Year B
Acts 8:26-40
Psalm 22:24-30
1 John 4:7-21
John 15:1-8<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I continue to be surprised\u2026 sometimes\u2026 by the ways in which we as theological consumers\u2026 too often discount the value of the biblical treasure which comes our way\u2026 it’s almost like selling diamonds at the price of spinach\u2026 the ways in which we\u2026 sometimes\u2026 project the meaning-making of our own experiences\u2026 onto the experiences of those who\u2026 thousands of years ago\u2026 wrote down their own stories\u2026 and the ways in which we impose our own worldviews\u2026 our own preferences\u2026 our own parochialism\u2026 onto a world that was vastly different than our own\u2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n
And part of that I think\u2026 is because it’s cleaner\u2026 easier to manage\u2026 and we like certainty\u2026 not nuance\u2026 we like orderliness\u2026 not messiness\u2026 and sometimes we even approach our relationships\u2026 and those we hold in esteem\u2026 to standards which border on super-human\u2026 to standards of perfection\u2026 in Exodus 12:5\u2026 as the Israelites prepared to eat their Passover meal\u2026 they were told\u2026 Your lamb shall be a year-old male\u2026 without blemish<\/em>\u2026 one that’s perfect\u2026 it’s perhaps reflected in the notion\u2026 that when you give flowers to someone\u2026 you’re not even to smell them\u2026 lest you steal away any of the fragrance and diminish the gift itself\u2026 it’s like giving the best of our first fruits\u2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n In Genesis 1:28\u2026 one of God’s prime directives\u2026 first to the man and woman\u2026 is to be fruitful and multiply\u2026 and this was more than a vague suggestion\u2026 and then again in Genesis 9:7\u2026 to Noah and his family when they left the ark\u2026 be fruitful and multiply\u2026 and so critical was this imperative that later on\u2026 that in Leviticus 21:20 and Deuteronomy 23:1\u2026 we’re told that if a man was unable to fulfill that command\u2026 he could not even be part of the congregation\u2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n We don’t know the eunuch’s name in today’s reading from Acts\u2026 but in Jeremiah 38\u2026 in response to the prophet’s dire prophecies against Judah\u2026 Shephatiah [ she-fa-ty-a ] the son of Mattan [ matt-yan ] \u2026 Gedaliah the son of Pashhur\u2026 Jucal [ jew-kal ] the son of Shelemiah\u2026 and Pashhur the son of Malchiah [ mal-ky-a ] \u2026 convinced King Zedekiah to quiet Jeremiah’s voice… and allow them to throw him into a cistern to die\u2026 but a few verses later in 38:7\u2026 an Ethiopian eunuch\u2026 named Ebed-melech\u2026 saved the prophet’s life by convincing the King that these men had acted wickedly against the prophet\u2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n And in today’s passage from Acts\u2026 this other Ethiopian eunuch is reading aloud from the scroll of another prophet\u2026 Isaiah\u2026 about a man who was cut off [ pause] from the land of the living\u2026 and the Spirit told Philip to join the chariot\u2026 and you can almost imagine him jogging alongside it\u2026 perhaps out of breath\u2026 and hearing Isaiah being read\u2026 because if the eunuch was seated in his chariot reading\u2026 there must have been a chariot driver\u2026 and so Philip shouts loud enough for his voice to be heard above the chittering of chariot wheels on a rocky road\u2026 and asks\u2026 do you understand what you are reading<\/em>\u2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n Wait\u2026 driver\u2026 stop the chariot\u2026 and he turned to Philip and asked\u2026 How can I understand if I have no one to guide me<\/em>\u2026 and so the eunuch invites Philip to sit beside him\u2026 please understand\u2026 this moment is as radical as was the moment when the Good Samaritan\u2026 the outsider\u2026 helped the man who had been beaten and robbed\u2026 and to help us put it into even greater perspective\u2026 the Rev. Barbara Brown Taylor wrote that it would be as if a diplomat in Washington, D.C\u2026 invited a street preacher\u2026 to join him in his late model Lexus\u2026 for a little bible study\u2026 that radical\u2026 and it’s radical because here is an accomplished\u2026 successful man in his own right\u2026 a court official of the Queen of the Ethiopians\u2026 who is in charge of her treasury\u2026 who is educated and can read\u2026 and he has purchased\u2026 an expensive scroll of the prophet Isaiah\u2026 and he knew he didn’t know it all\u2026 as opposed to those who claim to\u2026 <\/p>\n\n\n\n Our reading from 1John mentions love twenty-two times\u2026 affirms that God is love\u2026 and affirms that those who abide in love also abide in God\u2026 but if they say they love God\u2026 but hate a brother or sister\u2026 well\u2026 then they’re liars\u2026 ] and this passage claims that perfect love casts out fear\u2026 because like Jeremiah\u2026 we can fear unwarranted attack\u2026 but if we are in relationship\u2026 and I hurt you\u2026 I also hurt myself\u2026 so perfect love\u2026 casts out fear\u2026 because