Easter 5b: God is love

Beloved, let us love one another, because love is from God; everyone who loves is born of God and knows God.  Whoever does not love does not know God, for God is love.  For God is love.

Not Valentine’s Day love, not MTV videos’ love, not soap-opera love.  This is a specific kind of love---agape.  Agape is a sacrificial love.  A love of self-giving for the benefit of the other.  The love we see on the cross. Agape is the essence of God—God’s very character.  From agape, Creation was made, Creation is sustained, and Creation is being redeemed.

What does this love look like?  It looks like Philip.  Philip who gave up his life as he knew it in order to follow Jesus.  And even after he blew it—deserting Jesus in his most painful hour---Philip turned back.  Returned to the Lord. Turned back to rejoin the community and continue to follow Jesus beyond the resurrection by sharing what he knew of Jesus with others.

And so Philip finds himself on a wilderness road.  Goodness, this is our story too, isn’t it?  We so often find ourselves on a wilderness road—when we struggle to find our way, when we seem cut off from others, when we are not certain where to go or how to act—but back to Philip who does this extraordinary thing.  The ordinary thing to do would be to suss out for himself what his next step is, to map out his own path.  But Philip does the extra-ordinary thing; he allows himself to be directed by the Holy Spirit.  Which means he has made himself vulnerable enough to hear and feel the Holy Spirit.

The passage doesn’t tell us how he does that---perhaps it is through ongoing prayer, study, community, fellowship, breaking the bread, or all of the above---but we know Philip is living a life that allows for the Holy Spirit to be heard and known by him.

And Philip obeys.  He acts according to the Holy Spirit’s promptings.  He doesn’t think to himself: “This is crazy.  This makes no sense. I’m busy. I don’t have time. I don’t wanna.”  He goes.  He runs up to this chariot and speaks to the person reading from Scripture---perhaps remembering how Jesus opened his mind to the Scriptures---and Philip says: Do you understand what you are reading?

Now we know quite a bit about this eunuch.  We know he is a eunuch because the evangelist tells us five times in this short passage.  Obviously, we are not to miss this identity marker.  But we also know this person is educated; he can read.  We know he has a position in a queen’s house and has some type of power or money available because the eunuch is reading from an expensive scroll.  He is a foreigner, from Ethiopia, an African man.  For Israelites, it’s not so much his dark skin that would pose a division, but his, most likely, non-Jewishness.

And we also know what anyone else who heard this story for this first time in the years following the Resurrection would know. This person would not be welcome in the temple.  Yes, he is a seeker of God, coming to Jerusalem to worship at the temple, yet this eunuch was unwelcome in God’s court.  Deuteronomy 23:1 makes it plain that no one whose sexuality has been altered in this way “shall be admitted to the assembly of the Lord.” 

As far as Jewish law was understood at the time, this eunuch was from the wrong nation, pledged allegiance to the wrong sovereign, and possessed the wrong sexuality.  And so he finds himself on the wilderness road. Seeking.

Cue Philip’s entrance. What this eunuch from Ethiopia needs is not only someone who understands the Scriptures, but someone who knows and understands the character of God: that God is love---and someone who understands the arc of God’s redeeming and saving acts in human history.

Is Philip such a person?  I don’t know.  What we do know is that on this one day—at this one opportunity---Philip, empowered and inspired by the Holy Spirit, Philip loves as God loves.  Philip obeys the Spirit’s movement, the whispers of God’s messenger, and Philip meets the eunuch just as he is and loves---through word: Can I help you?  Through deed: let me explain.  Through faith: what is to prevent me from being baptized?  Nothing.  Absolutely nothing, the Spirit whispers into Philip’s ear.  And so one more from the margins is restored to the Body of Christ.

Does Peter know this is a eunuch—a person who is unwelcome in God’s court?  Again, I don’t know.  Scripture doesn’t make it clear.  So maybe it doesn’t matter.  Because it didn’t matter to Philip.  He didn’t take a background check; he doesn’t require any litmus tests.  He simply meets this person where he is at—in fact, Philip gets into his chariot---and shares the Good News of receiving new life in Christ.

As a good Jewish person, Philip knew the law, but like Jesus---another good Jewish person---he realized that God’s character prompted him to transcend the law as it was understood in order for him to respond according to God’s law: Love your neighbor as Jesus loves.

