Ministry to the Outcasts

A Sermon preached on Sunday, September 9, 2007

by Pastor Terry Davis

First Presbyterian Church, Hartford, CT

Read the Scripture for this service

The first thing that we observe from the passage that we read from the Acts of the Apostles is something that I mentioned two weeks ago; that the persecution that followed the death of Stephen had a positive effect, because the followers of Jesus were scattered all through Judea and Samaria the result was that the prediction and commissioning of Jesus was moving forward and now the Gospel was being proclaimed beyond Jerusalem and also in Judea and Samaria, and within a relatively short time it would be preached to the ends of the earth, or at least to the most distant ends of the Roman Empire.

In this 8^th chapter of Acts we find that Stephen was not the only one of the deacons to move beyond his ordination to wait on tables, and also to become an evangelist, a proclaimer of the Gospel.  He must have known something about Jesus’ attitude toward the outsiders, how he associated with those who were not considered acceptable by the standards of proper Judaism, with tax collectors and sinners, with lepers and Samaritans, seeking always the lost sheep, the ones lost and alienated, the ones most in need of the good news of God’s love.

He went first to the Samaritans whose religious had moved away from the purity of Judaism and became mixed with the pagan practices of their neighbors.  We call this syncretism today, sort of like Santeria or voodoo which are mixtures of Christian, particularly Roman Catholic spirituality and indigenous African religious practices.  As Jesus had talked with the woman at the well and eventually all of her village, so Philip went without hesitancy and proclaimed the Good news about Jesus to the Samaritans.  As soon as the Apostles in Jerusalem heard that Samaria had received the Gospel they came to check out what Philip was doing.  It was clear that the Samaritans had accepted the Jesus faith that Philip was teaching and that they had been baptized in the name of Jesus, but they had not yet experienced the Pentecostal experience, they had not received the Holy Spirit.  Later this became both the test and the evidence of God’s approval of the faith of new converts.  Both Peter and Paul would argue that the Gentiles who believed and received the Holy Spirit as the Apostles had at Pentecost should be received and accepted into the Church and into table fellowship even though they did not accept the Jewish faith and laws.  But as yet these Gentiles had not received the Spirit and Peter and John prayed for them and laid hands on them and while they were praying and laying their hands on them they also received the Spirit.

The next convert whose life Philip touched was even more of an outcast from the Jewish faith.  He was an African, a high official under the Queen of Ethiopia, and he was a Eunuch, that is he had been castrated.  The Ethiopians considered that Eunuchs were desirable civil servants and they had moved from being utilized as guards and attendants to the Harem to hold other positions of trust and responsibility. He was interested in Judaism, and had come to Jerusalem to worship and to study the faith of the Jews, but he could not go all of the way into the temple, because the laws was very specific in excluding Eunuchs from the full worship of the God of Abraham. 

Without hesitancy Philip followed the leading of the spirit and began to hold a conversation with the Eunuch about the servant of the Lord passage that the Eunuch was reading.  He proclaimed Jesus as the servant Isaiah was writing about when he says

Like a sheep he was led to the slaughter,

    And like a lamb silent before its shearer,

    So he does not open his mouth.

And from this beginning Philip told him the good news about Jesus who was the Lamb of God and the Eunuch who had all of his life been an outsider to normal society, who was an outsider to the Jews, labeled as deficient and unacceptable, this Eunuch wholeheartedly accepted this Jesus who accepted him and sent Philip and bring the Good news of Jesus.

I believe that this Church is called, as Philip was called to this ministry of preaching the good news to the outsider, to African Americans and immigrants, to the hungry and the homeless, to Gays and Lesbians, even to bisexual and transgender persons, to who so every will come.  As Jesus associated with tax collectors and sinners, and as Philip without hesitancy ministered to Samaritans and to an African Eunuch, so we should be willing to tell the good news of Jesus to saints and sinners, to the affluent and the impoverished, to the mainstream of American society, and to the marginalized and outcasts.

Scripture for this Service

Acts 8:1 - 8 ^8:1aAnd Saul approved of their killing him. ²Devout men buried Stephen and made loud lamentation over him.  ³But Saul was ravaging the church by entering house after house; dragging off both men and women, he committed them to prison. ⁴Now those who were scattered went from place to place, proclaiming the word.  ⁵Philip went down to the city of Samaria and proclaimed the Messiah to them.  ⁶The crowds with one accord listened eagerly to what was said by Philip, hearing and seeing the signs that he did,  ⁷for unclean spirits, crying with loud shrieks, came out of many who were possessed; and many others who were paralyzed or lame were cured.  ⁸So there was great joy in that city.

Acts 8:12 ¹²But when they believed Philip, who was proclaiming the good news about the kingdom of God and the name of Jesus Christ, they were baptized, both men and women. 

Acts 8:14 - 17 ¹⁴Now when the apostles at Jerusalem heard that Samaria had accepted the word of God, they sent Peter and John to them.  ¹⁵The two went down and prayed for them that they might receive the Holy Spirit  ¹⁶(for as yet the Spirit had not come upon any of them; they had only been baptized in the name of the Lord Jesus).  ¹⁷Then Peter and John laid their hands on them, and they received the Holy Spirit. 

Acts 8:25-31 ²⁵Now after Peter and John had testified and spoken the word of the Lord, they returned to Jerusalem, proclaiming the good news to many villages of the Samaritans. ²⁶Then an angel of the Lord said to Philip, “Get up and go toward the south to the road that goes down from Jerusalem to Gaza.” (This is a wilderness road.)  ²⁷So he got up and went. Now there was an Ethiopian eunuch, a court official of the Candace, queen of the Ethiopians, in charge of her entire treasury. He had come to Jerusalem to worship  ²⁸and was returning home; seated in his chariot, he was reading the prophet Isaiah.  ²⁹Then the Spirit said to Philip, “Go over to this chariot and join it.”  ³⁰So Philip ran up to it and heard him reading the prophet Isaiah. He asked, “Do you understand what you are reading?”  ³¹He replied, “How can I, unless someone guides me?” And he invited Philip to get in and sit beside him

Acts 8:34 - 40 ³⁴The eunuch asked Philip, “About whom, may I ask you, does the prophet say this, about himself or about someone else?”  ³⁵Then Philip began to speak, and starting with this scripture, he proclaimed to him the good news about Jesus.  ³⁶As they were going along the road, they came to some water; and the eunuch said, “Look, here is water! What is to prevent me from being baptized?”  ³⁶As they were going along the road, they came to some water; and the eunuch said, “Look, here is water! What is to prevent me from being baptized?”  ³⁸He commanded the chariot to stop, and both of them, Philip and the eunuch, went down into the water, and Philip baptized him.  ³⁹When they came up out of the water, the Spirit of the Lord snatched Philip away; the eunuch saw him no more, and went on his way rejoicing.  ⁴⁰But Philip found himself at Azotus, and as he was passing through the region, he proclaimed the good news to all the towns until he came to Caesarea.

Luke 15:1 - 7 ¹Now all the tax collectors and sinners were coming near to listen to him.  ²And the Pharisees and the scribes were grumbling and saying, “This fellow welcomes sinners and eats with them.” ³So he told them this parable:  ⁴“Which one of you, having a hundred sheep and losing one of them, does not leave the ninety-nine in the wilderness and go after the one that is lost until he finds it?  ⁵When he has found it, he lays it on his shoulders and rejoices.  ⁶And when he comes home, he calls together his friends and neighbors, saying to them, ‘Rejoice with me, for I have found my sheep that was lost.’  ⁷Just so, I tell you, there will be more joy in heaven over one sinner who repents than over ninety-nine righteous persons who need no repentance.