posts — Page 12 — Andy James

Mystery and Mission

May 31, 2015 By Andy James

a sermon on Isaiah 6:1-8
preached on May 31, 2015, at the First Presbyterian Church of Whitestone

We’re coming out of quite a festive season. Between the great church holy days of Easter and Pentecost, the more minor celebration of the Ascension, the various joyous Sundays of the Easter season, and the cultural celebration of Mother’s Day, we have been quite a festive group of people lately! Today, though, we shift from a season of festivals into that great season of green, Ordinary Time, with one final festival: Trinity Sunday.

Even though it is certainly rightfully considered a festival of the church, Trinity Sunday is not quite the same as all these others. While all the other festivals of the church celebrate moments in the life of Jesus or the church, Trinity Sunday celebrates something far more abstract: a doctrine. And of course this is not just any doctrine—it is the most misunderstood and most easily dismissed doctrine of the church! Far too many Christians either shake their heads and ignore this doctrine because it seems too complicated or actively choose to think and even preach against it because they think that it is an outdated, unnecessary, and artificial set of rules placed on our understanding of God. But the doctrine of the Trinity that we celebrate today has stood the test of time. It continues to shape how we think of who God is and what God does even as we remember that our understanding of God is limited by our humanity. And this doctrine gives us a dose of much-needed humility in a world where we seem to think that we can know and understand everything, for just when we think that we have this all figured out, the paradox of one-in-three and three-in-one crops up all over again!

Yet the gift of this day is not just in giving us a bit of humility, taking us back to this easily-misunderstood doctrine of the early church, or even the wonderful hymn “Holy, Holy, Holy!” that is practically required to be sung on this day! Through the wisdom of the lectionary, Trinity Sunday also leads us to thoughtful texts that look at the mystery and mission of God that stand at the center of this great and complex doctrine. Our reading from the prophet Isaiah today opens us to this mystery and mission so very clearly.

Here the prophet tells us the story of his call to serve God and the people of Israel that began with a strange glimpse at the mystery of God and ended with a call to serve the mission of God. In the midst of transition and turmoil in the life of the nation, Isaiah had a vision of God “sitting on a throne, high and lofty.” On this throne, God was surrounded by servant angels, ascending and descending by the throne, covering their faces and bodies with their wings as they proclaimed the wonder and holiness of their master:

Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of hosts; the whole earth is full of his glory.

As these angels offered their songs of praise, the temple filled with smoke and shook with wonder and majesty. Isaiah was stunned by this sight. His mortality and impurity and humanity became abundantly clear alongside the holiness of God. He could not even declare God’s holiness as we did in our opening hymn but instead offered a prayer of confession:

Woe is me! I am lost, for I am a man of unclean lips, and I live among a people of unclean lips; yet my eyes have seen the King, the Lord of hosts!

But Isaiah’s impurity and humanity didn’t really matter in that temple, for everything there was centered in the holiness of God that could change everything for Isaiah. To make this clear, one of the angels flew over to Isaiah, carrying a live coal from the altar. The angel touched the coal to Isaiah’s lips and proclaimed,

Now that this has touched your lips, your guilt has departed and your sin is blotted out.

In that moment, something changed for Isaiah. He went from being fearful of this mysterious God because of his sin to being called out to new life because of God’s wonder and glory. The mystery of God had opened just enough for the mission of God began to emerge. When another voice thundered through the temple, asking, “Whom shall I send, and who will go for us?”, Isaiah knew that he could respond with confidence:

Here am I; send me!

Isaiah’s vision puts the mystery and mission of God on full display for us, too. Amidst the mysterious servant angels, we see God calling for someone to journey forth. Amidst the clouds of smoke that cover the glory of God, we see a revelation of God’s self that shows us that we must respond. And amidst the wondrous way of forgiveness opened by the fiery coal from the altar of God, we are freed to join in the mission of God without fear.

