Have You Met Many Eunuchs Lately?

I suspect you haven't met many lately and so we may wonder if there is anyway that we can identify with this character in the story. The Ethiopian eunuch is far from home and a stranger in the land of Judea; he is a man of some stature and power as a court official from the court of the Candace; we know he has money because he has purchased or somehow received a scroll of the prophet Isaiah, which would not have been an inexpensive purchase, and he's literate because he's reading the scroll; he is also mutilated and scarred, made into a sexual deviant so that he will be safe around the queen.

Philip has been fighting through a variety of barriers in his preaching and teaching and that pattern continues as he encounters the Ethiopian eunuch. He is redrawing the boundaries of Israel to include those who are excluded. It is a powerful message for the church today and one which I hope we heed.

We need to heed this message not because we will be wrong if we don't, or somehow find disfavor with God if we don't, but we need to heed it because we are all at one point in time or another outside the boundaries and desire to be included. Our desire is to open the circle to welcome others just as we have been welcomed. We are all broken, scarred and mutilated in one way or another, and we are all welcomed into God's reign. This is good news that we need to hear as much as anyone else. Jung says something about finding the path to wholeness via a path of wrong turns.

Regardless of the circuitous path we travel, thanks be to God that they all lead to our Divine Source of Being.