The Treasurer

 The audio recording will be uploaded when I get back from holiday towards the end of May.  If I remember!

“Here is some water.
What is to keep me from being baptised?”

This is an odd little story, the one we heard from Acts, isn't it?
I wonder who these people were,
what they were doing,
and, above all, why it matters to us this morning.

Well, finding out who these people are is probably the least difficult part of it.
The man was, we are told, a eunuch who held a high post in the government of the Queen of Ethiopia.
Now, we do know a little about her
her official title was Candace, or Kandake, or even Kentake
nobody is really sure,
but if you know somebody called Candace,
that's where the name comes from.
Anyway, this one was called Amanitore, apparently,
and her royal palace of Jebel Barkal in the Sudan
is a UNESCO World Heritage Site.
Her tomb is also in the Sudan, in a place called Meroë.
Confusingly, the area that our Bibles call “Ethiopia” or “Kush” is actually in what is now Sudan,
and present-day Ethiopia was then the Kingdom of the Axumites!
Anyway, the Queen isn't important, except that you should understand that she was a ruler in her own right, not just a regent
Amanitore, for instance, was co-ruler with Natakamani,
who may have been her husband, but was more probably her son.
The Candaces were very powerful, and could order their sons to end their rule by committing suicide if necessary.
So a senior treasury official in her government would be a pretty high mucky-muck back then.

We know rather more about his employer, though, than we do about the treasury official himself.
He might not even have been a Kushite, which is the more proper term for Ethiopians back then –
the word “Ethiop” in Greek basically just means someone from sub-Saharan Africa.
He probably was a eunuch, though;
many people in positions of authority were, in those days, rather like in the Middle Ages in this country they were usually in holy orders of some kind.
Basically they were people who were celibate, for whatever reason, so as not to have divided loyalties between their job and their families –
with all the stuff one hears about work-life balance,
and the sort of hours people who work for American companies are expected to put in, maybe they had a point!
Although, of course, the people in the Middle Ages were voluntarily celibate, which our friend could not have been.
He was probably a slave, or at least born into slavery,
and brought up to eventually get this high and trustworthy position.
There is, of course, plenty of form for this –
look at Joseph, who was sold into slavery in Egypt but ended up as a hugely influential administrator in Pharoah's court.

And the same was true for this man.
We don't know his name, which is unfortunate as I don't like to keep referring to him as “The Eunuch” as though it were the most important thing about him, so let's call him “The Treasurer”.
He was probably born into slavery, maybe into a family who belonged to the Ethiopian court, and raised from an early age to serve the Royal Family.
I have no idea what sort of education he would have had,
but he obviously was an educated man;
he could read, which was not very usual in that day and age,
and what is more, he could read Greek or Hebrew, I am not sure which,
but neither could have been his first language.

And when we meet him, he has just been to Jerusalem to worship God.
Again, I have no idea how he became what's called a God-fearer, a non-Jew who worships God without converting to Judaism,
but he could not have been a convert, or proselyte as they were known, because he was a eunuch,
and the Old Testament forbids anybody mutilated in that way to enter the Temple.
And now he is on his way home –
he must have been a pretty high-up official to have been allowed to go on a pilgrimage to Jerusalem, don't you think?

I wonder whether he bought his copy of the Book of Isaiah during his visit?
I don't know whether it was in the Greek translation known as the Septuagint, or whether he had been able to read Hebrew and buy one of the Hebrew versions.
Jewish men could all read, because they were expected to read the Scriptures in their services,
but elsewhere the skill was not that common long before printing was even thought of,
when all manuscripts had to be copied by hand.
So a copy of the book of Isaiah would have been very valuable.
And he had one, and was reading it during his journey, but not really understanding what he read, and doubtless wishing for someone to come and explain it to him.

That someone turned out to be Philip the Evangelist.
Now, this isn't the Apostle Philip, the one who tends to be partnered with Bartholomew in the lists of apostles;
he's a different Philip.
We first meet this one early in the Book of Acts,
when the gathering of believers is getting a bit large, and the Jewish and Greek believers are squabbling over the distribution of food.
Philip and seven other people were appointed deacons to sort it out for them.
Philip would have been Greek –
it's a Greek name –
but he might also have been Jewish,
since he was fairly obviously resident in Jerusalem around then.

He, incidentally, is the chap who ends up with four daughters who prophesy who entertains St Paul on his way back to Jerusalem later on in Acts.

