Bane or Blessing?

By Earle W. Fike, Jr.
John 15: 1-8; Acts 8:26-40
Preached in the Bridgewater Church of the Brethren
Bridgewater, Virginia
May 18, 2003

Preaching is all about bane and blessing. During and following a sermon, the congregation may experience the event as bane or blessing. Bane may be defined as something as serious as a curse; or at the least, an irritation, a bother, or just plain trouble. Blessing is defined as good fortune, or favor, or a benefit. Pastors always pray for the day to be a blessing. But those of us who are regularly pew perchers know that any given Sunday can be either bane or blessing or both.

It may surprise you to realize that the choice of what to preach about is also a kind of bane or blessing for a pastor. It's a bother in the sense that the choice must always be made whether one feels in the mood to do it or not. It's a benefit in that one always learns in the process of the creation. Sometimes what one learns is a surprise, especially when preaching from a text for the first time. Some times it's joy; sometimes it challenges life enough to be an unwelcome discomfort. At the outset, you need to know that all of those feelings became reality as I chose to preach from the lectionary Acts 8 reading for this Sunday.

This story of the Ethiopian Eunuch is an interesting on the road story, and seems fairly straightforward in its message. The burden of the book of Acts, written by the same person as the Gospel of Luke, is to shift the emphasis from telling us about Jesus, to telling us about how the community of the earliest followers of Jesus responded to his life and message. It is a story of vigorous evangelism, a story of persons who were eager to share the good news of Jesus with others. It is also a story about the enthusiasm of those who heard the news and believed and wanted to follow.

And so we find Philip, fresh from an evangelistic foray into Samaria, being instructed by God to go south on the road from Jerusalem to Gaza, incidentally, not a Palestinian interstate, but a little old wilderness back road. On that road is an Ethiopian Eunuch, a high court official of Candace who was queen of the Ethiopians. He was in charge of her entire treasury. He had come to Jerusalem to worship, and was seated in his chariot reading from the prophet Isaiah. The spirit told Philip to go and join him, and when he heard what he was reading he said, "Do you understand what you are reading?" The Eunuch replied, "how can I unless someone guides me?" Then the account says that Philip proclaimed to him the Good News of Jesus. As they were going along the road, they came to some water, and the Eunuch said, "Look, here is water! What is to prevent me from being baptized?" The answer was nothing! So he stopped the chariot, and he and Philip went down into the water, he was baptized, and then Philip left immediately. While later Christian tradition holds that the eunuch became the first Christian missionary to Africa, as far as the New Testament is concerned, the story ends with the eunuch going on his way rejoicing.

What do we make of this? The most familiar application I've heard in sermons and Sunday school lessons, and one that certainly fits Philip's action and the intent of the Book of Acts, is that we should look for and take every opportunity to tell others about the Good News of Jesus. We should not be shy or fearful about it. We should be aggressive in our evangelism efforts. We should share the Good News with anyone who will listen. End of story?

Well, not quite!. If we ask what might be the reason for this story being included in the book of Acts; if we ask to know more about why an Ethiopian Eunuch going on his way rejoicing is singled out as important in understanding the character of early church evangelism, we arrive at the surprise in this story. The man being evangelized is as important as the evangelist! We need to dig a little deeper. Will our surprise be bane or blessing?

That fact that the Ethiopian Eunuch was in Jerusalem to worship and reading from Isaiah on his trip home indicates some interest in Israel's religion. So we know he is a seeker; a man on a journey in search of faith. In actuality, the Eunuch would be allowed to worship in the temple enclosure, but only in the outer court. The real Jewish community, those in the inner temple, were protected from such prospective proselytes. You may recall that later in the Acts story, Paul himself was seized, and thrown out of the temple for defiling it by allowing Greeks to be with him on the inside. We also know that much of the story of the New Testament chronicles the problems the early Christians had in accepting Gentiles into the community of faith on an equal basis with those from the Jewish tradition. Hard line Jews argued that Gentiles should first become Jews before they could become Christians, meaning that they had to subscribe to certain tenets of the Jewish faith before their acceptance of Jesus as their Lord could be trusted and recognized. The open hostility between apostles Peter and Paul focused on this issue, and was finally settled for them when God opened Peter's eyes in a spectacular dream.

