A New Kind of Christianity - Brian McLaren [89]
Just as the parable that began this chapter can be read in two ways, our whole faith can be expressed in two ways, depending on the questions we raise and the responses we give. The creative and catalytic way, many of us are coming to believe, was the way of the gospel in the very beginning. We see it as the true tradition, and we are being conservative in the best sense of the word to faithfully conserve it.
As we said in the previous chapter, it’s not easy forming change-catalytic disciple-making communities. Take your first few steps in that direction, and a dozen complexities throw themselves in your path. But it’s never been easy or simple, as an underappreciated passage in the Acts of the Apostles makes clear. As the story begins, Jesus says that the gospel of the kingdom of God will be proclaimed through his followers “in Jerusalem, in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth” (1:8). By chapter 8, it has transcended geographical boundaries again and again, spreading through Jerusalem, Judea, and Samaria, and now it is about to be spread to the first of the “ends of the earth”—Africa. And it will do so through a most unlikely person.
Philip, one of the early leaders in the church in Jerusalem, has been sent by angelic vision to walk the “wilderness road” that leads to Gaza. Along comes a chariot carrying an official of the Ethiopian government, returning to his nation after a visit to Jerusalem. The man is described as a eunuch—a castrated male, an odd designation to us, but less so in the ancient world. In many ancient cultures, certain males were chosen for castration so that they would never marry and have a family. Without a family, they would have no loyalty to anyone other than their king, which would suit them well for sensitive positions in the court—including manager of the king’s harem, taster of the king’s food (an important “homeland security” job), and overseer of the king’s (or in this case the queen’s) treasury, which was this eunuch’s position.9
He had visited Jerusalem to worship—perhaps a way of showing political solidarity between the two nations, perhaps an expression of his own religious hunger, or both.10 The Spirit prompts Philip to go run alongside the chariot, and Philip hears the Ethiopian reading aloud these words from the prophet Isaiah:
“Like a sheep he was led to the slaughter,
and like a lamb silent before its shearer,
so he does not open his mouth.
In his humiliation justice was denied him.
Who can describe his generation?
For his life is taken away from the earth.” (8:32–33)
After Philip asks if he understands what he’s reading, the eunuch invites Philip to join him in the chariot, to explain the text’s meaning. The eunuch raises this poignant question: “Is the prophet speaking of his own experience or the experience of someone else?” Now, given this man’s unique identity, we should ask why this particular passage would so seize his attention, and why this particular question would arise. Would the image of cutting—a sheep about to have its neck slit or a lamb about to be sheared—have special significance to a eunuch? Would humiliation and the denial of justice strike a responsive chord with him? Would the word “generation” (or “descendants”) have special meaning to a man incapable of producing a next generation?
Philip responds by telling him the “good news about Jesus,” using this passage as a starting point. This good news, we must remember, is not the version shaped by the Greco-Roman narrative; it is the good news of the kingdom of God, the message proclaimed by Jesus and shaped by the Jewish narratives of creation, liberation, and reconciliation. It is the message embodied in a man who was stripped naked and publicly humiliated, despised, rejected, and misunderstood, a man without physical descendants, a man who