamed disciple have missed?

For Jesus moved from stranger, to guest, to host of the table as he broke the bread that day. And all of the questions of the head that the disciples had, moved to understanding in the heart. They had heard the stories and the facts before, but now, now they had their own experience to go out and proclaim.

John Wesley believed that something powerful could take place in holy communion. Something that it is hard to describe, but which he called a means of grace - a way to come to know God not with the head, but with the heart. And that my friends still changes things today.

When we have this heart experience, we don’t just want to do things for people, but we want to get to know people. 

In November of 2020, the world celebrated the 40th anniversary of the death of a woman who changed my life. Dorothy Day is what I would call a modern saint, and she changed my understanding of hospitality, even though I never had the opportunity to meet her in person, but only though the pages of her writing. While she did great works in feeding the hungry and caring for the sick, more importantly, to her, they were people. They were not strangers she was serving, but could have been Christ. 

Do we live our lives in the same way? Do we live like Matthew 25 is a thing? Do we live like Jesus could be taking the blindness off of our eyes in order to see the people before us? Do we live in a way that proclaims the story of God to guest, stranger, and friend alike?

Love of the stranger is hard, friends. We aren’t going to get it right all the time. But that doesn’t mean that the invitation is not still there. How are we feeding the hungry and welcoming the stranger in a way that transforms the heart and life? Amen. 

“Resurrection of Our Lord” Luke 24: 1-12

 There are certain times of the year that are filled with memories for me. Winter, making snow angels with my family or going sledding the first time on a hill by my grandparents. Fall, raking up big piles of leaves that we would jump in before putting them in orange garbage bags with pumpkin faces. Summers, going to the beach, still one of my favorite places to be, watching the crashing of the waves, with that sea-salt smell in the air.

But most of my memories about the season of Spring are centered in the church, and even more specifically, are centered on Easter Sunday. Easter always marked the beginning of spring. Even when it was still chilly out, when Easter would come early, I would have a new spring dress to wear. As I got older, there would be pancake breakfasts and sunrise services that involved the youth group. I played the handbells, and Easter we would break out beautiful pieces of music that would involve fast hands and joyful noise. 

As I was reflecting on today’s scripture passage from the Gospel of Luke, I had a new thought about these Easter memories, however. If they simply stay as memories, we are missing out. For Easter isn’t supposed to just be a memory or memories about the past, its supposed to be a day that propels us forward in our Christian walk.

Each of the Gospels tells the story of Jesus’s resurrection a bit differently. In the Gospel of Luke the story begins in such a familiar way - its the first day of the week, the day following the Sabbath, early in the morning. A group of women who had been following Jesus, probably the same group of women who stood by him on the cross, are making their way to the tomb where Jesus body is laid - carrying with them spices to prepare his body for a proper burial. 

They knew that there was a large stone that had been placed in front of the tomb, out of fear that someone would come and steal Jesus’s body. But, here, there is no talk of what the women will do about the stone. Instead, they approach the tomb and find that the stone that would be blocking them from their task, the desire of their heart, had already been rolled away. 

So they entered, only they found that they could not do what they had hoped to do, because Jesus’s body was already gone! You can imagine the confusion and questions they must have had. “Where’s the body?” “Who took it?” “Now what?” But in the midst of their confusion, angels showed up. Described here are two men, clothed in bright white, that frightened the women to their very core.

And these angels had a question for the women - “Why do you look for the living among the dead?” Because Jesus is not here. He is risen - just like he said that he would be. 

The women may have been frightened and confused, but they were also compelled to go and tell. They became some of the first evangelists - bears of the Good News - that Jesus had been raised! 

Only the people they told, Jesus’s disciples, the ones who would have heard this same teaching from Jesus about bow he would be handed over to sinners but rise in three days, they didn’t believe the Good News they were being told. Some translations put it as “their words seemed to them like nonsense.” But Peter had his only curiousity piqued, even in the midst of disbelief, to at least go and run to the tomb. 

He looked on in, and saw that the body of Jesus was gone and he was went away amazed.

Confusion. Amazement. Fear. Disbelief. These may be some of the same things that we feel as we peer into the tomb anew today as well. On Easter Sunday, year after year, we proclaim the ancient story of our faith - about how Jesus came and trumped over sin and death.

But all too often, we spend more time trying to address the confusion or disbelief or myriad of other emotions instead of simply sitting in the truth. Instead of marveling at the fact, that on this day, God not only changed history, but also handed responsibility to go and tell this good news into the hands of those who faced all of their own emotions at the empty tomb.

And to us today as we encounter that empty tomb anew.

For a period of time I attended a church who believed it was there job to explain everything in the Bible in detail to folks in hopes that they would become converted. Friends, I have lived enough life to tell us that we cannot convince someone to come and receive the Good News of the empty tomb with arguments and facts and figures. But we can tell the story of how the empty tomb has changed our hearts, and those are some of the most fruitful words that e can ever offer.

When we get caught up in trying to rationalize this day in particular, friends, we can end up with a whole lot of Peters. Folks who may be amazed by what we say, may even go and peer into the empty tomb on their own, but at the end of the day, they simply walk away. But when we tell the story of how Jesus has changed our life, then we are like the women - bearing testimony because we have been changed.

All too often, when we caught up in our own memories about this day, we, too, can end up like Peter - amazed, but never moving past that point. The result is celebrating Easter as a special day, a day we may even be able to put words behind about its significance, but we don’t live as if anything has changed. 

And friends, when you have had an encounter with the Jesus of Easter, everything changes. Because Jesus has claimed victory over all that has held us captive. And when you realize that, you can’t go back to life as it was.

Recently, I was speaking to someone about how much the resurrection of Jesus really does change in our lives. This particular person was struggling with feeling bound up by her own thoughts that they were not good enough to be called to follow and serve Christ. I stopped the conversation at one point and said that I believe in the power of praying Scripture over folks and the prophet Isaiah said that the Messiah would come to restore sight to the blind and set the captive free. So could we pray that the resurrected Jesus set her free from what was holding her captive.

Talk about standing on holy grounds, brothers and sisters. But that is the power of Christ and that is what we celebrate this day. That because of the intersection of the cross and the empty tomb we are set free. That’s what I mean when I say that you cannot go back to life as it once was.

So what about you today? How has today not just been a memory for you, but a chance to move forward in the freedom of Christ? How do you claim not just what Christ once did, but what Christ is doing in and through your life? What is the Good News that you have been set free to go and bear witness to? Amen and Amen.