Chariot of Fire
Acts 8:26-40

May 14, 2006


An ode to Philip, about whom little is said, but the little is much. I have known and appreciated a bunch of Philips - my wife’s uncle Philip Costello who is the source of all knowledge in our family; Philip Rousseau, teacher and colleague, who taught our children how to drink wine; and of course, up in the balcony there is Philip Seale, an incomparable fixture in our congregation.

The original Philip had been preaching in a Samaritan city - where all the people are “good Samaritans” - and doing not badly healing the paralyzed and throwing out screeching demons.

What Philip was doing wasn’t completely new, for he had a predecessor in the neighbourhood, a certain amazing magician Simon who was not afraid of promoting himself. Philip was so good, or better to say, his message was so good, that even Simon thought it was worth signing on. In fact, it was so good, Simon thought he could simply buy the gift of the Holy Spirit, but he is reminded that only Judas had tried to purchase spiritual things with silver. He didn’t want to go there. The Spirit is not for sale, nor can you snatch hold of it.

By then Samaria had used up its allotment of Philip, though Philip didn’t know it either. It required an angel to confront him and send him on a mission unknown to a desert road in the deep south way down in Gaza. And Philip went. He went on this way like a lot of disciples and prophets and patriarchs before him, without knowing all the details of why he was going. He was to go to Gaza, famous now as a disputed territory, famous then as the place where Samson met Delilah and lost his eyes.

Time gets squeezed and compressed in the Bible, so it seems that just when Philip got there on that Gaza road along came the treasurer of Ethiopia. He was important, the servant of the Candace, the queen of Ethiopia, but important people sometimes in the Bible have no names. He was on the return trip home from worshipping in the Jerusalem temple, a veritable “God-fearer” they called his type back then. Being the treasurer he was not poor, for his chariot was big and had extra room nor did he have to drive it.

Philip probably would have just waved as they drove by, but he heard the treasurer reading Isaiah out loud - no one read silently to themselves then - and Philip knew the scripture. It had to look odd as Philip ended up running alongside until he was invited to jump in.

The Bible has never been easy to understand, so when Philip asks the Ethiopian whether he needs any help, his reply is pretty much like ours, “How can I, unless someone guides me?” Humility knows that one does not know everything and certainly few of us know anything original - we learn everything from our predecessors, our teachers and guides.

Philip starts going through word by word, verse by verse. It’s Isaiah the Exchequer has happened upon to read, and not just any part, but the Song of the Suffering Servant (Isaiah 53:7-8), a song Christians have always thought was about Jesus. “Like a sheep led to slaughter,” he reads. The Ethiopian asks just the right question, “To whom is the author referring?” Given the fact that they both had plenty of time to talk, Philip and his host started talking.

Philip told him the whole story, the Good News about Jesus. Again the Bible tends to compress the action, and we are just told that Philip told him the Gospel story, without any detail or elaboration. We’re not supposed to need the details. But wait a minute. This is where it really happens. A lot of us assume that actions speak louder than words, that action movies are more popular than the ones with a lot of talking. Yet, the world is changed by people talking, one person telling another a story that aches to be told and heard. This is how the Gospel is spread almost all of the time, by one person putting their personality into the story of stories. It’s not that there are different Gospels, or that all Gospels are relative, but I want to hear how each person reflects the infinite number of ways the Gospel can be told. I wish we could have heard how Philip told the story to the treasurer.

Of course, he started from where the Ethiopian was reading and his concerns, about a suffering servant of God being led to slaughter, yet still in the grace and power of God. It’s not normal to start from failure and disaster and sacrifice, but that’s where this odd Good News does start. Philip had to show his companion how God takes us in the midst of our troubles and worries and disasters and turns upside down the smug assumptions of those in power in the world. What did the Ethiopian treasurer, a man of position and power, think about all this? Is the Gospel also good news to someone who has privilege and money and authority?

Eventually it became a chariot of fire, so inflamed was the spirit of this foreign man for whom this remarkable story had a place for him in it. Philip must have told him about baptism, for as soon as they come upon some roadside water, in the desert remember, the Ethiopian treasurer stopped the chariot dead. They got down into that water and used it as a baptismal font, the treasurer being baptized by Philip. It was just a little water, certainly wasn’t proper holy water, not even a tributary of the River Jordan, but it was enough water to symbolize something on fire inside that treasurer’s mind, heart and soul. His thirst had to be quenched, though he drank no water.

As the two of them are coming up out of the water - a kind of liturgical movement - the treasurer is rejoicing, free at last, free at last, Philip is snatched by the Holy Spirit and beamed up a little farther north up the coast to Azotus. Philip doesn’t miss a beat and walks back home, preaching and teaching all along the way. While Philip fades gloriously into the sunset, so does the Ethiopian treasurer headed in the opposite direction. We never hear of them again.

Yet, I bet we have, we just haven’t been able to sort out their specific stories. Philip’s efforts were not wasted, for people were changed for generations and millennia because of the fire he lit in the heart of countless people. There is no particular mention of the treasurer in the annals of the ancient and contemporary Ethiopian church, no clear evidence that he influenced that nation into becoming Christian, but I would not be surprised to find out that his experience quietly influenced many others to look positively at what the Christian Gospel has to say until that passion he felt burst into flame and ignited a whole nation into Christianity.

Except for the special effects, not much action happens on the southern road in Gaza. We have just listened to a story about someone telling a story that changed who the listener wanted to be. It’s all in the telling of a story with excitement, commitment and passion. Some people need to hear the story you tell about how you describe the Good News. Funny thing about telling such a story of Good News - it could change your listener, and change you even more. You can’t just recite the words, for the words have a tendency to snatch you away.

Preached by Robert Kitchen
Knox-Metropolitan United Church
Regina, Saskatchewan