Our Acts lesson today is a slightly abbreviated version of Acts Chapter 15. 

This chapter of Acts, about the leaders of the church in Jerusalem deciding to endorse the mission to the Gentiles, is not in the Sunday lectionary. And I think that’s a shame, because it’s an important story! Most of us are here because the early church, by the guidance of the Holy Spirit, made this decision. 

Father John Rasmus and I talked about this story a couple of weeks ago, as we often talk about upcoming readings. With his extensive knowledge of Scripture, he helped me notice some things about this story. Luke, the author of the book of the Acts of the Apostles, is telling this story a certain way. Peter and James, core leaders in the Jerusalem church, are the main characters. Peter is shown as a strong supporter of sharing the Gospel with Gentiles. And Luke makes it sound like the church came to a clear and settled consensus at this meeting. 

But we have a lot of Paul’s letters included in the Bible as Epistles, and Paul tells this story a different way. He describes this meeting in Jerusalem, in Galatians chapter 2. In Luke, Peter says, “Early on, God chose me from among you as the one through whom the Gentiles would hear the word of the gospel and come to believe.” Whereas Paul says, “…They saw that I had been entrusted with the gospel for the uncircumcised [Gentiles], just as Peter had been entrusted with the gospel for the circumcised – for the One who worked through Peter making him an apostle to the circumcised also worked through me in sending me to the Gentiles.”

Peter met a Roman once and said, “Huh, I guess you could actually become a Christian too!” Paul poured out his life preaching Christ crucified and risen to Gentiles, making disciples and founding churches. 

But: Peter was understood to be Jesus’ chosen leader for the early church. So Luke – writing this history later than Paul’s letters – tells the story in a way that puts Peter more solidly on the right side of history than he probably was at the time. 

In fact, Paul tells an additional story. Sometime after this big meeting, Peter comes to visit the church in Antioch, and at first he shares meals with the Gentile Christians there. But then he gets a rebuke or warning from people who are still saying that there’s something unclean about Gentile Christians who don’t follow Jewish law – and that Peter, as a faithful Jewish Christian, shouldn’t be sitting at table with them. And Peter stops sharing meals with the church. 

Paul calls him out for hypocrisy, and for betraying the Gospel! He says to Peter in front of everybody, “If you, although you are a Jew, live like a Gentile and not like a Jew, because though the Gospel you no longer follow the rules of our Jewish faith, then how can you force Gentiles to live like Jews?!?!” (Galatians 2:14). 

Now, Paul is telling the story in a way that puts HIM on the right side of history, certainly. But it complicates Luke’s narrative. Father John wonders whether they had to send some extra people to carry that letter because Paul disagreed with the letter and refused to be their messenger. In that letter, the Jerusalem leaders say that Gentiles need to avoid meat from animals sacrificed to idols – killed as part of the rituals of other religions. Paul writes about that issue a couple of places in his letters, and he thinks that’s nonsense – that those idols are false and empty, those rituals are meaningless, and that meat is meat. 

There’s nothing strange about all this; indeed it might feel all too familiar. People with strong opinions wrestling their way through big change. A complex, conflicted process being described after the fact as if it had been simple and clear. People in institutional leadership being retconned, or retconning themselves, into having always held the position that is now the correct position to hold. 

Change is messy. Consider the last 60 years in the Episcopal Church. Prayer book revision; the ordination of women; the movement towards the full inclusion of LGBTQ+ people; working to decenter whiteness in a church with deep cultural roots in the white middle class. I could point to so many examples of big struggles and debates. Of movements for change and movements of resistance. Of leaders who feel uncomfortable with a particular change, but can see that it’s where the Spirit is leading the church. … And leaders who can’t. 

People on the vanguard are always frustrated with the people who are dragging their heels – like Paul’s frustration with Peter. But some of those dragging their heels aren’t just doing it for its own sake; whatever change is in the air just feels big and new and strange to them. 

In this gathering in Jerusalem we see an honest effort to hash out an issue that folks have very deep-seated feelings about, and to try to discern where the Holy Spirit is leading – even though it feels to some folks that the church is letting go of some really important, holy stuff. 

But people tell stories. And maybe even more importantly: People listen. And through listening and sharing, as much as though stating and debating, openness begins to emerge. 

The church begins to be able to make room for the new thing God is doing. It’s not easy; it’s not clear; it’s not settled. That takes much longer. But something breaks open, begins to unfold. 

