"Everyone Is Welcome!", April 28, 2024 — Santa Teresa Hills Presbyterian Church

“Everyone Is Welcome!”

Acts 8:26-40

Pastor Deb Troester, STHPC, April 28, 2024

This past week we lost a great spiritual leader: the Reverend Cecil Williams, long-time pastor of Glide Memorial Church in the San Francisco Tenderloin area. Joe and I first became aware of Glide Memorial long before we ever thought about moving here. Joe used to attend the American Geophysical Union annual conferences held in San Francisco. When looking for someplace to worship on Sunday, he found Glide Memorial near his hotel. He was surprised to be told to arrive 30 minutes early to be sure to get a seat, and he enjoyed the wonderful choir, which included members of the San Francisco Opera. He was amazed to discover that they are the second largest provider of social services in San Francisco, after the city of San Francisco itself – serving some 2000 meals a day to the poor, homeless, and hungry; as well as many other services for unhoused and extremely low income persons. Of course, Joe was also happy to find out that they offered great coffee after the service.

Reverend Williams was born in Georgia, the grandson of a slave. He came to Glide Memorial in the 1960’s as a young pastor. The church was dying, about to close its doors. He built it into a congregation of some 10,000 members. His mission was “to love everyone, the same thing as Jesus did.” Growing up with racial segregation convinced him that “he didn’t want to live with hate and separation in his life.” Under Williams’ leadership, Glide was at the forefront of the civil rights movement in the Bay area, throughout the 60’s and beyond.

Williams was not only a staunch defender of the rights of Black Americans, but of any marginalized group. According to an article in the Mercury, “When the Rev. Cecil Williams took over leadership of Glide Memorial Church… and began transforming it into a national powerhouse for social justice and nonprofit services, he became an early ally of Tenderloin residents who were then among the city’s most marginalized: gay men, lesbians and transgender youth.” As part of Williams’ mission to welcome the poor and disenfranchised… he began allowing LGBTQ groups to meet at Glide.”

Today about half of Glide’s congregation is composed of LGBTQ+ folks who have found a safe haven where they can practice their faith without fear of being ostracized or demeaned. Upon his death, Mayor London Breed called him “the conscience of San Francisco,” and wrote: “He spoke out against injustice and he spoke for the marginalized …He led with compassion and wisdom, always putting the people first and never relenting in his pursuit of justice and equality. His kindness brought people together and his vision changed our city and the world.”

This morning we read about another person whose vision quietly changed the world: Philip - not Philip the apostle, although he is also important - but Philip the deacon and evangelist, one of seven deacons chosen to oversee the Church in Jerusalem’s ministry to the poor and widows, specifically the daily distribution of food. The apostles selected these deacons so that they would have more time for teaching and preaching. Our Presbyterian system of deacons and elders goes back to this moment in early church history.

The Ethiopian eunuch was the first African convert to Christianity. As such, his story should be told more often, and celebrated. By the way, it predates the story of Lydia, the first European convert, by at least fifteen years. According to the Bible, Africans received Christianity before Europeans.

Philip was a person who was sensitive to the leading of God’s spirit. An angel told him to get up and head down from Jerusalem to Gaza. As a side note, it is ironic that this ancient scripture, assigned by the lectionary for our reading this day, focuses on the road from Jerusalem to Gaza, at a time when all eyes are turned in that very same direction. Let us pray for peace in both Jerusalem and Gaza.

Back to Philip – he obeyed the angel without hesitation. On the road, he met an Ethiopian court official, a man of wealth and power. However, this man had paid a price for his high position. As a condition of working near the female members of the royal family, he had to undergo castration. As was the custom, he had likely been taken as a young boy to become a eunuch, with no choice in the matter.

Evidently he earned the trust of the queen, and was rewarded with the means to travel to Jerusalem with his own entourage to worship at the Temple. That doesn’t mean he was Jewish. He was probably what the New Testament calls a “God-fearer,” a person who revered God, but had not become a convert to Judaism.

Why is it unlikely that the eunuch was a Jewish convert? The ancient law of Moses, as recorded in Leviticus 21, states that no one may make an offering to the Lord who is blind or lame, mutilated or deformed. Such people may eat of the offerings, but they are not to approach the area of sacrifice within the Temple. The Ethiopian’s status as both a Gentile and a eunuch would have prohibited his entry into the Temple. Even if he had converted, he could never be a full participant in the Jewish faith.

Yet while in Jerusalem he had made an expensive purchase – a scroll of the Prophet Isaiah. Books in those days were painstakingly copied out by hand on papyrus. A scroll such as this was a treasure, worth more than its weight in gold.

