The Hardest Question

Sermon Acts 8:26-40 May 3, 2015 Easter 5-Communion

The Hardest Question

One of my greatest joys in ministry over the years has been working with youth. The opportunity to be present with youth as they discover their faith and grow into it has filled me with rejoicing.

Weekly encounters with them through youth group allowed us to get to know each other on deep levels. But the situations where we were able to witness great growth in their faith and their maturity was during retreats, confirmation and mission trips.

I always wondered why it was in those settings that hearts became more open.

I’ve realized much had to do with the work God was doing in the lives of these youth as they experienced new situations.

                   But, I’ve also realized this was a time that

                                       God’s Spirit took me and the leaders and told us ‘to get up and go.’

The transformation in us and our lives was as strong as the transformation in the lives of the youth.

This story in Acts is about Philip, the eunuch and the Spirit of God.

Three times in this story the Spirit is leading.

Luke makes some strong points in this text to draw our attention to the details of how humans encounter each other through the leading of the Holy Spirit. Philip is told by the Spirit to get up and go towards Gaza via a wilderness road. Philip doesn’t ague with the Spirit or talk about how he’s not equipped or even fuss about that he is being sent on the road known as the wilderness road. He responds to the call to go and does just that.

One year our youth mission trip was to the Louisville Hotel in the town of , you guessed it, Louisville, Kentucky. It was a hotel that had been abandoned and would have been torn down until an organization decided it would be a great place for a homeless facility. It was a building that wasn’t just used to house the homeless, but everywhere you turned at the reception desk, the concierge, the restaurant, the gift shop, the housekeeping, and laundry were all run by people who had been homeless and had been taught the skills of hotel management.

It was a bit of a risky setting with youth who had never worked one on one but we decided we were up to the challenge. We stayed in the same hotel with those who needed refuge for the night and those who had been there for years.

The devotional book we used during that week was titled, “Do Hard Things.” It was written by youth for youth. We studied the chapter entitled “that first scary step-how to do hard things that take you out of your comfort zone.”

The authors sited three reasons why youth (and we know we are no different) do not get involved in ministry or even life for that matter.

1.They are not as good as someone else they know;

2.they don’t have all the resources they think they need;

3.and they don’t want to fail and look like losers.

The misconception hiding in these reasons, the authors point out are-

1. God only uses the best and the brightest,

2.God only uses people when all the tools are in the right place, and

3.God only uses people if they can get credit for good work.

The hardest question for the youth on that trip was to meet the homeless where they were,

                          to listen to their stories without judgment,

                                                       and to hear God in the midst of all of it.

But, the harder question for we, the leaders, was where were our preconceived opinions about homelessness, and how willing were we to allow God to open our hearts and minds to think and act in a new way?

How willing were we to accept the Spirit’s leading to share and to welcome the least of these?

Philip was faced with the leading of the Spirit to run to the chariot of a foreigner, to engage in conversation with an outcast. He was called by God to move toward a person outside of his known world.

Yet, this outcast welcomes Philip into his chariot to explain the word of God that he does not understand.

The eunuch is reading from the 53^rd chapter of Isaiah, the fourth depiction of the suffering servant. He asks Philip who is this servant? And Philip begins to teach that this servant is the one he knows as Jesus the Christ. He teaches that this Old Testament prophecy has been fulfilled in Jesus and that no one is excluded from entering into the community of faith. Despite any teachings or doctrinal laws that Philip has understood from the past none of them seem to enter into his conversation with this man.

Here was a man who was quite wealthy because he had his own chariot and could afford his own written scroll of Scripture. He held a most elite political position as the treasurer to the queen and he was well educated reading aloud the scriptures and pondering upon their meaning. In his world he had it all, he was well respected and trusted and had great responsibility.

Yet, in the religious world he was an outcast.

The laws of Deuteronomy and Leviticus banned him from full participation because of his nationality and his gender condition. He was not permitted in the full assembly of the Temple.

Yet, his greatest desire was to worship God.

He had been to Jerusalem to worship and was on his way home to Ethiopia. There at the Temple he was again reminded of his condition and the restrictions it held from fully being included into the household of faith. As he traveled home he was reading from the prophet Isaiah. The book of the Old Testament known as a book of hope and promise. Perhaps he chose to read from this prophet to find comfort in hopes for the future. Chapter 56 of this book held the promise that there would be a time when eunuchs and others would enter into full participation in the assembly and they would receive a name greater than sons and daughters.

And there was Philip led by the Spirit rather than doctrine to share the good news of one who knew suffering and one who too had been cast out. Philip was transformed in this leading from God as it led him into ‘places no human authority had permitted him to go.’

And then Philip was faced with the hardest question,

“What is to prevent me from being baptized?”

Here before him was a man with the wrong job, the wrong country, and the wrong physical or gender condition.

And yet, God’s grace opened wide that day, wider than had ever been known.

Here in this moment of poured out water Philip responds to the Spirit’s calling to gather in the lost, the marginalized, the pushed away and the forgotten.

His mission marked the first step in spreading God’s Word beyond Jerusalem and tradition.

His openness to radical inclusion helped create the character of the church community.

Being followers of Jesus causes us to do hard things and to be faced frequently with the hardest questions.

Where does God’s Spirit lead the people who claim Christ today?

Is the church today still an instrument of the restoration of all people?

Is the character of the church still revolutionary in its radical inclusion of all those seeking to know God?

The end result for the eunuch was that he left rejoicing and the Word of God spread throughout Ethiopia.

May we as God’s people be open to the Spirit’s leading and

be open to “Do Hard Things.”

Amen.

Resources: “Feasting on the Word” Year B Volume 2; Do Hard Things by Alex & Brett Harris

Sunday Prayer  by rachelhackenberg

What a wilderness road this is, O God our God.
You call us to engage its mysteries, its challenges,
and its unexpected encounters -- and we call you
to guide us and to be with us along this journey.

No matter how far we wander, how wild the wilderness,
whether our days feel easy or our lives feel burdened,
you are our hope, our praise, and our satisfaction.
In gratitude, we name our joys before you: ______.

Trusting in your faithfulness, appealing to your grace,
we give voice to our stresses, our worries, our fears,
and our sadnesses: ______. Be a loving presence,
we pray, and a healing touch to all who need you.

O God, tip your hand at long last and let justice flow.
Strengthen those who are marching in the streets,
calling for a new day; sustain those in marbled halls
who are working to overturn racism in our institutions.

We long for your love and your peace in our world and
in our lives; insist that we find your love in one another.
Embolden us to be shameless, foolish even, in risking love
for the sake of heaven and earth. In Jesus' name, we pray.