Lessons: Acts 8:26-40; John 15:1-8 Preached on July 12, 1998 Dr. Walter B. Funk
You not only heard them in the Gospel this morning, you heard them last Sunday during the Communion Service; moreover, each of you has an image of what this all-too-familiar text might mean, and doubtless you have examples of how these words: "I am the vine, you are the branches..." have played out in your own lives.
On this Sunday in particular, I am struck at how the simple notion of "abiding in Jesus" is exquisitely worked out in the life of one of the risen Christ's followers -- a man by the name of Philip. If one can agree that Jesus is the vine, and Jesus' followers are the branches, and that apart from this living Lord one can do nothing, then one cannot help but be moved by Philip's effectiveness as an evangelist as he sojourned in Samaria.
There are many tales in the Acts of the Apostles about conversions. The one you heard as part of the Epistle Lesson is the first to be told by Luke as the expansion of the Church unfolds after the martyrdom of Stephen by Saul of Tarsus, himself soon to be converted in a dramatic incident on the Damascus Road. Here is a "roadside" account of a conversion involving a man who could never be a Jew, somebody from a land far away from Jerusalem and from the atmosphere of the Holy City, yet who was interested in the meaning of the words he was reading.
There are echoes to be caught by those with ears to hear and the key question, "How can I understand unless someone will give me the clue?" is a question for us all. So the traveler asked Philip -- this vine extending from the branch of the Risen Christ -- to get in and sit beside him. The passage the eunuch was reading was this: "He was led like a sheep to be slaughtered; and like a lamb that is dumb before the shearer, he does not open his mouth. He has been humiliated and has no redress. Who will be able to speak of his posterity? For his life is cut off and he is gone from the earth."
"Now," said the Ethiopian Eunuch to Philip, "tell me, please, who it is that the prophet is speaking about here: himself or someone else?" Then Philip began. Starting from this passage, he told him the good news of Jesus. As they were going along the road, they came to some water. "Look," said the eunuch, "here is water: what is there to prevent my being baptized?"; and he ordered his carriage to stop. Then they both went down to the water, Philip and the eunuch; and he baptized him. When they came up out of the water the Spirit snatched Philip away, and the eunuch saw no more of him, but went on his way well content.
What a story...and I would suggest to us that one of the things we should never do with the Scriptures is to presume, on the basis of a single reading, that we have heard all we think we have heard. The telling of this story of Philip and the Ethiopian Eunuch was shaped to a purpose: to win persons for Christ -- to encourage the early church to tell the story of Jesus. And they were promised that the Spirit would be with them...those who, to recall the Gospel, were abiding in Jesus; who had that connection that could and would not be broken.
Look how strongly the activity of God figures in this story from Acts. First, "an angel of the Lord" provides the impulse that drives Philip from Samaria down to the Gaza road. Second, when he catches sight of the eunuch, it is the "Spirit" who directs the evangelist to approach the man. And third, when the eunuch emerges from the water of Baptism, the "Spirit of the Lord snatches Philip away," the apparent reason being that the Spirit had other urgent business for him elsewhere, and that his great evangelistic successes in Samaria would now be repeated all along the Mediterranean coast from the land of the ancient Philistines to the Roman provincial capital of Caesarea Maritima.
The Epiphany (the "aha") experience by the Ethiopian was no accident. The writer said that it was the angel of the Lord who put the idea into his head. You will hear me say from time-to-time that pure coincidence is a rarer thing than we sometimes like to think. God allows, indeed, guides our feet to follow a certain track; moreover, God allows history to repeat itself and God allows prophecy to fulfill itself, and Christ it is who talks of those with "ears to hear" -- the people who can "pick up" the inferences of events which God allows to happen. And I would suggest to us all that we best pick up those inferences when we remember the Gospel:
"I am the vine, you are the branches, apart from me you can do nothing."
Imagine the picture. In front of Philip's eyes is an unusual sight. On that desert road rolls a chariot. I remember a teaching picture from my early days in Sunday School; the man in the chariot, reading from a scroll, and Philip running toward the vehicle. Again recall those marvelous words from the Suffering Servant passage in the Book of Isaiah: "Who has believed what we have heard? And to whom has the arm of the Lord been revealed?" A foreigner is reading this, puzzling over it; and the arm of the Lord is being revealed to a foreign national, an official from the Exchequer of the Queen of Ethiopia. And the foreigner read further: the familiar words..."He is brought as a lamb to the slaughter, and as a sheep before her shearers is speechless, so he opened not his mouth."
