The Persistent Eunuch [Easter 5B - Acts 8:26-40]
The Rev. Jeremiah Williamson
Acts 8:26-40
The Persistent Eunuch
Philip is basically an
Avenger. He’s a super hero powered by
the same Holy Spirit that raised Christ from the dead. He runs faster than a horse-drawn chariot. He can teleport. He is apparently a pedagogical genius. And he is endowed with the sacramental authority
to make new Christians. It is all very
impressive. Philip is an impressive guy.
But I would argue that
there is something far more miraculous than even teleportation happening in
this story from the book of Acts. The real
miracle, the most amazing detail, is that this Ethiopian eunuch is still reading
the Bible.
The eunuch had
traveled all the way to Jerusalem to worship – not to tour the ancient sites,
not for a few days of respite, but to merely stand in the House of God, to sway
with the prayers of the congregation, to hear the Torah portion echo through
the stone space. That was no small trip in
that first century world, Ethiopia to Jerusalem, in a first-century chariot,
rolling over unpaved first-century roads.
But despite the inconvenience,
this eunuch made this grueling pilgrimage because there is nothing like standing
in the presence of God, because one day in the courts of the Lord is better
than a thousand elsewhere. The eunuch
journeyed that long road compelled by a holy vision: that they would stand in
the midst of the congregation. What is
not made explicit is this text, though would have been understood by the first
readers of this story, is that like the Griswolds at the gates of Walley World,
the eunuch arrives only to discover that the gates are closed – at least to
them.
We know very little about the person Philip joins in the
chariot. We are given scant details
about their past. We are offered no
insight into their relationship to Judaism, how a person lodging with an
Ethiopian royal family would fall so deeply in love with the God of Israel that
they would journey to the Holy City from the very edge of the known world. We are not even given a name. This court official is only identified as an
Ethiopian eunuch – and actually, in much of the story, simply as “the eunuch.”
Well, perhaps not so simply.
Actually it is quite complex, this person’s place in the world. A eunuch, as perhaps you know, is a biological
male who has been castrated. A eunuch
lived as an ambiguously gendered person, a non-binary person, in a world of
clearly defined gender roles. And while
their position in the court of a queen sounds prestigious, the eunuch held that
position because the king did not have to worry about a eunuch sleeping with
his wives. Wil Gafney explains, “In order to work for most
monarchs in the ancient Near East and North Africa, men had to be surgically
neutered. The monarchs did not want top-level employees trying to pass on power
to their children and establishing dynasties of their own, or forming adulterous
liaisons and undermining the government.”[1]
And so this eunuch had a comfortable job
but an uncomfortable existence in a prejudiced world.
The eunuch's sexual
identity, their gender ambiguity, was defining – even in this biblical story. That one physical alteration – often performed
without consent or agency – forever changed the way the eunuch was treated, perceived,
and lived. Possibilities that most men
of that society took for granted were impossible. A eunuch would not get married, have sex, experience
sexual desire; a eunuch would never know the possibility of having children
through which to pass on the family name.
And though this eunuch, our text tells us, had come to Jerusalem to worship,
even that hope was dashed because they did not conform to the conventional notions
of gender in that ancient world. Because
this person was a eunuch, they were not welcome to join in the hymns or sway
with the prayers. According to the 23rd
chapter of Deuteronomy, “No one whose testicles are crushed or whose member is
cut off shall be admitted to the assembly of the Lord.” That is not a verse we hear read in the Sunday
morning liturgy. But I guarantee our
eunuch heard it far too often.
The end of the eunuch’s
long journey was a locked door. And that
is why I contend that the real miracle, the most amazing detail of this story,
is that this Ethiopian eunuch is still reading the Bible on the long journey
home – still reading the very Bible that wrote them out of the assembly – still
reading the Bible because deep down in their soul lived this stubborn
insistence that they actually belonged in that story.
This story in Acts is
an amazing story, an amazing story of a dark-skinned, gender nonconforming, marginalized,
and excluded African who was so deeply in love with God that they were willing
to put up with God’s people, willing to keep knocking on the doors good
religious folks slammed in their face, willing to believe that God could and
did love them back. I have to believe
that when the eunuch asked Philip, “What is to prevent me from being baptized?”
the eunuch was probably bracing for a litany of reasons, ready to be battered
with Bible verses. But Philip gave no
reasons. He said nothing because there
was nothing to say because there are no exceptions in the love of God. That silence that answered the question was
probably the sweetest sound that eunuch had ever heard.
This is an old story, this story
from Acts. But it is also entirely too familiar. The first century Church embraced this eunuch,
welcomed them, showed them the love of Jesus; since then the Church has gone
out of its way to make sure that doesn’t happen again. Every day in this world children of God are turned
away from houses of worship because of their gender identity, because of their
sexual orientation, because they are gay or transgender or queer. People who desire to know and love and
worship God, find the doors of the Church closed to them. They are being told by the words and actions
of Christians that the Good News is not for them, that Jesus does not love them,
that Jesus is not interested.
The eunuch showed up at the Temple
anyway – knowing that they could not go in.
Because while the religious authorities had barred the door, the eunuch
was still desperate to know and love and worship God. And while the religious authorities did not
want the eunuch, God did. And that is
what this story is about: God searched and found that eunuch on the road out of
town and welcomed them into the assembly of the saints through the waters of
baptism.
When I was at St. John's Episcopal
Church, during my curacy, I was the unofficial chaplain of the the LGBTQ group
at Youngstown State University. At one
of the meetings, the students were invited to tell me their church stories – or
the rather the stories of why they no longer attended church. One young man shared with me, through his
tears, how his mother told him he was going to Hell when he came out to
her. That is why he no longer went to
church. A young woman told me about how
the church of her childhood, where she was raised and nurtured, the church that
taught her to be a Christian, kicked her out when she told them she was a
lesbian. She told me, “I thought they
cared about me…until I told them.” That
is why she did not go to church. Neither
student wanted to leave. Both were
Christians. They still loved Jesus. Sadly, their experience was that Church did
not love them.
But God does. Of course, God does. While religious people were busy creating
exclusions and condemning people to eternal damnation, our God was busy
blotting out a bit of Deuteronomy chapter 23.
Our God was creating space in the assembly of the saints for a rejected,
but persistent, Ethiopian eunuch – and for every persistent descendant of that
holy person who refuses to be denied their place in the family. Our God is writing them into the story – a story
from which they had long been excluded.
Acts chapter eight is a beautiful
vision of what the Church can be, of what God hopes the Church will be: a community
desperately trying to keep up with the shockingly expansive love of God, a
generous community of open fonts and limitless love.
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