The Fifth Sunday of Easter
May 2, 2021
The Rev. Canon Patrick Funston
Good morning, I bring greetings from Bishop Bascom and from the other 43 parishes of the Diocese of Kansas. I’m pleased to be with you as part of the rotation of people who are helping out and serving alongside that your ordained and lay leaders during Dawn’s sabbatical. As someone who has enjoyed a sabbatical, allow me to offer my thanks on behalf of Dawn. I trust that she will return to you in about a month and a half, refreshed and excited for enriched and expanded ministry with you all.
I really love this story from Acts. Whenever I encounter it, I find that I have to re-teach myself some of the background and context of what happens in this story; it just seems so incredible. There’s there the Spirit of God and that here’s an Angel whisking people to and fro. There’s a guy named Phillip, but I have to remind myself that this actually isn’t Phillip the disciple who’s been with Jesus from the beginning; this is Phillip, who’s one of those first seven deacons who is appointed at the beginning of Acts. So this is a story about a diaconal ministry. But then there’s this character of Ethiopian eunuch who happens to also be the Treasury Secretary of the Candace, the queen of the Ethiopian people. It’s this incredible story of connection in the midst of so much that must have been alien and new. Both people in this story are experiencing new and strange things.
Philip has been working since he’s been commissioned by the Apostles, he’ll become a successful evangelist, but in this story it has only been a few weeks since he was appointed. So that means that he’s only been doing this for a little bit of time and he’s whisked to this Royal procession traveling home from Jerusalem. Philip is told by an Angel: “Go and walk alongside that chariot for a while.” There he sees an Ethiopian eunuch which must have just blown his mind. What must it have been like for Phillip to see and hear him reading something that Phillip himself would recognize as a Jew?
For the Ethiopian himself, he must have felt so alien to this place. It tells us he came up to Jerusalem to worship, all the way from Ethiopia to worship there in Jerusalem. He knew Jerusalem to be a holy place, but once he’s arrived, he’s a black man in the midst of brown-skinned people. Because of his castration, he is probably somewhat gender nonconforming in a time when roles and gender roles are very established. And yet, he is also an incredibly powerful man where he comes from. So he uses his privilege to come see what it was that the Jews did there in Jerusalem. Based on this timing, he’s there just weeks after Pentecost, which means he’s there just a few weeks after those events that we would come to call Holy Week. All those in Jerusalem would have been talking about a “very strange Passover,” where a crucifixion had happened and where some where saying that a crucified man had risen from the dead.
I imagine that on his way back to his homeland he’s trying to figure out “What in the world have I experienced? What in the world have I seen?” He is attempting to read the world around him, attempting to understand what it is that he’s just been part of. He is attempting, in other words, to make sense of what’s going on.
So here comes Phillip comes alongside him and sees him. And hears him reading from Isaiah’s Fourth Servant Song. (We hear this reading in the context of Good Friday and so would the earliest Christians. Early on those Christians interpreted this part of Isaiah as a prophecy of what Jesus was accomplishing there on the Cross.) So Philip comes alongside him and hears Isaiah being read. When he can tell what is being read, he asks a simple question: “Do you understand what you are reading?” The Ethiopian eunuch receives him graciously saying, “How can I, unless someone guides me?” So Phillip continues along the way with the Ethiopian for a while, teaching him what he knows to have to be the truth about this Lord and Savior. We call it this Good News: Jesus was a man who was the Son of God, who came, who taught, who ultimately died and who fulfilled the prophecy that you are reading.
Phillip seizes an opportunity to walk alongside someone who is trying to understand his world, who’s trying to understand what has happened around him. He gets to take an opportunity to tell the good news of Jesus. (And the incredible thing is that it is very unlikely that Phillip even knows who Jesus was. It is very unlikely that he was actually ever with Jesus because we do not see him as a character until well after Pentecost. When the twelve who knew Jesus are so stressed out by what is being asked of them that they decide they need to expand the base a little bit and they appoint those seven first deacons.) Phillip here is taking an opportunity to talk about something that is dear and near to him. He seizes on an opportunity to be with someone who was asking questions. He is not seeking to convert, rather he is talking about something that he’s experienced.
Which means that this story of Philip and the Ethiopian eunuch is a powerful one for us. It shows us what it means to be an evangelist. It shows us what it means to go into a world that is questioning, a world that is wondering, that is asking what God is doing among us. And it is an opportunity for us to hear how a faithful person, with very little evangelical training engages that work.
We in the church are often stressed out by what we see as the decline of the Church around us. We see fewer people in our pews. Instead of joining us here in worship, we see more people gathering for brunch and coffee on Sunday mornings. We see more parents of young children gathering for soccer or for baseball on Sunday mornings. I find that we often blame or question the faithfulness of these folks, “What is happening in those people’s lives that they do not ‘get it’ and do not join us the way that our parents taught us to come to church.” And yet, when we use that language, we show that we are lacking in something of an understanding of who and what God is. We betray the fact that we do not believe in a providential God who is active in our world. We are always surrounded by evangelical opportunities and seizing them is our missional imperative.
