May 3, 2015
Sermon preached by Rev. Donald Ng at the First Chinese Baptist Church in San Francisco.
In less than 24 hours ago, I returned home to San Francisco after traveling to Northeast India to speak at the Council of Baptist Churches of Northeast India’s annual convention in Tura. There were over 3000 people present on Sunday morning. I have also traveled to visit 3 theological colleges with one having my name on a plaque on the wall of a boys’ hostel since I dedicated it and visited 3 Baptist hospitals which are in great need for medical volunteers. I traveled to Dimapur where I saw from a distance where the Baptist Council is planning to build a new Christian university. And for those of you who may be wondering how many flight miles that I may have earned from this round-trip, it’s over 25,000. I crossed over many borders, many oceans, many different cultures, languages, cuisines, and boundaries to be united with Baptist friends, the offspring of American Baptist missionaries 180 years ago.
I want to again thank Rev. Augie Bau and Pastor Peter in filling this pulpit when I was away and for your prayers and patience as I serve as ABC president this year.
Philip
The Scripture lesson for this day is one of the most colorful stories in Acts. While the complete name of this book is the Acts of the Apostles, this story about Philip is better named as the Acts of the Holy Spirit. So much of what is in Acts is initiated and orchestrated by the Holy Spirit.
This story is often seen as a story about evangelism. Someone—an Ethiopian—is being evangelized. But when we listen to this story of the conversion of the Ethiopian, the story become more about our notions of evangelism rather than winning a person for Christ. What I mean by this is that this story is more about who is actually responsible or behind the evangelism.
Philip is going out into the desert to evangelize is in no way initiated by Philip. This wasn’t Philip’s idea. In fact, Philip is hiding out in Samaria during a persecution of the church. Philip had fled Jerusalem during the great persecution that arose after the death of Stephen. Philip fled to Samaria. Philip wanted to stay away from Jerusalem, the capital city, the place where important events in the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus occurred. He did not go to Samaria to evangelize; he went there to keep his head down while the authorities were attempting to destroy the church.
And while in Samaria, Philip receives a strange order through an angel: go out to the middle of the desert at noon, the hottest part of the day in that desolate area. Philip does what he is told, even if he is not sure why he is doing it. He goes out into the desert and there he meets an Ethiopian, a man from the farthest reaches of the known world. Strangely, the Ethiopian has with him in his chariot a scroll from the prophet Isaiah.
The Ethiopian reads from the scroll something about a “suffering servant,” but he cannot make anything out of what he reads. It’s all a great mystery to him.
The Ethiopian asks Philip to interpret the meaning of the scroll. Philip informs the Ethiopian that these words from Isaiah surely refer to Jesus—he suffered for us, and yet now, in his resurrection, has been vindicated by God as God’s Son.
The Ethiopian asks Philip, “Well, what is there to hinder me from becoming part of this movement?”
Philip hesitates. After all, this man is from Ethiopia, far away. He has responded well to Philip’s interpretation, but at this point doesn’t know much about Christ.
I suspect that Philip replied rather sheepishly, “Well, we have this thing called “baptism” Its is a requirement for membership. But unfortunately we must have water in order to have baptism and we are standing out here in the middle of the desert at noon. No water.”
And suddenly the Ethiopian points out a spring of water bubbling up right here in the middle of the desert. Philip baptizes him and the kingdom of God expands. It expands out into this wasteland, all the way to Ethiopia.
Holy Spirit
The Acts of the Apostle is clear that none of this was Philip’s idea. This strange evangelistic encounter was not the result of church planning and programming. While we had a terrific “A Mission Day in Chinatown” a couple of weeks ago, it was never the result of our good planning. All of this happened at the instigation of the Holy Spirit.
Philip is portrayed as one who was obedient to the promptings of the Holy Spirit. He does what he is told, even though what he is told seems odd—to go out to the desert at noon in the heat of the day. Philip’s obedience is essential.
Philip not only witnesses to the “good news about Jesus” (v. 5) by what he says, but also by his gracious actions toward this earnest inquirer.
And yet the most interesting character in the story, the instigator of this narrative, is the Holy Spirit. There are three key moments in the story that show the activity of God leading someone from the margins toward the truth of Christ. 1. An angel drives Philip from Samaria to the Gaza road at noon. 2. The Spirit directs Philip to approach a man who is a stranger and foreigner. And 3. When the eunuch arises out of the water of baptism, the Spirit snatches Philip away. Presumably, the Spirit now has another urgent business in which to engage Philip.
In these Sundays of Easter we have noted that the risen Christ; returned to his disciples and revealed himself to them. They did not come to the risen Christ: the risen Christ came to them. All of these appearances to the disciples after Easter were at the initiative of the risen Christ.
The risen Christ continues to be on the move—leaving from Jerusalem, to Judea, to Samaria, and now in confronting this Ethiopian—all the way to the ends of the earth—even out to San Francisco, even all the way to Northeast India. We were promised in Acts 1:8 that this would happen.
