Can Someone Guide Me?

Old Mystic, May 10, 2009
Acts 8:26-40

Summary

More than ever, if we are going to call the church “missional,” the most significant task we face is to guide with love, inclusively, and unconditionally the seekers of the world into an encounter with the Living Christ. So help us and guide us the Holy Spirit.

Sermon

Those of us who live and breathe praying, thinking about, and working for the church are quite familiar with a group of people, a certain segment of the general population, called “seekers.” By my own interpretation of what is meant by the use of the word, I understand a seeker to be someone who is looking for spiritual answers to existential questions not in the traditional, cookie-cut, or commonplace religious source. In a traditionally Christian nation, it is like saying, “I don’t trust the typical answers that have been handed down.” “I don’t trust the institutions; they have very often failed; they have been too judgmental, and they have lacked authenticity.”

In a Postmodern world, where truth is spelled with a small “t” and Christianity finds itself in a marketplace of religious ideas and philosophies, seekers are looking for authenticity, honesty, and humility. They distrust institutions, structures, and bureaucracy. And beyond the popularization of the use of the word “seeker”—an opportunity to market “spiritual products and services,” seekers are found in the fringes because they don’t fit into the pattern of what means to be a “normal” Christian. Our increasingly pluralistic world keeps on challenging the church as to how we can include those who are different (remember WASP?).

The words of the man in our story are a summons for all of us, “How can I understand unless someone guides me?” He was reading to book of the prophet Isaiah in the 53rd chapter and he could not understand the message of the suffering Messiah. He had tried hard; he had been to Jerusalem, the Holy City, at the Temple to worship. He had some knowledge about God but he wanted more. He was on his way back to Ethiopia, where he was an important government official, and he was sitting on his chariot, perhaps with some degree of frustration. He was a eunuch and a gentile and for that reason he might have been prevented to enter into the main court of the Temple which was exclusive for the Israelite men. The law clearly instructed that eunuchs were not to “be admitted to the assembly of the Lord.” On the other hand, in the very same book from which this man is reading we find the startling promise from God, “For 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.” Had our Ethiopian seeker read that promise? We don’t know. But we know that he had encountered that revealing passage from the prophet telling about the Suffering Servant and willingness to give his life for his redemption.

But it seems that this man had a hard time to understand the message of Isaiah. Who was the prophet talking about? Obviously, his worship experience at the Jerusalem Temple was not good enough to satisfy his inquisitive seeker’s heart. In response to his search, God arranged an apparently unusual set of circumstances for this Ethiopian to find an answer. The Holy Spirit called Philip, who had been preaching in towns and cities, in homes and to assembled people, to go to a deserted road that goes into the wilderness. It didn’t make any sense for the evangelist/preacher? Who was going to be his audience? God knew that there was a seeker passing by who needed someone to guide him.

The obedient and sensitive preacher turn into a guide, just a guide, was invited by this eunuch to join him and sit with him in his chariot to explain him the gospel. And the guidance worked. The eunuch, foreigner, different, and strange man understood the love of God so marvelously expressed in Jesus’ sacrifice. He had probably read that passage many times; he was probably aware of the promises of God for those who are left out. But now he understood. Jesus had to die to make things possible; to do away with sin and death; to increase human understanding of who the Living God is; to bring him to an encounter with the Living God. He began to grasp that Jesus’ death is the most powerful equalizer.

The enlightening experience prompted our Ethiopian friend to understand the importance of the answer to his quest. He all of a sudden knew that he had hope; he realized that he was much more than an official of the Ethiopian queen; and he also learned that he was no less important to God than any other human being. He became aware of the importance of the moment and of the eternal implications of his experience. So he decided to make a commitment. “Look, here is water, what is to prevent me from being baptized?” Through the ordinance of Baptism, as we understand it, he joined the church. What kind of church? We don’t know since the Spirit “snatched” Philip when they came out of the water and the Ethiopian went on his way rejoicing. He may have founded a “Eunuch’s church,” or a church for the left out; or may be a “seeker’s church.” What we know for sure is that God had a way to answer to the questions this man had and that God will go beyond the traditional ways—as we see them—to reach out to those who don’t fit the pattern.

The call of this passage is to guide and to be guided. To be guided, as the humbler attitude of those who know their limitations, who are always willing to learn more and don’t pretend to have all the answers. But also to guide and be guides to those who are seeking answers to the most pressing questions knowing that we can only guide. As Philip, we need the Holy Spirit, so that we make no assumptions, or judgments, or promote any dogmas. We can only guide and be guides to help other encounter the Living God.

We can and we must guide and be guides. Explicitly or implicitly, there are many out there who are seekers and are not finding the answers in the institutionalized church. We must always be Good News people! There is no good news out there! We mostly hear about war, recession, unemployment, and home foreclosures. There is no agreement about the budget, or immigration policies, or bailouts for banks and big corporations. Should we lean to the right or to the left? To neither one, as a matter of fact. We cannot be defined either by left or right, o by partisan political ideologies, or political religious dogmas. We can only be defined as the “Good News People” who reflect the life and character of Jesus Christ; people who know they can only be guides and that they must be guides; guiding everyone and anyone into the loving arms of Jesus Christ.

There are many these days that like the eunuch of the Biblical story are asking, “Can someone guide me?” and in many cases they keep asking the question because they find more obstacles and demands from those who are answering the questions than any other thing. Perhaps, seekers have been only hearing what is wrong with them in the cookie-cut responses they get. The Ethiopian Eunuch did not need anyone reminding him that Deuteronomy 23:1 was banning him to join God’s assembly! He needed to hear the Good News from God who said, “Do not let the eunuch say, I am just a dry tree.” To guide and to be guides is a task that leaves no one out, that welcomes everyone, no questions asked, no conditions. Let God, the one who come to the encounter of the seeker, be the one who convinces the seeker of his or her limitations, failures, and sins.

We must guide and be guides with low expectations. Have you heard the question, “Where are all those people we helped?” Or “Where are all those we taught?” Or “Where are all those we brought into our church?” Guides reap for the kingdom. And very often those who do not join the Christian community do otherwise because they simply don’t fit. Guides who can guide need first to be guided into building the kid of community that is welcoming to everyone and anyone.

The appeal is powerful. It is a call from the Living God through the Holy Spirit. It is an invitation to a relationship with God who will not leave out the widow, the orphan, and the stranger; who will not leave out the poor, the oppressed, and the downtrodden. It is a call to respond to the joy of the gospel and to share the gospel with joy. After all, aren’t we still seekers whose many questions have not found all the answers? God is willing to continue to guide us through others and at the same time he wants us to guide others to the precious Good News of hope, salvation, peace, love, and justice in Jesus Christ.