Philip and the Ethiopian Eunuch

Philip was definitely following the trickster God the day he found himself on the deserted road between Jerusalem and Gaza. What was he doing out there? Was the community in Jerusalem driving him just a bit crazy with its total love and sharing? The life style where everything is held in common used to do that to me sometimes when I lived in a vegetarian commune in college. Sometimes you just had to sneak out for a hamburger.

Philip was just a bit fey that day -- following a whim, blown by an angel. He could have been murdered or worse, out there all by himself on the road.

Instead he met an incongruous carriage, a most strange and mind-boggling entourage. Imagine it with me. Perhaps there was an umbrella to keep the esteemed occupant from the sun. Maybe a few servants sat about with fans made of palm fronds. The esteemed one -- womanly in appearance -- might have been dressed in flowing robes of luscious color, might have been adorned with gold jewelry of flawless perfection, might have worn just a touch of exotic scent, might have spoken in a rich soprano. The entire entourage would have had skin the color of figs. The esteemed one would have been a guy, castrated. We don't know how, when, how he felt about it. But it would have put him on the fringes of his culture -- valuable to the royalty he served, but a freak nonetheless.

Philip, cosmopolitan as he was, might have seen people like this Ethiopian before, but would he have ever spent time with them in lengthy conversation? He was a Jew. He probably would have been taught that such folk were dirty. I can imagine his tolerance extending to, say, a civil smile as he passed them in the street -- an acceptance of their strange culinary practices and spiritual rituals -- fine so long as Philip didn't have to have anything at all to do with them.

That particular day, nudged by his fey angel, Philip came up alongside the carriage. He recognized the language being spoken by the esteemed occupant, and he recognized that a passage was being read with which he was familiar: Isaiah, for heaven's sake! Incredulous, he asked, "Do you understand what you are reading?"

At this juncture the Ethiopian could have become offended. A bearded, less-than-tidy Jew was trotting along beside his carriage, sandals flapping, and dared to eavesdrop on what he was doing. But the esteemed one had just come from a very heartbreaking time in Jerusalem. He had come all the way from Ethiopia to hear the scholars talk about the Hebrew scripture, which he had found somehow in his homeland and embraced passionately. But no one would talk to him. He was ritually unclean, doubly, maybe triply so. And the most essential element of his uncleanliness was that he had been castrated. You just can't do much about that.

So, instead of shooing Philip off, he said plaintively to the nosy intruder, "How CAN I? No one will teach me."

In this statement Philip heard all the frustration and longing of the outcast. His heart went out to the esteemed carriage rider, and he said, "I will teach you."

The Ethiopian invited Philip up into his carriage. Philip relinquished his plans, his distaste at things unclean, and any sort of misgivings he might have had about riding in carriages with strangers who are going God only knows where on deserted highways. Up he hopped. When he hopped down again it was to perform a baptism.

The miracle of the day unfolded. Ethiopian and Philip together invoked the profound symbolism of cleansing and being made new, of death and new birth. A powerful new understanding of who and whose each of them were was born.

Where will your road lead you today, I wonder? And who do you suppose you'll encounter on it? Wherever you go and whatever you do, may the God of eunuchs and fey Jews bless your journey.