2024-08-04 - San Jose CRC - sermon only - Joyce Suh

Transcript

Acts 8:26-40

Unsung Heroes of the Bible - Philip and the Eunuch

 Good morning. Our scripture reading this morning is from Acts chapter 8, verse 26 to 40.

Philip and the Ethiopian. Now an angel of the Lord said to Philip, go south to the road, the desert road that goes down from Jerusalem to Gaza. So he started out and on his way he met an Ethiopian eunuch, an important official in charge of all the treasury of the Kandak. Which means Queen of the Ethiopians.

This man had gone to Jerusalem to worship, and on his way home was sitting in his chariot, reading the book of Isaiah the prophet. The spirit told Philip, Go to that chariot and stay near it. Then Philip ran up to the chariot and heard the man reading Isaiah the prophet. Do you understand what you are reading?

Philip asked. How can I? He said. Unless someone explains it to me. So he invited Philip to come up and sit with him. This is the passage of scripture the eunuch was reading. He was led like a sheep to the slaughter and as a lamb before its shearer is silent. So he did not open his mouth in his humiliation.

He was deprived of justice. Who can speak of his descendants for his life was taken from the earth. The eunuch asked Philip, Tell me, please, who is the prophet talking about, himself or someone else? Then Philip began with that very passage of scripture and told them the good news about Jesus. As they traveled along the road, they came to some water, and the eunuch said, Look, here's water.

What can stand in the way of my being baptized? The eunuch was baptized. And he gave orders to stop the chariot. Then both Philip and the eunuch went down into the water, and Philip baptized him. When they came up out of the water, the spirit of the Lord suddenly took Philip away, and the eunuch did not see him again, but went on his way rejoicing.

Philip, however, appeared at Aztos, and traveled about, preaching the gospel in all the towns until he reached Caesarea. This is the word of the Lord.

Joyce Suh:

Let's pray one more time. Lord our God, um, we stand in awe of your word, the power of your word to accomplish that which it sets forth to do. We pray that your word will speak to us this morning. May the words of my mouth, may the meditations of our heart be pleasing to you. Through Christ, Amen. We're in a series that Gil started.

He assigned me to carry on. And that's about unnamed people in Scripture. Ordinary people who do extraordinary things for God. And today we're looking at the story of the Ethiopian and Philip. And I hope it's encouraging to us. I feel like this is a really good topic for those of us who are sort of unnamed people in the big story.

Now, I don't know if you have the same thing, but I have this thing with songs. I sometimes have a line or a phrase that keeps coming back to me. I almost feel like I'm singing it in my head. And sometimes it even sounds like it's God using that word to speak to me. Or I'm singing that song back to God.

And then it sort of lasts for a certain period of time. And then it seems like I move on to the next thing. Now, that sometimes happens with Christian music. Uh, a hymn, a chorus, something sort of reverberates and repeats. A couple weeks ago, I don't even know the name of the song, we sang it with Reggie.

Praise the Father, praise the Son. Praise the spirit three in one. God of glory, majesty. Praise forever to the King of Kings. We sang it on Sunday and then Monday, especially that phrase, which I'm sorry I'm not gonna sing, I'm not gonna make you go through that. God of glory, majesty. Sort of kept echoing in my head for the next couple days.

Now I have a confession to make. Sometimes the song that I have in my head is not a Christian song, but what you'd call secular music. I had a long season of, if you don't know the song, it's okay, but it, John Legend's All of Me Loves All of You. And I felt like God was singing that song to me, especially All Your Perfect Imperfections.

And God was sort of saying, I love you the way you are, Joyce. And I feel like that lasted almost a year, where I kept hearing that song. I also listen to Korean music sometimes, and sometimes there's just one line in English. And then that one line seems to be the thing God just points out to speak over me.

Here I am. So I've heard myself saying to God, here I am. Almost like a prayer. In the middle of this Korean song. In the tune. But then it suddenly flipped and then it was him saying that to me. Of course, the melody is part of the way it kind of sticks in your head and, and, uh, is heard or a song. Do you have that too?

Yeah. When I started thinking about this text, a song started playing in my head. Um, I'm going to say the words of it. You may or may not know it. We'll come back to it. It started out as a feeling, which then grew into a hope, which turned into a quiet thought, which then turned into a quiet word. This is Regina Spector, not a Christian song, it was at the end of one of the Narnia movies, if you know it.

