The Ethiopian Eunuch

Acts 8:26-39
May 10, 2026
Matt Goodale

Who here has ever done something ridiculous to fit in?

Several years ago I spent a summer in Scotland at a church. A couple weeks into my time there  I’m asked by someone whether I play golf. And I’m out there all on my own, a young college kid…and I’m desperate to make friends. So I say “Yes.”

To give a little background, to this point I had never played a full round of golf, but I grew up going to the driving range with my grandpa…and of course I had played minigolf, so I figured I could pull this off.

I tell him that I play a little bit and he responds: “Oh great, I’ll sign you up for our big church charity tournament then.” Oof.

Now you might thinking: well Matt, you could just tell him the truth that you don’t actually play golf and won’t play in the tournament. That would probably be the smart move. But sometimes we do ridiculous things to fit in.

So the day of the tournament rolls around and I’ve been rehearsing in my head all those days I had spent at the driving range with my grandpa and all those incredible hole in ones I had made at miniature golf. I had thoroughly convinced myself that I was going to do “ok.”

And then I show up and see about forty guys there, and they’re all watching to see how this new intern from America is going to hit his first shot.

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, huh? Yeah, I thought so too.

So I wind up to hit this ball as hard as I can, very aware of how many people are watching, and I swing through and shank the ball about as far in the opposite direction as it could possibly go…I didn’t even know I could hit an angle like that…and I lands on the fairway of like hole 17.

And that’s pretty how much how the whole tournament went for me. Three of four more hours of that. It’s pretty funny the lengths we will go to just to fit in sometimes.

Because deep down one of our core human needs is the need to belong. And we have all felt the pain of not belonging.

Our scripture story this morning is about a person who does not fit in at all.

He is given, maybe the most interesting description of anyone in the Bible. He is described as a man, specifically an Ethiopian man, more specifically an Ethiopian man who is a eunuch and a court official of the queen of the Ethiopians. And he is returning to Ethiopia after coming to Jerusalem to worship.

That is a loaded description. Because everything about this man would have marked him as an outsider.

He’s an Ethiopian—which means he’s visibly a foreigner, someone who would have stood out immediately because of his skin color and where he came from.

And then we’re told he’s a eunuch.

Eunuchs were one of the most disadvantaged and discriminated against social classes in the Greco-Roman world.

Josephus, one of the earliest Jewish historians writing in the second century writes: “Shun eunuchs and flee all dealings with them. Expel them from your midst” for they are an abomination.

Now to clarify, a eunuch was a man who had been castrated; some are eunuchs by birth, some 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 shunned because they were considered a monstrosity of creation. In Greco-Roman thought, men were created to virile and to be a real man, you had to procreate. And seeing as it’s a challenge to procreate when your stones are wounded or when your privy members are cut off, eunuchs were by definition not considered real men. They were effeminate. Not fully male and not fully female.

But for this reason eunuchs often belonged to female court officials and royalty because they weren’t a threat of making sexual advantages; which is probably the case for our main character.

And it wasn’t just Roman society that shunned eunuchs, it was Jewish society too. In Deuteronomy 23:1, eunuchs are forbidden from entering into the assembly of God. They’re not allowed to be in God’s presence nor belong fully to the community of faith…because they were an abomination.

Eunuchs did not fully belong to one sex or gender; they were their own category of gender fluid, to borrow a modern day term…and they were shunned because of it. They didn’t fit the neat categories that people wanted them to and so they were excluded. Which sounds an awful lot like what our society does too.

And so everything about this man’s description screams: outsider, outsider!! This person does not belong.

And it’s quite strange then that he is returning from a visit to Jerusalem. He traveled all the way from somewhere in Africa up to Jerusalem and he’s reading from the prophet Isaiah. So clearly he has come to worship God on a pilgrimage. But here’s the thing—when he arrived at the temple, he would not be allowed in as a foreigner or a eunuch. He’s be allowed in the outer part of the temple, but not the inner part.

So as he’s riding home, he’s likely carrying that familiar feeling—the sting of almost belonging…but not quite.

And if we’re honest—that’s a feeling a lot of us know.

Because the truth is, the Christian church hasn’t always been great at making space for everyone. Too often, the church has drawn lines—about who’s in and who’s out. About who belongs and who doesn’t.

And maybe you’ve felt that. Not necessarily because you were turned away at the door, but because something in you made you wonder if you would be.

So as this Ethiopian eunuch is on his way home, God’s Spirit whisks Philip, one of the early apostles, to this deserted place where he encounters the eunuch. And he asks, “What are you reading?”

The eunuch responds, “I don’t know. How am I supposed to know unless someone shows me.” So Philip sits down and shows him that what he is reading speaks about Jesus. He tells him all about who Jesus is and what he was about.

And then the eunuch asks maybe the most important question in the entire Bible: “What prevents me from being baptized.”

Baptism represents entry into God’s community. It communicates God’s love.

So the eunuch is essentially asking: what prevents me from being fully loved by God and fully embraced by God’s community?

This is a question I think we have all wondered about: what prevents me from belonging to God’s community? What prevents me from being loved fully by God.

Because every one of us in this room probably has something we wonder about…something that we wonder whether it disqualifies us from belonging.

Maybe it’s something in your past that you worry, if people really knew, they wouldn’t embrace me. Maybe it’s something physical or mental. Maybe you’ve never fit in socially for whatever reason.

I know that feeling.

I’ve shared this before, but I have Tourette’s. I’ve had it since I was a kid.

Most people don’t notice it—I’ve gotten pretty good at hiding it. But it shows up in small ways—little muscle movements, facial tics…and for a long time, I was afraid of people seeing it.

Afraid of what they might think.

It’s funny—people assume that because I’m a pastor, I like being in front of people.
But even now, there’s still a part of me that gets nervous.

Because there’s always that quiet question:

If people really saw all of me… would I still belong?

And that’s exactly the question the eunuch asks.

“What prevents me from being baptized”

What prevents me from belonging? What prevents me from being fully loved by God?

A question was all wonder about deep down.

And into that question, Philip gives a shocking answer.

Nothing.

Nothing prevents you. Not your story, not your identity, not the labels others have put on you. Not even the ones you have put on yourself.

Nothing.

And right there on the side of the road, in the middle of nowhere—this man who has been told his whole life that he didn’t belong if baptized and welcomed fully in.

Philip doesn’t place any conditions or barriers or even hesitate. He knows this man belongs.

And I think that’s the invitation for us today. To hear, maybe for the first time or maybe for the hundredth time, that there is nothing that disqualifies you from the love of God. And there is nothing that prevents you from belonging to this community or any community gathered in God’s name.

And once we have heard that, we are called to become people like Philip. People who don’t stand at the edge of the water putting up barriers, but people who throw the doors wide open. People who look at others with all their quirks and questions and differences and say: “Come on in. There is room for you here.”

Because the truth is…we don’t belong because we fit in.

We belong because God says we do.

Amen and may it be so.