Listening & Doing

Fifth Sunday of Easter, Year B, RCL
St. Stephen & the Incarnation Episcopal Church, Washington, DC
May 10th, 2009

There are many things that I love about the lectionary. The lectionary (so I don’t lapse into speaking too much churchy language) is the schedule of readings we have for every Sunday and other major feast day in the church. The earliest Christians borrowed the order of readings for Sabbath from the synagogues, and as they became available, Christian writings were incorporated into readings from the Psalms, the Torah and the Prophets. Once the Church became more established, readings for specific times of the year and seasons of the church were established. For most weeks, the Hebrew Scripture, or Old Testament, lesson has some parallel to the Gospel reading, while the Epistle, one of the many letters in the New Testament, offers some instruction for Christian living or offers a glimpse into the early church’s witness of the resurrected Jesus. The Psalms were the hymns for Jewish worship, used no doubt by Christ himself in worship in the synagogues and the Temple. Our use of the Psalms today keeps us liturgically connected to our Jewish brothers and sisters and to the very roots of the Christian Church. Very early in the Church’s development it was decided to use lessons from the Book of Acts during the Great Fifty Days of Easter. The general idea is that during this season of celebrating the resurrection of Christ, we hear the stories of the earliest missionary work to spread His message of the coming kingdom of God.

So it is in this early period of the Christian movement that we find the Apostle Philip being called by the Spirit of God to go from Samaria, where he had been converting people to follow Christ, down what the author calls a “wilderness road.” And while some scholars question why it was called that since it was pretty well traveled, Philip goes and he finds an Ethiopian court official sitting in his chariot reading from the Prophet Isaiah. This particular man is in charge of the queen’s treasury, meaning, he is a man of good standing and very well trusted. He was returning to Ethiopia from Jerusalem where he had gone to worship in the Temple. There was likely a problem with him worshiping there, but we’ll get to that in a minute.

There was a strong Jewish presence in Ethiopia dating back to the time just after King Solomon. Solomon married Sheba, who was herself Ethiopian. Many Jews migrated to Ethiopia a few generations later when the Temple was destroyed by the Babylonians in 586 BCE. For a time after the destruction of the Temple and the Babylonian captivity, Ethiopian Jews thought they were the last remaining Jews in the world. Ethiopia is mentioned several times in the Hebrew scriptures, mainly by Isaiah and Jeremiah.

Back to our story about Philip… He answers the call of the Spirit and finds our court official struggling with this passage from Isaiah, what we know as the chapter 53, verses 7-8. Philip sees this as a prime jumping off spot to tell the Ethiopian about Jesus and how Jesus was and is the fulfillment of this scripture passage. The Ethiopian desires to be baptized, and so Philip baptizes him in the nearby water. The story ends with Philip being snatched away to Azotus to continue to proclaim the Gospel and the Ethiopian going on his way rejoicing.

I like this story is because it has so much in it to dive into. Let’s talk first about the Ethiopian himself and what he represents. He was an Ethiopian and a eunuch, meaning not only was he was a castrated male, but his physical location meant he was considered an outsider by the Jewish community in Jerusalem. His status as a eunuch would also have been problematic for his worshiping in the Temple. Leviticus 21 prohibits men with any deformities, specifically listing a lack of testicles, from making an offering to God. So it is possible that his not being able to worship led to an added spiritual hunger and desire to know God.

Much like the woman the well and the story of the man born blind, both in John’s Gospel, the Ethiopian represents the disenfranchised and disinherited groups of an exiled Israel that are the choice recipients of God’s promises. Those promises are made in Isaiah 56, and come to fruition with Jesus’ ministry. Isaiah 56, which would likely have been a different scroll than what the Ethiopian had with him, says: Do not let the foreigner joined to the Lord say, ‘The Lord will surely separate me from his people’; and do not let the eunuch say, ‘I am just a dry tree.’ For thus says the Lord: To the eunuchs who keep my sabbaths, who choose the things that please me and hold fast my covenant, Thus says the Lord God, who gathers the outcasts of Israel, I will gather others to them besides those already gathered.


In last week’s Gospel, Jesus talks about being the Good Shepherd and says, “I have other sheep that do not belong to this fold. I must bring them also, and they will listen to my voice. So there will be one flock, one shepherd.” These passages, both Isaiah 56 and this one from Acts, re-affirm this teaching of Jesus. In multiple places in the Gospels, especially in Luke and John, Jesus talks about reaching beyond the family of Israel to bring all of God’s children into a closer relationship with the Creator. The Ethiopian is part of this common thread of restoration of the outcast, of gathering closer to Christ those who are on the outside looking in.