All this mystery and mission are a great fit for the mysteries of Trinity Sunday. After all, who really understands how God can be three in one and one in three? Who understands how the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit manage to be three independent beings of one God? How we can identify the actions of one person of the Trinity when we have enough difficulty recognizing anything that God is doing in our world anyway? How we can see such distinction in the actions of the persons of the Trinity even as their actions are indivisible? And what difference does it really make why God is trinitarian in the first place? Answers to these questions are far more complex than we have time for in a twelve- to fifteen-minute sermon, yet the fact that we explore them as Christians ought to show that we take the mystery of God seriously.

Even as we get a clear glimpse of the mystery of God, the mission of God also becomes clear for us here. Just as God emerges from the mysterious cloud to call Isaiah, so we too are called from the mystery of God’s being to participate in God’s mission in the world. Over the last several months, our church leadership has been thinking and talking and praying about ways to engage us in intentional mission in the world. We have always been a missional church, with substantial financial gifts given to support mission efforts locally, nationally, and internationally through the deacons and many of you regularly inviting us to join in working with organizations and projects that you care about. Even as we honor these deep commitments and long histories of engagement, we also recognized the importance of taking up mission together, so we discussed several possible projects where we might come together to be active as a congregation in supporting mission efforts in our community and world. We agreed on two new projects as a long-term commitments to new mission engagement in our community and world even as we continue to support the Grace Church Food Pantry, Heifer International, and other projects and look to welcome even more ways to engage in mission together from the passions in our midst.

First, we will work to build relationships with mission partners in Madagascar. Last fall, we welcomed Lala Rasendrahasina, the president of the Church of Jesus Christ in Madagascar, to speak with us about that nation and the church’s work there, and he sparked some initial interest. We will be supporting Daniell and Elizabeth Turk, two Presbyterian mission co-workers who assist the church in Madagascar with agricultural, environmental, and health projects. The session has already approved a substantial contribution toward their work, and we will be working to engage with them in other ways in the coming months.

Second, we will be supporting UNiTE, the United Nations Secretary General’s campaign to end violence against women and girls. Among other projects, we hope to “Orange Our Neighborhood” during sixteen days of international activism around these issues in November and December. You’ll be hearing more about these projects as the date nears and we have an opportunity to learn more about these important issues and help others in our community join in these efforts.

These are places where we have heard God calling us, and I hope and pray that you will find a way to join in responding “Here am I; send me!” just as Isaiah did.

Even amidst the mystery of what this mission will look like for us in the end, our mysterious God who works in so many different ways and is so well described in three persons, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit invites us to respond just like this, offering ourselves in service that reflects the incredible presence of this mysterious God so that the mystery might be peeled back for others and ourselves as we join in God’s mission together.

So as we join Isaiah and countless others in joyfully responding to God’s call, may God’s mystery and mission become all the more clear for us so that we might welcome others to join us in watching and waiting and working for God’s new creation to become real in the world as all things are made new in Jesus Christ our Lord. Thanks be to God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, now and forever. Amen.

Resurrection, Continued

May 24, 2015 By Andy James

a sermon on Ezekiel 37:1-14
preached on Pentecost, May 24, 2015, at the First Presbyterian Church of Whitestone

Over the years, I’ve gotten to be a big fan of Easter. As a child, it was all about the Easter bunny, but as I’ve gotten older, I’ve developed a deeper appreciation of the need to celebrate the resurrection. This strange and wonderful event, after all, is the reason why we Christians exist at all. The death of Jesus was certainly important, but that death would have meant nothing were it not for his resurrection. It made the power of God to bring new life clear once and for all, brought a change in the day of worship from the Saturday sabbath of Judaism to Sunday, the day of resurrection, and reminds us of the new life that has been promised to us and is already coming into being around us.

Today’s reading from the prophet Ezekiel is a perfect bridge between the joys of celebrating the resurrection in the Easter season and the coming of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost. This story is one of the great resurrection stories, perhaps as appropriate for Easter as for Pentecost, because it has as much to do with new life as it does with the Spirit.