I know that while I am looking out for others\u2026 others are looking out for me\u2026 that others have my back\u2026 and my fear then\u2026 is unwarranted\u2026 <\/p>\n\n\n\n The Gospel text says\u2026 you have already been cleansed by the word that I have spoken to you<\/em>\u2026 I wonder how we might understand it if it said\u2026 you have already been pruned by the word that I have spoken to you<\/em>\u2026 I have cut away that which bears no fruit\u2026 or that which bears inferior fruit\u2026 so that you may bear exceptional fruit<\/em>\u2026 because what most of us modern non-grape-growing people don’t know\u2026 is that grapes need to be pruned during their dormancy\u2026 usually in late winter\u2026 and when it comes to pruning\u2026 the most common mistake people make is not pruning hard enough\u2026 not pruning severely enough\u2026 because light pruning doesn’t promote adequate fruiting\u2026 but really heavy pruning creates the greatest quality and largest harvest of grapes\u2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n But too many of us\u2026 who live in fear\u2026 worry that we’re the branches that are going to be gathered\u2026 and thrown into the fire\u2026 and burned\u2026 but all God wants to do\u2026 all God really wants to do\u2026 is whack off anything that gets in the way of us producing the best fruit\u2026 the best quality and quantity of grapes that we possibly can\u2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n And the diamond in this story that’s worth so much more than spinach\u2026 is knowing that God grafts us onto God’s vine and into God’s family\u2026 even with all of our physical and emotional and psychological and spiritual brokenness\u2026 <\/p>\n\n\n\n And in his baptism\u2026 the eunuch was grafted into God’s family too\u2026 was grafted onto the vine\u2026 and since the prohibitions in Leviticus and Deuteronomy\u2026 that one has to be without blemish\u2026 no longer apply\u2026 this person is no longer the ultimate outsider… he finds community and connection he’s never known\u2026 and blessing\u2026 and his baptism is the clearest indication that everyone is welcomed into God’s family\u2026 ] and to those\u2026 like this eunuch who has no name\u2026 God says in Isaiah 56:4-5\u2026 to the eunuchs who keep my sabbaths\u2026 who choose the things that please me\u2026 and hold fast my covenant\u2026 I will give\u2026 in my house and within my walls\u2026 a monument\u2026 and a name\u2026 better than sons and daughters\u2026 I will give them an everlasting name\u2026 that shall not be cut off<\/em>\u2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n And since Jesus is the true vine\u2026 and God is the vine grower\u2026 then we are the branches which are pruned with only one goal in mind\u2026 so that we can be Jesus’ disciples\u2026 and bear\u2026 and share\u2026 much sweet fruit\u2026<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Year B Acts 8:26-40 Psalm 22:24-30 1 John 4:7-21 John 15:1-8 I continue to be surprised\u2026 sometimes\u2026 by the ways in which we as theological consumers\u2026 too often discount the value of the biblical treasure which comes our way\u2026 it’s almost like selling diamonds at the price of spinach\u2026 the ways in which we\u2026 sometimes\u2026 project the meaning-making of our own experiences\u2026 onto the experiences of those who\u2026 thousands of years ago\u2026 wrote down their own stories\u2026 and the ways in which we impose our own worldviews\u2026 our own preferences\u2026 our own parochialism\u2026 onto a world that was vastly different than our own\u2026 And part of that I think\u2026 is because it’s cleaner\u2026 easier to manage\u2026 and we like certainty\u2026 not nuance\u2026 we like orderliness\u2026 not messiness\u2026 and sometimes we even approach our relationships\u2026 and those we hold in esteem\u2026 to standards which border on super-human\u2026 to standards of perfection\u2026 in Exodus 12:5\u2026 as the Israelites prepared to eat their Passover meal\u2026 they were told\u2026 Your lamb shall be a year-old male\u2026 without blemish\u2026 one that’s perfect\u2026 it’s perhaps reflected in the notion\u2026 that when you give flowers to someone\u2026 you’re not even to smell them\u2026 lest you steal away any of the fragrance and diminish the gift itself\u2026 it’s like giving the best of our first fruits\u2026 In Genesis 1:28\u2026 one of God’s prime directives\u2026 first to the man and woman\u2026 is to be fruitful and multiply\u2026 and this was more than a vague suggestion\u2026 and then again in Genesis 9:7\u2026 to Noah and his family when they left the ark\u2026 be fruitful and multiply\u2026 and so critical was this imperative that later on\u2026 that in Leviticus 21:20 and Deuteronomy 23:1\u2026 we’re told that if a man was unable to fulfill that command\u2026 he could not even be part of the congregation\u2026 We don’t know the eunuch’s name in today’s reading from Acts\u2026 but in Jeremiah 38\u2026 in response to the prophet’s dire prophecies against Judah\u2026 Shephatiah [ she-fa-ty-a ] the son of Mattan [ matt-yan ] \u2026 Gedaliah the son of Pashhur\u2026 