This story makes me feel grounded and grateful – aware of the ways the Church today is a lot like the church two thousand years ago, and that somehow, in spite of ourselves, God keeps working with and through us. May it always be so. Amen. 

On Sundays in Easter season, instead of Old Testament readings, our calendar of readings gives us texts from the Book of the Acts of the Apostles. Acts is the sequel to the gospel of Luke, which tells about what happened after Jesus’ resurrection – how the disciples began to share the Gospel far and wide, and to found a network of faith communities. There’s a lot of exciting stuff in the book of Acts – funny stories, scary stories, adventure stories. This year I’ve tinkered with the lectionary calendar a bit, to give us a little more of the larger story of Acts. 

With that, let’s turn to today’s story. First: Who is this Philip? There was a disciple named Philip, one of the Twelve, but this is not that Philip. This Philip is one of the first deacons. In Acts chapter 6, we read, “Now during those days, when the disciples were increasing in number, the Hellenists complained against the Hebrews because their widows were being neglected in the daily distribution of food.” 

There’s a lot implied here; let’s unpack. The Christian community in Jerusalem is growing fast, and it includes both people of Jewish background – Hebrews – and non-Jews, Gentiles, here described as “Hellenists.” And: One of the things the brand-new Christian community is doing, is feeding the hungry – distributing food. 

Last week we heard, “There were no poor people among [the first Christians]. Those who owned properties or houses would sell them, bring the proceeds from the sales, and place them in the care and under the authority of the apostles. Then it was distributed to anyone who was in need.” Widows – women without a man to provide for them – were a particularly vulnerable population. So the church is providing food. But because the core leadership of the church are all Jews at this point, there is either a bias in food distribution, or a perception of bias in food distribution, in favor of the Jewish widows. 

The leaders of the church – the Twelve Disciples, who have rebranded as the Twelve Apostles – offer one of the classic responses of authority challenged: They say, “That’s not our job.” They say: “It is not right that we should neglect the word of God in order to wait at tables.” So they have seven men chosen to take charge of this humble task of distributing food fairly. And seven men are duly chosen, and the apostles pray and lay their hands on them. Luke never uses the word “deacon,” but these are understood to be the first deacons – people called by the church, and ordained to a role of service, both within the church and towards the wider community.

But! It very quickly becomes clear that some of these deacons have been chosen either very badly or very well, depending on your perspective. One of them, Stephen, immediately goes out and starts preaching the Gospel – and arguing with critics. Many people become Christians because of his words. He is arrested, tried, and condemned to death, and becomes the first Christian martyr. So much for waiting at tables.

And then there’s Philip. After Stephen’s death, many leaders in the Jerusalem church scatter. Philip goes to Samaria in the north; he preaches there and casts out demons, and many people are converted, including a former magician named Simon, which is a fun little story. Then he gets this message from God to head down to the road that leads south from Jerusalem towards Gaza, and see what happens. There he meets the Ethiopian eunuch, and today’s story unfolds.

I want to be clear that Philip is not only stepping far out of the role to which he was called; he is getting well ahead of the church. The people of Samaria, north of Judea, were seen by other Jews as religiously dubious. That’s part of the background for the parable of the Good Samaritan, for example. 

When a bunch of people there become Christians through Philip’s ministry, Peter and John – the core leaders of the early church – have to come to Samaria to make sure all of this is in order. 

And then Philip rushes off and baptizes an Ethiopian eunuch, who is even more of an outsider than Samaritans. At this point in the book of Acts, Paul, who will become the great apostle to the Gentiles, hasn’t even become a Christian yet. He was literally just holding people’s coats while they stoned Stephen to death. The early church will not fully endorse ministry to non-Jews until chapter 15, and it takes some real discernment and argumentation to get there. 

Philip does not wait on church consensus. He hears God say, Go there. Talk to him. And he goes, and talks. 

After Acts chapter 8, which is mostly about Philip, we don’t hear anything else about him except a brief mention in chapter 21. Luke and others visit Philip in Caesarea, and meet his four young daughters, who have the gift of prophesy. I feel like it’s very on brand for Philip to have a houseful of young people who are just full to overflowing with the spirit of God. 

