March 6, 2011
We Are a Church of Misfits
(No matter who you are, or where you find yourself on life’s journey, you are welcome here.)
Acts 8:26-39
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.
Isaiah 56:1-5
Thus says the Lord:
Maintain justice, and do what is right,
for soon my salvation will come,
and my deliverance be revealed.
Happy is the mortal who does this,
the one who holds it fast,
who keeps the sabbath, not profaning it,
and refrains from doing any evil.
Do not let the foreigner joined to the Lord say,
‘The Lord will surely separate me from his people’;
and do not let the eunuch say,
‘I am just a dry tree.’
For thus says the Lord:
To the eunuchs who keep my sabbaths,
who choose the things that please me
and hold fast my covenant,
I will give, in my house and within my walls,
a monument and a name
better than sons and daughters;
I will give them an everlasting name
that shall not be cut off.
We may indeed be theological misfits, but in the grand scheme of things we are pretty acceptable misfits. Most of us move about and function in unrestricted ways in our society. The story of the Ethiopian eunuch is the story of one unacceptable on multiple levels: he was a foreigner, a member of a different religion, racism was alive even in those days, he was physically incomplete (meaning he was castrated), and his mutilation meant that he could not produce children (a primary duty for a male in biblical understanding). When he asked Philip, “What is to prevent me from being baptized?” he was expecting any number of reasons why he was unacceptable to this new religion. Philip offered no objection but joined the Ethiopian down in the water.
The passage from Isaiah I’ve included is nearby the passage quoted in the story. It speaks promises directly related to the eunuch’s situation. It is written to describe the restoration of Israel from exile: in the restored Promised Land, no one was unacceptable.
To proclaim that we are a church of misfits requires us to examine who is truly misfitted? Who might not be welcome even here? Moreover, just how extravagant is the welcome we are ready to offer? I imagine that when the chariot stopped the water that was there was probably muddy and murky and crawling with who knows what. Philip waded in waist deep in the muck to welcome the eunuch to the family. Would we do that?
Worship Experiece: The Love of God welcomes everyone and every part of everyone unconditionally and unreservedly. (You are loved beyond your wildest imagining.)
One of the first images to come to mind when we use the language of misfits is, of course, Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer. Particularly the Island of Misfit Toys. I personally do not like the story of Rudolph because its message is that if you are different you are excluded from society until you prove you have some worth to society (they didn’t let Rudolph play in the reindeer games or pull the sleigh until they realized that his nose could guide them through the blizzard). The Gospel says that no matter how different you are, you are included. That’s what Communion is all about.
