United University Church May 6, 2012

Acts 8: 26 40

HELP ME UNDERSTAND
As I recall, the cartoon showed a group of people seated in a circle in what could well be a living room. There are several men and perhaps a woman or two. Some have their arms folded across their chests. One or two have self-satisfied smiles on their faces as they gaze in amusement toward the viewer. Only a hand is visible from the subject of their amusement, and that unseen individual I holding a strip of paper. Words scrawled on the paper read, Substitutionary atonement. RATS !!, reads the caption. Thats the last time I play charades with a bunch of ministers! My thanks to Facebook for that little gem of in-house clergy humor. But substitutionary atonement a scholarly way of saying that Jesus died for our sins is a difficult subject to explain, whether or not you choose to use words to do so. Christian history down to the present day is full of debate on every angle of why a God of love revealed to us in Jesus Christ would require the death of an only son in order to blot out the sins of a fallen world. What kind of twisted love is that? many continue to ask. It challenges everything many of us thought we had learned about God. When you explain Christianity to those unfamiliar with the faith or even to many who are familiar with it substitutionary atonement is a difficult place to start. But that is exactly what Philip was called upon to do in this passage from Acts describing his encounter with an Ethiopian eunuch. What a delight it is to unpack this rather exotic conversion story for layers of meaning and applications for believers today! There is something fresh, relevant and exciting in a tale of the early church encountering diversity head-on, in all its glory. I love it for the way it helps illustrate critical things Ive learned over the course of my ministry in particular about dialogue, inclusion and evangelism. I especially love it now, as we look back on frightening events twenty years ago in this city some once labeled the capital of multi-cultural America. I love it especially in a week when I also find myself traveling to Little Ethiopia on Fairfax to visit a friend in a convalescent hospital. I love thinking about what it means with you here as some, still shaken by a violent crime against two Chinese students in the neighborhood, look ahead to graduation and life

beyond this campus. In the midst of the pain and the complexity of living with differences, this important but obscure piece of the Christian story depicts the undeniable movement of the Holy Spirit toward understanding, inclusion and hope. Philip was not one of the twelve disciples of Jesus, but he was a deacon and thus, someone committed to a ministry of service. For Philip that was a jumping-off place to a position as a rising star in a Christian community still in its infancy. I would imagine that his commitment to service lent his preaching both an urgency and compassion that made it all the more compelling. After the stoning of the martyr Stephen and the subsequent persecution of the church in Jerusalem which scattered believers throughout Judea and Samaria, Philip made a name for himself winning converts and driving out demons throughout Samaria in a time when observant Jews still avoided the territory. When he converted even a local ambitious celebrity miracleworker named Simon to following Jesus, Philips reputation was enhanced considerably. Clearly, this was somebody equipped with the right stuff for handling even more daunting challenges. When an angel of the Lord appeared to him, it was undeniable that Philip had been noticed. And so, as the command came from the angle for him to head south down a desert road to the former Philistine city of Gaza, Philip was very likely puzzled. For a red-hot evangelist, this was hardly promising territory for new converts. As it happened, headed in the same direction from Jerusalem on that road was a chariot bearing one of the most unlikely potential converts that Philip could have possibly imagined. In spite of the lofty and responsible position this African held in his home territory, it is more than likely that this earnest seeker of faith was never permitted within earshot of the precincts of the Temple in Jerusalem. He simply didnt fit. His status as a eunuch, or castrated male, may have been a requirement for the position of trust he held in the court of the queen of Ethiopia, but it also rendered him an unclean outsider under Jewish law. All he could have done in Jerusalem was to observe worshippers on their way to and from the Temple and possibly hope to learn something from them. He appears to have been one that the faithful of the time referred to as a God-fearer, or one who already had some knowledge and respect for the God of the Hebrews but who had not been initiated into the Jewish community of faith. The Holy Spirit must have been at work, since the Ethiopian was reading aloud from the prophet Isaiah when Philip was instructed by the Spirit to go up and join the chariot.