The prophet Ezekiel, writing from the confines of exile in Babylon, tells of a strange vision where death shifts to life by the power of the Spirit of God. God takes him to a strange valley, filled with bones. There were a lot of bones there, and they were very dry. Upon his arrival there, God questioned him quickly: “Mortal, can these bones live?” In that time and place, life seemed utterly impossible. The valley was dry and barren, and the bones were just as dry and just as barren—dead as a doornail, we might say. Those bones were like everything around Ezekiel—bearing hopelessness, mired in darkness and despair, dried up and withering away, decaying beyond belief.

But Ezekiel knew better than to assume that God could not work beyond human visions of death. Soon God was instructing him to prophesy to the bones, to proclaim that they could be alive again, to insist that they were something more than dead, dry bones, to call forth sinews and flesh and skin to cover these bones so that they might live. When Ezekiel did this, he heard a great rattling as the bones came together, “bone to its bone.” As the scattered bones became assembled skeletons, muscles and flesh and skin came upon them, and what once had been a barren valley of lifeless bones was now filled with lifeless bodies.

This first word had put things back together, but it was not enough to bring new life. So Ezekiel turned again to hear God’s voice commanding him, “Prophesy to the breath, prophesy, mortal, and say to the breath: Thus says the Lord God: Come from the four winds, O breath, and breathe upon these slain,
that they may live.” When he offered this second word as God commanded, breath came upon the lifeless bodies of that deserted valley. What had once been a lifeless valley was now filled with an eager multitude. What had once been a pile of dry bones was now a crowd of standing bodies awaiting new possibilities ahead. What had once been the most certain sign of death was now most definitely very much alive.

After this new life became clear to Ezekiel, God finally explained what it all meant in one final word of proclamation and prophecy. God instructed Ezekiel to follow up his words to the bones of the valley with one more proclamation to the exiled people of Israel, promising them that new life would emerge for them from their graves, that they would return to their homeland, and that they would be filled with the spirit of God and so live in fullness of life.

All the new life in those dry bones came about because of the spirit of God. The great Hebrew word used here is ruach. It’s one of those words you can’t help but love to say, and when you learn everything that it means, it feels even better to say it. Like many words in Hebrew, ruach does not have an exact equivalent in English. Depending on the original context, we can translate ruach as “breath,” “wind,” or “spirit”—the same three words that we so often use to describe the Holy Spirit. Whether it be breath, wind, or spirit, this ruach always comes from God, and even before anyone ever understood it, this ruach was showing us the presence and activity of the Holy Spirit.

God’s ruach brings life to the lifeless, blows through our world to restore all that is broken, and inspires the church to join in God’s work of bringing new life. This ruach is not our own breath, not the wind created by a fan, not the spirit of a departed loved one. This ruach is the Spirit of God, the wind that blew upon the chaotic waters at creation to begin the creation of new life, the breath placed in each of us as we take our first breath outside our mother’s womb, the fiery presence that filled Jesus’ disciples on that first day of Pentecost and helped them to be heard as they spoke to those who gathered in Jerusalem, the spirit that fills our world with the presence of God and guides us the continuing work of resurrection in that valley of dry bones and beyond. God’s ruach blows where it will, guiding us in bringing new life to our world that seems to be ruled by death, bringing the dead to life when we might least expect it, and showing us that we can live in ways that we never imagined we could live before.

As we celebrate this Pentecost, as we look at the myriad ways that God is at work to bring new life into our world, as we see how God can transform the brokenness of our world in bringing together the dry bones of Ezekiel’s valley and the diaspora gathered in Jerusalem, as we join the multitude who rose up in that valley and who responded to the words of the disciples in Jerusalem, we continue the work of the resurrection begun by God on that first Easter that has continued for two millennia. In coming in power on that first Pentecost, in restoring life to those dry bones, in inspiring us for the work of new creation each and every day, the Holy Spirit is the presence of God at work in our world. The Holy Spirit guides our reading and interpretation of scripture, helping us to understand what these ancient words mean to us as God’s people in our world. The Holy Spirit shows us how God wills us to work and to live in hope and new life, encouraging us to set aside the ways of death where we feel led out into valleys of dry bones ourselves so that we can know that power of God to bring new life. And the Holy Spirit breathes new life into us, showing us that we are not the lifeless people of the past, not those dead and dry bones, and not some temporary flicker of a momentary flame but rather reminding us that we are the people of God, inspired for new life each and every day so that God might be glorified through the transformation of our world.