These words are highly charged emotionally for a Hebrew. Innocent suffering is the expected destiny of the servant chosen by God to accomplish the Divine work of redemption, of making things right once more. Of making things as joyous as, to paraphrase another place in Isaiah, "...the Lord God dancing with a groom's delight about his new bride." Contrary to how the world might expect the Creator Lord to effect His purposes: by power, by invincible might, by earthquake, wind and fire. Isaiah has seen with a careful eye into the purposes of God. Good will has to be vulnerable to the forces which oppose it. Love will face the fury of all that can be thrown in its face to deflect its purpose. And evil will seem to have won. It is a concept which makes nonsense of anything we know will get things done, and yet in high poetry Isaiah pours it into the ears of those who will hear.
The earliest Christians hear with ears that know Isaiah's prophecies. They recognize in it a portrait of Jesus -- crucified, resurrected, ascended. It is an exact portrait. And that poignant passage which has tugged at the heart of many, including this sympathetic Ethiopian, is full of resurrection light for them. But to the world that passage remains an enigma, for it flies in the face of human experience, and the Ethiopian is merely a spokesperson for the world when he protests that without the necessary clue he is in the dark as to what it means.
And then Luke, who is the author of Acts, adds a remark which is deeply significant about all evangelism. The Ethiopian Chancellor of the Exchequer asks Philip to get in a sit beside him. (Acts 8:31) Note that Philip does not ask the Ethiopian to get out and listen to him while he stands on a nearby rock and uses it as a pulpit.
There are ways, and ways, of tilling the ground and sowing the seed in preparation for the Word of God in conversion so that God "gives the increase" as the Bible says.
In a winsome and charming way, conversion is seen in the musical "Guys and Dolls". There's that wonderfully earnest group from the "Save the Soul" mission that, from time-to-time, marches across the stage playing trumpets and beating a drum. Humorous to be sure...but a subtle truth is seen in that the only "conversion" came about because of the personal witness of one woman to one man. It was the quality of her life that he was drawn to...a quality that radiated, at least to my mind, throughout the theatre.
The most comforting thing for us to realize is that the work of conversion by God in a human heart is largely hidden and unknown, both to the teller and to the person concerned, until the day dawns, and in that resurrection light it all makes sense: "I am the vine, you are the branches; apart from me you can do nothing."
My strong sense is that effective preaching and effective witnessing is, to take a page from Philip's book, sitting with someone and reflecting on a faith point-of-view which draws together scripture, tradition, and understanding of mission, and the personal experience of what it means to be part of Christ's Church. Philip doesn't silence the Ethiopian with floods of oratory. He looks at what the Ethiopian looks at; looks at the passage from Isaiah and leads him from the unknown to the known. He sits with him and tells him; leads him to the good news. Certainly this story implies strongly that the Ethiopian repents and believes the good news and wants to be baptized.
I want to say a word about repentance. It's a good word in our Christian vocabulary; yet, repentance which does not result in praise and thanksgiving is incomplete. Praise and thanksgiving without adequate preceding repentance is incomplete. The awareness of incomplete prayer was dramatically presented by the poet George Herbert in the seventeenth century. In his poem, "The Method", the poet (George Herbert) counsels the person who had not adequately repented and as a consequence felt lost and discontented, to search more deeply within, in order to seek out the inhibiting fault. The elusive fault is this: "Late when I would have something done, I had a notion to forbear, Yet I went on." The poet continues:
And should God's care,
Which needs not man, be ty'd to those
Who hear not him, but quickly heare
His utter foes?
Then once more pray:
Down with thy knees, up with thy voice.
Seek pardon first, and God will say,
Glad heart rejoyce.
True repentance is made possible by God' mercy and must issue in praise and thanksgiving.
There is a message for all of us who try to take seriously the Gospel: "I am the vine, you are the branches; apart from me you can do nothing" while holding it alongside the account of a roadside conversion. The family of God are the evangelists. To get in and sit with a person and to view life from where that person sits is likely to be of more help in communicating the salvation in which you rejoice than anything else you can do. (Back to "Guys and Dolls": The handsome hero was not convinced by what the lovely woman said, but by who she was.)
And this opens us to the notion that living the Christian life, however imperfectly, living that life quietly and joyfully can be an infectious exercise in itself. I like to believe that the resurrected Christ is courteous as well as tenacious; who takes children in his arms as well as turning over tables of money changers in the Temple. And that Christ will be there waiting for the opportunity to make Himself known through a life lived in Him; and all we do can be a vehicle for His approach. "I am the vine; you are the branches; apart from me you can do nothing."
The enterprise of sharing the Gospel of Jesus Christ is too precious and too diversified to be catalogued into narrow channels, for, as we are told, the Heaven of Heavens cannot contain God; there is no one way above all others in which the truths about God in God's Son Jesus Christ can be conveyed to another person. God knows and will give us opportunities, in ways unique that each of us hears, to live out what we will sing:
"To the members of Christ's body, To the branches of the Vine,
To the church in faith assembled, To her midst as gift and sign:
Come, Holy Spirit, Come. (The Presbyterian Hymnal, #314)