Love is both tough and sensitive
Commentary
In Acts 8, 9, and 10 we have the stories of three conversions -- the unnamed eunuch from Ethiopia, the Jew Saul from Tarsus, and the centurion Cornelius from Rome. The conversion of Saul has so dominated the other two stories, and especially that of the man from Ethiopia, that we tend to overlook their significance. When one studies carefully the account of the conversion of the eunuch and thinks about why Luke may have included it in his writing, one can begin to understand why some suggest that the account of the Ethiopian should overshadow that of Saul's conversion. Richard Pervo, for example, writes of "the exotic quality of the tale of a eunuch from Ethiopia" and sets it into the larger framework of Luke's purpose -- to show that the Gospel is not only for all nations, but also for all sorts of people.
The eunuch surely would not fit within Judaism as Saul did. He could make no claim to a connection with the roots that Saul could boast of. More than that, as a foreigner he has not access to even the fringes of Judaism. He would be "condemned to hover on the margins of Judaism, debarred from full conversion by his physical condition." (Richard Pervo, Profit With Delight: The Literary Genre of the Acts of the Apostles, Minneapolis: Fortress, 1987, p. 70.)
When he asks, "What is to prevent me from being baptized?" Philip lays down no conditions for this first known convert from the Gentile world. No circumcision, no memorization of the Torah, no demand that he become a "normal" family man, no probationary period. Nothing. His request to be baptized is his confession of faith. They go immediately to the waters and he is welcomed without condition into the growing family of believers.
The other thing that impresses us about this story is the simplicity of the witness of Philip that led to the conversion of the eunuch. He told him "the good news about Jesus." The pattern of directness is well established. Andrew simply said to Peter, "We have found the Messiah." Philip said to Nathanael, "Come and see." Mary announced to the disciples, "He is risen." A bit later Paul will say to the jailor in Philippi, "Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and you will be saved." Is it possible that we see so few conversions because we make the message too complicated? 1 John 4:7-21
Next to John 3:16, the phrase "God is love" may be the most commonly-known and widely-used reference from the New Testament. Everyone -- or nearly so -- believes that God is love. It sounds like rank heresy to suggest otherwise. Yet, we must be quick to say that this is also the most misused phrase in the New Testament. In the popular mind, God's love is mushy and soft; it allows anything and looks the other way when we might be embarrassed to have God know what we're up to. But this is not the kind of love of which John writes. This is costly love: "God sent his only Son ... to be the atoning sacrifice for our sins." As Bultmann once said, love is not a sentiment; it is an event.
The burden of this part of the letter is to stress for the readers that those who live in this costly love will show it by the way they treat others. Just as it was a sacrifice for God to give love, so it will be for those who claim to be Christian. If John is writing to counteract the influence of the Gnostics, then the issue is what it means to "know." For the Gnostics, "knowing" was an intellectual pursuit, a philosophical ideal. Not for John. To love is to busy oneself with the hurts and sorrows and needs of others. Anything less is a sham. And if we realize how much God loves us and how dearly it cost God to make that love visible in the world, we will not try to excuse ourselves from caring for others.
Those who believe that love by deed is sufficient need to hear verse 15: "God abides in those who confess that Jesus is the Son of God, and they abide in God." Deed and word are inseparably linked. We can easily convince ourselves that if we just do works of love it will become apparent that we are Christian. John would tell us differently. Words, as we have seen in the readings from Acts, have power. So as we do our deeds of love we should be sure that the reason we do them is clear. And that can only be certain if we speak of the faith that is centered in the life, death, and resurrection of Christ.
John 15:1-8
Since my number one hobby is flower and vegetable gardening I am especially intrigued by this lesson. I take some legitimate pride in my gardens and fruit trees. I start many seeds under lights in the early spring. Then I move them to a cold frame where they are protected from the vagaries of spring in the far north. Finally, when threat of frost has passed, the tender plants go into the gardens. Over the next several months there is constant attention to their need for watering, weeding, fertilizing, pruning, cultivating, and, finally, in the case of vegetables and fruits, harvesting. To see a late-July flower bed in full bloom or to enjoy the satisfaction of jars and bags full of vegetables and fruits to be stored for the long winter is a thrill that only a dedicated gardener knows. Indeed, it is a time of pride over months of enjoyable but hard work.
