Have you ever had an experience where you may have wondered why God had placed you in a particular situation alongside particular people?  Have you ever been able to look back on such a situation and realize that, under the leading and guiding of the Holy Spirit, it was all about you being in the right place at the right time?

Have you ever been in a situation or had an experience on which you look back and say, “My goodness, that came out of nowhere!”   Like it came out of nowhere.  You had no idea.  No expectation.  This is one of the things about following Christ, about following the leading and prompting of the Holy Spirit.  We get to take part in situations on which we may look back and say “Where did that come from?!”   Like a man going along a road at noon.  A road that goes down from Jerusalem to Gaza. A wilderness road.  A desert road.  Who would have thought Phillip would be in such a situation?

Some years ago, here at Blythwood, I might have said the same thing.  Who would have thought I’d be sitting around a table with some friends from Blythwood and some friends, residents and staff from a local youth shelter on a Thursday night, eating pizza? We had just finished playing volleyball.  We did this every Thursday evening.  We finished eating, and no one was in a rush to get away (always a good sign).  We started to talk about school and careers and that kind of thing.  At this point, one of our young friends asked, “How do you find your path in life?”  Another question came back, “Do you mean like a career path?”  We were talking careers, jobs, and so on.  The young person replied, “No, like your spiritual path.”

We had been helping out at this shelter for a few years.  It was difficult to foster meaningful relationships, often because of the temporary nature of living in a shelter.  For many of these young people, adults were looked on with suspicion. Their experience of adults in their lives had not, by and large, been great.

So my goodness.  We were then in a conversation which involved a lot of talking, listening, and question asking.  The chance was had to speak in very broad strokes about God’s redemption plan and to speak in very personal fine lines about what being caught up in the redemption of God through Christ and in the Holy Spirit has meant for me and means for me and what I hope it will mean not only for me but for all of humanity and all of creation.  You don’t have to find your path. Jesus has made the path, and he’s on the path, and he’s the path, and the invitation is to join him.  

And I was so thankful.

Right place, right time.  My story did not end with a baptism, not that I know of anyway.  You never know, though.  We trust God’s promise that God’s word will not return to God empty or without accomplishing that for which God purposes it.  We trust that in Christ, each one of God’s promises is a “Yes.”

Yes? 

Those young people were living with a lot of unknowns; a lot of ambiguity.  It’s hard enough to be a teen or young 20-something in this day and age without throwing into the mix the fact that you don’t have a home.  You are in between things. On the way to a destination that may be unknown.  On the road.  When you’re on the road, you’re between destinations.  The road is also a place of unforeseen circumstances and boundary crossing. Jesus is also on the road, as we remember from the story of those two disciples travelling to Emmaus in Luke’s 1^st volume.  Jesus is King, and he’s King of the road too.  An angel of the Lord tells Phillip to hit the road.  We remember Phillip was one of the seven appointed to serve in Acts 6.  We heard the story of Stephen last week.  Stephen, proclaiming the story of Jesus, living it and telling it right to the end.  Earlier in chapter 8, we read that Phillip was called to do some proclaiming in Samaria.  He went down and proclaimed the Messiah to them.  Phillip has a successful ministry in Samaria.  Men and women are baptized.  Signs and great miracles take place.  The Holy Spirit is received when Peter and John come to visit.  “Now after Peter and John had testified and spoken the word of the Lord,” we read, “they returned to Jerusalem, proclaiming the good news to many villages of the Samaritans.” (8:25)

We might expect Phillip to be called to carry on in Samaria.  Not so with Phillip!  “Then an angel of the Lord said to Phillip, ‘Get up and go towards the south to the road that goes down from Jerusalem to Gaza.’ (This is a wilderness road.)  So he got up and went.” (8:26-27a)  We’ve been talking, and we’ll keep on talking about the power of the Holy Spirit in us, Christ in us, the hope of glory.  We’ve talked and will continue to talk about the work of the Spirit in the church of any age, of the prayer to be filled with God’s Spirit, attuned to God’s Spirit, in tune with God’s Spirit.  Philip is very open to hearing about God’s leading.  “Take this wilderness road,” Phillip is told.  It’s deserted. “Go toward the south” can also mean “go at noon.” Who goes travelling down a wilderness road at the hottest part of the day?   Philip doesn’t wonder.  He just does it.  We may wonder why God puts us in certain situations with certain people.  Let us be present in those situations, in the presence of the Holy Spirit. We talked last week about living the story and telling the story.  May we be attentive to situations on which we may look back and say, “That came out of nowhere!  Thank you, Lord!”  Phillip doesn’t question.  He goes.

So he got up and went.  Now there was an Ethiopian eunuch, a court official of the Candace, queen of the Ethiopians, in charge of her entire treasury.

And who would have thought.  This Ethiopian eunuch.  There was no country of Ethiopia at that time.  He was from the Kingdom of Cush, south of Egypt on the east side of the Nile (where southern Sudan is today).  The Minister of Finance (or Treasury Secretary if you like) for Candace, the queen of the Ethiopians (this was the title for the queen, not her name).  He happens to be travelling along the road at this hour, and happens to be reading from the prophet Isaiah. We know that in the reign of Christ, there’s no such thing as it just so happened. 

Now there are two things going on with this Ethiopian:

One - He’s a very highly placed court official.  He has juice.  He has money.  He could afford to buy an Isaiah scroll.  He can read.  He’s educated.  His Greek is elegant. 

