Easter 5 (B) + Not afraid / in love + 4.29.18

(https://theblogofkevin.wordpress.com/
tag/ethiopian-eunuch/)

M. Campbell-Langdell

All Saints, Oxnard

(Acts 10:44-48; Psalm 98; 1 John 5:1-6; John 15:9-17)

"Perfect love casts out fear" it says in the reading of the first Epistle of Saint John today. What does this mean? If you are like me, you can think of twenty people or situations of which to be afraid, and this is just before breakfast. If you are a person of color, these days you may even fear going out for a cup of coffee. If you are an undocumented person, must keep your car in perfect working order so as not to be stopped by the police. For all of us, we hear that our world is endangered by climate change and we don't have time. Fear, fear, fear. It is part of our everyday world. What does it mean?
I believe God wants us to have a change of heart. That we might leave room for God’s love to enter until, although there are always reasons to fear, we can pause these thoughts for long enough to receive God’s guidance. And when we receive it, we know that all will eventually be well.

But before we get to this point, we have to have a conversion of heart.

And for this, I want to share a story of Nadia Bolz Weber. A Lutheran pastor, Nadia comes from a very inclusive Church, especially of LGBTQI people, called the Church for All Saints and Sinners. But one day she was working on her sermon when a hermaphrodite or intersex person came to the cafe. This person was neither completely male nor female and Pastor Nadia was surprised that her first reaction was one of disgust, as she thinks of herself as a person who loves all God's people. And just at this moment, because God is good, she was working in a sermon on the Ethiopian eunuch. In the story in the Book of Acts, an official is on a journey home, having been in Jerusalem to worship. He studies the scriptures and he knows that because he is a man without all the parts, he is not permitted to worship in the temple as he'd like. But he is attracted to faith. And this is why the invites Philip to talk and explain the scriptures, specifically a part of Isaiah. And Philip goes on to explain about Jesus and his redemptive work among us. This is why we traditionally call this passage to the conversion of the Ethiopian eunuch.

But Bolz Weber suggests otherwise. She suggests that it may have been a conversion as much of Philip as of the eunuch. He is a Jewish man and to him, the eunuch will have seemed ritually unclean. But, can it be that the Spirit gave the eunuch a little push to talk with Philip and to change his heart? Is it possible that, in asking that baptized, the eunuch taught Philip something new about faith, too?
We don't know - we don't have all the details. But what we know is that this exchange was important to show us something of the early church - if it weren’t, it would not have been included in the book of the Acts of the Apostles.
But the interesting thing is how Nadia Bolz Weber applies this story to her life. She realizes that she never thought to invite that person to her table to talk. She realizes her need to learn from different people in her life, especially the ones that make her a bit uncomfortable. Because it is in this that we in some small way glance at what it is to talk to our Lord.

She says that the Church speaks a lot about being inclusive. But that we must not only think to include more people in the Church, or widen our tent. She says that the tent is not ours, it is God’s.  Instead of just including people, she says, we need to find people who can teach us about faith as much as we can teach them. ^[1]

How do we apply this to our lives in Ventura County? Sadly the last week we saw an attack on a man at a restaurant in Ventura, and it was horrific. But, as the person who killed him was homeless, now there are people who want to send all homeless people in Ventura and the surrounding area away.

Now, in my time at All Saints, I've learned so much about the faith of people who have no home. I've learned from transgender people and hippies and conservative people and really people of all kinds who are in the streets for different reasons. Many times, my homeless friends have to depend on God in a much stronger way than I do, so whenever I speak with them, I learn more about what it is to have faith in God. This does not mean that we must not be careful with people who have serious mental illness. I have had to call the police once or twice on people who were abusing drugs at our C Street door. There are times that we need to take care of those who are here. But I think that if there is no fear in love that we have to share with our neighbors, maintaining an attitude of sharing and being open when we can.

Because if we don't, we cannot receive what others can share with us about the faith.

It is in this same vein that those going to the March for Peace this afternoon here in Oxnard. A Baptist pastor, a Muslim leader, a police officer and others will talk about our need to respect each other's different faith traditions. We must not fear one another, but know that there is something that everyone can learn from each other.

Today, we baptize a new Christian. Some in our area would say that our church does not put many limits on baptizing people. But I say, with the Ethiopian eunuch, "here is water; what is to prevent [someone] being baptized?"

May the child baptized today not only learn faith from us, but also teach us something about faith. That we all may continue to be converted until there is no more fear, only love. Until all the branches of Christ's people feel firm, nourished and united in the one God of love.

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^[1] Nadia Bolz-Weber, "The Conversion of Phillip by a Gender Transgressive Foreigner," Sarcastic Lutheran Blog, 9 May 2012, http://www.patheos.com/blogs/nadiabolzweber/2012/05/ the-conversion-of-Phillip-by-a-gender-transgressive-foreigner/.