What every good gardener also knows, however, is that no matter how hard one works the actual growth of a plant remains a thing of wonder and awe. We resonate with Johannes Knudsen: I am a gardener, nothing more,But what could e'er be greater?For all God's given me in storeI praise him, my Creator. (No source available)
That is the starting point of the text -- not what we, the branches, are, but who Christ is. "I am the vine." That is the constant. The God who made all things in the beginning and who gives us new life in Christ is also the God who sustains life. The moment we are severed from the vine we begin to wither away.
The branches are intended to bear fruit. Life is growth. Life is change. At times, that growth is accompanied by suffering and loss. We are pruned in order that through our afflictions and disappointments we might learn to trust even more.
The threat of being cut off is sobering, but surely not new in the teaching of Jesus. Jesus has urged the disciples over and over again to love him and keep his commandments. In the end, Judas became the example of what can happen to even one so closely and intimately related to Jesus. We hear it again from Paul in his letter to the church at Corinth: "If you think you are standing, watch out that you do not fall" (1 Corinthians 10;12). And it is at the center of the concern of the writer of the Letter to the Hebrews: "If we willfully persist in sin ... there no longer remains a sacrifice for sins, but a fearful prospect of judgment" (10:26-27).
Having said that, it is important to note that the purpose of this parable (or metaphor) is not to dwell on separation but on unity with Christ. And the final word (though it goes beyond the assigned text) is one of joy: "I have said these things to you so that my joy may be in you, and that your joy may be complete" (15:11).
Suggestions For Preaching
I would preach on love. That is the current that runs through all three lessons. It is well to begin with God's love, a love that is not saccharin or cheap. The cross is the heart of it all. There the love of God, constant and sure, is seen most clearly. "John is talking of a vital relationship in the literal root meaning of that word," writes George Vanderlip. "It is a matter of life and death. Jesus is the source and channel of life for the branches. In vital union with him ... there will be life and fruitfulness." (D. George Vanderlip, Christianity According to John, Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 1975, p. 79.)
This is a day to speak boldly about the kind of love God expects to see in us. As with divine love, it is not cheap and mushy. Love is tough. "It bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Love never ends" (1 Corinthians 13:7-8).
Love is also expansive. It does not draw unnecessary limitations, excluding people from the church. Regardless of their background or situation in life, when they have professed faith in Jesus Christ they become a part of the family.
FIRST LESSON FOCUS
By James A. Nestingen
Acts 8:26-40
Here we go again. The preacher has changed, hard-charging Peter being replaced by the apparently more refined Philip. The scenery is also different, the urban squeeze of old Jerusalem disappearing for a lonely highway. But Easter is still bursting the limits, this time crossing racial and sexual barriers to fall on one of the most delightful characters of all.
A man identified as an Ethiopian eunuch carried two strikes in the very name. Jerusalem was a great ethnic crossroads -- people from all over the region mingled there, trading, serving embassies. But they didn't mingle religiously. By nation and race, whatever the long-term relations between Israel and Ethiopia had been, such a man would have been an outsider.
Had he been able to traverse the religious border, this Ethiopian would have gotten stopped by another way. Sexuality being the power that it is in the human community, cultures have developed various strategies to contain it. Some such traditions, like female circumcision and castrating males, now seem unspeakably cruel. For a man like the Ethiopian, it was not just the sexual loss, however. By the law of Israel, he was in every way a permanent outsider.
Still searching, the Ethiopian would have been what has been termed a "God-fearer." Despite his exclusions, he used the education he had been given for governmental service -- a common assignment for a eunuch -- to study the faith of Israel. So, in a wonderful image, he sat in the vehicle assigned to him for what was probably a diplomatic mission, representing one power while reading of another, the Suffering Servant of Isaiah. (Not even the lectionary committees can shut the Old Testament out of the Easter season entirely, even if Isaiah himself has to sneak in.)
As the Ethiopian searched the powers of this life and the beyond, another came searching for him: the Spirit of the risen Christ, released in Pentecost and once again, about the normal sort of spillage to be expected following Easter. Ethnic, racial, religious, it doesn't matter -- when the power of the resurrection gets loose, borders don't have any more standing than other restraints. There's a new world coming, an age in which all of the rickety attempts of humanity to seal out the force of death are tumbling down.
