Welcome, Everyone

Philip met an Ethiopian official on the road from Jerusalem to Gaza who asked the haunting question, “Is there anything to prevent me from being baptized?  What a good question ..

 Welcome, Everyone

Acts 8:26-40  1 John 4:7-21 

As you may know, I chair the Minnesota Conference Committee on Ministry, which means (among other things) that I participate in a goodly number of ordination interviews. We call it an “interview,” but it is actually the oral examination for ordination. The questions are meant to be challenging, but not surprising or obscure. I often ask questions about baptism, and one of my favorite ones is this: “Are there any circumstances under which you would decline to baptism a person?”

This is very much like the question that the Ethiopian official asks Philip

in today’s reading from the book of Acts: “What is to prevent me from being baptized?”

In this case of this official, there are a several things which Philip might have identified as preventing the baptism. This official was a gentile, an official in the court of Queen Candace of Ethiopia. He was likely a dark skinned person, and though it is difficult to say precisely what that meant in first century Middle Eastern culture, it was certainly a noticeable fact about him. Moreover, he is identified as a eunuch, which meant he was a sexual minority (probably not of his own free will), and because of that, he would have been excluded from worship at the temple in Jerusalem.

But none of this seems to have mattered to either man; they stopped the chariot and Philip baptized the Ethiopian in the first available body of water.

As a faith community that has long been committed to being an “Open and Affirming” congregation, we can’t help feeling some connection with this ancient story. We like to think of ourselves as a church that will welcome people from any social position, and that we will do that without requiring much indoctrination in the basics of our faith.

I want to suggest this morning that there might be another answer to the Ethiopian’s question: that what might prevent him from being baptized would be a full knowledge of what he is getting into. Notice that I didn’t say that a lack of knowledge would prevent him. That’s our usual first assumption: that people have to know certain things before they can sincerely make a profession of faith. We want them to understand what they are getting into when they make a promise to follow Jesus and be part of a faith community.

But the truth of the matter is that most of us make most of our most important decisions and promises with only a hazy idea of what is to come. When couples make marriage promises, they do not yet know how those promises will be lived out, or what joys and tribulations will test their strength. When a decision is made to bear and raise a child, the parent has no way of knowing exactly what challenges and joys that particular child will bring, nor which sacrifices will be needed. When a person joins a congregation, she/he does not know which gifts will be needed and called out by the community. When a candidate is elected to office, there is no way to predict what events may shape his/her public service. Promises and decisions are made – and made with integrity and intention – but they are made without full knowledge of what weight those promises may carry in the future.

And so it would be with the Ethiopian official: captivated as he was by the power of Philip’s gospel message, he could not have known what might be required of him in the future. He probably didn’t even have all the gospel stories we have that give us a hint about what we are in for:

• that we will be called to love our enemies and to pray for them;
• that we will be called to give our second coat to a stranger who needs it;
• that we will be called to show forbearance when we are attacked, turning the other cheek rather than striking back;
• that we will be called to take up the cross and follow Jesus, without knowing where he may be going;
• that we will be called to enlarge our idea of family;
• that we will be called to forgive those who have wronged us, even if they do not repent or seek reconciliation;
• and that we will be called to go into the world to preach and teach and heal in the name of Jesus.

Even when we do know all of that, we do not know – cannot know – in advance just how those vocations will unfold in our own lives. Some of those callings will come easily to us, as gifts of the spirit; others will be difficult; still others will be beyond our capacity. Without being flippant, it is probably a good thing that we do have this foreknowledge. Chances are, if we fully knew what was ahead for us, we would hesitate to step into the relationships or the ministries that are set before us. Our naiveté actually helps us to step forward in faith, because it keeps us from being fearful about what might be ahead.

Scott Peck said something like this about love in his book The Road Less Traveled. If you will excuse an over simplification of his argument, Peck proposes that falling in love (infatuation) is kind of a divine ruse to trick humans into entering relationships where real love can develop. The power of attraction lures us into making promises whose implications we cannot know. Being loved is such a powerful experience that it draws us into something far deeper and more profound that we can imagine ahead of time.

Being loved by God is something like that, we hear in the epistle lesson for today. The love of God, demonstrated most dramatically and emphatically by the human presence of Jesus Christ among us, pulls us into a great web of loving relationships with one another. We love because God first loved us. We demonstrate our love for God by loving one another.

Of course none of this turns out to be exactly easy, either. It is not easy to remember that we are loved by God, particularly in those moments when we are worried, ashamed, discouraged, or grieving. It is not easy to remember that God’s love was shown to us in the form of a human being, because that incarnation is so far removed from us in time and culture, and its meaning has so often been muddled or compromised by the secular world. It is not easy to remember that loving God means loving God’s people, especially when those people are difficult, annoying, or threatening. Most of all, it is not easy to set aside our natural anxieties about the future and our part in it.

The thing is, we don’t have to know what is coming in order to make decisions and promises; we don’t have to know whether life will be easy or difficult, whether our challenges will be manageable or overwhelming. We make promises and decisions, not because we know what is going to happen, but because we want to shape the way we are going to respond and live into whatever may happen.

So our first-century Ethiopian brother did not know where his faith might lead him, but he did know that he wanted to travel with that faith wherever he might go. A full knowledge of his future would not have made it easier to make the commitment to be baptized, and it well might have prevented it all together. He said “yes” to the promise of God’s love and mercy and salvation.

Every week we open our service by singing, “Welcome everyone, to the love of God.” That was the song that the Ethiopian official heard. That is the song that the author of today’s epistle lesson heard and wrote: “There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear…” [1 John 4:18] When fear is pushed out of the way by love, we are free to move into the future with courage, imagination, and hope. And we are free to welcome everyone to the love of God.

Prayer for May 10, 2009 (Mothers’ Day)

Almighty and everlasting God, creator of all things seen and unseen, hear now our silent prayers, as we open our hearts to you in the sacred quietness.

God of faith and hope, we bring before you our prayers for those we have named this morning – we especially remember … Bring to each of them the gifts of mercy and grace that are most needed, according to your wisdom and love.

Holy One, we pray this morning for all the people who have mothered us, both women and men – those who birthed us, those who raised us, those who loved, challenged, and corrected us.

We are grateful to you, our divine parent, for all of the people who have stepped into our lives to bring your love to us in human form. We thank you for the faith and fortitude they have shown, for the sacrifices and compromises they have made on our behalf, and for lessons they have taught us. Bless each of these, and fill them with the knowledge of the ways that they have contributed to our lives.

We acknowledge with special compassion those people whose care for us was limited by their own shortcomings and by the events and complications of their own lives. Bless them for their loving intentions, and give us loving hearts to receive their gifts gratefully, even as we also acknowledge our disappointment or loss.

We thank you, too, Gracious God, for the opportunity to offer nurture, encouragement, and mentoring to others. Help us all – men and women, old and young – to demonstrate the best of what mothering is: love, discipline, hope, and health. Forgive us when we fall short of these ideals, and give us persistence and patience to continue these relationships.

In a world where women’s work is often disrespected, underpaid, unrecognized, and devalued, we ask your particular blessing on the women who serve you and others faithfully, and on the men who respect, reward, recognize, and value them.

All these things we pray in the name of the one who honored his own mother and invited women into the ministry of the church, even Jesus the Christ, and we pray together now in the words that he taught us …