Spirit-Guided Encounters—Ac 8:26-40

How would you explain the Bible to someone?  There is much in the Bible that is wonderful, a delight to share.  There are other things that are hard to hear, hard to fit with our faith, even though, being in the Bible, these hard things are also some part of our faith.  We don’t like to be asked about them, though, because we don’t have an easy, quick answer or explanation.  Is that what our faith is about, though: easy answers and quick explanations?  There are many parts of the Bible, the story of our faith, that are mysterious: we are being told something, shown something important, but we aren’t just sure how to make sense of it.  Revelation is the best example.  There are many things, in the prophetic parts of the Bible especially, that leave us wondering.  That man from a far land was wondering.  We wonder, too.

When Paul, known then as Saul, sets about making life impossible for the early Christians, they disperse out of Jerusalem to the surrounding regions.  This seems to be Saul the persecutor’s work.  It turns out to be God’s work, the work of the Holy Spirit.  How is the Spirit at work in your life?  How has the Spirit surprised you, over the years?  So often, when it seems that God has closed a door, it turns out He was opening a door.  Usually, this has been a door I hadn’t seen, hadn’t thought to expect.  The Spirit is great, I have found, at calling to my attention my shocking lack of imagination and God’s boundless capacity to surprise and bless.

This puts me in good company with the apostles, also continually being shown the feebleness of their imagination, their expectation, and the boundless capacity of God, in Jesus Christ, through the ongoing work of the Holy Spirit, to surprise and to bless.  Philip is our case in point today.  Philip left Jerusalem and went into Samaria.  Samaria was not Jewish territory.  Jews had a historic aversion to Samaritans—they didn’t associate or mingle.  Philip is at work in Samaria; this is where the Spirit has guided him.  What could he possibly hope to accomplish there?  Who was going to listen to him?  Who was going to believe anything he had to say or share?  He was probably just going to meet with hostility: constant, unreceptive hostility.  Why bother?  What’s the use?  But it wasn’t about what he, Philip, could possibly accomplish there, because the Acts of the Apostles don’t have very much to do with the apostles themselves.  The acts of the Apostles have everything to do with the Holy Spirit, with what the Holy Spirit is accomplishing.

You and I, we are vessels of the Holy Spirit.  Do you believe in Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior?  If in good conscience you can answer yes, you have the Holy Spirit.   It is only by the Holy Spirit that you can answer in the affirmative.  We have the Spirit, but we aren’t always just sure what the Spirit wants from us.  Jesus tells us, rather clearly, I think, what we are to be doing.  We have the Holy Spirit to help us to do what we are to be doing.  This is what the apostles are slowly figuring out, slowly discovering for themselves.

Philip was to be about his master’s business, in Samaria.  As Philip, no, he probably would not receive the friendliest reception.  As one proclaiming Jesus, as one sent by God in the power, grace, and blessing of the Holy Spirit to speak the name of Jesus into lives that God has made ready for that medicine, that answer, that direction, that hope, Philip the follower of Jesus will find receptivity, much to his amazement and surprise.  Will he find hostility and rejection?  Yes.  There is always that, and he will also find receptivity; he will find those whom God has prepared beforehand for him to find.  This is all through the Spirit, for the sake of Christ.

Jesus is proof that God is not hostile to people, God is not opposed to us.  God is hostile to what is contrary to His will, yes.  God is opposed to what is hostile to His purposes, certainly.  So, yes, to the extent that someone is living life contrary to God’s will and hostile to God’s purposes, yes, that person is likely to experience God’s displeasure.  God’s displeasure, though, is first of all meant as a caution and a warning.  God’s displeasure comes upon people to point them toward repentance, that change of mind that can begin a change of life.  God isn’t really interested in hurting or harming anyone.  Most of the time, I’ve found, the only ones interested in hurting and harming people are other people.  If only we took as great an interest in saving!

In Samaria, an angel instructs Philip to go and get on a certain road that leads out of Jewish territory and into old Philistine territory, into Gaza.  Well, nothing good could possibly happen on the way to that place!  Philip might have had a thought along such lines.  What we know is that he goes, in obedience to this message from God.  Philip does not place his faith in his doubts.  He places his faith in God’s plans and God’s prompting.  Let’s commit ourselves to follow that example!  Put more faith in God’s prompting than in your doubts and reservations.  See what happens.  See what the Spirit is about in this world.

So, Philip is now on a desolate road leading to a God-forsaken land.  What should he be expecting?  There is nothing promising in this scenario.  Here comes a carriage, with a driver and some sort of escort: somebody important.  What!? on this desolate road in this God-forsaken land?  Philip is on foot.  The man is riding in a carriage.  How can Philip get over there, or keep up?  He runs.  Here God is definitely at work!  As he’s running, keeping up with the carriage and not drawing the hostile notice of the armed escort that I’m supposing is there with the high official, Philip hears the man reading: reading, of all things, Isaiah!