So, in one of the most delicious moments in all of the New Testament, the Ethiopian eunuch asks exactly the right question. Too familiar with restraints, barred from vocations of family and faith, reduced to the role of governmental cipher, he can't help but put his request in the negative, "What is to prevent me from being baptized?" What a setup for, by and in the risen Christ. "Nothing," Philip says, "nothing at all." My God, what a morning!
The eunuch surely would not fit within Judaism as Saul did. He could make no claim to a connection with the roots that Saul could boast of. More than that, as a foreigner he has not access to even the fringes of Judaism. He would be "condemned to hover on the margins of Judaism, debarred from full conversion by his physical condition." (Richard Pervo, Profit With Delight: The Literary Genre of the Acts of the Apostles, Minneapolis: Fortress, 1987, p. 70.)
When he asks, "What is to prevent me from being baptized?" Philip lays down no conditions for this first known convert from the Gentile world. No circumcision, no memorization of the Torah, no demand that he become a "normal" family man, no probationary period. Nothing. His request to be baptized is his confession of faith. They go immediately to the waters and he is welcomed without condition into the growing family of believers.
The other thing that impresses us about this story is the simplicity of the witness of Philip that led to the conversion of the eunuch. He told him "the good news about Jesus." The pattern of directness is well established. Andrew simply said to Peter, "We have found the Messiah." Philip said to Nathanael, "Come and see." Mary announced to the disciples, "He is risen." A bit later Paul will say to the jailor in Philippi, "Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and you will be saved." Is it possible that we see so few conversions because we make the message too complicated? 1 John 4:7-21
Next to John 3:16, the phrase "God is love" may be the most commonly-known and widely-used reference from the New Testament. Everyone -- or nearly so -- believes that God is love. It sounds like rank heresy to suggest otherwise. Yet, we must be quick to say that this is also the most misused phrase in the New Testament. In the popular mind, God's love is mushy and soft; it allows anything and looks the other way when we might be embarrassed to have God know what we're up to. But this is not the kind of love of which John writes. This is costly love: "God sent his only Son ... to be the atoning sacrifice for our sins." As Bultmann once said, love is not a sentiment; it is an event.
The burden of this part of the letter is to stress for the readers that those who live in this costly love will show it by the way they treat others. Just as it was a sacrifice for God to give love, so it will be for those who claim to be Christian. If John is writing to counteract the influence of the Gnostics, then the issue is what it means to "know." For the Gnostics, "knowing" was an intellectual pursuit, a philosophical ideal. Not for John. To love is to busy oneself with the hurts and sorrows and needs of others. Anything less is a sham. And if we realize how much God loves us and how dearly it cost God to make that love visible in the world, we will not try to excuse ourselves from caring for others.
Those who believe that love by deed is sufficient need to hear verse 15: "God abides in those who confess that Jesus is the Son of God, and they abide in God." Deed and word are inseparably linked. We can easily convince ourselves that if we just do works of love it will become apparent that we are Christian. John would tell us differently. Words, as we have seen in the readings from Acts, have power. So as we do our deeds of love we should be sure that the reason we do them is clear. And that can only be certain if we speak of the faith that is centered in the life, death, and resurrection of Christ.
John 15:1-8
Since my number one hobby is flower and vegetable gardening I am especially intrigued by this lesson. I take some legitimate pride in my gardens and fruit trees. I start many seeds under lights in the early spring. Then I move them to a cold frame where they are protected from the vagaries of spring in the far north. Finally, when threat of frost has passed, the tender plants go into the gardens. Over the next several months there is constant attention to their need for watering, weeding, fertilizing, pruning, cultivating, and, finally, in the case of vegetables and fruits, harvesting. To see a late-July flower bed in full bloom or to enjoy the satisfaction of jars and bags full of vegetables and fruits to be stored for the long winter is a thrill that only a dedicated gardener knows. Indeed, it is a time of pride over months of enjoyable but hard work.
What every good gardener also knows, however, is that no matter how hard one works the actual growth of a plant remains a thing of wonder and awe. We resonate with Johannes Knudsen: I am a gardener, nothing more,But what could e'er be greater?For all God's given me in storeI praise him, my Creator. (No source available)
That is the starting point of the text -- not what we, the branches, are, but who Christ is. "I am the vine." That is the constant. The God who made all things in the beginning and who gives us new life in Christ is also the God who sustains life. The moment we are severed from the vine we begin to wither away.
