Sermon for July 1

Acts 8:26-40

Philip and the Ethiopian Eunuch

 Then an angel of the Lord said to Philip, ‘Get up and go towards the south to the road that goes down from Jerusalem to Gaza.’ (This is a wilderness road.) So he got up and went. Now there was an Ethiopian eunuch, a court official of the Candace, queen of the Ethiopians, in charge of her entire treasury. He had come to Jerusalem to worship and was returning home; seated in his chariot, he was reading the prophet Isaiah. Then the Spirit said to Philip, ‘Go over to this chariot and join it.’ So Philip ran up to it and heard him reading the prophet Isaiah. He asked, ‘Do you understand what you are reading?’ He replied, ‘How can I, unless someone guides me?’ And he invited Philip to get in and sit beside him. 

Now the passage of the scripture that he was reading was this:
‘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.’ 

The eunuch asked Philip, ‘About whom, may I ask you, does the prophet say this, about himself or about someone else?’ Then Philip began to speak, and starting with this scripture, he proclaimed to him the good news about Jesus. As they were going along the road, they came to some water; and the eunuch said, ‘Look, here is water! What is to prevent me from being baptized?’ He commanded the chariot to stop, and both of them, 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 snatched Philip away; the eunuch saw him no more, and went on his way rejoicing. But Philip found himself at Azotus, and as he was passing through the region, he proclaimed the good news to all the towns until he came to Caesarea. 

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How many of you were in a hurry this morning?

How about last week?

Last month?

We've become a nation filled with people in a hurry. We hurry from one obligation to the next, running ourselves ragged because we're afraid we're not going to make it in time. We're in a hurry to get out the door in the morning, and then we're in a hurry to get home and get dinner on the table. In between we're going, going, going, and then only time we rest is when we crash into bed in the evening. Sound familiar? I'm waiting for the day I get to Caleb's daycare and realize that, in my rush to get out the door, I forgot to put him in his car seat and left him sitting on the living room floor. Rest assured, when that day happens, Rachel will NOT hear about it!

Friends, I've arrived at the place where I'm worried about our constant rush, for several reasons. The first is the obvious toll it takes on our bodies and our relationships. We're stressed out, and as a result we don't eat right, we don't sleep right, we don't rest well. We're exhausted, and then we get sick. Also, it sickens our relationships. We don't have the time and the energy to invest in our relationships, and while we promise to eventually catch up, we seldom do, and the distance between us grows, and our isolation increases. It's not healthy to be constantly rushing.

From a theological perspective, though, our rush is not good. It's not healthy spiritually for us to be going constantly, to rush from one thing to the next, day after day after day. God believes our rest is so important he dedicated 10% of the commandments to a call to rest. Sabbath is a constant theme running throughout the Bible, a call for us to slow down and exercise our trust in God by resting. When we fail to rest, we get out of touch with God.

Also, what happens when we're constantly rushing places is that we fail to notice what is going on that isn't directly in front of us. I want you to try a little experiment. Take your bulletin... and tear it in two. It's ok—I promise we'll have new ones next week. Tear it in two, and hold half of it on either side of your face. You can only see directly ahead of you—this will serve as an illustration of what happens when you're rushed, when you're going from place to place—you don't have the time or the energy to look around. All you can think about is yourself—surviving the current situation and making it to the next one. You lose track of the people around you. More importantly, you lose track of what God is doing around you—in your life and in the lives of others. You become so wrapped up in yourself that the rest of the world falls away.

This is a really big problem for American Christians—when we're so busy and we lose track of what God is doing in the world, we're completely disconnected from the heart of our faith. What we believe is that God's mission is to have the entire world worship him as Lord and Savior. What we believe is that God is constantly at work, in our lives, in our hearts, in the world. God is up to something. But when we're completely wrapped up in ourselves, we miss it.

Notice the pattern in today's Scripture reading—God is doing something, and Philip responds to it. It's God who leads Philip out to the wilderness road. It's God who calls Philip up to the eunuch's chariot. It's God who has been at work in the heart and mind of the eunuch, preparing him for this encounter with the eunuch. God is the principle actor in the story here, just as God is the principle actor in your story, in our story. It's God who is at work—we respond. The remarkable thing about this story is that Philip is so tuned in to paying attention to what God is doing that Philip is able to respond to the Holy Spirit's leadership. Philip is able to discern God's voice and follow his command, wherever it might lead. Even when God leads Philip out into the wilderness, Philip is so completely focused on following God that he finds the right thing to do. Philip is searching God's will, rather than his own. This isn't Philip's plan or his church growth strategy—he's simply obeying God's will by paying attention to the world. This isn't a man wrapped up in himself. As a result of Philip's outward-focused attention, the eunuch benefits.

This is the same pattern that Jesus followed in his teaching ministry. So many of the stories in the Gospels are based on interruptions. But rather than view them as disturbances to be ignored, Jesus welcomed them. He was busy paying attention to what was going on around him, so when opportunities for mission presented themselves, he was ready. He didn't breeze by them because he was too focused on where he was going—he was ready to serve whomever crossed his path, and in so doing the others benefited.

Our lifestyle needs to be the same. We need to slow down. We need to sit down, to take a deep breath, and examine our lifestyles. We're in such a hurry—rushing constantly from place to place, and for what? When do we rest? When do we take sabbath? When do we slow down enough to notice what God is doing in the world?

You may wonder what this has to do with outsiders. Friends, it has everything to do with outsiders. When we're rushing through life so quickly, we don't take the time to notice those who can't help us survive the day. We don't pay attention to the lives of those around us. We don't bother with anything but ourselves. We become selfish as a defense mechanism. When we slow down, we begin to notice more. We notice the people who surround us, and we begin to notice their needs, rather than just our own. We see how broken and hurting the people surrounding us are. It can be your neighbors, your friends, or even your spouse—we work ourselves into such a frenzy that we fail to notice anyone but ourselves, and we neglect the community with which God has surrounded us. We have to slow down and be like Philip—we need to be paying attention, to listening to what God is doing. It's not for our direct benefit—but it is how we serve others. It's not something to rush through, but a life of service is one in which we slow down and love each other, serve each other, and bother to pay attention to the needs of the people around us. In so doing, we reveal the resurrected Christ to them. Notice how Philip, in responding to the needs of the eunuch, leads him to Christ. We can do the same—but we have to slow down enough to notice the needs of the people around us.

Friends, our hectic way of life is only leading us farther from God. It is not good. We need to rest, to relax, to take the time to notice the beloved children of God around us. When we rush, we fail to notice anyone except those that are already on the inside, those who help us get through the day. Life isn't about winning the rat race, and there isn't some grand finish line with a ribbon across us. The Kingdom of God is already here—let's live by its way of life, by its pace, the one that values loving and serving our neighbors above getting ahead of them. Let's pay attention to what God is up to.

Let us pray