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.