But the Ethiopian Eunuch had other problems beyond just being a Gentile. We need to realize that in Luke's time, the term Ethiopian referred to anyone with dark skin, particularly from territories south of Egypt. That means Africa, and that means he was black. He was also a man with great authority over many persons. That's enough to make him suspicious in communities of faith then and now. He was also very wealthy. He owned his own chariot, which in our days would be classified as a luxury limousine. We understand in our Brethren tradition how suspicious that makes him, don't we?

If all that were not enough to constitute three strikes against him, we need to realize that for him the whole game was over, because it was never going to start. He wasn't ever going to be considered for the team because according to Jewish law in Deut 23:1, the Eunuch could never be a Jew, or even a prospective proselyte to Judaism. Despite his station, his success, his wealth, his breeding, his social standing in the outside world, and more important, despite his desire to understand and accept the Good News of Jesus, he was in the eyes of the Jewish Christians, mutilated. He was less than a man. He was an aberration. A freak. More than that, his unacceptability, his inability to carry out normal male functions was not something he would ever be able change. To put it bluntly, on the basis of cultural and religious acceptability, this man was not even an appropriate target for evangelism. He didn't have the necessary equipment to be a follower.

What a surprise to find this story prominent in the records of the evangelistic growth of the early church. The Ethiopian Eunuch is the earliest recorded example of the baptism of a Gentile into the community of faith. He is the earliest example of one who was "not my people" becoming "my people." He is a tough and "hard to swallow" example of the willingness of the early church to step outside the bounds of religious and cultural acceptability and welcome an outsider. He is the first example of what the Apostle Paul meant when he spoke to the conservative and the liberals, the insiders and the outsiders among the early Christians in Ephesus, saying "But now in Christ Jesus, you who were once far off are brought near . . . he is our peace . . . he has broken down the dividing wall, that is the hostility between us . . . that he might create in himself a new humanity . . . thus making peace . . . and granting us access in one Spirit to the Father." (Ephesians 2:11-22) Oh my, that is the blessed good news. That is the true life that the vine gives to the branches. That kind of truth is at the heart of the New Testament and the wonder of it is that it is heralded by the Ethiopian Eunuch's story. Wonderful as that good news is, it quite possibly is both blessing and bane for us.

In discussing the issues in today's lectionary readings, William Willimon says, "I don't recall any moment when Jesus said to his disciples, "believe the following five things about me, and you can be counted as my disciples. What he said was follow me." Willimon goes on. "Christianity is not a set of beliefs, first principles, propositions. It is a matter of discipleship and following. The faith is in the following."ⁱ To put it another way, Jesus understood that following him was more important than deciding who was acceptable enough to be counted a follower.

Something in our Brethren DNA responds favorably to that. Our community of faith heritage aspires to the notion of following, as being more important than required stated beliefs. When Alexander Mack was asked how the Brethren were to be recognized, he said, "in the manner of their living." Which is to say, our community identity is to be found in how we fulfill our covenant to accept Christ as Lord and in our promise to live in keeping with the spirit and teachings of Jesus. The basis for our community of faith is to be found in Scripture, and therefore the whole New Testament is to replace any required creed or belief; any approved order of worship. In short, in spite of the fact that at one time we had a Brethren's Card outlining acceptable doctrine and belief, (Annual Conference 1923) the intent of our beginnings would seem to suggest that we were never intended to have litmus tests to give us a clean bill of health for inclusion in the Brethren community's practice of the Jesus faith.

A great cultural icon passed away recently. Mr. Rogers was beloved by generations of children and parents. He used to close his program by saying, "I'll be back when the day is new, and I'll have more ideas for you." Our faith is in the following of that kind of Jesus. He is a blessing, as we know him, any given day. But he is not static; set in prescribed beliefs and creeds. He is a living truth who promises to bring more ideas in the new days ahead of us; ideas that allow us to grow in the faith as we follow. As Brethren, we are by origin, on a journey in which any of our "here I stand convictions" are always subject to faith changing insight from the spirit as experienced by the community of faith. In our genes, we understand that faith is in the following, not in any belief or created fence that, for our comfort, excludes other persons who might be very acceptable to the Lord we serve.