The Ethiopian represents the continued spreading of the Gospel, and it is spreading fast! We don’t know how long it has been since Jesus’ resurrection and ascension, but we are only eight chapters into Acts and the Gospel is being preached in Samaria and now it will be carried to Ethiopia and likely other parts of Africa as well. The message of Christ is spreading, and it is spreading to those on the fringes of the known world, both Jewish and non-Jewish.

This is the message of the Gospel, that those on the outer edges of what society says is the “norm” are the ones that Christ desires the most. As one of my mentors is fond of saying, “God did not become flesh and dwell among us for the goody-two-shoes of the world. Jesus came for the wretched sinner. He came for you and for me.”

Even though St. Stephen’s probably works as hard as any local body of Christ to serve those who are on the fringes of society, it is a message that we cannot hear enough. The good news of the Kingdom of God is that it is a place where all who desire a closer relationship with God can have one. God came near in the person of Jesus to show us that God is not far away. The message Philip shares with the Ethiopian is that no matter what your physical or locational “deficiencies” may seem to be, the kingdom of God has room for you. That is a message I need to hear on a regular basis and a message that it is our responsibility as Christians to share with each other and with those we encounter outside the walls of this place. The kingdom of God has room for all.

How are you going to share that message this week?

Show 'em what ya got!

Fifth Sunday after the Epiphany

Year B, RCL, February 8^th, 2009

St. Stephen & the Incarnation, Washington, DC

In the name of the One God: Father, Son & Holy Spirit. Amen.

There was a major secular holiday on Wednesday of this week. A holiday most closely (and I dare say religiously) watched in parts of the Deep South and the Midwest and even by many on the West Coast. It is always very anticipated and gets a lot of media attention.

I’m talking, of course, about College Football Signing Day—the Christmas day of College Football, when fans all across the nation follow the blogosphere to see who has signed their national letter of intent to spend the next two, three or four years on the gridiron for their favorite team. The only days with more anticipation and speculation are the first day of fall practice and the days leading up to the first game of the season.

The recruiting game in college football has become a big business. Magazines and websites are devoted to following the stats of high school players across the country. ESPN has even taken to showing high school football games on Friday nights featuring some of the most highly sought after players. When players make their official visits to schools, they are often treated like royalty. The coaching staff rolls out the red carpet, taking the young man and his parents to a nice lunch or dinner, arranging meetings with players, professors (usually ones who are fans of the football program), and showering them with small gifts allowed by the NCAA. The coach spends some time with the parents, telling them that if their son chooses to play football for him, he will treat him like one of his own, make sure that he is going to class and running with the right group of peers. Usually the final pitch is aimed straight at the ego. On the tour of the stadium, the player will find a locker set up just for him, with the helmet and pads already laid out, and his name on the back of a jersey. Sometimes they have the P.A. announcer call the young man’s name and number so he can hear it bouncing off the empty stands.

This act, this game… is played out on college campuses from Seattle to Miami and from Los Angeles to Knoxville. College football coaches put the best image forward for their school and their program. They bend over backwards and tell these fellas and their families almost anything they want to hear to get them to come play football at their school. The coach has a school and a program that he believes in and about 99 percent of the time, he wants this young man to be a part of it.

So what, pray tell, does this have to do with anything related to us here today? Let me say that I’ve never been a huge fan of Saint Paul’s Epistles, and part of that, which I’m beginning to get over, is that people attempt to apply his very contextual writing to modern times. Those who want to cite Paul’s writings (as well as the other Epistles) often overlook that these letters were addressed to specific groups of people dealing with specific issues. While the Paul-line Epistles have much to offer us here in 2009, it is highly doubtful that Saint Paul was thinking about the United States of America when writing to the church in Corinth.

Speaking of the church in Corinth, let me paint you just a little bit of a picture of what they were dealing with-- since we heard about them last week and this week, and will continue hearing about them until Lent begins. As I told a Bible study group once, “Corinth was a city that could make Las Vegas look like Mayberry.” You have this tiny slip of land connecting two large bodies of water, making it a huge shipping port, and bringing in people (and their religious practices) from all over the known world. Then this new sect of Judiaism finds its way to Corinth, too, and Jews and Gentiles alike begin following this crazy guy named Jesus who performed some amazing miracles and it is even believed that he rose from the dead after the most gruesome of executions. Saint Paul is writing to them to set some things straight about practices and beliefs and customs, and even to offer them some reassurance.