So. That’s Philip. Now let me say a little about the Ethiopian eunuch. Tradition has given him several names, and using a name feels better than referring to him by these labels, so let’s call him Simeon. But we need to talk about his labels. First, he’s Ethiopian – that’s straightforward enough. Ethiopia is in East Africa, south and east of Egypt and the Sudan. It’s one of the oldest civilizations in the world, with cultural and economic relationships to Ancient Egypt, Rome, and many other kingdoms and empires over the millennia. 

It’s not surprising that an educated first-century Ethiopian would have been familiar with Jewish faith and scriptures, as Simeon is, nor that a wealthy Ethiopian might travel as far as Jerusalem. (There is still a significant community of Ethiopian Jews in Israel!) 

As for Simeon’s job, the Candace or Kandake seems to have been a queen or a queen-mother figure in the Ethiopian kingdom of Luke’s time. There’s archaeological evidence for this kind of role: a female ruler, the king’s mother or sister, secondary to the king, but with her own court and treasury. 

Which brings us to the more difficult part of Simeon’s identity: That he was a eunuch. Look, it would be easier to assume we all know what that word means and hurry along, but my commitment to understanding Scripture won’t let me do that. (I was going to prep this story as a Sunday school lesson until I started to think about it!) I am not going to go into details, but let me read a few sentences from the Wikipedia entry, OK? 

“A eunuch is a male who has been castrated… Over the millennia…, [eunuchs] have performed a wide variety of functions in many different cultures… Eunuchs would usually be servants or slaves who had been castrated to make them less threatening servants of a royal court where physical access to the ruler could wield great influence… Eunuchs supposedly did not… have loyalties to the military, the aristocracy, or a family of their own. They were thus seen as more trustworthy…Because their condition usually lowered their social status, they could also be easily replaced or killed without repercussion.”

I think that’s helpful in terms of not just the physicality of Simeon’s identity as a eunuch, but the cultural and psychological aspects. 

He carried great trust and responsibility – because he was seen as someone who didn’t have a stake in anything, no agenda of his own to advance. I hasten to say that I don’t think the capacity to produce biological children has some intrinsic tie to personality and motivation! – but that’s the understanding at work, here. 

In Jewish law, as laid out in the books of Leviticus and Deuteronomy, eunuchs were forbidden to enter the tablernacle or temple – the holy places where God’s people came before God. That prohibition was a reflection of a general discomfort, in Mosaic Law, with things that are neither this nor that, that don’t fit into the dominant categories.

So Simeon was a double outsider, to Philip. A non-Jew, a foreigner, visibly different due to his dark skin, though that would not have carried the same racial implications it does today. And a eunuch – a social role that bore a paradoxical combination of privilege and stigma. But Philip – being Philip – seems totally unconcerned by any of that. They talk about the Bible, and Philip talks about Jesus, and then Simeon asks about baptism, and Philip says: Let’s do this. 

I want to pause on the fact that this encounter happens on the road from Jerusalem to Gaza. Gaza as a place-name goes way back; in the Bible it’s first used in Genesis. For millennia it’s been a region close to Israelite territory – sometimes enemies, sometimes just neighbors. I wondered about that road, so I put it into Google Maps – How does someone get from Jerusalem to Gaza today? Google Maps told me, “Sorry, we could not calculate driving directions.” The road is there, but it stops at the northern border of Gaza. The borders are closed, right now – to civilian traffic and to most humanitarian aid. 

Philip and Simeon’s encounter happened during a time of open roads, under the paradoxical peace of the Roman Empire – the Pax Romana, in which many nations and kingdoms were, for a while, under one global power that made them get along. I don’t think a new worldwide empire is a good solution today. I just want to notice that Simeon and Philip could meet – and so much of the missionary work of the early church was possible – because of those open borders. Because people were able to move and share and connect. God’s holy possibilities have the best chance of unfolding into human realities when we aren’t barred and bound from encountering one another. 

I have spent a lot of time with the story of Philip and Simeon in the past few months because of my role helping grade the General Ordination Exams, the written exam taken by everyone seeking ordination to the priesthood in the Episcopal Church. The question I graded this year asked candidates for Biblical texts to support the Episcopal Church’s position on the full human dignity of transgender people. This story is one of the texts many candidates chose – probably because they have read queer theology or Bible commentaries that use this story to help make a Scriptural case for the full inclusion of LGBTQ+ people. 

The fact that Simeon was, undeniably, a stigmatized sexual minority, has become a stepping stone to theological work building bridges from Simeon to gay, trans, and other queer identities in the church. 