So as the resurrection power of God continues in our world, may we be filled with the breath of God that gives us life, the wind of God that blows us into places we never expected might give us hope, and the Spirit of God that shows us how to walk in newness of life as we are filled with the Holy Spirit this Pentecost and every day until all things are made new in Jesus Christ our Lord. Thanks be to God! Amen.

Belonging and Blessing

May 17, 2015 By Andy James

a sermon on Luke 24:44-53
preached on May 17, 2015, at the First Presbyterian Church of Whitestone

When I think of the ways that my family has shaped my life, my thoughts turn to two particular areas: belonging and blessing. Over the course of my thirty-six years, my parents, grandparents, aunts and uncles, cousins, friends, colleagues, and others have shown me repeatedly what it means to belong to one another even as they have given me their blessing—perhaps at times reluctantly!—to follow where God is leading in my life.

The idea of belonging is likely quite familiar, for at some level, I suspect that we all are just looking for a place to call home, a place to fit in, a place where we can be loved, whether that be in our families, among our friends, in our church, or in some other relationship or community. And the idea of blessing, too, is common around us, for we are shown love and care—the core components of blessing—in so many different ways from so many different sources as we receive the sense of comfort and hope that we need to live in mercy and grace each and every day.

Today’s story of the ascension of Jesus from the gospel according to Luke also addresses these two big themes of belonging and blessing as his earthly ministry comes to an end. Luke tells us about how Jesus gathered the disciples for a time of teaching and fellowship some forty days after his resurrection. He recounted again to them the meaning and story of his life and ministry, using the Hebrew scriptures once again to show them who he was and why he had lived and died and rose to new life. He instructed them that “repentance and forgiveness of sins is to be proclaimed in [the name of the Messiah] to all nations, beginning from Jerusalem,” and he reminded them that they would receive the gift of “power from on high” to assist them in this work of bearing witness to his life, ministry, death, and resurrection. He told them that his ministry on earth would continue in them, for they had been and would continue to be his beloved friends, and that even in his reign on high they would stay connected to him.

Then, after assuring them of all the ways in which they belonged to him, Jesus led them out of the city and began to bless them. He raised his hands and shared the presence of God with them once again. Before they could see this blessing end, “he withdrew from them and was carried up into heaven.” Even though they could no longer see it, they were certain that the blessing continued, and they responded with joy and praise by returning to Jerusalem to offer their own blessing to God for all that they had seen and experienced.

The belonging and blessing shown here in the ascension of Jesus are also captured well in the majestic words of Psalm 47 that we just sang a few moments ago. Its powerful words echo the understandings of the ascension as told in Luke’s gospel and remind us of the real implications of this end to Jesus’ ministry. In our day and age where most monarchs have only ceremonial powers and we ourselves are far more familiar with a representative system of government, it is easy to miss how these great words proclaiming God as king affirm the ways in which we belong to God and find blessing in the risen and ascending Christ. Even as we “stand in awe of God” and watch as “God brings nations low,” these words remind us that God’s provision for us is beyond all our human understanding and God’s gifts for us extend beyond our wildest imagination. This divine ruler gives us not only what we need to live in fullness of life but also invites us into relationship so that we might know how deeply and completely we belong to God. This belonging goes far beyond our ownership of any of our human human belongings, for it is not ownership but relationship—the kind of relationship that makes us feel at home, that shows us how much we are loved, that gives us all that we need. Even more than those places where we best feel like we belong to another person or to a particular community, our sense of belonging to God—even this God who reigns on high—gives us energy and hope to go forth in service each and every day.