If we truly believe that God is active in our world, then the truth is that God is must be doing something. God must be doing something in those coffee shops, at those branches, on those soccer fields. It may be VERY different than what we have come to believe and expect to believe about the Church. And yet, we believe in a powerful God whose spirit is present among all people. If more people are being drawn into those spaces to gather in community, then it is an opportunity for us to see and notice that God is doing something different. It doesn’t mean that God is the cause, but we do believe that God is in all. If God is here, then God is there. As missional Christians, our job is to go into those spaces and name God’s presence. That is what we see Phillip doing in this moment.
We see Phillip walk alongside. We see him start to notice some things that are happening. Here is a man who has seen some things, who is trying to work to understand it, and Philip asks how he can be helpful.
Much in our world can cause us to question what God is doing. Certainly the COVID-19 pandemic, but also our growing awareness and truth-telling about the realities of our deeply racist systems and so many other things. Another way we are being challenged is our ongoing and years-long mental health crisis.
A couple weeks ago, I got an email from Joan Moore, your senior warden, who reminded me that May is Mental Health Awareness Month and asked if I would consider speaking about it when I’m with you this month. Apparently your outreach committee is wanting to highlight this month and to work to normalize conversation and awareness of mental illness and mental health. Hopefully, over the course of the next five Sundays you’ll hear from others speaking about the reality of mental illness because the truth is that we are in a mental health crisis, of course the pandemic has not done anything to help.
The National Alliance on Mental Illness leads the charge and Mental Health Awareness Month and they share some sobering statistics for us. One in five adults in the US experience manage a mental condition of some sort, one in six of our youth. 51 million Americans will manage a mental illness every day. And yet, it is so difficult for us to speak about mental illness. It is so difficult for us to imagine what the Church can offer or what we as individuals can offer. But the truly difficult thing about mental illness is that isolation and alienation and silence can exacerbate the problems that exist so prevalently among us, affecting too many of our brothers and sisters. It wouldn’t be shocking if we ask the question just like the Ethiopian eunuch, “What is god doing here? How is God acting in this? As we attempt to ‘read’ the mental health crisis, what is it that we are called to do?”
I believe that the answer is clear and that this story of the Ethiopian eunuch and Phillip = is an invitation for us to acknowledge the fact that there is not much that we can do about the mental health crisis other than to connect, to name, to speak, to call it what it is: a reality that exists among. It affects some of us directly or the people whom we love. This Acts story shows us that God wants us to be connected to each other, a helpful and a hopeful message, especially in light of this year’s theme for Mental Health Awareness Month: “ You are not alone.” A simple and powerful message. The pandemic rages and though isolation runs rampant, you are not alone. The story of Phillip and the Ethiopian eunuch shows us the power of connection, belonging and a willingness to love, even when we know that we can’t provide all of the answers.
When Phillip shares the good news of Jesus, he shares the connection that he feels to the Ethiopian. When Phillip shares the love that he has because of his connection to Jesus Christ, this man is obviously incredibly moved. We know he is affected by Phillip’s love because he says, “what is to prevent me from being baptized right now?” This is a cusp moment for the Gospel, because I doubt that before this moment Philip has even thought that it would be possible for a non-Jew to care enough about Jesus Christ to want to become a part of the family of Christ. This connection made official through baptism and Phillip seizes the opportunity: “You’re here. I’m here. God is obviously here among us and there is a body of water. Let us go.” And there the eunuch is baptized. Phillip helps the Ethiopian understand what is happening in his world and it leads to baptism.
We may not know what we need to do or say to our loved ones who struggle with mental illness, but in our love for each other, we are called to walk alongside, to take the risk to connect even when we don’t think we know enough. Faith is like that as well. Phillip did not need to be incredibly eloquent preacher to make people aware that God is moving in their lives, neither do we.
In our Epistle today, we heard John talk about how we need not fear to connect with one another, because “there is no fear in love.” We heard a similar good news in our Gospel lesson today. The connections that we have with one another need not be incumbent entirely upon us to make them happen. We are connected to one another through the true Vine: Jesus Christ. It is not upon us as individual branches to figure out exactly the best way for us to be in relationship with one another. We are already connected one to another in the true Vine. By our baptism we are in this community.
When strange events happens on the shores of the water, Phillip is placed there. He is given all that he needs, which is just a belief and love enough to change a life.
There are those among us who are struggling: struggling with mental illness or struggling to connect and find God in the midst of so much pain in their lives. And there are those who are struggling to understand what God is doing in the rest of their lives. All that we need to do is to be willing to hear the spirit of God say to us: “Go and walk alongside that chariot.” Because we do not know what could happen. God is doing amazing things.