I mean, I heard it sung at your graduation by one of your friends. I think that's the last time I heard it. But that song kept coming back to me as I was thinking about the text. It started out as a feeling, grew into a hope, turned into a quiet thought, which turned into a quiet word. There's some kind of progression there, isn't there?

Like a small impulse that becomes the next thing. The next thing and the next thing, all of them little small movements. I believe that the story of Philip and the Ethiopian is a story of God working in that way through small things. And that's what I want to explore today. What is the progression in the Ethiopian's life?

And what might that mean for us as well? The Ethiopian, as we know, is on a journey. Literally, he's in a chariot when the story takes place. And he had traveled from North Africa across the wilderness of Sinai. So, yeah, I have a slide up there. It's a little hard to see. He's called an Ethiopian, but actually he's from the kingdom of Nubia or Kush, which is, uh, actually more like Egypt today and Sudan.

So, But it's a significant kingdom, and it's really kind of based in the upper Nile, which is at the lower part of the Nile on the map. Now the second slide shows kind of where Egypt and Sudan sit in relation to Israel. To make the journey to Jerusalem, he has to cross the Sinai Peninsula. That's a big journey.

And then when he gets to Israel, next slide, he has to kind of go up from the bottom, which still part of Egypt, or the Sinai, and to Jerusalem. And, um, there's kind of a little, kind of s you maybe can't quite see it, but he's on this desert road on the way to Gaza when he meets Philip. So, he's made a significant journey from his place.

He's from a particular kingdom. He makes a pilgrimage to Jerusalem And he's coming on his way back, and there's this divine encounter. Okay, I think it's okay to leave the slide for now. We'll come back to the third slide at the end. The Ethiopian, as we're told, is a God fearer. This is actually a category of people that existed in, sort of, the early church times.

This was for people who weren't Jews, but Gentiles, who wanted to worship the God of Abraham. and Isaac and Jacob. So there was this particular category, and apparently the Ethiopian was a devout God fearer. He was a follower of the God that we know, but he hadn't quite seen the whole story. And interestingly, he made a pilgrimage to Jerusalem.

It's quite clear that the Ethiopian is a seeker. He's looking for something. He wants to go deeper. He's digging into the meaning of scripture, not just following the forms. But you know, he gets to this place, the destination, Jerusalem. He does the pilgrimage and comes to the end of it, but he's still not satisfied.

He's hungry for more. And as he's going back, He's reading scripture. Scripture of course that we know points to Jesus Christ. Now I think there's a progression here that we need to pay attention to, right? The impulse to worship the true God started out as a feeling, grew into a hope, dig deeper into the holy book, turned into a quiet thought.

He ultimately asks Philip, tell me who is the prophet talking about? himself or someone else and turned into a quiet word. Look, you can baptize me. And he gives orders to stop the bap, the chariot and is baptized on the spot. The pilgrimage isn't the end for him. It's the beginning of his journey deeper and further.

Let's dwell on that progression. We live in a culture that wants things bigger and more important. faster and better. We look at the bottom line. I don't know about you, but our workplaces demand results. I work for the church. I just finished personnel reviews. We have a lot of goals that we try to meet.

We do something we call our BMS results based ministry. Of course, it's good to have accountability in place. But is the result the only thing? We need to be careful about projecting some of that thinking onto scripture. Yes, sometimes there are miracles, and sometimes there are instant results. But more often than not, people are on a journey.

And as my pastor, growing up, used to say, God is a God of process. Or process, if you're not Canadian. God is the God of process. There is a Jesuit priest who puts it like this. Above all, trust in the slow work of God. We are quite naturally impatient in everything to reach the end without delay. We should like to skip the intermediate stages.

We are impatient of being on the way to something unknown, something new. And yet it is the law of all progress that it is made by passing through some stages of instability and that it may take a very long time. Only God could say what this new spirit gradually forming within you will be. Give our Lord the benefit of believing that his hand is leading you and accept the anxiety of feeling yourself.

In suspense and incomplete. Something about the way that God works. The journey sometimes doesn't get to, we don't get to the end of the journey right away. Or we think the journey ends in Jerusalem, but actually that was really more like the beginning place of the journey. Trust the slow work of God. We are impatient on the way to something unknown.

