Biography
The Rev. Dr. Martha Page Greene is a native of Berkeley, California. She was educated at Stanford University and McCormick Theological Seminary. Martha received a Doctor of Ministry degree from San Francisco Theological Seminary and served several parishes in Michigan before accepting the position of Senior Pastor of Winnetka Presbyterian Church in north suburban Chicago in 1995. Martha is the Author of Baptism: Welcome and Promise, as well as several articles in religious journals. [Biographical information is correct as of the broadcast date noted above.]

"Where Will the Holy Spirit Take Us next?" 
Our scripture is found in the 8^th chapter of the Book of Acts. Here we see Philip, a missionary for the early Church, stumbling across an Ethiopian on his way back from Jerusalem. The Ethiopian is a high official in the Queen of Ethiopia’s court, and he is puzzling over some scripture from Isaiah. Philip offers to help him understand what he is reading.

The passage the eunuch was reading was this:

"He was led like a sheep to the slaughter; like a lamb that is dumb before the shearer, he does not open his mouth. He has been humiliated and has no redress. Who will be able to speak of his posterity, for he is cut off from the world of the living?

'Please tell me,' said the eunuch to Philip, 'who is it that the prophet is speaking about here? Himself or someone else?'

Then Philip began, and starting from this passage, he told him the Good News of Jesus. As they were going along the road they came to some water. 'Look!' said the eunuch, 'Here is water! What is to prevent my being baptized?' And he ordered the carriage to stop. Then they both went down into the water, Philip and the eunuch, and he baptized him. When they came up from the water, the Spirit snatched Philip away and the eunuch did not see him again, but went on his way rejoicing."

The Word of the Lord.

Several months ago, my husband Bob and I made a trip to our previous hometown of Kalamazoo, Michigan. We had to pick up some of our furniture and bring it to a storage shed here in Chicago. We rented a truck, and on Saturday morning we were sailing along highway I-94.

We were near Stevensville, Michigan, when our truck broke down in the middle of farmland with no houses in sight. We were stuck. We gathered our belongings and started walking down the side of the highway. It was truly a wilderness road. Car after car and truck after truck zoomed by at high speed. Twenty minutes went by and we were still walking. Finally a large diesel tractor-trailer semi rig passed by. It was painted in red, orange, and brown fluorescent colors. It was an airbrushed affair, and a hot rod was painted on the back, set in a Las Vegas desert landscape. I saw the brake lights flare, and the truck began to slow, pull over, and stop for us.

The driver leaned out of his window. And there he sat high up in his smoke-filled cab. He wore a baseball cap, he had a long pony tail, a three-day stubble on his face, and tattoos all up and down his arm. In my normal daily life, he was a man I would have never encountered, and in fact, he was a man I might have avoided, partly because he would be in the smoking section of the roadside diner and I in the non-smoking part, but also because he was so different from me.

His name was Phillip. He invited us into his roomy, smoky cab, There were signs and bumper stickers plastered all over the dashboard, charms dangling from the mirror, and sleeping quarters in the back. And even though he was headed to Grand Rapids up the coast of Lake Michigan, he offered instead to drive us through Kalamazoo, which for him involved a major detour south of Grand Rapids. We climbed back into his truck, and on to Kalamazoo we went. I will always feel grateful for the generosity of this man.

When we told our friends in Kalamazoo about what happened, and about Phil, one of my friends reflected a moment and said, "You know, when I was in Florida with my dad, we passed a man on the street, and I remember thinking to myself, 'Look at that man. What a slob he is.' But when my dad collapsed and fell to the sidewalk a minute later, it was that very same man who was on his knees helping us out. Without him, I couldn't have managed to get my dad off the sidewalk."

I believe that God puts these kinds of experiences in our lives to remind us over and over that those we think are different, those whom we call outsiders, those whom we disdain, are in fact our brothers and sisters. I think of Phil, a man I would have never met, a man, I’m ashamed to say, I would have judged as a type, with his raspy smoker's voice, his tattoos and mismatched nouns and verbs. If Phil walked into your church today, or moved into your neighborhood today, how would he be received?

Today, in scripture, we meet a man who doesn't fit in, a man excluded by the rules of religion. He is an outsider, an African, but most offensive of all, he is a eunuch. The Book of Acts tells us that this eunuch has been to Jerusalem, probably hanging around the temple, probably attempting to worship, trying to fit in where he has already been pushed out.

If the religious institution won't acknowledge him, maybe he can find what he is looking for somewhere else; maybe he can find what he is looking for in the scriptures. Sure enough, after patiently plodding through the law and the prophets, the eunuch is rewarded by reading the Word of God. He stumbles across a passage in the fifty-third chapter of Isaiah which says: "He was led like a lamb to the slaughter, like a sheep before its shearers is dumb. He didn't open his mouth. Justice was denied him. He has been cut off from the land of the living. Who is going to declare his posterity?"

The eunuch, of course, will never have any posterity because he has been cut off. He is sterile; he is without generation. So when Philip climbs up into the Ethiopian's chariot, we can easily guess what the eunuch's first question was. "Philip, who is this one who has been cut off from the land of the living, who has not posterity? Who is that?" The eunuch virtually asks: "Is Isaiah talking about somebody else or is Isaiah talking about me?"