While much of what Paul says to the Corinthians points to a specific problem or concern, much of what he says is also timeless. “If I proclaim the Gospel,” he writes in this morning’s Epistle lesson, “this gives me no ground for boasting, for an obligation is laid on me, and woe to me if I do not proclaim the gospel!” This verse is in the middle of an entire chapter devoted to Paul laying out the rights and responsibilities of being an apostle of Christ.

What Paul is saying in all of this is that in order to win more people to the cause of Christ, he has taken himself to them. He has not so much given up his own identity, as he has begun to identify with those who he would lead to Christ. He has done it all for the sake of the Gospel so that he (and we) may share in its blessings.

Go back in your head for a few minutes to that college football coach recruiting the high school player to his campus. That coach has a program he believes in and wants that young man to be a part of it to make it even better.

Back in the days of Corinth, there was something to this Jesus movement that made it worthwhile for Saint Paul to not only risk his life spreading the message but to seek to help the budding churches have a common theology and understanding of what they were committing themselves to. Saint Paul saw the ministry and teachings of Jesus as so powerful and so valuable that he wanted everyone to be a part of it.

College football coaches get paid ridiculous sums of money to bring in the best talent and most coaches are pretty picky about who they want based on where the needs are for their team.

Saint Paul—not so much. He was willing to sculpt his message to meet the soon-to-be follower of Christ where they were. There is no earthly reward for that, and Saint Paul knew it. Saint Paul had already trashed his own reputation in the Jewish community by abandoning his Law enforcement career. As he spread the Gospel of Christ, he came to see this as his sole purpose: To bring all people to the Gospel and to bring the Gospel to all people.

So, what about us as Christians and as Episcopalians? What is it that we have to share with people about who Christ is and what Christ has done in our lives? Are we willing to share it? There are tens of thousands of people in the metro DC area without a place of worship to call home. Are we willing to share not only the message of Christ but the message of this parish with them? Are we willing to give them the royal treatment, put their name on the back of a jersey, in order to win them over?

Our call and our commission is simple—an obligation has been laid upon us to share the Good News of Christ. We can share that Gospel in words, and in actions; in how we speak to those we encounter, and how we treat those we encounter.

My challenge to you is this: How are you going to share the Gospel this week?

Witch hunt in California

There was a troubling court ruling out of California (of all places) this week.

A private religious high school can expel students it believes are lesbians because the school isn't covered by California civil rights laws, a state appeals court has ruled.

Relying on a 1998 state Supreme Court ruling that allowed the Boy Scouts to exclude gays and atheists, the Fourth District Court of Appeal in San Bernardino said California Lutheran High School is a social organization entitled to follow its own principles, not a business subject to state anti-discrimination laws.

The troubling part is not that a private school can discriminate against a student's sexuality. It's the fact that the court said they could discriminate on the belief that a young person is gay or lesbian. There does not appear to be any evidence that the students in question were actually lesbian or in a relationship, only the rumor based on something someone else saw on MySpace. Makes you wonder if the principal of California Lutheran posted a reward for the outing of suspected gays. (This school is part of the Wisconsin Evangelical Lutheran Synod, which is very much on the conservative end of the spectrum.) I'm saddened that they are so exclusionary towards gays and lesbians, but I do uphold that as their right.

What is dangerous is telling any young person who may be question his/her sexual orientation that they are wrong, do not belong, or are bad. Any modern educator, like the principal at this school, should know that. The statistics about teenagers who are in some quandary about their orientation who take their own lives or attempt to take their own lives are staggering. Most often, those young people have been told or made to feel that their "choice" is going to tear up their family, anger God, cause a spike in crude oil prices, bring about Armageddon, etc. OK, maybe those last two are a bit of an exaggeration, but (as my late grandmother would say) the fact remains... It's not enough that they can't keep up with the "normal" stresses of being a teenager, but throw in the added confusion of trying to figure out their sexuality and life just got a whole lot more complicated.

If California Lutheran High School, or whatever private school, wants to disallow students because of their race, sexual orientation or nation of origin, that's their loss. But to expel a student because of that rumor is not only wrong, but seems to fly in the face of Christ's command to love one another as He loves us.