Alongside this belonging, the blessing that emerges from the ascension of Jesus shapes our lives each and every day. When Jesus was carried up into heaven as he was blessing the disciples, we see him enacting this unending blessing, arms raised, offering his affirmation of hope, calling them to live in his new way, showing them and us again and again, without end, the new life that he brings into the world.

In some ways, this blessing is very surprising. As commentator Thomas Troeger reminds us, “[Jesus] had cause to be cursing them. They had abandoned him, denied him, run off like scared rabbits, even dismissed his resurrection as an idle tale when the women first reported it.” (Feasting on the Word, Year B, Volume 2, p. 523) Yet Jesus left the disciples while blessing them, with his hands raised to share the depth and breadth of God’s mercy and grace with them, offering them only the beginning of this unending blessing, insisting that they were worthy of belonging to him even amidst all the struggles that they had experienced together along the way, promising them that they would be more than their missteps, greater than their uncertainties, and filled to overflowing with the blessing of God.

So what do these ideas of belonging and blessing mean to us today? Even with all of this biblical backup for the ascension, why should it matter to us that Jesus ascended to reign at the right of hand of God, as we profess so many Sundays in the Apostles’ or Nicene Creeds? How are we to live in the light of this good news—if indeed it is good news at all? After all, it usually is not good news when we must say farewell for good, as the disciples did with Jesus here. Even when we can offer our greatest confidence about God’s promise of new life, death is still very final for us in our world. Even in our hyperconnected world where we are linked by text and voice and video with friends and family around the world, we still have moments that are final goodbyes for us.

Yet when we see how we belong to God and are continually being blessed by Jesus in the ascension, this seeming finality disappears. In the ascension, the only thing that seemed to be final for the disciples was Jesus’ raised arms—his act of continual blessing for them, his ceaseless intercession on their behalf, his eternal reign at the right hand of God that showed them that they belonged to God, his ongoing blessing that enabled them to share that blessing with others. So for us, Jesus’ final acts of belonging and blessing are not like what we might expect when those we love depart from us but rather stand as reminders of God’s call in our lives to live as people who belong to God and who are blessed by God all along the way.

The belonging and blessing we experience in the ascension offer us comfort for our lives and hope for all that is ahead for us, but they also challenge us to do more than just wallow in these gifts that have come to us. The belonging and blessing that we see in the ascension of Jesus tell us that we are called to make space for others to belong and be blessed too, that we are charged with breaking down the barriers of the world that get in the way of others experiencing the grace and mercy of God, that we must join in the work that God is doing among us to bring a new world into being. The belonging and blessing we find on this mountaintop are not just something for us to enjoy for ourselves or to hoard up for those like us—they are to be shared far and wide, from shore to shore, to the ends of the earth and beyond, for we have been claimed by God as God’s own and invited to share the fullness of this blessing in Jesus Christ.

So as we celebrate the ascension this day, as we look up to see the departure of Jesus from the earth, may we never forget the unending blessing of God in Jesus Christ that shows us how deeply we belong to him so that we can share it far and wide with all those who need to know the love of God in Jesus Christ our Lord until he comes in glory to make all things new. Lord, come quickly! Alleluia! Amen.

A New Song

May 10, 2015 By Andy James

a sermon on Psalm 98
preached on May 10, 2015, at the First Presbyterian Church of Whitestone

As I get older, I find myself doing something I always hoped others would not—and promised myself I would avoid, too: I am becoming more and more a creature of habit. Rather than trying new things, I stay close to what I know. Rather than exploring new options and opportunities, I stick to the familiar things. And rather than seek something different, I return to what I have found before.

In these Easter days, though, the psalmist gives us an important reminder that we might need something more than what we have seen before. He proclaims, “Sing a new song to the Lord!” He knows that what we have been doing for a long time might not be enough to express the wonder of what God is doing. He insists that the mighty and wonderful things that God has done and is doing and will do deserve more than the same old praise, for God’s actions are so amazing that we are called to always be on the lookout for new ways to show our thanks and praise. And he reminds us that God’s victory and vindication—shown in these days in the wonder of the resurrection—shake up our world so much that we must keep looking for new and different ways to celebrate it.

