Having been up to Jerusalem for one of the pilgrimage festivals perhaps, an eunuch who is responsible for the Ethiopian treasury under Queen Candice, is a bit discouraged. Given his position we can surmise that he is an intelligent man of integrity, and yet as an eunuch would have been barred from entering the Temple. (Deuteronomy 23:1)
It is no wonder then that he tells the Spirit inspired Philip that he cannot understand the texts; for none of the teachers of the Temple would have received him as a student.
His bewilderment at being allowed only into the outer most court of the temple grounds would have perhaps been greater if he had read further than the passage which he presents to Philip -- for of all the prophets, Isaiah is the one whose vision reaches beyond the bounds of Israel to see the inclusion of the nations – inclusion of the rejected -- as those who are beloved of God. It is Isaiah who records God's words:
“Do not let a foreigner joined to the Lord say, 'The Lord will surely separate me from God's 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.” (Isaiah 56:3-5)
God sees the one who is seeking relationship and responds. The response may not come as we expect- for certainly the Ethiopian would have never expected to see a man running along side his chariot in the wilderness. But Philip was willing to be inspired by the angel of God to take a wilderness road down toward Gaza... Philip at the prompting of the Spirit was able to run up along side the chariot of the foreigner.... and in doing so was able to hear the man reading aloud words that were familiar to him as Scripture. In that time of transition from the oral tradition to the written, writings were still mainly promptings to assist the memory.... of course with the exile it became necessary to actually write the prophetic oracles down so that they could be distributed to the scattered people.... but at this time no one read silently for words were meant to be spoken... and we are reminded that there is power in the spoken word that transcends the written word. More of a person is engaged when one hears and sees the gestures and expressions of the speaker.
And so this foreigner and eunuch struggles to understand the meaning of the passage – “About whom does the prophet say this,” he asks Philip, “does he speak of himself or another?” And from this passage about the man who is like a lamb about to be slain, Philip tells the story of his own encounter with Jesus the Messiah. It is obvious that he has spoken of baptism, for the Ethiopian sees water and asks what is to prevent him from being baptized. Philip, trusting in the wisdom and guidance of God, baptizes him because there is no reason to withhold baptism. For baptism is an affirmation of one's desire for relationship with God... we have moved toward infant baptism, in part because of human superstition that God will reject those who are not baptized, but also because discovering, understanding our relationship with God is an act of grace... we discover belonging because God has always loved us, or else God would not have created us.
The person who is busy trying to please God, trying to “satisfy” God's commands, will often miss the joy of the relationship which comes when one discovers that the flaws are part of one's beauty... if we are busy trying to shape this person or that in order to achieve some kind 'perfection' -- so that we all look alike in the Kingdom of God – we will have missed the point of Scripture. God loves and chooses those whom we would reject.
The prophet tells us of a man who was treated like a lamb about to be sacrificed, he is afflicted and scorned – he was most likely speaking of a contemporary of the prophet – if not of himself.... but he was also speaking of Jesus --
and this despised and rejected man is the One who brings us back into relationship with God.
We do not earn God's love,
no, the love that brought each one of us into being, and surrounds our living, is a gift.
We discover that though the world may treat us with disdain, even though the religious institutions may reject us, we are as the foreigner and eunuch, we are cherished as God's beloved. Like the Ethiopian eunuch we may feel discouraged. We may feel like a dry tree but remember, by God's grace alone we are grafted onto the True Vine! And it only through this union that we have life, and meaning, and purpose. If we try to stand on our own, wanting no part of the vine because of that branch over there, we will find ourselves withering and finally dead. Of course we could not (on our own) be friends with certain people, we could not love them for various personally held reasons (he is too controlling, she is too unkind) but they belong to the Vine. So through our union with the True Vine, we can allow God's love to bring healing to ourselves and others. We find our common humanity, we come to understand that our broken and wounded parts are mended and healed through God's love as it moves through us like the life-force in a vine.