It says a lot about this man’s heart that of all the souvenirs he could have chosen, it was a scroll of the prophets that he took home with him.

As his chariot moved along, he was reading, “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.” This scripture is usually taken to refer to Christ, who submitted to torture and death on the cross without complaint. Yet, it is possible that the eunuch identified with this verse as well. Perhaps he had had no choice about his fate, and was bravely silent as he was cut. Perhaps he felt humiliated, and that justice had been denied him. This passage from Isaiah must have touched his heart.

As Philip approached the Ethiopian’s chariot, he asked, “Do you understand what you are reading?” “How can I, if no one explains it to me?” was the reply. That was all the invitation Philip needed to start explaining how the text applied to Jesus Christ, his sacrificial death and resurrection, and how God’s love and forgiveness was now open to all, Jew and Gentile alike, regardless of nationality, race, or condition -

And, dare we say, gender identity? It seems that the eunuch heard Philip’s message, and believed with his whole heart, because when they came to some water – maybe a stream or a lake – he asked, “What is to prevent me from being baptized?” So Philip baptized him.

This exchange seems so straightforward today. It is normal to us that a person who accepts the gospel as an adult has a right to baptism. But what Philip did was radical. The early church was still trying to decide if non-Jews could become Christians at all. Some insisted on obedience to all the Jewish laws before a person could join the church.

It’s not until two chapters later that the great Apostle Peter dared to baptize the Roman centurion, Cornelius, another Gentile. After that, Peter had to go to Jerusalem to explain to the other apostles why he had done so. There was nearly a schism in the early church due to Peter’s actions. He had to persuade the other apostles that even Gentiles could be baptized without having to undergo circumcision or observe the rest of the Jewish laws, such as not eating pork.

It wasn’t until the Holy Spirit fell upon the Gentile believers and they began to speak in tongues as on the Day of Pentecost that the Jewish believers were convinced it was OK that Peter had baptized Gentiles.

Yet two chapters earlier, without asking anyone, Philip blithely baptizes a Gentile of a different race, who, because of his status as a eunuch, would probably never have been accepted into the Jewish community. The answer to the question, “What is there to prevent me from being baptized?” is “Nothing.”

This story of Philip and the Ethiopian eunuch shows the progressive widening of the circle of welcome in God’s family. It is not that God has changed - God has always loved all of us – but we are changed by the Gospel. For there are two conversions here: Yes, the Ethiopian eunuch is converted, but Philip is also converted – he is willing to see a man of a different race, nationality, status in life, and yes, gender identity, as a brother in Christ. That is truly radical.

I recently read the memoir, A Place Called Home, by David Ambroz. I highly recommend it. David spent his first twelve years living on the street with his brother, sister, and mentally ill mother. Then he spent the rest of his childhood in the foster care system. Amazingly, with the help of a few kind adults he met along the way, he was able to attend university and law school and currently serves as Head of Community Engagement for Amazon. His book’s main emphasis is on how poorly our country serves the needs of indigent children, whose parents are often unable to care for them, and are then put into a system that doesn’t seem to care about them. But a second theme is his growing recognition that he is gay, and the poor treatment of LGBTQ children in the foster care system. David did not want to be gay. In fact, he did not like that part of himself when he was younger. He says that if he could have changed, it would have spared him a lot of torment and bullying. He saw a psychologist who tried to change his orientation, but it only made him more miserable. Reading David’s story made me realize once again that we are born with certain characteristics that are part of who we are, that we don’t have a choice about.

Why not celebrate the beautiful people we are, as God created us? Why do we have to judge others, who are God’s creations, too? Paul wrote to the Galatians: “There is no longer Jew or Greek; there is no longer slave or free; there is no longer male and female, for all of you are one in Christ Jesus.” If our ethnicity and social status don’t matter to God, does our gender identity matter? “We are all one in Christ Jesus,” says Paul.

In a 2013 interview with NPR, Rev. Cecil Williams said, “If you really understand…the liberated gospel, the liberated acts of Jesus, it would mean that we would take any hatred out of our hearts…Take judgment out of your acts and put love there. That’s what needs to be there.” Love.

Recently I read a poem by Nathan Decker, written in the voice of the Ethiopian eunuch:

God was not ashamed to love me.

He loved so deeply with the waters of my baptism.

He loved so fully with good news of salvation.

Jesus didn’t mind that I was different.

Jesus didn’t cast me out

but embraced me as a part of his creative diversity.

Come, Spirit, come!

Fill us with this unashamed love.

Come, Spirit, come!

Lead us to share.

Come, Spirit, come!

Let us be your witness.

And I would add, Let us learn to love. Amen.