So with that in mind, I invite you to sing a bit of a new song with me today. One of my seminary friends and colleagues, Sarah Erickson, put together a wonderful and different setting of another psalm of praise, Psalm 138, and so today I invite you to sing a new song unto the Lord with me. I will say—or maybe even sing—a line, and then you will say or sing it back with me together. I suspect you’ll hear some old songs in the words we’ll share along the way, but I hope and pray that all this will be some new song for us to share today.

I give you thanks, O LORD, with my whole heart; (echo)

My whole heart. (echo)

before the gods I sing your praise; (echo)

Praise, praise, praise the Lord, praise God’s holy name, Alleluia! (echo)

I bow down toward your holy temple (echo – bow)

I give thanks for your steadfast love and your faithfulness (echo)

Great is Thy faithfulness! (echo)

for you have exalted your name (echo)

and your word (echo)

above everything. (echo)

Holy, holy, holy, Lord God Almighty! (echo)

On the day I called, you answered me, (echo)

you increased my strength of soul. (echo)

All the kings of the earth shall praise you, O LORD, (echo)

Praise ye the Lord, the almighty, the king of creation!(echo)

They have heard the words of your mouth. (echo)

They shall sing of the ways of the LORD, (echo)

Thy Word is a lamp unto my feet, and a light unto my path (echo)

for great is the glory of the LORD. (echo)

GREAT (echo)

Is the glory of the LORD! (echo)

Gloria – (from Angels we have heard on high) (echo)

For though the LORD is high, (echo)

Lord we lift your name on high! (echo)

the LORD regards the lowly; (echo)

but the haughty (echo)

the haughty (echo)

are perceived from far away. (echo)

Though I walk in the midst of trouble, (echo)

We must walk this lonesome valley (echo)

you preserve me (echo)

against the wrath of my enemies; (echo)

you stretch out your hand, (echo)

YOUR hand (echo)

and your right hand delivers me. (echo)

Great is thy faithfulness! (echo)

The LORD will fulfill God’s purpose for me; (echo)

your steadfast love, O LORD, endures forever. (echo)

Forever, and ever! (from Hallelujah Chorus) (echo)

Do not forsake the work of your hands. (echo)

Amen.

On the Way Rejoicing

May 3, 2015 By Andy James

a sermon on Acts 8:26-40
preached on May 3, 2015, at the First Presbyterian Church of Whitestone

It’s kind of amazing, really. We gather every week around a book whose newest parts are over nineteen hundred years old. We trust that these texts written by very different people from a very different cultural context can and will guide us and support us in our own life and living. We hope that these ancient words we offer us good news for our world today, and they usually do. When we are set in the middle of this world as clearly as we are, it is so easy to forget how surprising and amazing it all really is.

Even more amazingly, the transformative power of scripture is nothing new. Our reading this morning from Acts describes an incredible encounter with scripture on a road from Jerusalem to Gaza, where the Holy Spirit joined with an Ethiopian eunuch and the apostle Philip to open these words for new life.

The Ethiopian eunuch was traveling back to his home after a visit to the temple in Jerusalem, where he had gone to worship. The book of Acts doesn’t give us his name, but we learn a lot about him from just a few details. First of all, he was Ethiopian—in that day, something that didn’t necessarily mean modern-day Ethiopia, but he was certainly a darker-skinned man from the mysterious lands of Africa south of Egypt. Then, we learn that he was a eunuch, that is, that he had been castrated at some point, likely before he could have any say in the matter, so that he would be a more valuable servant in the royal household because it was felt that he would pose no sexual threat to the women there. Acts goes on to give us even more details, that he was a trusted court official of Candace, queen of the Ethiopians, in charge of her entire treasury. His wealth and status meant that he could travel by chariot, carry his own copy of religious books, and read the Greek that was the main language of that day.