The branches are intended to bear fruit. Life is growth. Life is change. At times, that growth is accompanied by suffering and loss. We are pruned in order that through our afflictions and disappointments we might learn to trust even more.
The threat of being cut off is sobering, but surely not new in the teaching of Jesus. Jesus has urged the disciples over and over again to love him and keep his commandments. In the end, Judas became the example of what can happen to even one so closely and intimately related to Jesus. We hear it again from Paul in his letter to the church at Corinth: "If you think you are standing, watch out that you do not fall" (1 Corinthians 10;12). And it is at the center of the concern of the writer of the Letter to the Hebrews: "If we willfully persist in sin ... there no longer remains a sacrifice for sins, but a fearful prospect of judgment" (10:26-27).
Having said that, it is important to note that the purpose of this parable (or metaphor) is not to dwell on separation but on unity with Christ. And the final word (though it goes beyond the assigned text) is one of joy: "I have said these things to you so that my joy may be in you, and that your joy may be complete" (15:11).
Suggestions For Preaching
I would preach on love. That is the current that runs through all three lessons. It is well to begin with God's love, a love that is not saccharin or cheap. The cross is the heart of it all. There the love of God, constant and sure, is seen most clearly. "John is talking of a vital relationship in the literal root meaning of that word," writes George Vanderlip. "It is a matter of life and death. Jesus is the source and channel of life for the branches. In vital union with him ... there will be life and fruitfulness." (D. George Vanderlip, Christianity According to John, Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 1975, p. 79.)
This is a day to speak boldly about the kind of love God expects to see in us. As with divine love, it is not cheap and mushy. Love is tough. "It bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Love never ends" (1 Corinthians 13:7-8).
Love is also expansive. It does not draw unnecessary limitations, excluding people from the church. Regardless of their background or situation in life, when they have professed faith in Jesus Christ they become a part of the family.
FIRST LESSON FOCUS
By James A. Nestingen
Acts 8:26-40
Here we go again. The preacher has changed, hard-charging Peter being replaced by the apparently more refined Philip. The scenery is also different, the urban squeeze of old Jerusalem disappearing for a lonely highway. But Easter is still bursting the limits, this time crossing racial and sexual barriers to fall on one of the most delightful characters of all.
A man identified as an Ethiopian eunuch carried two strikes in the very name. Jerusalem was a great ethnic crossroads -- people from all over the region mingled there, trading, serving embassies. But they didn't mingle religiously. By nation and race, whatever the long-term relations between Israel and Ethiopia had been, such a man would have been an outsider.
Had he been able to traverse the religious border, this Ethiopian would have gotten stopped by another way. Sexuality being the power that it is in the human community, cultures have developed various strategies to contain it. Some such traditions, like female circumcision and castrating males, now seem unspeakably cruel. For a man like the Ethiopian, it was not just the sexual loss, however. By the law of Israel, he was in every way a permanent outsider.
Still searching, the Ethiopian would have been what has been termed a "God-fearer." Despite his exclusions, he used the education he had been given for governmental service -- a common assignment for a eunuch -- to study the faith of Israel. So, in a wonderful image, he sat in the vehicle assigned to him for what was probably a diplomatic mission, representing one power while reading of another, the Suffering Servant of Isaiah. (Not even the lectionary committees can shut the Old Testament out of the Easter season entirely, even if Isaiah himself has to sneak in.)
As the Ethiopian searched the powers of this life and the beyond, another came searching for him: the Spirit of the risen Christ, released in Pentecost and once again, about the normal sort of spillage to be expected following Easter. Ethnic, racial, religious, it doesn't matter -- when the power of the resurrection gets loose, borders don't have any more standing than other restraints. There's a new world coming, an age in which all of the rickety attempts of humanity to seal out the force of death are tumbling down.
So, in one of the most delicious moments in all of the New Testament, the Ethiopian eunuch asks exactly the right question. Too familiar with restraints, barred from vocations of family and faith, reduced to the role of governmental cipher, he can't help but put his request in the negative, "What is to prevent me from being baptized?" What a setup for, by and in the risen Christ. "Nothing," Philip says, "nothing at all." My God, what a morning!
