A Surprising Family of Faith: The Ethiopian Eunuch

Acts 8:26-40
August 11, 2019
Matt Goodale

We all desire to belong. We all long to feel and to know that we fit in, that we are liked, acknowledged and appreciated. In fact, as human beings, in order to flourish, we need to belong; we need to be part of a tribe or a group of others who accept us and whom we usually share some common bond with. This need to belong is deeply engrained in the human psyche, and so that means sometimes we will go to great lengths to fit in with a particular group of people—and sometimes we make a great fool of ourselves attempting to do so. 

Four years ago I spent a summer in Scotland, interning at a church. About a week or two into my time there I’m asked by someone at the church whether I play golf. Assuming he was inviting me out for a friendly game, I jumped at the chance to make a new friend. “Yeah, I play a little bit,” I told him.

Now, to give you a little background, I have never played a full round of golf in my life, but once every year growing up I would go to the driving range with my grandpa and just try to hit the balls as far as I could. Oh, and I can’t forget to mention countless games miniature golf. But basically, I had next to no experience playing golf. 

So I told this guy I played a little bit. “I dabble.” Then he responds, “Oh great, I’ll put you down for our big church charity tournament then.” Uh-oh. Now, you might be thinking: well Matt, you could just tell him the truth that you’re not that good at golf and won’t play in the tournament. That probably would have been the smart move. But I wanted to belong to this group of guys in the church who golfed, so I told him I’d play. Like I said, sometimes we do dumb things to fit in.

So the day of the tournament rolled around. In order to prepare, I had been rehearsing in my head all those days I had spent at the driving range with my grandpa and in my head I replayed over and over my most incredible hole-in-one miniature golf shots. So by the time the tournament rolls around, I had thoroughly convinced myself that I was going do “ok”. I was confident going into this tournament of about 40 people and I was excited…until after my first shot.

Now, for those of you who have never played golf, the goal of the game is to hit the golf ball as straight as you can, towards a hole. Doesn’t sound too difficult, right? Yeah, I thought so too. So I’m up to hit my very first shot and there’s a number of people watching me. Again, remember, the ball is supposed to go straight. I wind up to hit this ball as hard as I can, ready to maybe impress a few people. And I swing through and *SHANK*, the ball goes flying about as far in the opposite direction as it could possibly go and ends up on the fairway of hole 4 or 5. 

This was pretty indicative of how the entire tournament went for me. I’ll save you the rest of the gory details. I made a fool of myself trying to fit in. It’s funny how we will do this from time to time—we will go to great lengths in order to try to belong. We understand our very human need to belong. We understand the pain of not belonging, of being excluded.

Our Scripture passage today highlights a man who, in more than one way, did not belong. He is described by Luke, the author of Acts, as a man, specifically an Ethiopian man, more specifically an Ethiopian man who is a eunuch, even more specifically he is described as an Ethiopian man who is a Eunuch and a court official of the queen of the Ethiopians, who is returning to Ethiopia after coming to Jerusalem to worship. Now, to Luke’s audience, this is an extremely loaded description and Luke would’ve been very aware of how loaded it was. So let’s unpack this man’s identity.

The first descriptor used is that he is a man, an anhr. Ok, that’s fairly straightforward. But he is no ordinary man, he is an Ethiopian man. During the time Luke was writing, calling someone an Ethiopian would have been a catch-all term for anyone of black skin color, who was presumably from far south, and Ethiopia represented the southernmost edge of inhabited civilization. Traveling up near Jerusalem, he would be immediately recognized as a foreigner. Being labeled an Ethiopian carried with it a mixed bag of connotations. To some, Ethiopians were idealized as people of great beauty and piety, but to many, Ethiopians were seen as uncivilized and barbaric. To have an Ethiopian enter Luke’s story would no doubt have been a shock to many of his early readers. 

But the most shocking part of this man’s identity is not that he’s an Ethiopian, but that he is a eunuch. Eunuchs occupied one of the most disadvantaged and discriminated against social classes in the Greco-Roman world. Josephus, one of the earliest Jewish historians, writing around the time Luke was, writes: “Shun eunuchs and flee all dealings with them…expel them,” for they are a monstrosity. Now, for those of you who don’t know what a eunuch is, it was a man who had been castrated; some are eunuchs by birth, some are eunuchs by choice, and some are made eunuchs by someone else. I like the way the King James Version describes a eunuch: “He that is wounded in the stones, or hath his privy member cut off.” 