As a sheep led to the slaughter or a lamb before its shearer is dumb, so he opens not his mouth. In his humiliation justice was denied him. Who can describe his generation? For his life is taken up from the earth. In astonishment, Philip could just feel a sermon on substitutionary atonement coming on as he recognized the familiar suffering Servant passage being read. Taking his cue, Philip inquired of the Ethiopian if he understood what he was reading. Fresh from the humiliation of his Jerusalem experience, the Ethiopian official did not take offense at the question. Instead, he invited Philip to join him in the chariot and answer for him about whom the prophet was writing. Help me understand, his actions said. People from two completely different worlds bridging their differences in conversation. Help me understand, one invites the other. What a rare and beautiful exchange for us to consider in the polarized, fragmented and even tribal environment we seem to inhabit today! We see an exchange between equals, not one parading his superior knowledge before another. The Ethiopian invites Philip into his chariot for the conversation, and suddenly they are on a more equal footing. Help me understand, the gesture says. It is nothing short of a demonstration of the Holy Spirit at work. It reminds me of a metaphor used to describe evangelism which I have always appreciated two hungry beggars sharing a crust of bread. Lets jump ahead to Los Angeles in early May of 1992. Tempers and the ashes of burnt out structures had barely cooled when representatives of both the National Council of Churches and the World Council of Churches came swooping into town. Some of us here at United University Church played a part in planning for the visit and the platforms for community dialogue and advocacy that came of it. We tried to give our visitors an experience of the broad diversity of our metropolis, beyond the simplified black, white, Latino, Korean portrait the news media depicted for the world. There were tense and testy exchanges at times and lots of photo-ops. Occasionally but not nearly often enough people from wholly different walks of life gave or accepted invitations to help me understand. Still, it was a worthwhile effort. I believe we all learned something.

In retrospect, I recognized that my intense passion about the wars in Central America and for the refugees they sent to our doorstep had rendered me less responsive than I needed to be to building resentments and injustice close to home. Out of the ashes and tense exchanges of those days, the soil of my life and ministry was being prepared for new challenges. Passage of Proposition 187 in California, which sought to cut off public schooling and benefits to undocumented immigrants led to another response by the National Council of Churches. It was a project called, Building Hospitable Community, an attempt to defuse some of the hostility against immigrants at that time through dialogue and sharing of experience. I learned important lessons from that experience. Our deeply rooted prejudices, judgments about people and ways of seeing the world are not rational. They dont simply dissolve when confronted with an avalanche of facts. In order for people to change their minds, they need a safe space in which to test out new ways of thinking. They need the opportunity to empathize with someone from dramatically different circumstances. They need to be willing to say to the other, Help me understand. Does it take time YES! Does it take patience YES! Sometimes we dont have those luxuries, but Im convinced that its the only thing that really works. A second import thing I learned was that there is a lot of well-intentioned talk billed as dialogue that, in reality, is no such thing. Participants entering into a dialogue need to go in recognizing and being open to the possibility that they may be changed by it. The sole purpose cannot be winning others over to your way of thinking. It takes humility. It takes respect for the other parties in the dialogue. Often, it takes being the one who is willing to say, Help me understand. Interfaith dialogue with Muslims following 9/11, attempts at dialogue between Presbyterian and Jewish religious leaders over Israeli occupation of the West Bank and our response, conversations within the Presbyterian family regarding the place of gay, lesbian and transgendered people within the church -- over and over again, the lessons I learned in those days about dialogue have been reinforced. And I have changed and been enriched repeatedly by those experiences. I hope that on some occasions my experience has helped put others on a path to change. I recognize now that this is the most I can do, because real change will require that others do the work of change for themselves. And yes, I trust that it has led some toward the mystery and holy ground of a saving knowledge and faith in Jesus Christ just as two beggars share a crust of bread.

Its rare that you or I will meet a seeker as hungry for truth as the Ethiopian eunuch. Once Philip unpacked the suffering Servant passage from Isaiah and proclaimed the Good News of Jesus Christ to him, he was ready to be baptized on the spot! More often for us, the testimony of our lives is likely to have far greater impact than a challenging discussion of substitutionary atonement. It is holy ground to consider Gods unfathomable love for each one of us and all Creation, and accepting Jesus Chris is a leap of faith. Words from my favorite author Frederick Buechner apply here as we seek the humility that permits us to say, Help me understand. -Listen to your life. See it for the fathomless mystery that it is. In the boredom and the pain of it no less than in the excitement and the gladness: touch, taste, smell your way to the holy, hidden heart of it because in the last analysis all moments are key moments, and life itself is grace. (Frederick Buechner: Now and Then: A Memoir of Vocation)

I wonder whatever happened to the Ethiopian eunuch. It would not surprise me to learn that he went on to found the ancient Ethiopian Coptic Orthodox Church. With God, nothing is impossible!