Sermon

St. Philip's Episcopal Church, Durham, NC

05/14/06 - 5 Easter

The Rev. Sarah Ball-Damberg

Acts 8:26-40; 1 John 3:14-24

During the summers I was in college, I'd return home to Athens, Georgia and work on the grounds crew at the University of Georgia. For some reason, when I first started I didn't get put on one of the college-student crews. I lucked onto a regular year-round crew headed up by a wonderful man named Talmadge Roberts. I was the only female on the crew and the youngest person by a couple of decades.

The men on that crew didn't know what to make of me at first, but because they were genuinely sweet and accepting, pretty soon they took to bragging on me. I was determined to do everything they did, so I did a lot of rototilling, digging, and sweating. They taught me to drive a bulldozer and a dump truck -- but not a pick-up truck with a stick shift. That, I taught myself because I didn't want to admit I didn't already know how.

We were at a job site and Talmadge needed something back at the shop. He asked if I'd take the truck and go get it. No problem, except I didn't know how to drive a stick shift. Even if I had, the truck had to be started in second gear because first gear didn't work. The truck was, by the way, parked on a hill, facing up.

I knew how a stick shift and clutch were supposed to work, I'd just never been able to get them to work for me. But I wasn't about to admit that, or to ask for help. I got in the truck and somehow or other, got it to go. For all I know, I stripped out the second gear as well as the first - I honestly don't remember how it happened, just that I got to the shop, got the tool, and got back.

Now, many years later, I realize that if I'd just asked the men on the crew to show me how to drive that truck, they would have been glad to teach me. But I was too proud to admit I didn't know something they assumed I did, which is, of course, a whole lot dumber than not knowing how to drive a stick shift.

I also now recognize that what was behind my pride was insecurity. I was too worried about being who the men thought I was to be able to ask for help. Of course, I didn't feel so hot walking over to that stupid truck, either. It was all somehow part of trying to prove myself. I was too afraid of not measuring up to ask for help.

That wasn't the last or even the worst time that happened to me. Like a lot of other folks, I spent a good deal of time trying to figure out who and how I was supposed to be. That can be complicated all by itself, but it's even more so when there are so many images from magazines, movies, tv shows, and ads telling us who we should be.

But in my experience, those images make us feel dissatisfied and like we're somehow lacking which, in turn, makes us feel insecure and even fearful because it's scary to stand on such unstable ground. Insecurity and fear bind us up, close us off from those around us, and take us even further away from being who we really are. And, in turn, not knowing who we really are makes us vulnerable to insecurity and fear.

Karl Barth once said it's the job of a missionary to tell people the truth about themselves. Which is what Philip does as he's heading down the wilderness road to Gaza. We never do learn the name of the Ethiopian eunuch Philip meets. All we have is two clues to his identity - he's a big deal official in Ethiopia -- the John Snow of his day. And he's an outsider to Judaism because he's a eunuch - which meant he wasn't whole and therefore had no place in a community with elaborate laws about wholeness and membership in the community.

 'Ethiopian' and 'eunuch.' Neither of those things tells us about who this man really is, about his true identity. They just tell us that in some places he was an insider and in some an outsider. Those are descriptions of how the world sees him, not descriptions of him. When he meets Philip, he's in outsider mode, a stranger in a strange land. He's been to Jerusalem to worship and on his way home, he's wrestling with a passage from Isaiah. He's smart enough to know he needs help figuring it out (which, by the way, stands as a corrective to anyone who thinks Scripture is self-explanatory).

So Philip climbs into the chariot to tell the Ethiopian eunuch the truth about himself. Philip interprets the passage from Isaiah and proclaims the gospel news about Jesus Christ and the Ethiopian learns his true identity - which isn't 'Ethiopian' or 'eunuch' but 'child of God,' forgiven of his sins because Christ died for him. And when he recognizes that, when he understands that that's who he is, he does the obvious thing: he asks Philip to baptize him, to mark him as Christ's own forever.

Tradition has it that the newly baptized Ethiopian eunuch went on to evangelize Ethiopia - he went on to tell other people the truth about themselves. The text doesn't tell us that, of course, but it does say he went on his way rejoicing. The Holy Spirit had hold of him. He understood at last who he was because he understood Whose he was. And once that happens, once someone's been taken hold of by the truth that they are a beloved, forgiven child of God, the truth will out. So, I'm guessing that man did go on to evangelize Ethiopia because that's who he was - someone who was rejoicing in the power of the Spirit.  And rejoicing isn't something you keep to yourself.

Porter Taylor, who's now the Bishop of Western North Carolina, once wrote, "Our common calling is to be saints, and the chief characteristic of saints is not that they do good works. The chief characteristic is that they see the Christ in others. They know that each of us - teachers, salespersons, nurses -- each of us is a Christ-bearer." Discovering the truth about ourselves changes the way we see others. It frees us to see Christ in those around us.

Bishop Taylor wasn't knocking good works, by the way. Good works are a way of proclaiming the Gospel. As we just read in the First Letter of John, "[L]et us love, not in word or speech, but in truth and action." But what makes works good isn't what they accomplish, it's that they're done in love. A good work is a work done out of love for the Christ we see in another. Discovering the truth about ourselves -- that we are Christ-bearers -- changes the way we see others. It frees us to see Christ in those around us and to see ways of serving Christ in others.

For all the time we spend trying to find ourselves, the truth is we've already been found. All the world's ways of telling us who we are count for nothing in the face of God's prior claim on us. Because we are in Christ, we are set free from fear and insecurity. We're free to live secure in our identity as God's children, to live in love, to help others, and maybe even to ask for help when we need it. After all, it's not the ability to drive a cranky truck that defines us, but the love of God in Christ.

© 2006, Saint Philip's Episcopal Church
Mailing Address: P.O. Box 218, Durham, NC 27702
Telephone 919-682-5708, Fax 919-683-1857

Webmasters: Jack Mitchell, David Smith