Eunuchs were often shunned and disadvantaged because they were considered by many a monstrosity of creation. In Greco-Roman thought, men were created to be virile and to be a real man, you had to have sex, to procreate—that’s how you passed on your legacy. And seeing as it’s challenging to procreate or have sex when your stones are wounded or when your privy members are cut off, eunuchs were by definition not considered real men—they were an abomination. They were effeminate; not fully male, and not fully female. For this reason eunuchs often belonged to female court officials and royalty because they weren’t a threat of making sexual advances; this is likely why our main character was a court official for the queen. Eunuchs didn’t belong fully to one gender; they were their own category and they were shunned because of it. Society shunned eunuchs and mistreated them because they weren’t normal, they didn’t fit any of the neat categories people wanted them to. Strange how some things don’t change.

Luke would no doubt have known how ironic it was to describe our character as both a man and a eunuch, because few others would pair those two descriptors together—they may even have laughed at such a description. Eunuchs were not only condemned and shunned in Greco-Roman thought, but in Jewish though too. In Deuteronomy 23:1, eunuchs are strictly forbidden from entering into the assembly of God. They could not enter God’s presence. Eunuchs occupied a marginalized place not only in mainstream Roman society, but among God’s people as well. 

And yet, Luke tells us that the eunuch is returning home from Jerusalem, where he went to worship. He is returning from the Temple that he would not have been allowed to enter or even get close to. Only Jews were allowed in an inner section of the Temple court, then there was an outer section for Gentiles, but the eunuch would not have even been allowed to enter that section because he was too unclean, too other, too different. Yet for some reason, he still came on a pilgrimage to Jerusalem all the way from Ethiopia, even though he wasn’t allowed to get close to the Holy of Holies, where God dwelled. 

The Ethiopian Eunuch occupies one of the most marginalized roles in the New Testament. He is a foreigner, regarded by some as beautiful and others as barbaric and uncivilized. He is a eunuch, considered an abomination to God, a monstrosity of creation. He doesn’t fit into the neat categories of either male or female. He doesn’t fit. He doesn’t belong. His own skin and his own body betray him to others as one who does not belong. He does not even belong near the Temple of the God he worships. He is used to a life of exclusion; a life of being on the margins. Perhaps that’s why he travels alone on a deserted road at the hottest part of the day when nobody else would be traveling. Perhaps he prefers to be alone by choice than by exclusion.

As the Ethiopian Eunuch travels alone down the deserted road and encounters Philip, it should be of no surprise to us that the question lingering on this man’s lips, the question that should pierce our hearts is “What prevents me from being baptized?” What excludes me from being baptized into this community of faith? It is asked in such a way that the eunuch surely expects a negative response. He surely expects there to be some caveat, some condition, some reason he should be excluded. He’s used to it. That’s his life. Why should the faith community started by this Jesus guy be any different? What will be the thing that prevents me from being baptized? 

The Ethiopian Eunuch’s marginal status and constant exclusion are the products of a humanity that is so anxious to belong, that is so anxious to be part of an “in” group, that we don’t care who is left “out”. There is no “in” group without an “out” group. There’s no “us” if there isn’t a “them”. We bond over who we are against, over who we dislike, over who is different from us. This type of tribalism is an ancient reality as well as a present one. We file ourselves and everyone else into boxes and categories that make sense to us. 

But what happens when someone doesn’t fit into our neat categories? What happens when someone doesn’t belong? What happens if someone doesn’t fit the social roles we have assigned to them? We exile them; we ridicule them; we marginalize and exclude them. If they are “other”, then they are surely not “of us.” For some strange reason, excluding others, convincing ourselves that they are not worthy to be included somehow quells that anxiety in all of us that whispers: perhaps I don’t belong.

We are all so anxious to belong, whether we realize it or not, that will go to great lengths to exclude others, because it assures us that we are included. We’re part of the “in” group. This is why gossip is so easy. It feels good to gossip with others against someone because we are not that person. We’re part of the “in” group. This is why judging others comes so easily to us. It quells our anxiety to tell ourselves we belong more than this other person. You’d think that as Christians we would be exempt from such anxiety, from such petty exclusionary thinking. But we’re not.

The history of the Christian church is one that is riddled with exclusions. We are skilled at placing conditions on who is allowed “in” and who is not; and we do it all in the name of Jesus. To be included, you must believe these tenants exactly; you must not disagree with one iota of our doctrinal statements or we’ll label you a heretic and expel you from our midst. You must have this type of baptism, you must take communion this way; you must not question this teaching or this way of reading Scripture. You are not welcome to worship God and be gay. You cannot be transgender and belong to the body of faith. That’s not allowed. Because Jesus says so. 

