Easter 5 (B) + Room in the Branches + 5.3.15

(Johannes Wickert, “Philip and the foreigner,”
oil on canvas, 200x200 cm, www.johannes-wickert.de)

Melissa Campbell-Langdell

All Santos, Oxnard

(Acts 8:26-40; Ps. 22:24-30; 1 John 4:7-21; St. John 15:1-8)

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? (Acts 8:36-37)"

Every month, Alene and I receive a newsletter from a singer named Marsha Stevens-Pino, a praise singer, whose ministry we support. And in that newsletter are stories of lives changed. Of people who finally felt acceptance from a God they thought would never welcome them for who they were. And Marsha has touched each of those people with her message of God’s inclusive love, a love she has experienced for herself. The lyrics of her most famous song, “For Those Tears I Died,” go like this:

You said You'd come and share all my sorrows,
You said You'd be there for all my tomorrows;
I came so close to sending You away,
But just like You promised You came there to stay;
I just had to pray!
And Jesus said, "Come to the water, stand by My side,
I know you are thirsty, you won't be denied;
I felt ev'ry teardrop when in darkness you cried,
And I strove to remind you that for those tears I died."[1]

Marsha wrote this after suffering a childhood of abuse, when she asked Jesus why he didn’t hear her tears, and she felt that Jesus was telling her that he did in fact die for her tears, to redeem her pain and the pain of all of his beloved children.

In this experience Marsha knew that truly none of us will be denied by a God who loves us without bounds or reason.

Right before the section we hear today of Ps. 22, it says: “for he does not despise nor abhor the poor in their poverty; neither does he hide his face from them;” (Ps. 22:23a) and truly God does not despise or reject any of God’s creation.

And this is why I love today’s passage from Acts, wherein we see the encounter between Philip and the Ethiopian Eunuch. As many have pointed out, everything in this passage is unlikely.[2] From the chance encounter on a wilderness road—out in the middle of nowhere, to the fact that Philip encounters this man who is totally outside of everything he knows how to connect with—he is a court official, an Ethiopian, or a man of color, and by extension a different culture, and he is a sexual minority. Everything points to the unlikely workings of the Holy Spirit, and how she will blow where she wills without any seeming rhyme or reason.
Perhaps even more unlikely here is the concept that the Ethiopian eunuch was in Jerusalem to worship. You worry for him that it may have been a wasted trip, because unfortunately the Jewish temple was not open to eunuchs. You see, eunuchs were a group of men, usually slaves, who were often castrated early on in their lives in order to be trustworthy attendants in court settings where the King wouldn’t want someone chasing the wives in his harem. Whether they were eunuchs due to surgery, or just disinclination to being with women, these men were considered trustworthy and had an important place at court. You can tell that this fellow is especially important as he is in charge of the whole treasury of Queen Candace. But regardless of his economic or social prowess in his setting, he would not have been allowed to worship in Jerusalem with the guys. He would have been considered unclean.^[3] Even though he is clearly drawn to the Jewish faith tradition and is studying the Jewish scriptures, the door has effectively been closed on him, or so we assume.

So along comes Philip. And it is no surprise that the passage that the Ethiopian eunuch is studying is that section in Isaiah that we relate to Jesus’ passion. And so Philip begins to tell him about Jesus, and he begins to see that his faith journey may not be at a dead-end. This Jesus guy may be his own path to salvation,too. So, when they encounter water, he begins to wonder, What is to prevent him from being baptized? And there is nothing. Because in Jesus we have learned that there is nothing about who we are as children of God that means we can earn God’s love.
Indeed, the first letter of John says it well: “In this is love, not that we loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the atoning sacrifice for our sins. Beloved, since God loved us so much, we also ought to love one another. No one has ever seen God; if we love one another, God lives in us, and his love is perfected in us.” And later: “We love because he first loved us” (1 John 4:10-12; 19).

We love because he first loved us.

We accept others who are different because Jesus accepted us and will never turn us away, us who thirst for him.

Because it is not only about the outcast, but we all abide in the vine that is Jesus. Ethiopian eunuch and evangelist of Jewish extraction, Black and white and brown and all the rainbow of colors and differences in between, gay, straight or otherwise, we all abide in the vine that is Jesus.

It’s so amazing. There is room for each of us in those branches. But there is work for us, too. We don’t know that Ethiopian eunuch’s story. But likely he had some work to do on his life when he got home to live as a Christian and to share the good news. The same is true for each of us. What needs pruned in my life? We might ask. And the truth is this is never about God’s judgment of us, but rather about trimming from our lives what saps us of energy to share God’s love with others, what keeps us from bearing the sweet fruit that each of us are individually blessed to be able to bear.

In our community, we see new fruit being borne every day—from boxes of veggies to cultivated lives where folks had been left on the vine. But the journey always begins inside, when we find the hurt part of ourselves and we open up and allow Jesus to welcome us, to heal us, to share that living water with us. So that in turn we can bear fruit, fruit to heal and feed the world.

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[1] Marsha Stevens-Pino, “For Those Tears I Died,” from “Home,” 2010.

[2] Karoline Lewis, Rolf Skinner and Matt Jacobson, Working Preacher Sermon Brainwave, #416 “Fifth Sunday of Easter”, for May 3, 2015: http://www.workingpreacher.org/brainwave.aspx?podcast_id=620.

[3] Coleman Baker, “Acts 8:26-40 Commentary,” Working Preacher for May 3, 2015, https://www.workingpreacher.org/preaching.aspx?commentary_id=2445.