Mission in Chinatown
In this story of Philip and the Ethiopian, that promise is fulfilled. The expanse of the reign of God has broken now even beyond the bounds of the disciples. And the Ethiopian has been brought into the fellowship of the church. And all of this is the work of the prodding, pushing, pulling Holy Spirit.
Just as I felt the Holy Spirit calling me to travel all the way to Northeast India to be away from you and my family, I hope and pray that I have been as obedient as Philip was. God wanted me to expand my understanding of how expansive the reign of God has become breaking way beyond the bounds of you and San Francisco. And I can testify today that what I have seen and witness has reconfirmed for me again the power of the Holy Spirit to win people for Christ. In Dimapur, I visited a Baptist church with 15,000 members, a mother church and 8 satellite churches. One of my last visits was at Oriental Theological School where 80 plus students stood and sang beautifully in the name of the Lord. I was moved beyond words!
Our church is today being pushed, prodded, and sometimes pulled by the Holy Spirit to join that Spirit in its work in the world. In retrospect, I realized that our “Mission Day in Chinatown” on April 11th was not yet a week after we celebrated the resurrection of Christ on Easter Day. I think it’s providential that we were learning about doing more effective, active and more faithful ministries in our community after Easter because that is exactly what God is doing to us! The Holy Spirit is at work in the world and is calling us to cross our familiar and comfortable borders to win people for Christ.
Will we, like Philip, be obedient and go where we are being led?
It is so easy for the church to become misled into thinking that the purpose of the church is the church. It is embarrassingly easy for us to limit the boundaries of our fellowship. Most of us know one another and are comfortable with ourselves. Can we be open to the leadings of the Holy Spirit pushing us out beyond our comfort zone?
We might be able to hunker down here—just us and Jesus, our best friends along with Jesus—were it not for this prodding, pushing, and pulling Spirit that takes us places where we would not have gone without the Spirit’s initiative.
There’s a story about a young woman who works in a church’s office. The pastor asked her if she would be available to attend a conference in a couple of weeks from now. She responded that she would be gone for those next two weeks.
“Vacation?” the pastor asked.
“No, not vacation. I’ll be working with a ministry in a women’s prison,” she responded.
The pastor told her how much he admired her for doing this prison ministry.
She said, “Actually, I do it for rather selfish reasons. After working full-time here at this level of the church, I really need the spiritual renewal that comes from getting out of this place, out into the world where God is busy, out with people who are still surprised and grateful that God loves even them.”
Somehow I think she and Philip would get along well together! In the hospitals that I visited, it’s nothing like the spanking clean stainless steel, highly sterilized and bleached clean ERs or operation rooms that we expect at Kaiser or CPMC. Are you ready to do something that would renew your faith, out there in the world where God is busy?
Moving to the Margins
After Easter, the risen Christ is always moving, moving quickly from one place to the next. Surely this implies that if we are going to worship the risen Christ, then we must be willing to move to where Christ is in action. And perhaps this constant movement of the risen Christ accounts for why Philip, once he has baptized the Ethiopian, is quickly snatched away and taken somewhere else. And according to today’s scripture, there is something about the risen Christ that moves to the margins.
When Philip discovered that the risen Christ was at work far beyond the bounds of Jerusalem, he came out of his fearful hideaway to do God’s work. We are surprised to find that in moving away from the church, the center, we are actually moving closer to where Jesus really is active. When we begin to move outside the four walls of this church whether it is Reception Ministry or Day Camp or exploring new and yet to be developed ministries that grow out of our commitment this year for “Mission in Chinatown,” we too, may actually be moving closer to where Jesus is.
I hope that we will have time for me to share with you all my new experiences with the Baptists in Northeast India for surely the Holy Spirit prodded, pushed and pulled me out of my comfort zone of being in San Francisco and dropped me into a place at the margins of the world and indeed I discovered that’s where Christ was and is today.
After Jesus Christ has been raised, we are no longer permitted to differentiate between when and to whom we tell the story of Christ, to whom and where we enact the ministry of Christ, or when and where, and with whom we worship Christ.
Let us in this church see the evidence of the Holy Spirit busy pushing you out beyond yourself to cross new borders and boundaries. When you and I do, there we will find the risen Christ.
Let us pray.
Lord Jesus, we confess that it is easy for us to forget how we got here. We sinfully presume that we are participants in your reign by virtue of our goodness, or our insight, or some other virtue that is ours alone. We too quickly forget that you found a way to pull, push, or prod us toward yourself, revealing yourself to us in such a way that we were given the grace simply to say, “Yes!”
May your Holy Spirit work in our hearts and minds that we might be instruments of your expanding reign and your loving embrace of all the world. Having been received so graciously by you, help us in the power of your Holy Spirit to reach out, to stoop down, to go forth, and to tell all the world of your determination to have all of the world within your embrace. In the name of Christ Jesus, we pray. Amen.