What Next

Sermon by Andrew Plocher
May 18, 2008, Presbyterian Church of Chestnut Hill

Isaiah 6:1-6
Acts 8:26-40

Then I heard the voice of the Lord saying, “Whom shall I send, and who will go for us?” And I said, “Here am I; send me!”

Imagine…
You’ve just been confirmed and are on top of the world. As you leave the church, after brunch, you walk down the street with your family. Headed just a few blocks down Germantown Avenue, strolling in this fantastic weather. There, sitting on the bench by the Borders, is a woman. She’s wearing worn out clothing, has an over-stuffed grocery bag of belongings beside her, and on her lap is a book. As you pass, you cannot help but be curious what she is reading: is it a mystery novel? A guide to business practices? A harlequin romance? Peering over you notice that she is reading the Bible. She seems to be muttering to herself about not understanding what she’s reading. What do you do?

Or maybe it’s been a few years since you’ve been confirmed, maybe fifty, and you’re in center city sitting in a coffee shop before meeting up with a friend. You’ve been behind on the Bible study so you pull out your handy-dandy purse sized Bible and begin catching up. As you read you begin to feel a little lost in the words, confused, re-reading paragraphs as you try to piece things together. Suddenly you notice a figure standing next to you, a man dressed to the nines in corporate attire. Kindly, he asks, “Do you understand what you are reading?” What do you say? How do you feel?

In our modern society of iPods and cell phones, the age of personal space and universal communication, things sometimes throw us in a tizzy. It’s not often that we reach out with our faith to try to help others understand it, nor is it often that we gracefully accept another persons understanding or interpretation of our faith: at least not a stranger. Many of us take for granted the teaching of our clergy, our parents, and teachers/professors. We go to the ‘experts’ for the wisdom. But what if the expert is unexpected? What if the person we teach is not cut from our social fabric and standing? What are we supposed to do?

The story from Acts that I read today is such a story. It is a modern story, if ever we have heard one. A man, Philip, is out preaching the good news and is told to head down toward Gaza (can you imagine the same sequence today?). As he walks he waits for instructions. He’s normally a do it your-selfer but he’s uncomfortable away from his hometown. He sees an Ethiopian man in a chariot down the road in front of him but doesn’t do anything. Then an angel speaks to him and tells him to go up to the chariot. So, being the good and faithful Presbyterian that Phillip was, he decides to do it. Besides, maybe he could invite this man to join the church, or even a committee? So he steps up to the chariot and notices that the man is reading Isaiah 53. Being the sensitive type he asks, “do you understand what you’re reading?” And the man replies, “How can I unless some one guides me?”

Now, Phillip is an upstanding guy, commissioned to spread the gospel of Jesus to all the world, but the world thus far was limited. He’d shared the word with his high school crowd, with the teachers he felt he could reach out to, and had even pried his way into the community of jocks and athletes. He was doing well! Yet here he was asking a man, an outsider of Phillip’s world and his faith, if he understands the words that he is reading. An Ethiopian man, educated, wealthy, and in service to his queen, but also exiled. The man was a eunuch, castrated, and therefore not allowed into the temple. He was coming from Jerusalem and had likely tried to have the words of Isaiah explained to him in the temple there, but was, again, left outside the gates. So when Phillip asks him if he understands, he answers back the only answer he has, “How can I unless some one guides me?” Maybe he says so with a bit of anger, maybe with defeat, or maybe even pleading for guidance. No matter how he asks, he asks.

For Phillip it may have been a rhetorical question. He knew the man was from Ethiopia and was a eunuch, so wouldn’t he know that he would not have been given the understanding of the scripture?