But for now, he is wanted on the old road between Jerusalem and Gaza and, prompted by the Holy Spirit, he goes there and walks alongside the Treasurer in his carriage –
I expect the horse was only going at walking pace.
Back then, the concept of reading to yourself was, I believe, unknown, and everybody always read aloud, even if only under their breath,
so he would soon have known what the Treasurer was reading, and was intrigued:

“Do you understand what you're reading?”
This man, an obvious foreigner, someone who obviously wasn't Jewish, probably didn't know the traditions at all
what on earth was he finding in the book?

And the Treasurer admits that yes, actually, he is a bit lost.... and Philip explains it all, and explains about how the prophet was referring to Jesus, which of course meant explaining all about Jesus.
And so the Ethiopian challenges him:
“Okay, there's some water.
Any reason I shouldn't be baptised?”

He couldn't be accepted in the Temple as a Jew –
would these followers of the Way –
they were barely called “Christians” yet –
would they accept the likes of him, or was this going to be another disappointment?
I can hear a challenge in his voice, can't you?
The Authorised version, which some of you may still like to read, claims he made a profession of faith,
but apparently that's not in the earliest manuscripts available and has been left out of more recent translations.

“Why can't I be baptised?”
Well, there was no good reason.
Jesus loved him and died for him, and Philip knew that, so he baptised him.
And then left the new young Christian to cope as best he could, while the Holy Spirit took Philip off to the next thing.

It is a strange story, and I know I've spent rather a long time on it, but it intrigues me.
You can't help comparing it with the story of Cornelius,
a couple of chapters later.
Cornelius, too, is an outsider, a member of the Army of Occupation, a Gentile
but he, too, loves God and wants to know more.
And Peter is sent to help him, although Jewish Peter needed a lot more persuading than Greek Philip to go and help.
And again, it is clear that God approves, and Cornelius and his household are baptised.

The thing is, this was an age when the Church was gaining new converts every day –
three thousand in one day, we're told, after Pentecost.
How come these two are picked out as special?

I think it's because they are special.
These are the outsiders, the misfits.
They aren't your average Jewish person in the Holy Land of those days.
Cornelius is a member of the hated Roman army;
but at least he lives in Caesarea and might have been expected to pick up one or two ideas about local culture and so on.
But the Treasurer?
He is not only a Gentile, but of a completely different race, and a different sexuality.
A total and utter outsider, in fact.

But he is accepted!
That's the whole point, isn't it?
There was nothing to stop him being baptised.
The Holy Spirit made it quite clear to Philip that this man was loved, accepted and forgiven and could be baptised with the contents of his water-flask!

How difficult we make it, sometimes.
We agonise over who is a Christian and who isn't.
We wonder what behaviour might put people right away from God.
And sometimes we cut ourselves off from God by persisting in behaviour, or patterns of thought, that we know God doesn't like, and we aren't comfortable in God's company.
And yet God makes it so simple:
“Here is some water.
What is to keep me from being baptised?”
And the answer, so far as God is concerned, is “Nothing”.
Anybody, anybody at all, who stretches out a tentative hand, even a tentative finger, to God is gathered up and welcomed into his Kingdom.
I don't know what happens when it's people like Professor Alice Roberts or David Attenborough who really don't want God to exist –
I suppose that when people say “No, thank you!” to God,
God respects their wishes, even if that means He is deprived of their company, which He so wanted and longed for.

The Treasurer, the Ethiopian Eunuch, was the most complete outsider, from the point of view of the first Christians, that it was possible to imagine.
And yet God accepted him and welcomed him, and he went on his way rejoicing.
We aren't told what happened to him.
Was he able to meet up with other Christians?
Was he able to keep in touch with the early Christian communities and learn more about early Christian thinking?
We don't know.
We aren't told anything more about him –
but then, I don't suppose Philip ever heard any more.
Our Gospel reading minded us that unless you abide in Jesus you wither away
or perhaps more properly that your faith does –
and perhaps that happened to him.
We will never know.
But perhaps he did abide in Jesus.
Perhaps, even without fellowship and teaching and the Sacrament and the other Means of Grace we find so important,
perhaps he still went on following Jesus as best he knew how.
I hope he did.
Maybe his relationship with God would have been purer and stronger than ours is, because there wouldn't have been anybody to tell him that he was doing it all wrong.