Jucal [ jew-kal ] the son of Shelemiah\u2026 and Pashhur the son of Malchiah [ mal-ky-a ] \u2026 convinced King Zedekiah to quiet Jeremiah’s voice… and allow them to throw him into a cistern to die\u2026 but a few verses later in 38:7\u2026 an Ethiopian eunuch\u2026 named Ebed-melech\u2026 saved the prophet’s life by convincing the King that these men had acted wickedly against the prophet\u2026 And in today’s passage from Acts\u2026 this other Ethiopian eunuch is reading aloud from the scroll of another prophet\u2026 Isaiah\u2026 about a man who was cut off [ pause] from the land of the living\u2026 and the Spirit told Philip to join the chariot\u2026 and you can almost imagine him jogging alongside it\u2026 perhaps out of breath\u2026 and hearing Isaiah being read\u2026 because if the eunuch was seated in his chariot reading\u2026 there must have been a chariot driver\u2026 and so Philip shouts loud enough for his voice to be heard above the chittering of chariot wheels on a rocky road\u2026 and asks\u2026 do you understand what you are reading\u2026 Wait\u2026 driver\u2026 stop the chariot\u2026 and he turned to Philip and asked\u2026 How can I understand if I have no one to guide me\u2026 and so the eunuch invites Philip to sit beside him\u2026 please understand\u2026 this moment is as radical as was the moment when the Good Samaritan\u2026 the outsider\u2026 helped the man who had been beaten and robbed\u2026 and to help us put it into even greater perspective\u2026 the Rev. Barbara Brown Taylor wrote that it would be as if a diplomat in Washington, D.C\u2026 invited a street preacher\u2026 to join him in his late model Lexus\u2026 for a little bible study\u2026 that radical\u2026 and it’s radical because here is an accomplished\u2026 successful man in his own right\u2026 a court official of the Queen of the Ethiopians\u2026 who is in charge of her treasury\u2026 who is educated and can read\u2026 and he has purchased\u2026 an expensive scroll of the prophet Isaiah\u2026 and he knew he didn’t know it all\u2026 as opposed to those who claim to\u2026 Our reading from 1John mentions love twenty-two times\u2026 affirms that God is love\u2026 and affirms that those who abide in love also abide in God\u2026 but if they say they love God\u2026 but hate a brother or sister\u2026 well\u2026 then they’re liars\u2026 ] and this passage claims that perfect love casts out fear\u2026 because like Jeremiah\u2026 we can fear unwarranted attack\u2026 but if we are in relationship\u2026 and I hurt you\u2026 I also hurt myself\u2026 so perfect love\u2026 casts out fear\u2026 because I know that while I am looking out for others\u2026 others are looking out for me\u2026 that others have my back\u2026 and my fear then\u2026 is unwarranted\u2026 The Gospel text says\u2026 you have already been cleansed by the word that I have spoken to you\u2026 I wonder how we might understand it if it said\u2026 you have already been pruned by the word that I have spoken to you\u2026 I have cut away that which bears no fruit\u2026 or that which bears inferior fruit\u2026 so that you may bear exceptional fruit\u2026 because what most of us modern non-grape-growing people don’t know\u2026 is that grapes need to be pruned during their dormancy\u2026 usually in late winter\u2026 and when it comes to pruning\u2026 the most common mistake people make is not pruning hard enough\u2026 not pruning severely enough\u2026 because light pruning doesn’t promote adequate fruiting\u2026 but really heavy pruning creates the greatest quality and largest harvest of grapes\u2026 But too many of us\u2026 who live in fear\u2026 worry that we’re the branches that are going to be gathered\u2026 and thrown into the fire\u2026 and burned\u2026 but all God wants to do\u2026 all God really wants to do\u2026 is whack off anything that gets in the way of us producing the best fruit\u2026 the best […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1214","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-sermons"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/twochurches.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1214","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/twochurches.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/twochurches.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/twochurches.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/twochurches.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1214"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/twochurches.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1214\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1215,"href":"https:\/\/twochurches.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1214\/revisions\/1215"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/twochurches.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1214"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/twochurches.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1214"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/twochurches.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1214"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}