You see, far too often we make assumptions about others and about ourselves. We assume that others are better than us, are more devout in their belief, already understand what we know, or wouldn’t want to hear it anyway. We are afraid of being questioned in ways that we’re still questioning, in being undermined by some one, or guided in a way that feels uncomfortable or strange. And we are afraid that we might not know the answers, or that we might have them wrong. When we are asked about our faith it is often hard for us to disclose our beliefs. We might say, “I’m a Christian, but not one of ‘those’ Christians.” Or maybe just, “I go to church.” We disguise our discomfort in the shroud of defensiveness or humility. Either we defend our faith, sometimes stubbornly, or we get pushed over and brush off our faith as unimportant when, really, it is. And this is easy to do.

As we describe our faith to others, whether we are young or old, we use terms that are in the vernacular. We talk about sin, heaven, hell, and Jesus as our Lord and Savior. We use words that are loaded with power and stigma, rather than articulating what we might really believe. Describing God’s grace and the life of Jesus, our witness to the poor, to the least of these, and to our own failings, is hard to do. But what happens when we do? What occurs when we are brave enough to step outside of our comfort zone and say, “Here I am.”

When Phillip stops and explains the story to the Ethiopian, a strange thing happens. The man does not argue with him, does not invalidate his story, does not assume that he’s wrong or right, but is opened to the Spirit. Two men, opposites, culturally distant from each other are sitting and discussing scripture in a chariot. There in the middle of the harsh conditions on a road to Gaza, a man that we would walk by on the streets, or maybe assume has all that he needs, asks to be baptized. There, rejected from the temple, confused about the scripture and seeking guidance, he falls into the grace of God.

And what became of that man, of Phillip, and of ourselves. The Ethiopian man went home and spread the news that he had heard from Phillip. His sharing and telling is said to have began the church in Africa and spread Christianity beyond the confines of the middle east and southern Europe. And Phillip? Phillip was a changed man. He realized, in climbing up into the chariot, what the scripture truly meant. He saw that there really was no barrier for this man to be baptized. He saw the good news take hold in the heart of the man, and he too was changed. So he went on to Caesarea preaching the good news. And we…well, what is our story?

Maybe we’re the ones climbing up into the chariot and helping some one else understand the story, or maybe we need the guidance. Either way we are called into the story of the good news of Jesus Christ, the story of the prophets, the story of the church. It is our story too, whether we teach it, learn it, struggle with it, or find it only in the waters of baptism. As new members of this congregation, and as members of this congregation, this is our call. I know that all of you are story tellers, some of you vociferously and others more quietly, but all of you have stories. These stories, some how, some way, intersect with the congregation and with a belief in the story that the Ethiopian man so desperately wanted to hear. Maybe it was confirmation; maybe it was baptism. Maybe a wedding or first born child, or maybe a midlife crisis or the loss of a loved one. No matter what has brought you here, us here, we are here because of the truth of a story. We may not ever fully understand, but we are called to tell it. To struggle with it, to ask our colleagues and our pastors, our parents and our friends, and to step into the chariot even if we don’t want to.

Our faith is always something that we are and do. They shall, after all, know that we are Christian’s by our love. But unless we truly tell our story, to share the story of our faith, of scripture, of two men in a chariot talking about a man on a cross, then we are only telling part of the story. So be bold. Reach out and find someone to share your story with and hear theirs. Find out why they are here in this faith, and share why you are. We often all to often ask why we have joined this community, but fail to ask, “how did you come to believe.” The answer might surprise you, it might not be complete, but maybe, just maybe, it will enable you to see the people in the chariot, seeking and yearning to understand, and share of yourself with them. This is the task of the church, to bear witness to one another and to the world.

On this confirmation Sunday my prayer is this: that you, Jon, Tim, Quint, Ellie, and Grant, are being confirmed in this story. You profess it today, in a few moments, but I pray that you might find strength in it, that it will encourage you and frustrate you, that it will lead to sharing with others, to listening to stories and to telling your own, that you might fully embrace the gift of this community. Don’t be afraid to climb into the chariot or to let others join you. Listen to the story, believe the story, and tell it. For here, on this day and in this place, you have said, “here I am.”

Here we are; together in the community of the church, the community of Christ: of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.
Amen.

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