Fifth Sunday of Easter

Acts 8:26-40

Listen, and I will tell you a story. One day, long ago, God appeared to an old man named Abram. And God spoke to Abram and said, though you are old and you and your wife have no children, yet I will give you a son; I will give you descendants more numerous than the sand of the shore and the stars of the sky; and through them all the peoples shall be blessed. And God said, the descendants I give to you will suffer at the hands of those they serve, but after they have suffered I will raise them up.

Listen, and I will tell you a story. One night, long ago, God appeared to a young man named Joseph – Abraham’s great-grandson. And God gave Joseph dreams concerning his future, of being raised up; but Joseph misinterpreted the dreams, forgot the words that suffering must come first. So Joseph offended his brothers, and they sold him into slavery in Egypt. There, he was falsely accused and thrown into prison and forgotten about, until, when hope was all but lost, God raised him up and set him as Prime Minister and Chancellor of the Exchequer over Pharaohs’ kingdom. In this role, Joseph saved Egypt and all the surrounding peoples from famine, buying up cheap grain in years of plenty and controlling its distribution in years of crisis so that rich and poor alike had as they needed, and the rich could not exploit the poor.

Listen, and I will tell you a story. Joseph’s family joined him in Egypt and prospered. And like all immigrants they were welcomed with open arms when they could serve and help rebuild, only to be later demonised as a threat to the local way of life. And so Abraham’s descendants were enslaved, for four hundred years. Then Moses was born, and saved from genocide by the daughter of the Pharaoh, and grew up in the royal palace aware of his dark secret. One day when Moses had grown up, he saw an Egyptian overseer kill a Hebrew slave, and took revenge. The next day he came across two slaves arguing, and attempted to reason with them. But they rejected him, and threatened to expose him, and Moses fled, seeking asylum across the border. Forty years later, God appeared to Moses. And God spoke to Moses and said, I am sending you back to your people as their lord and rescuer.

Listen, and I will tell you a story. Moses led the people out of Egypt, and in the fullness of time they settled in the land God had promised he would give to them after they had passed through suffering. A land from where they could be a light to all the surrounding nations. And God exhorted them not to forget him and their calling, when they entered the land and enjoyed its goodness. But the people did forget. Over and over, God sent messengers to them, calling them back. But they would not listen, and eventually God allowed them to be carried off into exile in a distant land.

And there, far from home, they wondered why God would allow this to happen to his chosen people. And as they wondered, as they went back over their own story, some of them came to realise a pattern that had been there all along: that God was looking for a people who would serve their neighbours, even when their neighbours abuse them in return; that God would honour such an attitude; and that, having failed to live up to their calling, God’s chosen people needed such a servant as much as every other nation.

Listen, and I will tell you a story. Jerusalem was full of news, that the servant had come. His name was Jesus, and he had suffered at the hands of the leaders of God’s chosen people and of the surrounding peoples. He had been tortured and murdered for embracing the outcasts, for healing the sick, for bringing peace to those with troubled minds, for eating with men and women who lived inappropriate lives. And three days later, God had raised him from the dead, and vindicated him as lord and rescuer, according to the pattern revealed to Abraham and Isaiah, the pattern revealed through Joseph and Moses. But those who had Jesus murdered could not stand to hear this story told, so they had some of the story-tellers thrown in prison, or beheaded, or stoned to death, and others displaced from their homes, becoming refugees. And wherever they went, they kept telling the story.

Listen, and I will tell you a story. At this time, a man travelled from Ethiopia to Jerusalem. He was the Chancellor of the Exchequer, a prominent man but a servant. He must have heard about the God of Israel, have heard stories of this people called to be a light to the peoples, must surely have heard that even the other nations could enter the outer court of the great temple. And so he came. Perhaps only when he arrived did he discover that those who had been castrated, as he had been castrated, could not enter the temple at all. And so he looked around, and asked around, and bought some sacred scrolls, and turned around to go home, perhaps puzzled, perhaps disappointed. And God spoke to one of the refugees who had headed north from Jerusalem and said turn around (repent) and head south, for the road that runs through Gaza down into Egypt and beyond. So Philip set off, and on the way he came across the Ethiopian. He was sat in his chariot reading aloud (for in those days, no-one had learnt to read silently inside their head) from the scroll written by the exiles. Philip approached (the chariot was moving at walking pace) and asked him if he understood what he was reading. He did not, although he was intrigued, because he was reading about a man cut off, a man who could not have descendants, a servant. It was like looking in the mirror. Tell me, he asked, who is this man I can so identify with? And starting from there, Philip told him about Jesus, the suffering servant made lord and rescuer for a suffering and servant people. The story called for a response: repent and be baptised. Turn around, and be identified with Jesus by symbolically dying and rising with him. In this case, turn back from Jerusalem, head home, but now identified with a group of persecuted refugees who insisted on loving their neighbours whatever the cost.

Listen, and I will tell you a story. The Ethiopian decided to respond, to enter-into this story. Passing by water, he jumped in, through the door of baptism. Then he and Philip went their separate ways, and as far as we know never crossed paths again. But there is a Christian community in Ethiopia today that traces its family tree unbroken back two thousand years to that man who could not have children, to whom God gave countless descendants; that servant who suffered at the hands of others and was raised up by God.

This is our story, a story we share with our brothers and sisters across the world, some of whom have lost their homes, their families, their nationality, even their lives for the sake of the good news that in Jesus, our lord and rescuer, God has brought us into the great calling of being part of his purposes to bless the whole earth and all the peoples. Alleluia. Amen.