The Gospel on the Move: Strange Joining
God Calls All
Acts 8:26-40
Rev. Tim Callow
Preached Sun. May 2nd, 2021
I’ve always had a certain ambivalence about planning. On the one hand, it’s crucial to plan ahead. If you don’t set goals and make plans you’re unlikely to accomplish what you need to accomplish. You’ll frustrate yourself, and you’ll frustrate others. And certainly as a pastor, as someone placed at the head, so to speak, of an organization I understand the need for planning. Yet on the other hand I can’t forget the words of Jesus, “Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own.” Or the words of his brother James, “Now listen, you who say, ‘Today or tomorrow we will go to this or that city, spend a year there, carry on business and make money.’ Why, you do not even know what will happen tomorrow. What is your life? You are a mist that appears for a little while and then vanishes. Instead, you ought to say, ‘If it is the Lord’s will, we will live and do this or that.’”
There is a balance we need to strike. Having a clear mission with clear goals, and the acknowledgment that we serve one Lord and, as the old saying goes, we make plans and God laughs.
Philip was a man consumed by his mission. I’m sure he made some plans, but we do not see him planning here. In our reading this morning he simply follows the Spirit. The Spirit sends him on the move, that he might preach the Gospel. The Spirit does not even clue him in to God’s plans. But first says, "Get up and go toward the south to the road that goes down from Jerusalem to Gaza.” Philip drops everything he is doing, and heads out to the road not knowing what that might mean.
When he gets there he sees a large and elaborate chariot. He cannot know, but in the chariot is a eunuch from Ethiopia. As a eunuch he is something of a slave, tied to the court of the Candace of Ethiopia. He was a man of means, he ran the Treasury and had this chariot. But he was just coming from the Temple, where he had gone to pray. At this moment, the moment of God’s planning and not Philip’s, he was reading from the book of the prophet Isaiah. And he was puzzled.
The Spirit again spoke to Philip, "Go over to this chariot and join it.” So Philip sprinted to the chariot. He heard the eunuch reading from Isaiah and asked, huffing and puffing, “Do you understand what you are reading?” “How can I,” the eunuch said, “unless someone guides me?” And he invited Philip into the chariot and let him sit next to him.
This whole scenario is God’s prevenient grace. Prevenient grace is that grace that comes before. The grace that comes before the gospel is preached, the grace that comes before forgiveness, the grace that comes before justification. Before that moment when we accept Jesus Christ as our Lord, Jesus is already working to make us his own. God gives up on no one. And God deeply desires the salvation of all. Even this eunuch from a far off land. It is because God was working in his life, before the Spirit sent Philip, that the eunuch took a trip to Jerusalem to begin with. And it was because God was working in his life that the eunuch had a scroll from Isaiah to read. And it is because God was working in his life that he cared deeply enough about the meaning of this scroll that when Philip asked “do you know what you are reading?” He said “how can I unless someone guides me?”
The Bible can be tough. Maybe one reason the bible is tough is so that we may be given guides, and God might bring us together that way. God brings Philip to the eunuch so that the Gospel might be preached to him. And God brings Philip to the eunuch so that he might know salvation that day.
The eunuch reads the scroll, “Like a sheep he was led to the slaughter, and like a lamb silent before its shearer, so he does not open his mouth. In his humiliation justice was denied him. Who can describe his generation? For his life is taken away from the earth.” He asks, “who is this about? The author or someone else?” And so Philip explains what has happened. That the one led like a sheep to the slaughter is Jesus of Nazareth. That he did not open his mouth before his persecutors, but remained silent. That his life was taken from the earth. That he died for the sins of the world. “By his stripes we are healed.” But that is not the end of the story. But he also lives. And he reigns. And he calls all to himself to know his forgiveness and salvation.
Philip preaches, and the eunuch listens. Philip preaches, and the eunuch accepts. In joy the eunuch asks, "Look, here is water! What is to prevent me from being baptized?” Philip could think of nothing. So they stop. The eunuch is baptized. And the Spirit moves Philip on. The eunuch goes on his way rejoicing in the Spirit of God. Philip goes on his way to follow the Spirit where he leads. To continue to spread the good news of Jesus Christ.
We are a Spirit led people. Philip ought to be a model for us. Our success relies not on our work, but on our faithfulness. The Spirit is always calling us out. Always beckoning us to be joined to others. Even people as strange and exotic as an Ethiopian eunuch. Because God is not content that his Gospel be kept under lock and key in certain buildings and only known by certain people. But his grace is over all his works, and he claims the whole world. He has called us to go out. To follow, as Philip did, his call. To share the love of Christ to all and sundry. Because God loves all. And wishes to unite all in Christ.