This passage of scripture has been important to me in my own journey.  I truly heard it for the first time when I was on a wilderness road of sorts.  My family moved around quite often, but we spent three years in Eau Claire when I was in junior high.  During those years, I made close friends who are still my friends today—lifetime friends.  One of those friends is Greg.  In junior high Greg was someone who tolerated my silliness and teasing and who was always there when I needed a confidant.

In high school, even though I had moved away, I remained close to this circle of friends.  In fact, instead of going to my own prom, I attended Prom in Eau Claire with Greg as my date.  And then, a year later, we were all at UW-Eau Claire together. 

It must have been our second year at Eau Claire when Greg told me his secret.  Greg is gay.  Now, by this time in my life, I knew other people who were gay, but most of them were acquaintances, classmates.  Greg was my friend---we shared history, stories, and pivotal moments.  And my heart broke for Greg.  He had been living a life where he couldn’t be his true self.  A half-life in many ways.

And then I had to deal with what I believed.  I had grown up believing that homosexuality was a sin.  That Greg, due to his sexuality, was outside the circle of salvation.  And I couldn’t live with that. I knew Greg—his goodness, his generosity, his often selfless nature.  I could no longer just go on carrying around the teaching that homosexuality was sin.  I also didn’t know what to do with Scripture which had some, granted not many, but some pretty clear remarks about homosexuality as a sin.

Now, this is neither the time nor the place to go into my entire journey as I wrestled with what I had been taught and the discrepancy with my experience, my reason, my friend named Greg. But, I do feel prompted to share that this story of the eunuch unfolded a new teaching for me that I had never heard.

This eunuch—an African man who was considered sexually immoral and not welcome in God’s court according to the teachings of the faith---this eunuch was not only baptized, but had been intentionally brought in---an angel of the Lord and the Holy Spirit herself prompted Philip to go to him—to draw him into relationship with Jesus and to bring him into the Body of Christ.

Baptism isn’t a partial membership.  It is full membership into the church, the Body of Christ.  With membership comes admittance to the sacraments---all of them are made accessible.  The Church doesn’t have junior memberships or levels of membership---members are members---essential pieces of the whole.  Now, our level of commitment, the amount of time and talent we apply as individuals to our membership may vary---but the grace, love, and inclusion isn’t varied.  And our inclusion into this relationship with God isn’t to be limited by humanity’s understanding or interpretation.

Inclusion in the Body of Christ is based on the character of God---the essence of the Vine---For God is love.  God is agape---a self-giving for the benefit of the other---concrete actions made for the benefit of the common good.

I know not everyone agrees with me.  I know there are theologians, scholars, priests, and faithful Christians who disagree with me. Maybe even you. I can accept that; I am willing to live with differences in this teaching because I trust that we have arrived at different understandings out of faithfulness.  So, just as I believe this passage means we are to understand that those in the LGBTQ community are welcome into God’s courts and all the sacraments there provided, I also understand that this Scripture means that those who disagree with me have that same, grace-filled inclusion.  And somehow---through the inspiration of the Holy Spirit and the grace of God---we can agree to live and move together as we seek to live out the Good News of new life in Christ.  Because the mission of Jesus—the redeeming and healing work of our Savior---is more important than proving the rightness or wrongness of this particular teaching of the Church.

So instead of spending our time proving who is right and who is wrong, what if, as the Church, we could spend our time living out Thomas Merton’s words: “The beginning of love is the will to let those we love be perfectly themselves, the resolution not to twist them to fit our own image.” 

What if, like Philip, inspired by the Holy Spirit and prompted by the angels, we choose to be bold and crazy.  Bold and crazy enough to throw open wide the doors---recognizing that our part is to love---love without exception---and we leave the sorting to God.  Long ago I decided that I may be wrong.  My conclusions, my understandings and interpretations may be completely off the mark.  But, I decided, if I am going to be wrong, I want to land on the side of inclusion rather than exclusion.  After all, the sorting work is not mine.  The sorting work is God’s.  God who loves the world.  God who has deemed all of Creation very good. No exceptions.

Beloved, let us love one another.  Boldly, courageously, with abandon.  For God is love.