The God of the Rejected ~ Acts 8:24-50 ~ Fifth Sunday of Easer ~ May 6, 2012

People are always surprised when I tell them that you don’t have to be a Lutheran to attend Gettysburg Lutheran Seminary, from where I graduated last year.

The reality is that the student body is made up of students from over two dozen different denominations.  One denomination in particular that has a long history at Gettysburg Seminary is the African Methodist Episcopal Church… 

One of this denomination’s first bishops was a student there almost thirty years before the Civil War.  He would go on to become the first African American in this nation’s history to graduate from a theological institution.  And since then, many men and women of color from this church have found a home Gettysburg Seminary.

But the denomination of which they all are part came into being over two hundred years ago in Philadelphia—after a group of black worshippers were forced to sit in a balcony in their predominantly-white church.

So it’s little wonder why our African American sisters and brothers in the faith know such a profound connection with the Ethiopian eunuch we read about in the 8^th chapter of Acts.  His experience at the Jerusalem temple would have been very similar to the experiences of black Christians throughout our nation’s history.

The Ethiopian eunuch was a black man—and because of that, there would have been no question in anyone’s mind that he was a Gentile; an outsider…  And even though Gentile converts were permitted to participate in worship at the temple—he still would not have been able to do so.  The Law of Moses strictly forbids any man whose member had been maimed from coming into the assembly of the Lord.

The fact that he was a royal official of the queen of the Ethiopians would not have mattered.  His kind could not enjoy full membership in the community.  His kind had no choice but to worship God from outside of the temple…

But as we hear in our story—God was not about to have him make the months-long trip back to Ethiopia as someone who was rejected and excluded…  God was determined that he would go home baptized and believing in the risen Christ.  So God went out in pursuit of the Ethiopian eunuch.  God does this by sending in his direction a man by the name of Philip.

And when these two men encounter each other, neither of them give any thought to cultural differences or racial differences or cleanness versus uncleanness.  They receive one another in hospitality and in love.  The Ethiopian hears the good news of Jesus Christ and comes to faith—and now, there is nothing that can keep him away from the waters of baptism. 

What a miracle to behold in this story that this is the first time—that someone outside the land of Palestine is baptized into Jesus Christ.  God’s grace overcomes all human constraints. 

What good news it is for us to know that ours is a God who does not reject people, but instead, goes out in pursuit of rejected people.  Regardless of whether we are reading about Jesus in the four Gospels, or the mission of the early church in the rest of the New Testament, God’s Word makes one thing very clear: that no one who calls on the name of Jesus will ever be rejected.  There are no outsiders; no rejects in the salvation the living Christ brings to our world.

That is a miracle for us who live in a world where we suffer rejection every day.  Rejection is one of the greatest evils we will suffer in this life—and one of the greatest evils we do to each other.  People suffer rejection in ways that are too many even to name.  There’s racism, sexism, classism; there’s bullying in our schools and unjust wages and hiring practices in our workplaces.  And we live in a world of labels, where people come to know you not by your name, but by where you’re from, or by your past or by the reputation of someone in your family. 

But God doesn’t see us for the labels.  Instead, God reaches out to all who suffer this kind of rejection to bring them to baptism.  There, in the waters, our sins are washed away along with all the labels and all the gossip.  God marks us with the cross of Christ forever—the seal of our belonging.

So as you suffer rejection (and we all do), remember this.  Remember that Jesus suffered rejection.  He was rejected by a sinful humanity, so that a sinful humanity would not be rejected by God.  And when people speak ill of you—and they tell you that you don’t belong—know the truth: you belong to Jesus Christ. 

And because we all have God’s Spirit dwelling in us—just as it did in Philip—God will be leading us to people who suffer rejection and exclusion.  God sends us to them in love so that they will know that they matter to God. 

Wherever there are people who are lost; wherever there are people who are lonely; wherever there are people know only hurt and rejection—that is where we will be—by God’s Spirit who leads us.

And God’s Spirit will open our eyes to the ways in which we cause others to suffer rejection.  God’s Spirit gives us grace to change our ways—and even to ask others for their forgiveness. 

Today in God’s Word we see into God’s own heart—that burns with compassion for those who are rejected and lost.  And we see into the future God brings to this world—where no one gets left out because of who they are or where they’re from or what they’ve done. 

God’s compassion will win the victory over the rejection we suffer—and the rejection we cause others to suffer.  Labeling and discrimination will be no more; just all of us living forever in the love of our Lord.