But that truth feels like both bane and blessing. Any community has to have its identity. Communities are always defined by the creation of boundaries of acceptability. The Augusta National Golf Club comes to mind. No women allowed. There are always membership requirements. And the things that distinguish us from others are often seen and felt as the very glue, which holds the community together. We want to be with those with whom we agree. We want to be comfortable in relating to those who are like us. And so, even as the early church did, our own Brethren community of faith builds fences and makes exclusions. And when the community interprets the fences differently, there are usually ways inside the fences to describe who is the more acceptable.

I'm reminded of George Orwell's Animal Farm proclamation. "All animals are created equal, but some are more equal than others." The disputes in the early church between their conservative Jews and their liberal Gentiles, and the disputes within our own denomination about who is acceptable and who is not acceptable, betray our own version of that proclamation. We join with the protective problem makers in the early New Testament church when we say, "All those who choose to follow Jesus are equal, but some are more equal than others." The story of the Ethiopian Eunuch calls us to something higher.

I warned you. This little evangelism story in Acts turned out to be bane and blessing to me. I believe it cautions us, suggesting that we should never confuse our comfortableness in community guidelines with the key requirements of discipleship. The early church's openness to the Ethiopian Eunuch calls us to remember. So let's do some remembering about some of our biblically based fences! Remember how at one time, no man could be considered for licensing to the ministry who wore a tie. Remember how any woman who wore a wedding ring was unacceptable. Remember how a man who was divorced was not allowed to be a pastor. Remember how a woman was unacceptable for ordination. Remember how an already Christian person who was not trine immersed was unacceptable as a member. Remember as many "long gone" fences as you can, and then remember now! Remember now, how less than a year ago, we voted as a church to exclude homosexuals from ordination thereby establishing a fence which suggests that while some of us might allow them in the outer court, they are unacceptable in the temple where the real Brethren members are. I do not purpose by raising that issue, to say what we should or should not have done in regard to that action. As always, that was and remains a community of faith decision we live with until we learn better. I do say that this little evangelism story in Acts is there to remind us that the early church was willing to accept into full membership a man who was unacceptable because he was physically unable to fulfill normal male responsibilities. And I do say that the story presses on us the need to carefully investigate the fences we erect, the hoops we require community members to jump through, the exclusions we support, and the requirements we make for others to become "one of us."

Let me close with a story, not from the New Testament, but from a collection by the late Bennett Cerf.ⁱⁱ There was once an orphaned twelve year old girl, ungainly, unattractive, defiant, socially unacceptable. She had been shunted from one institution to another. Now in new surroundings, she managed once again to antagonize those around her with her behavior and with a life style that frayed the nerves of everyone including the housemother and the headmistress of the institution. She was a misfit. She was a freak. Everyone was praying for a way to be rid of her.

One of the strict rules of the institution was that no letter could be mailed by an inmate without the approval of the teacher. It was, therefore, with understandable excitement, that the little girl's housemother reported to the principal, "Her roommate has confided in me that she's been writing a note every day for a week and hiding it in the branch of a tree overhanging the outside wall. I've just seen her climb up and hide one there myself."

The headmistress could scarcely conceal her elation. "Show me where the note is hidden," she ordered, "and we'll set the wheels in motion at once to get her out of here." Together they reclaimed the note from the branch of the tree. The headmistress' hands trembled as she opened it. Then she hung her head and passed it silently to the house mother. It said," to whoever finds this, I love you."

The Good News gift of Jesus to the world is a note from God hung outside the walls of our community comfort, which says, "To whoever finds this, I love you." The Ethiopian Eunuch's story is like a note passed from the "life giving vine" that brought down the fences of hostility in the early church; a note passed from them to the churches of our time. For me, and perhaps for you, managing its truth is both bane and blessing.

Notes

1. Willimon, William Pulpit Resource Vol. 31, No 2, June 2003 p.34
2. Cerf, Bennett, Stories to Make You Feel Better, Random House NY 1972

Earle W. Fike Jr.
Bridgewater, Va.
May 18, 2003