Food for Thought 04.26.24

 And you, high eternal Trinity, 

acted as if you were drunk with love, 

infatuated with your creature. 

When you saw that this tree could bear no fruit 

but the fruit of death 

because it was cut down from you who are life, 

you came to its rescue 

with the same love 

with which you had created it: 

you engrafted your divinity 

into the dead tree of our humanity. 

O sweet tender engrafting! 

You, sweetness itself, 

stooped to join yourself 

with our bitterness. 

Catherine of Siena 

Since the overall story is about a man raised from the dead, the arrival of God’s Spirit to empower ordinary people to attempt extraordinary things, and the perseverance of a religious movement that asks its members to imitate the communitarian ethos of a man crucified by the Roman authorities, perhaps no individual episode can be considered too incredible. Acts, like Easter, urges you to put cautious rationality on the shelf and follow an unrestrained God into the world, wondering as you go what else might be possible. Both Acts and Easter want your imagination to run wild. 

The passage about an Ethiopian court official who has a divinely orchestrated discussion with Philip is outlandish, but not much more than the memorable stories that surround it in Acts 8-10. The encounter on a road connecting Jerusalem to Gaza is about expanding horizons—Philip’s, the Ethiopian’s, and ours. It provokes a question upon which the church still ruminates, as it makes one new discovery after another: what will it mean for all of us if the gospel is indeed good news for all people, without exception? 

All of the ambiguity that this character radiates has an effect… He reminds us that the good news will not travel to the ends of the earth primarily because of focus groups, strategic plans, and demographic analyses. It will do so because individuals will gladly carry it there, because they recognize that it speaks to them no matter who they are or how others measure them. Those individuals recognize that the good news acknowledges their worth and dignity. The good news thwarts the prejudices that religions and societies keep falling into. 

Earlier I mentioned that, as I read this text, the Ethiopian eunuch recognizes that the good news Philip shares with him acknowledges his own worth and dignity. I believe that because it’s he, not Philip, who first raises the topic of baptism. He simply sees the water and, on his own, does the reasoning: baptism is for him. 

Whatever Philip tells him about Jesus, the court official discerns on his own the fitting outcome for him. Inclusion. Participation. Belonging. As a result, he stands prominent not only as the Christian church’s first convert (that we know of) from sub-Saharan Africa but also as the church’s first constructive theologian from there. 

Matt Skinner

 Introduction: This Sunday’s image of how the risen Christ shares his life with us is the image of the vine. Christ the vine and we the branches are alive in each other, in the mystery of mutual abiding that we read of in the gospel and the first letter of John. Baptism makes us a part of Christ’s living and life-giving self and makes us alive with Christ’s life. As the vine brings food to the branches, Christ feeds us at his table. We are sent out to bear fruit for the life of the world. 

Catherine of Siena, theologian, died 1380: She was a member of the Order of Preachers (Dominicans) and among Roman Catholics she was the first woman to receive the title Doctor of the Church. She was a contemplative and known for her visions of Jesus. She was a humanitarian who worked to alleviate the suffering of others, especially the poor and imprisoned. She was also a renewer of society and advised both popes and anyone who told her their problems. 

Acts 8:26-40: Philip and Stephen were among the first deacons chosen for service in the early church. After Stephen was martyred, Philip and the rest were scattered but continued to preach. In this encounter, reflection on scripture leads to baptism into the body of Christ. 

1 John 4:7-21: We love God and others because God first loved us. We cannot say we love God, whom we have not seen, while hating fellow Christians, whom we regularly see. Love toward God is to be matched by love toward others because the essence of God is love. 

John 15:1-8: On the night of his arrest, Jesus taught his disciples about the relationship they would have with him. Those who abide in his word and love would bear fruit, for apart from him, they could do nothing.