There are really important ways Simeon’s identity as a eunuch is different from transgender identity. Becoming a eunuch in the ancient world was not the emergence from the inside out of a deep and true sense of self, as a gender transition can be. Rather, it was something forced upon you, a violent act by people with power over your body and your future. 

Furthermore, the whole point of eunuchs was this idea that they would be fully loyal to their role because they couldn’t have children. Trans people can very much have children and families – and I think we’ve gotten a little wiser about not assuming that having children is the only path to a meaningful life! 

Simeon was not transgender. Or at least: We have no reason to think that Simeon was transgender. But he was someone who didn’t fit people’s categories, with respect to sexuality and gender, in a way that was stigmatized, that pushed him to the margins. 

A young friend recently shared a video clip of a trans woman explaining that God made her trans as a test. She goes on to clarify: Not a test for ME. A test for other people. To see if they’re able to love me the way God loves me. 

This story about Philip and Simeon – it’s not a conversion story, in which someone without faith comes to faith. Simeon is already a believer in Israel’s God; that’s why he made pilgrimage to Jerusalem. He has taken the first big step into belief already, and now he wants to understand more deeply; that’s why he’s studying Scripture. 

Philip seizes the opportunity presented by the particular Isaiah passage he’s reading – one of the so-called Suffering Servant songs, which Christians have been interpreting as pointing towards Jesus since, apparently, this exact moment. Philip tells Simeon about Jesus, this man who preached justice and love, and welcomed those at the margins; and who was executed, but rose from the dead, and told his followers to baptize people into this new family of faith, the church. And Simeon hears something that touches his heart – and when they see some kind of seasonal pond along the road, he asks, “What is to prevent me from being baptized?” 

I love that phrasing. It’s like he’s challenging Philip to withhold baptism, to prove that this Gospel is not as welcoming as he claims. At the temple in Jerusalem, Simeon would have been doubly excluded – as a eunuch and as a non-Jew, despite his belief – from anything beyond the outermost Court of the Gentiles. He wants to know: Does Jesus, and Jesus’ church, welcome me fully as I am? Here’s some water. Prove it. 

Philip doesn’t convert Simeon. Simeon already believes; God is at work in his heart and his life. This encounter isn’t a test for Simeon. It’s a test for Philip, and for the church.  

Philip is whisked away to preach elsewhere, and Simeon goes on his way, rejoicing. I wish, a little bit, that the story ended differently: that Simeon brought his voice, his background and faith, his beautiful and challenging self, to the Jerusalem church, and helped shape its growth. But instead, he takes the Gospel home, to Ethiopia. Christianity takes root and spreads there, and boy, does it bear fruit. 

Christianity becomes the state religion in Ethiopia in the year 330, a full fifty years before the same thing happened in Rome. The Garima Gospels, dating from around the year 500, are the world’s oldest surviving illuminated Christian manuscripts. Ethiopian Christianity is not well known in the wider world but it is deep and old and rich and lovely. Our smaller processional cross is Ethiopian, decorated with the distinctive style of Ethiopian Christian art. Our practice of honoring the Gospel book by carrying a canopy above it in procession is borrowed indirectly from the Ethiopian Orthodox churches. 

And look up some photos of Ethiopian church forests online sometime! Listen to this short description: “The church forests in Ethiopia are small fragments of forest surrounding Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo Churches. Northern Ethiopia was once covered in forests, but due to deforestation for agriculture, only about 4% of the original forested lands remain. Church leaders have long held the belief that a church needs to be surrounded by a forest, and these sacred forests have been tended for some 1,500 years…. There are around 35,000… church forests in the region.” (Wikipedia)

All of this, I find, leads me to questions rather than conclusions. I have focused here on trans folks because of all those GOE essays – and because I do believe that the Episcopal Church in general and St. Dunstan’s in particular are called to deeper affirmation of the holy belovedness of trans and non-binary people. 

But I think there are lots of kinds of people who could sit in Simeon’s seat in this story. Some of them wait in frustration for the church to see them as prophets instead of problems. Some of them aren’t connected with church at all, and are building new worlds driven by their own inner sense of holy possibility, while the church misses out on coming to know them, because we’re too fearful or shy or invested in the way things have always been.

What people of deep and eager faith are just waiting to be seen, named, and welcomed, today? 

What new churches is God longing to build, in our time?