The Christian church has a history of tossing people to the curb, excluding them, ridiculing them, calling them abominations. All in the name of Jesus. Because that’s what Jesus would’ve wanted. We choose purity over diversity. Exclusion over inclusion, because it’s easier. Because in order for there to be an “us” there has to be a “them”; there has to be an “other”. We have all felt the sting of being excluded. We have all caused others to be excluded.

We have all asked the question: “What prevents me from being baptized, what prevents me from being included?” And we have all caused others to ask the question: “What prevents me from being baptized, what prevents me from being included?” 

As this question echoes through the centuries, as our anxious hearts long to know the answer, God’s Spirit moves and provides a definitive response through the Ethiopian Eunuch’s story: nothing prevents you. Nothing can prevent you from being baptized and included into the family of faith. It is not up to us to provide conditions and to exclude. As we see in this story, God’s Spirit moves unhindered by humanity’s exclusions and conditions. God’s Spirit calls Philip to a desert place, on the margins of where all the excitement is, where all the gospel work is taking place, and there, in a desert place, Philip encounters the eunuch, a man who could not even be fully considered a man. A man who was used to rejection. A man who had traveled all the way to Jerusalem to worship, only to not be allowed in. A man who did not belong.

And as the eunuch is sitting in his chariot, in a desert place, reading from the scroll of Isaiah, unable to understand what it means, God’s Spirit carries Philip to meet him. Ignoring all purity codes and laws, Philip joins the eunuch and shares the good news that Jesus is God, and that this Jesus, this man-god, ate with sinners and tax-collectors, he touched lepers and Gentiles, he advocated for excluded people groups such as Samaritans and Sidonians, and that he ultimately gave up his life rather than try to take the life of another. This Jesus, who many claimed was God in the flesh, was scandalously inclusive, and the eunuch realizes that if he had a chance of following anyone, it would be this Jesus. And so he asks, partly out of eager expectation and partly out of anxious fear: “What would prevent me from being baptized? What would prevent me from becoming part of this movement that seems set on including all people?”

Philip does not respond in word, but in action. Philip does not give any conditions. He does not tell him that he must follow x, y and z rules; he doesn’t tell him to sign a doctrinal statement; he doesn’t check to see if there’s any “hidden” sin. Philip simply gets down and baptizes the eunuch. In baptizing the eunuch, Philip fulfills the prophecy of Isaiah 56, which reverses the Torah’s exclusion of eunuch’s into the Lord’s presence. Isaiah, in a scandalous movement away from the Torah’s exclusion of eunuchs, prophesies: “And let not the eunuch say, ‘Behold I am a dry tree.’ For thus says the Lord: ‘To the eunuchs…I will give in my house and within my walls a monument and a name better than sons and daughters; I will give them an everlasting name that shall not be cut off’” (Isa. 56:3-5). 

God’s Spirit moves unhindered by even the Torah’s exclusions. In baptism, the Ethiopian eunuch is grafted into God’s family, and this would have been scandalous to many of Luke’s readers. Jaws would’ve dropped; audible gasps would’ve been heard. The eunuch’s baptism begins a series of scandalous inclusions throughout the book of Acts; Gentiles are included, Roman Centurions are included; Paul, a murderer is included. God’s Spirit moves unhindered by our categories and the lines we would draw in the sand. God’s Spirit works in the deserted places where we would not expect to find Her. 

The Ethiopian eunuch’s baptism reveals a God who is expanding the story, a God who is in the business of including, rather than excluding, a god who sees and hears those we would rather dismiss and overlook. This has been a theme of most of the stories we’ve visited these past few weeks: God includes those we would rather exclude. And God has included us, even when we fear we deserve to be excluded. As Christians, it is not our business to exclude or to draw lines in the sand, but to include others, even when it might be considered scandalous.

Baptism blurs all the cultural and social boundary lines we draw, transforming someone from an “other”, to “one of us.” Our worthiness for baptism and inclusion into the family of faith is not based upon our social status, our gender, our sexual orientation, our sins – past or future—but it is based upon God’s call and the Spirit’s unhindered movement.

At this moment, God’s Spirit is moving in a desert place – a place on the margins of society. Perhaps, like Philip, God’s Spirit is calling you there. Will you respond to the call? Will you have the eyes to see that our God is not a God who likes to work at the center of things, but on the margins; our God likes to work among the outcasts, the exiles, the afflicted. Will we allow our feet to take us there?