Yet, it's the law of progress that we pass through periods of instability. How do we feel about that? Can we allow ourselves to be on a journey? Can we allow others to be on the journey as well? Sometimes that means resisting something. Resisting that thing that wants to skip on to the end. Get to the result, get to the quick answer, whereas actually the answer may be God working in us on the journey.

Part of the Christian life is paying attention to small beginning impulses, small progressions. It started out as a feeling. What is God birthing in us? And then grew into a hope, right? Um, the, the Ethiopian thought the end of the journey was the God of, of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, which in one way it was, but there was a fulfillment, another layer that he came to through the journey that he was on.

Now the story mentioned several times that the Ethiopian is a eunuch, which in some ways is irrelevant to the salvation part of the story. Why does it keep mentioning it? I think it mentions it to show his status and his position, his stature. He, his role in the, the court or the kingdom of Cush or Nubia is also named.

He's an important official in charge of all the treasure of the Queen of the Nile. What a thought that is. There's something very countercultural in what happens in this story. Not just that he's a God fearer in the court of the Queen of the Nile, but something about his willingness to learn and his willingness to be taught.

This man has wealth, he has position, he has power, he's riding in a chariot, he's been on a pilgrimage. That could have just been it. Right? Done and dusted. Knock that one off the bucket list. But the Ethiopian doesn't stop there. As he's following that impulse to go deeper, and he's listening to the Spirit, an opportunity comes to him in the form of Philip.

Now we think of Philip as one of the great heroes, one of Jesus disciples, one of the early apostles. He's the hero of the story for us. But at that time, for this high official from the kingdom or the queen then of Nubia, the Nile, Philip is just a nobody from Galilee. Who is he? He's not a person of stature.

He's not at the level of this Ethiopian. But when he He approaches the Ethiopian, the Ethiopian invites him into the chariot. It's kind of like inviting a person who's homeless into our car, and then hearing the story. There's an invitation to something in this text, isn't there? If we pay attention, not just to what Philip's doing, but what the Ethiopian is doing.

Um, there's an invitation to. a posture or an attitude of the heart. In her book on spiritual disciplines, Adele Calhoun talks about a discipline of teachability, as she calls it, and this is how she describes it. The propensity and openness to learn from God, no matter who the teacher or what the experience may be.

My pastor, growing up, used to say, We need to be able to hear truth, and we need to be able to hear it from Balaam's donkey. But he used the other word, just in case you're wondering. That's another story, maybe for another time. But I think you know the point, right? Are we willing to be taught?

There's a call in the Christian life to allow ourselves to be in process, and the prerequisite for that is is a willingness to be taught and a submission almost to be taught by whoever God's going to use to teach us.

Lord, give me a teachable spirit should be our prayer that I may know you give me a teachable spirit. Now we can cultivate that teachability. Um, one of the things Calhoun says is listen more and talk less. Ask questions that lead to a deeper awareness of God. That's what the Ethiopian did. He asked a question.

Refrain from making judgments based on appearances. That's a hard one.

But teachability can, can bear real fruit in our lives. The fruit of the Spirit fuels that progression. Started out as a feeling and grew into a hope. Went to the next thing and the next thing. Part of coming to church Sunday mornings I believe is actually every person in this room choosing that posture.

Willingness to be taught. Wanting to learn. Wanting to hear God and let God do his slow work in us. We can also ask that at a more personal level. Is there something that God is inviting me to? Is there a slow progress that he wants me to make? Is there a little nudge happening from the spirit as I read a text to draw me in deeper and deeper?

This week I was talking to our missionary, one of our missionaries in Egypt actually, and somehow he started talking about the gift of the margins. There's a class of people in Cairo where he lives who are just, garbage collectors. So it's not sort of a state thing, but it's actually people's business to collect garbage and then recycle it and deal with the garbage.

Uh, and there's a place called Garbage Village in Cairo. And he's, he's like, it's not just that we need to teach the, the people from Garbage Village. Maybe there's something to be learned from the people of Garbage Village. Maybe there's a gift from the homeless person along our way. Maybe for some of us, there's something from our children that we need to be taught.

I was reminded of that this week. I had a bit of a sort of episode with Isaac and I thought, you know what, I need to learn from my children. Being 60 plus doesn't exempt me from this. We can think of discipleship in our whole life, not just Sunday morning, but where our lives can become this kind of sense of growth and God's working in us.