Somewhat surprisingly, though, this man was also intrigued by the world of Judaism. He had traveled a long way to worship at the temple even though he would not be fully welcome there. If he was a Gentile, he would have been excluded from the inner court of the temple on that basis, and if he was a Jew, he would have been kept out because he was a eunuch. Still, scripture was clearly a gift to him. He spent his trip home reading the words of the prophet Isaiah, trying to figure out what it meant and whether or not this faith and practice could have any meaning for him. These words, written at least five hundred years before his own time, to people who lived very differently from him, in a way that was often interpreted to exclude him, managed to penetrate his own life, and he wanted to respond.

So by the miraculous power of the Holy Spirit, Philip shows up in this eunuch’s life. Philip had set out on his own journey along this same wilderness road, and by the guidance of the Spirit, he caught up with the chariot, heard the eunuch reading Isaiah, and asked him if he understood what he was reading. The eunuch invited Philip in to help him with that interpretation, and together they explored how these words stepped beyond their original context in the exiled people of Israel and into their lives.

They were reading and discussing a passage from Isaiah 53, words that point to “a sheep… led to the slaughter,” “a lamb silent before its shearer,” and one “in his humiliation justice was denied him.” The eunuch asked Philip directly, “About whom is the prophet speaking, himself or someone else?” He was wondering out loud if this text might connect to someone in his own situation, someone who knew what it was like to be humiliated, to be slaughtered a bit, to face the denial of justice for himself. Philip then connected these words not just to the eunuch but to Jesus, invoking Jesus’ experience of suffering and injustice in his lowly and outcast state, connecting the eunuch not only to the prophet’s words describing the experience of Israel in exile but to Jesus’ life, death, and resurrection. By the power of the Holy Spirit, these amazing words reached beyond their original time and place to not only resonate in the life of one who knew what it was like to be cut off but to describe the incredible possibility of new life that has come to all humanity in and through Jesus Christ.

From here, the eunuch could do nothing more than to respond in joy. He wanted to be a part of all this for himself, to connect this message to his living in the royal court, to seal it on his life for all the days to come. So when they came upon some water along the side of the road, the eunuch asked Philip if he could be baptized, and so they shared in this ritual cleansing that led them both into new life. Even after Philip was “snatched away,” the eunuch went on his way rejoicing, for these words he admired so much were finally now connected to his life, and he could live in joy and praise all his days.

Scripture should be such a gift to us, too, to send us on our way rejoicing. Just as it broke into the world of this Ethiopian eunuch, scripture speaks into our time and place, into our lives and our world, as we see and hear God responding to the things around us. Scripture breaks into our lives to show us God present in the pain and hurt of our lives, to offer us God’s voice speaking out against the injustice of our world, and to remind us that God steps in again and again to transform brokenness into new life. Scripture challenges us to connect these ancient stories into our own world, to sort out how God’s presence among a backwater people who were never all that important in their own day and age matters for us today, to connect God’s affinity for the poor and outcast of scriptural times with the oppression of people in our own time, to look for God stepping in to bring new life in places where disaster seems to be all around.

In these days where we face the challenges of everyday life and living, where we wonder what kind of justice can settle in our nation amidst so much conflict, where we cry out “How long, O Lord?” because of the depth of pain and suffering around us, we need scripture to speak to us more than ever. How can we see God in our individual lives when things turn weird and everything seems to be going wrong? How then are we to understand how God is present amidst those who have been humiliated or denied justice in our world? How can we imagine that God will step in to bring relief to those who know the deep horror of destruction in the face of natural disaster?

Scripture assures us that we need look no further than Christ himself, who stepped in to bring comfort and peace when things went weird and wrong, who knew for himself the pain of systematic brutality and the horror of unjust punishment, who offered comfort and compassion to those who suffered so that all might flourish and go on the way rejoicing.

So may the Holy Spirit inspire us too along our way, that like Philip and the Ethiopian eunuch we might know and understand God’s call in our lives and world, remaining present with those seeking a new way, walking with those who need a word of faithfulness and hope, and looking for scripture and the Holy Spirit to continue to speak to us so that we can join the eunuch and so many others and go on our way rejoicing. Thanks be to God! Amen.