Oh, I can see the eunuch, sitting in the hot sun, sweat pouring down his face, ignoring the intensity of the desert heat, studying Isaiah as though his whole life and future depended on it. The eunuch is saying to himself, "Here is someone else who has been denied a full life, cut off from God and people, condemned to have no generations to follow and remember him." You see, Scripture elsewhere says quite plainly in Deuteronomy 21, "The eunuch shall not have a place in the congregation of the family of God."

Why? Because the eunuch is sterile. This sexless person, by accident, by choice, or by royal decree will never have a family. And because of that he can never enter the temple and praise God with the rest of those who have been blessed with a family.

However, that bad news for eunuchs found in Deuteronomy is not consistent with what Isaiah says. The prophet Isaiah says in the 56^th chapter, "The days will come when the eunuch will no longer say, 'O, I am just a dry stick.' The days will come when the eunuch who loves me and my house and my covenant shall have a name written in my house and my covenant, which shall be better than a thousand sons and daughters and will be remembered forever. "

Now Philip, it "just so happens," is one who has been commissioned to spread the Good News of Jesus, and it "just so happens" he is riding by when the eunuch is reading Isaiah. But as is so often the case when events in our lives "just happen," we know that it is the Spirit of God that has brought these two together. Philip explains to the eunuch that the one who is cut off without posterity, and who was denied justice, is Jesus of Nazareth! "He was cut off, he had no family, no issue, and yet he created through baptism the largest family in the world."

The eunuch sits upright. He leaps from his carriage and jumps up and down with great excitement. "Look," he asks, "what is to prevent me from being baptized?" Now, here is Philip. He hasn't forgotten Deuteronomy 21! And over here is the African, a sterile eunuch, asking to be baptized. Inspired by Isaiah’s good news and Philip’s teaching of scripture, the eunuch asks to be brought into the family.

Now put your eyes on Philip. I imagine that Philip is perplexed, because he’s not sure about the church’s rules on baptisms of Ethiopian eunuchs. But, the eunuch’s desire is powerful, and his eyes relentlessly scour the desert horizon for a glimpse of water. The eunuch cries out: "Look! There's water over there." and he jumps from the chariot and sprints to the water. Old Philip sighs and slowly rises from his seat and whatever uncertainty he had is simply overcome by the eunuch’s powerful desire to be included in God’s plan for salvation. Isn’t it wonderful when spiritual hunger overcomes institutional rigidity? Right there, in the desert, Philip baptized the eunuch. There was water in the desert. At this point Philip disappears from our story, but our Ethiopian friend went on, probably to be the founder of the Ethiopian Church, which still exists today.

Oh yes, there is, as the old church hymn sings, a wideness in God's mercy, but how wide is wide? Is it as wide as a shepherd's heart that risks the lives of 99 sheep in order to find one lost sheep? How wide is wide? Is it wide enough to include as God’s holy ones truck drivers with tattoos and pony tails, folks with different color skin, folks who look like hulks but who pick our fathers off the pavement, folks who are different, as the eunuch was different? How wide is wide? I'll tell you, wider than our own hearts have ever stretched.

Inclusivity is at the very heart of who God is. If you read the story of the Church as it is described in the Bible, it is clear that at every turn in the road when the Church had to spread the word beyond its comfortable walls, it had to be poked and prodded by the Holy Spirit. Friends, I have to confess, I still have to be poked and prodded.

You know, this story of Philip and the Ethiopian eunuch is about the conversion of the Ethiopian. But I think there is another conversion—and that is the conversion of Philip. Out in the desert, Philip discovered that the Holy Spirit broke down one more barrier, overturned his narrow perceptions and prejudices, and kicked open one more locked door. And on I-94, between Chicago and Kalamazoo, the Holy Spirit broke down one more barrier, overturned my narrow perceptions and kicked open one more closed door.

Today, I ask you: How wide is wide? Where will the Holy Spirit take us next? I can tell you one thing, it will prod us and push us like it did with Philip of old until the day when every human being feels welcomed in the all embracing heart of God. Amen.

Interview with Martha Greene
Interviewed by Floyd Brown

Floyd Brown: Your message was inspiring.

Martha Greene: Thank you.

Brown: You really did hit us with some thought-provoking suggestions there: Do not judge unfairly as was the case with Phillip. But many of us in the church still judge people. How can we not be unfair in our judgment and still be practical in the way we approach life?

Greene: I think that we have to be a keen observer of people and I think as we're interacting with people, we have to really listen to the message of our heart, and it's just about like that.

Brown: You mentioned that the eunuch was a little bit disturbed. He didn't know what he could get from the scripture. How do we discern which is the right message that we should illicit from the scripture we're reading?

Greene: That's a very good question. I think what’s important in this story is that the eunuch only came to understand because there was someone helping him understand. To read the Bible in isolation is a difficult thing to do. The Bible was created in community and it's meant to be read in community. We need others to help us interpret scripture.

Brown: We should take it to the church? We should have group meetings?

Greene: Yes, and struggle. The Holy Spirit moves in community and it's in that process of being in community that we can often discern what the Word is saying to us.

Brown: That's a wonderful message and a marvelous thought.