“Here is some water.
What is to keep me from being baptised?”
We have, I think, all been baptised;
possibly as babies or perhaps when we were older –
but what keeps us from entering into the full relationship with God that this implies?
My friends, if there is something between you and God, put it down now,
come back to God and rest and rejoice in Him.
There are no outsiders in God's kingdom –
everybody is welcome, and that includes you, and that includes me!
Amen.

And as soon as we started the next hymn I realised what I should have said, so said it before the notices - because God loves and accepts absolutely anybody, we need to love and accept them, too. I didn't have time to unpack this, but if I preach this sermon again, I'll be sure to work it in! 

Mr Moneybags and the Big Issue Seller

 

An old friend, revisited.

Once upon a time, there was a really big city gent, known as Mr Moneybags.
You might have seen him, dressed in an Armani suit,
with a Philippe Patek watch on his wrist,
being driven through Brixton in a really smart car to his offices in the City, or perhaps in Canary Wharf.
Mr Moneybags did a great deal for charity;
he always gave a handsome cheque to Children in Need and Comic Relief, and quite often got himself on the telly giving the cheque to the prettiest presenter.

But in private he thought that the people who needed help from organisations like Comic Relief were losers.
Actually, anybody who earned less than a six-figure salary was a loser, he thought.
He despised his five brothers,
three ex-wives,
ten children,
twenty-five grandchildren
and the hordes of mistresses,
secretaries,
assistants
gofers
and general flunkies
who surrounded him –
and they knew it, too.
Especially, though, he despised homeless people and beggars,
who he thought really only needed to pull themselves together,
to snap out of it,
to get a life.

Particularly, he despised the Big Issue seller
who he used occasionally to come across in the car-park.
He would usually buy a copy, because, after all, one has to do one’s bit, but once in the car would ring Security and get the chap removed.

Laz, they called him, this particular Big Issue seller.
Not that Mr Moneybags knew or cared what he was called.
I’m not quite sure how Laz had ended up on the streets,
selling the Big Issue
or even outright begging.
It might have been drugs, or drink,
or perhaps he was just one of those unfortunate people who simply can’t cope with jobs and mortgages and families
and the other details of everyday life that most of us manage to take in our stride.
But there you are, whatever the reason,
Laz was one of those people.
He was rather a nice person, when you got to know him;
always had a friendly word for everybody,
could make you laugh when you were down,
knew the way to places someone might want to go, that sort of thing.

But what he wasn’t good at was looking after himself,
keeping hospital appointments,
taking medication,
that sort of thing.
And so, one morning, he just didn’t wake up,
and his body was found huddled in his bed at the hostel.
They couldn’t find any relations to take charge of it,
so he was buried at the council’s expense, very quietly, with only the hostel warden there.
But the warden always said, then and ever afterwards,
that he had seen angels come to take Laz to heaven.

At about the same time, Mr Moneybags became ill.
Cancer, they said.
Smoking, they muttered.
Drinking too much….
Rich food….
So sorry, there was very little they could do.
Now, of course, Mr Moneybags wasn’t about to accept this,
and saw specialist after specialist,
and, as he became iller and more desperate, quack after quack.
He tried special diets,
herbal remedies;
he tried coffee enemas,
injections of monkey glands,
you name it, he tried it.
But nothing worked and, as happens to all of us in the end, he died.

His funeral wasn’t very well-attended, either.
Funny, that –
you’d have thought that more of his
five brothers,
three ex-wives,
ten children,
twenty-five grandchildren
and the hordes of mistresses,
secretaries,
assistants
gofers
and general flunkies
might have wanted to be there.
But no.
In the end, only the ones to whom he had left most of his money were there,
and a slew of reporters,
hoping to hear that the company was in trouble.
Which, incidentally, it wasn’t –
whatever else Mr Moneybags may have been,
he was a superb businessman, and the company he founded continues to grow and flourish to this very day.

Anyway, there they were,
Mr Moneybags and Laz the Big Issue seller, both dead.
But, as is the way of things,
it was only their bodies which had died.
Mr Moneybags found himself unceremoniously told to sit on a hot bench in the sun, and wait there.
And he waited, and waited, and waited, and waited,
getting hotter and hotter,
thirstier and thirstier.
And he could see the Big Issue seller, whom he recognised,
being welcomed and fed and made comfortable by someone who could only be Abraham, the Patriarch.
After a bit, he’d had enough.
“Abraham,” he called out, “Couldn’t you send that Big Issue seller to bring me a glass of water, I’m horrendously thirsty?”