We learn that this man is from Ethiopia.  He is the queen’s treasurer.  Perhaps he has been conducting business in Jerusalem.  Perhaps he was worshiping at the Temple.  It turns out the man worships God.  You may or may not know that there are, even today, Ethiopian Jews.  There seems to be no clear account of how Jews ever established themselves in Ethiopia: the beginnings of that story are shrouded in mist.  This high official seems to be a man of earnest faith: if he had been in Jerusalem, he certainly would have made time to worship at the Temple, and here he is, on his way home now, reading Isaiah.  Now God has directed Philip to speak to this man: all this prepared beforehand!  How is God at work in the lives of others?  How is God already at work in them?  What has He already been doing in them by the time you encounter them?  Listen with ears, minds, and hearts of faith, and God will show you.  Each one is an opportunity God has arranged beforehand for you for His purposes.

You may have heard of Ethiopia, and if so, you know it’s in Africa.  As is Egypt, and Egypt isn’t far from Israel, so how far could Ethiopia be from Israel?

Well, it’s quite a distance, actually: something like from Calgary, Alberta, in Canada, to here, or from here to Bogotá, Colombia.  Talk about a chance encounter!  But Philip’s encounter with this man from a distant land is not a chance encounter: Scripture makes this plain.  This is a Spirit-guided encounter.  What if we began to look at our encounters, throughout the day and throughout the week, as Spirit-guided encounters?  I can’t say, even today, that this is currently how I think of the people I come across, to the extent I think about them at all.  I hope that such a perspective isn’t peculiar to me.  I want to commit myself, today, to start regarding these “chance” meetings differently.  I want to start seeing those people out there with Spirit-guided eyes.  I want to start encountering people with a Spirit-guided heart, and, more, with Spirit-guided faith.  Will you join me?

This man whom God has already beforehand arranged for Philip to encounter in this way at this time, as it turns out, believes in God.  Of the people whom you and I encounter each day, how many believe in God?  You might be surprised by the answer.  Now belief is one thing, and informed belief is another.  I can’t remember a time in my life when I didn’t believe in God, but I can well remember when my faith was not very informed.  It’s not very helpful to live an adult life with a kindergartener’s faith.

This Ethiopian is reading his Bible, but he feels like he isn’t understanding it.  Ever felt that way?  He knows the words, but he isn’t getting the information the words mean to communicate.  He needs someone to help him to understand, someone to explain to him what he is reading.  Of course, Philip is the man for that, as an apostle.  What about you?  Can you help someone understand?  Can you explain?  I would like to work with this congregation so that each of you can say, without reservation, yes! I can explain!  In the meantime, it would be enough for me to hear each of you say, Yes! I can try to help someone understand!

I know parts of Scripture seem opaque.  I know parts of Scripture seem revolting.  I’m not just talking about the parts chronicling our sins.  How to explain it, then?  How to help others understand?  Philip shows us the key.  The Spirit gives us the key, through the example of Philip.  The basic way to help others understand, the basic point of explanation is Jesus.  Start to finish, the Bible is pointing to Jesus.  Is that reductive and simplistic?  Yes and no.  It really is all about Jesus, even in those parts where Jesus is hard to see—especially there!  Isn’t faith in Jesus about having faith when Jesus is hard to see?  If we have faith only when Jesus is easy to see, easy to feel, easy to sense, I’m not sure that this is yet strong faith: beloved, our faith will need to be strong to see us through this world.

          From this world’s perspective, from a worldly perspective, Philip had no reason, not the least reason, to expect anything to come from this encounter, this chance encounter.  Faith sees differently.  Faith trusts that God is doing something, here, that God is present here, through the Holy Spirit, and this trust is not disappointed.  The Ethiopian asks Philip, “What is to keep me from being baptized?” (8:36).  As good Presbyterians, we know the answer is that there is nothing to keep him from being baptized . . . after a time of instruction and a conversation with the session.

Our Baptist friends may be a bit closer to the apostolic tradition here, where Philip takes the man to the water right then and there.  Here’s part of what Acts tells us about baptism: “[W]hen they believed [. . .] the good news about the kingdom of God and the name of Jesus Christ, they were baptized” (8:12).  We trust that those who are asking for baptism are asking through the Spirit.  Our Presbyterian tradition is meant both to help those seeking baptism and to assure us that that those seeking baptism receive this ordinance with understanding, with some understanding of what it means to believe the good news about the kingdom of God and the name of Jesus Christ.  Because there is still much that even we don’t pretend to understand.  Because we make sacred vows as part of baptism.

Because we all know, beloved, that there are many who have been baptized who take no active part in the life of the church.  Not to be cruel, but their habitual absence testifies how important church is to them.  How are we to understand all this?  How are we to explain it?

What God had arranged long beforehand for Philip to do that day, Philip does.  Then God sends Philip on to other work God has also prepared for Philip.  And that newly-baptized man continues his journey, too; he continues the journey home, “full of joy” (8:39).  Let us continue our journey home full of joy; let us continue to seek and to do that which God has prepared for us; let us follow our Lord Jesus Christ, in the power of the Holy Spirit.

To the God of all grace, who calls you to share God’s eternal glory in union with Christ, be the power forever!