Steve Lindsley
Acts 8: 26-40 (Selected Verses)
Shannon Kershner, a seminary classmate and current pastor of Central Presbyterian in Atlanta, once began a sermon with a question: who or what informs where you belong?
It’s that question that lies at the heart of our scripture today, a scripture that was supposed to be the focus for the last day of Vacation Bible School. Acts 8 marks a pivot in the life of the early church after Jesus. Before, the focus of the early church had largely been centered in Judea and the immediate surrounding area – in other words, familiar territory. But that begins to shift in the seventh chapter, with greater energy spent outside Judea into Galilee and neighboring nations.
So when we come to today’s scripture, we meet Philip – not as well known a disciple, but here he is; and he hears the voice of God telling him, Get up and go to the road that goes down from Jerusalem to Gaza. And then the writer of Acts offers this telling sidebar: This, he says, is a wilderness road.
A wilderness road. We know a thing or two about this road, don’t we? This is the road we find ourselves on when the GPS glitches a bit and sends us down some obscure way that takes us further and further from where we’re heading. This is when we meant to take a right and instead take a left, three lefts ago. This is the ten-mile windy mountain road that takes you half an hour to drive.
The wilderness road. And it’s not just the road itself that makes it wilderness-y. It’s what you find on this road. Uncertainty. Unfamiliarity. And Phillip knows this is what awaits him. This is what all of us find at the beginning, all along the way, and at the end of the wilderness road.
So it should not surprise us that Philip finds an Ethiopian eunuch on this road. Nothing could be more “wilderness-y” for a first-century Palestinian Jew and Jesus-follower than an Ethiopian eunuch. We’re told the eunuch was reading the prophet Isaiah when Philip found him. Philip asks if he understands what he’s reading. The eunuch answers with a question of his own: How can I understand unless someone helps me?
And thus begins a conversation between the two – a conversation that neither likely expected to have when their day started. And it leads to Philip explaining baptism, right around the time the eunuch notices some water. And seeing an opportunity, the eunuch asks, So what is to prevent me from being baptized right now? And just like that, he’s baptized.
I read this story and I’m struck by the fact that both Philip and the eunuch are totally out of their element on this wilderness road. Strange territory; unfamiliar surroundings for both of them. And yet, they find in and through each other a sense of joy – and through that joy, a sense of belonging, of purpose and meaning. They find that belonging is as much a person as it is a place. That, in a way, we all belong to each other.
I know I’ve shared this with you before. 11th grade English class, my teacher was leading a discussion on Tennessee Williams’ The Glass Menagerie. I honestly don’t remember a lot of what she said that year, but I very much remember what she said as we analyzed the characters in the play: she said, Every person you meet along the way in life, no matter for how long or short a time, every person becomes a part of who you are.
We all belong to each other. And more than ever, friends, we need to be reminded of this. We the church, we the community, we the country and world. For we appear to be witnessing what can happen when we forget that. When we act as if we don’t belong to each other, as if we are the masters of our own destiny, the blazers of our own trail, and only accountable to ourselves. We see how we treat others when this is the narrative we choose to live by.
It happens when we lose our way on the wilderness road – when we meet someone we do not know there, someone not like us; and instead of assuming the best, we assume the worst. It happens when we forget the wisdom my 11th grade English teacher dropped in class one day – that every person we meet along the way becomes a part of who we are. It’s not a matter of if they do. They do. Everyone.
Tell me – what does that mean for us as followers of Jesus and the church?
You are aware by now that, this past week, over 130 children got to experience a wonderful Vacation Bible School. You have seen in this worship service as an act of worship a snapshot of what this was like. 130 children hearing about a God who loves them, a God they can trust, a God who sparks joy, a God who tells them they belong. We need more of that in this world, don’t we? The joy that comes from knowing you belong, from having a place and a purpose, from being assured, despite what you might hear elsewhere, that you are loved and that you matter. 130 children got to experience that joy and belonging this past week right here. And in the world in which we find ourselves, friends, it can be argued that nothing is more important than that – for our precious children, for all of us.
And so to that end, I want to share a story of belonging and great joy told by renowned preacher and professor Fred Craddock. Listen:
My wife and I were visiting The Great Smoky Mountains. We were at dinner in a restaurant outside of Gatlinburg. We were seated there looking out at the mountains when this old man, with shocking white hair, came over and spoke to us. He said, “You’re on vacation?”
We said, “Yes,” and he just kept right on talking.
“What do you do,” he asked. Well, I was thinking that it was none of his business, but I let out that I was a minister. Then he said, “Oh, a minister, well I’ve got a story for you!” He pulled out a chair and sat down.
“Won’t you have a seat,” I said (as if it mattered).
He said, “I was born back here in these mountains, and when I was growing up I attended Laurel Springs Church. My mother was not married, and as you might expect in those days, I was embarrassed about that — at school I would hide in the weeds by a nearby river and eat my lunch alone because the other children were very cruel. And when I went to town with my courageous mother I would see the way people looked at me trying to guess who my daddy was.
“The preacher at the church fascinated me, but at the same time he scared me too. He had a long beard, a rough-hewn face, a deep voice, but I sure liked to hear him preach. Still, I didn’t think I was welcome at church because I didn’t know who my daddy was. I didn’t think I belonged there. So I would go just for the sermon; and as soon as the sermon was over, I would rush out the back so nobody would say, ‘What’s a boy like you doing here in church?’
“One day though, I was trying to make my way out, but some people had already got in the aisle, so I was stuck. I was waiting there, getting in a cold sweat, when all of a sudden I felt a hand on my shoulder, and I looked out of the corner of my eye and realized it was the preacher. And I was scared to death.
“The preacher looked at me, and then he said, ‘Son, whose child are you?’ And I just knew he was trying to guess who my father was like everybody else, and I was so terrified.’
“The preacher kept on: ‘Let me see. You’re a child of…um…a child of…..’ And then he exclaimed, ‘Ah, yes! I know whose child you are. You are a child of God! Yes, a child of God. I’m telling you, I see a striking resemblance!’
He patted me on the head and said, ‘Now, go claim your inheritance.’ I left that church a different person. In fact, that was really the beginning of my life.”
Craddock recounts the story and remembers him being so moved by it that he asked the man what his name was. “Ben Hooper,” he answered. And that’s when Craddock recalls his own father once telling him about how the people of Tennessee had twice elected as governor a man named Ben Hooper.
Siblings in Christ, you belong here. Because you belong to each other, and because you are a child of God. Indeed, the resemblance is striking!
In the name of the Creator, Redeemer and Sustainer, thanks be to God – and may all of God’s people say, AMEN!
* Because sermons are meant to be preached and are therefore prepared with the emphasis on verbal presentation, the written accounts occasionally stray from proper grammar and punctuation.