And you know the rest of the story.
Abraham said, not ungently,
‘‘Remember, my son, that in your lifetime you were given all the good things, while Lazarus got all the bad things.
But now he is enjoying himself here, while you are in pain.
Besides all that, there is a deep pit lying between us,
so that those who want to cross over from here to you cannot do so,
nor can anyone cross over to us from where you are.’’
And he pointed out that Mr Moneybags’ five brothers,
three ex-wives,
ten children,
twenty-five grandchildren
and the hordes of mistresses,
secretaries,
assistants
gofers
and general flunkies
wouldn’t listen to Laz if he were to go back and tell them –
they really knew it already, thanks to Moses and the Prophets.
You note, incidentally, that Mr Moneybags didn’t ask if he could go back!

---oo0oo---

Jesus had a lot to say about money, and our relationship with it
didn’t he?
And about our relationship with other people, too, for that matter.
Do you remember the story he told about the sheep and the goats?
This was when he reckoned that at the Last Judgement it would be those who had cared for Jesus in the persons of the sick, the prisoners, the hungry and, yes, the Big Issue sellers who would be welcomed into heaven, and those who had ignored him, in those guises, would not.
“For whoever does it unto the least of one of these, does it unto Me”, he said.

It must have come as a shock to Jesus’ hearers.
They had been taught that if you were rich and successful, it meant that God favoured you, and if not, not.
I am always rather amused when I read Matthew’s version of the Beatitudes and compare them with Luke’s –
Luke says, frankly, “Blessed are you when you are hungry, or thirsty, or poor”, but then, he was a Gentile and didn’t have the background that Matthew, a Jew, had.
Matthew can only bring himself to write “Blessed are you when you are poor in spirit, or when you hunger and thirst after righteousness.”
For him, still, poverty is not a sign of God’s favour, but rather the reverse.

Even today, you know, there are those who preach prosperity, they preach that if you are God’s person you will be rich and healthy.
But that isn’t necessarily the case.
Jesus never said that!
Okay, so he healed the sick, but he had a great deal to say about the right attitude to possessions and to other people.

It’s in this sort of area, isn’t it, where what we say we believe comes up smack bang against what we really believe.
We discover, as we study what Jesus really had to say, that being His person isn’t just a matter of believing certain things, it’s about being in a relationship with Him, and about letting him transform us into being a certain kind of person.
It’s no good believing, says St James, if that faith doesn’t transmute itself into actions.
And this seems to be what Jesus says, too.

It’s no good saying you believe in Jesus, and ignoring the very people Jesus wants you to look after –
the dispossessed, the refugees, the downtrodden, the marginalized, the exploited.
It’s not easy, I know.
We do hesitate to give money because of the very real possibility it might be spent on drugs or drink.
The other day I bought a sandwich for the beggar sitting outside Lidl on Acre Lane, and when I came out with it, she had gone!
But there are other ways of giving.
There are various charities we can give to,
or even lend a helping had at.
Brixton Hill’s foodbank on Wednesdays always needs donations, and volunteers, too, for that matter – contact Rev Kristen or my Robert to find out more.
Of course, one can even buy the Big Issue!

Seriously, though, we need to take this sort of thing seriously.
Quite apart from anything else, our very salvation may depend on it.
We say that salvation is by faith, and so it is –
but what is faith if it doesn’t actually cost us anything?
What is faith if it is mere lip-service?

And anyway, what sort of picture are we giving to the world if we just talk the talk, and don’t walk the walk?
Do you remember Eliza Doolittle, in My Fair Lady, exclaiming “Don’t talk of love, show me!”
I reckon the world is saying that to the Church right now.
Don’t let’s just talk about Jesus, let’s show people that he is risen and alive and dwelling within us by the power of his Holy Spirit.
The best way to cultivate a right attitude to money, people and spiritual things is to see the “beggar outside our gate” –
quite literally the Big Issue seller, if you like, but basically anybody who is not like ourselves.
Although, mind you, the other day I bought a sandwich for the beggar sitting outside Lidl and when I cam out she’d gone, so I was left with a sandwich I didn’t want!
You can’t win, sometimes.
But mostly they are thankful for the odd sandwich or pasty or similar.
And we must remember that it could have been us….

The miracle is that the more loosely we hold our possessions, the more we enjoy them,
the more we serve the needs of others, the more we value them, and the more we listen to God’s words, the more we value ourselves.
And, of course, the more we are able to show people Who Jesus Is, and that he is alive today.
Amen.