Maybe it's when we're driving our chariots back from work. Lord, give me a teachable spirit that I may know you. Okay, now what about Philip? The last couple of weeks, Gil was doing a series. Um, as I mentioned about unnamed people, just ordinary people. Now the Ethiopian's not ordinary in some sense, but he's ordinary in the sense that he's not, he's not one of those heroes of scripture that we usually talk about, used for God's extraordinary purposes.

I believe he is an unnamed hero of the faith though. So, Philip is the hero of the story, um, in the sense of, sharing the gospel and helping it unfold in this person's life. And of course we should be like Philip too. We should do what Philip does, be bold and listening to the spirit and then sharing the gospel.

But he's not the only, um, thing that's happening in this text. I love the way the Bible weaves the Ethiopians and Philip's story together. They're both part of the big story. In the book of Acts, this is the story of God's kingdom spreading from Jerusalem to Judea to Samaria and to the ends of the earth.

And actually, after this encounter, they both carry the kingdom with them. And it's really interesting how the scripture names that. If you could put the next slide, the third slide up, Zaius, that'd be great. So, yeah, it's a little hard to see, but. You can see kind of along the right border of what's now Israel.

Philip goes north to Azotus and then to Caesarea, specifically named in the text. And the Ethiopian, after meeting on the desert road, goes back to Egypt, Sudan, Ethiopia. Right? They're going in two different directions and taking the kingdom with them. And, of course, We, we know Philip as one of the great apostles, but the Ethiopian is also bringing the kingdom.

It's part of the kingdom coming in the book of Acts. He's part of the bigger story. The scriptures tell us that the kingdom is like yeast. The kingdom is not only at the end of the story, but it's also in the slow growth. The king, the Ethiopian is part of God's grand purposes, and he, in the very earliest time of the growth of the church, brings the kingdom of God with him and in him to the very courts of this empire.

Isn't that something? A person who started out with a feeling, had a question in scripture, and followed it through. I think it's really significant. I think it's highly important and not to be dismissed. I think sometimes actually the devil would like us to only want the big story and to forget actually that God works in those small progressions in our lives and that the kingdom not only comes through us but comes in us.

Friends, I think for us this means that it's not insignificant. That we are being church in this particular crossroads, in this particular place, Silicon Valley, California. And our own teachability and allowing ourselves to be in process is part of the kingdom coming. Yes, it's great if we can share the gospel.

We should. But we shouldn't neglect this other piece either. As many of you know, Gil and I were privileged to be in Egypt about a year or two ago. Um, somehow we ended up at the Coptic Cathedral in Cairo on a Sunday. I think we forgot what day it was. And, um, we were standing at, sort of about to go in. The worship service was just about over and people were pouring out of that church.

Coptic church considers itself to be the first church, the very foundations of the faith and people from Ethiopia, Sudan, Egypt were pouring out. I believe that's part of the legacy of the Ethiopian of this story. We don't know whether he specifically witnessed in the court of the Queen of the Nile, but we know that he went away rejoicing.

and that he carried that with him into that place. We know that the word of the Lord does not go forth and return empty. Started out as a feeling, which grew into a hope, then turned into a quiet thought, which turned into a quiet word. What's the feeling or quiet thought that God is calling us to? What progress does he want to make in our hearts?

What intersections might then happen at the crossroads of Silicon Valley? Let's pray.

Lord, we're thankful for both the stories of the heroes of faith and also the more quiet and hidden stories of how you work Sometimes like yeast, Lord. We're thankful that even at the very beginning and foundations of the church, you were calling people from all over and all places to yourself. And what a beautiful thing it could be that there's a official from the court of a kingdom that comes to worship you.

And also then. progresses to find the fulfillment of the scripture in Christ. We're so thankful. We can trust that even the small things in our lives, the small progressions that we make, the small things that we attune to can grow and be part of your kingdom work. We thank you that your word does go out from Jerusalem to Judea to Samaria and to the ends of the earth.

And we're thankful, Lord, that meeting here today is part of your kingdom coming to this place. What a, what a wonderful thing it is to be part of that. Lord, we pray that we can live lives that are glorifying to you, and we pray that we can be attuned to your spirit. Give us teachable spirits that we might know you.

We pray this in Jesus name. Amen.

The video of Regina Spektor’s song that Joyce spoke of, “The Call.”