Two – He is very much a person on the fringes.  Marginalized.  He’s sexually ambiguous.  A Eunuch was a male who had been castrated (testicles removed or crushed).  While one could volunteer, eunuchs were more often taken from the ranks of the enslaved or those captured in war.  For some, eunuchs were less than human.  Lucian of Samosata, a Syrian writer, wrote that eunuchs were “neither man nor woman but something composite, hybrid and monstrous, alien to human nature.”

He’s religiously ambiguous.  He had come to Jerusalem to worship.  As a eunuch, he was not allowed full participation in temple worship.  Is he a Gentile?  Is he a God fearer as others are described in Acts?  Is he a Jewish convert?  Castration would make him being a full convert impossible.  We just don’t know.

We do know this.  He is interested in God, and God is pursuing him.  The Spirit says to Philip, “Go over to this chariot and join it.”  The word for join it can mean stick to it.  Come alongside it and stay there.  Philip (you have to love Philip) runs up and, as he comes alongside the chariot (which is a travelling chariot, not the war chariots you see in Ben-Hur), he hears this man reading the prophet Isaiah.

This was a point of contact.  I have to say, I think we have many points of contact with people all around us who might not be familiar with this story.  When you see millions of Canadians caught up in the story of a baseball team, does this not show something about how we were created to be a part of something bigger than ourselves?  When people talk about sending vibes one’s way or good vibrations, what does this say about prayer and the Holy Spirit?   When people speak and act against injustice, does this not speak to a feeling inherent in us that something is not right?  That something has gone wrong?

In this point of contact, Phillip asks a question.  It’s good to ask questions.  He doesn’t start with “Let me explain this to you.” He asks a question.  “Do you understand what you’re reading?”  This marvellous response comes back to him – “How can I, unless someone guides me?”  And he invited Philip to get in and sit beside him.

I don’t want us to miss the intensely personal and joyful nature of this story.  I said earlier that it’s not hard to come to an agreement on the sense that something has gone wrong in our world.  Something has gone wrong in the eunuch’s life.  Listen to the scripture he was reading.  It’s from the last of the four suffering servant writings in Isaiah:

Like a sheep, he was led to the slaughter and, like a lamb silent before its shearer, so he does not open his mouth.  In his humiliation, justice was denied him.  Who can describe his generation?  For his life is taken away from the earth.  The eunuch asks Phillip, “About whom, may I ask you, does the prophet say this, about himself or about someone else?”  One writer phrases the question this way:

“Would someone help me understand this Scripture? Because this really hits close to home! I was just a young boy when they led me like a sheep, innocent and unaware of the slaughter, or of what I call “my nightmare.” I was like a lamb, silent before those with shears in hand, as my brain disengaged from the pain. So, I did not even open my mouth. I have been humiliated, this is an understatement, and though I have received position, power, and wealth, I have not received justice. Who can speak of my descendants, for I will never have children, nor a name to pass on? My life was stolen from me. So, tell me, Philip, who was the prophet talking about? Himself? Or me?”

Then Phillip began to speak, and starting with this scripture, he proclaimed to him the good news about Jesus.  God has come for this eunuch in all the complexity and ambiguity of his life. He matters.  What has been done to him does not determine the ultimate significance of his life.  I am not defined by the worst thing that ever happened to me, or the worst thing I have ever done, for that matter.  There is a place for him in the kingdom of God because Jesus is the suffering one described in the Isaiah passage.  There is a place for him in the kingdom of God because Jesus has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows.  Jesus is the servant who suffers and dies a shameful death, but that is not the end of the story.  In Jesus' death is not the end of the story.  Jesus was raised from death to be the firstborn of all creation, which he will make new. In Jesus our shame is taken away as we are given a whole new identity as beloved children of God.  Jesus is our honour, our peace, our hope, our joy, our love. 

The good news is for everyone.  If these two travelling companions looked a little farther in the scroll of Isaiah, they would have read this. 

Do not let the foreigner joined to the Lord say, “The Lord shall 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, I will give in my house and within my walls, a monument and a name better than sons and daughters; I will give them an everlasting name that shall not be cut off. (Is 56:3-5)

So let us hold fast.  There would be no sons or daughters for the eunuch, of course.  A dry tree?  Not at all.  Because the new covenant has been sealed with the blood of Christ, and in Christ we are made new and given a new name and brought into a new family, and this is everlasting and shall not be cut off.

That’s the story. The question is, “What do we do with this Jesus?”  This Ethiopian brother’s response is “Look, here is water!  What is to prevent me from being baptized?”  The answer, of course, is not a thing!  Phillip and he go down into the water, and Phillip welcomes him into the family.  Philip is snatched away and finds himself in Azotus, and keeps on proclaiming the good news until he comes to Caesarea, where we’ll run into him years later. The new brother goes on his way rejoicing.  Who would have thought?  Out of nowhere.  We don’t know what happened to him, but early church tradition has it that he becomes the evangelist to the Nubian kingdom, starting the Ethiopian Orthodox Church that continues to this day. 

Who knows what might happen when we come alongside people and are given the opportunity to tell of how all the promises of God find their “Yes” in Christ.  May the Spirit give us the wisdom and strength to say “Yes” to where God calls us to be and to share.  May this be true for us all. Amen