Always Room for One More

SCRIPTURE TEXT:  Acts 8:26-38; Rev. Monte Marshall, Senior Pastor

A Place to Call Home is once again our theme for this morning.  A traditional Scottish folk song is the source of a story told in the award-winning children’s book, Always Room for One More.  Lachie MacLachlan, his wife and ten “bairns,” which is a Scottish word referring to “Children midway in age between weans, who are very, very small; and lads and lasses, who are well on the way toward growing up.” 

The place that this family calls home is a tiny hut that the book describes as “a wee house in the heather” with “a fire on the hearthstone” and “porridge to spare in the pot.” 

Said Lachie.  “The weather is stormy,

So me and my wife

And our ten bairns,

Will be sharing whatever we’ve got.’

So he hailed every traveler that passed by his door.

Said Lachie MacLachlan, ‘There’s room galore.

Och, come awa’in!  There’s room for one more,

Always room for one more!”[1]

And so it is in the place called home that God creates for us.  Within the expansive, inclusive, unconditional love of God, “There’s room galore.”    No matter who we are, what we’ve done, where we’ve come from, what we look like, or who we love, there’s an invitation:

“Och, come awa’in!  There’s room for one more,

Always room for one more!”[2]

The book of Acts illustrates the point.  Acts opens with the risen Christ saying to his followers: “But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you; and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.”[3]

The narrative then unfolds, beginning in Jerusalem.  The Spirit falls at Pentecost.  Peter and John preach and heal.  The church grows, primarily among those whose mother faith is Judaism.  But then, opposition arises.  Stephen is stoned to death.  The church in Jerusalem is persecuted.  Many disciples flee Jerusalem.

Phillip, for example, goes to Samaria.  He preaches.  Samaritans respond.  And then we see it:  Along with Jewish Christians, there’s room in the house for those some consider half-breeds and heretics!  

But there’s more.  As the story goes, “an angel of God” speaks to Phillip.  The angel sends Phillip westward to a “desert road” that “goes to Gaza.”  Phillip makes the trip. 

While he’s on the road, Phillip sees a carriage—or a chariot, if you will.  This mode of transportation suggests that the person riding in the carriage is wealthy and of high social standing.

The text tells us that an African is riding in the carriage—a dark-skinned person of color—an Ethiopian to be exact—who is “a court official in charge of the entire treasury of Candace, the ruler of Ethiopia.” 

The text tells us that the Ethiopian is on his way home from a pilgrimage to Jerusalem.  He obviously has a connection to Judaism.  He’s even reading the prophet Isaiah in the carriage on his way home.  As one commentator notes:  [The Ethiopian] may be a Jew attempting to worship at the temple, or he may be a Gentile God-fearer attracted to Judaism.”[4]

In either case, there’s a problem.  The text tells us that the Ethiopian is a eunuch.  Pastor Nadia Bolz-Weber calls him “a gender-transgressive foreigner.”[5]  Karen Baker-Fletcher notes that “In ancient times a eunuch was a castrated male servant who was trusted to perform social functions for royalty….Ideally they were castrated before puberty; therefore they were deemed safe to serve among women of the royal household.  Despite this, eunuchs were stereotyped as sexually immoral.”[6] 

The Ethiopian’s sexual condition apparently matters to Luke.  The Ethiopian is mentioned six times in the Acts text, and is identified each and every time, as a eunuch.[7]

So what’s the problem with being a eunuch attracted to Judaism?  Well, there’s a text in Deuteronomy that excludes eunuchs “from the assembly of YHWH.”  In other words, the eunuch would not have been “granted access to the temple.”[8] 

But notice this, the eunuch is not reading Deuteronomy, he’s reading from Isaiah.  Karen Baker-Fletcher comments that Isaiah contains prophecies that envision “a time of messianic blessing when eunuchs and other marginalized persons are free to fully participate in the assembly.”[9] 

Luke specifically notes that the eunuch is reading one of the Servant Songs from Isaiah that speaks of “sheep being led to slaughter.”  “You have been humiliated,” the text says, “and you have no one to defend you.”  A eunuch would understand this suffering.

So as the carriage carrying the Ethiopian eunuch passes by, what does Phillip do?  Does he let the eunuch go on by as if to say: “Sorry, but there’s no room for this one in the house?” 

No, that’s not what Phillip does.  The Spirit says to Phillip, “’Go up and meet that carriage.’”  And that’s exactly what Phillip does.  He hears the eunuch reading Isaiah.  “’Do you understand what your reading?’” Phillip asks. 

The eunuch wants a teacher so he invites Phillip into the carriage.  The eunuch asks: “’Tell me, if you will, about whom the prophet is speaking—himself or someone else?’”  Phillip then explains “the Good News about Jesus to him.”

And this brings us to the last part of the story.  As the carriage continues along the road, the eunuch sees water and he asks: “’Is there anything to keep me from being baptized?’” 

Some folks might have said yes, but not Phillip.  Phillip orders the carriage to stop.  Both Phillip and the eunuch go down into the water, and Phillip baptizes the Ethiopian eunuch.

So there we have it.  There is nothing to keep this eunuch from being baptized.  His social status is no hindrance.  His national affiliation is no hindrance.  His ethnicity is no hindrance.  His gender is no hindrance.  His sexual condition is no hindrance. 

So I ask you:  Is there room for one more in God’s household?  And the answer is YES!  Is there room even for an Ethiopian eunuch?  The answer is YES!  There is always room for one more.

And when the church understands this, amazing things are possible.  Let me tell you about Nadia Bolz-Weber and the church she serves.  Nadia is a Lutheran pastor, but she doesn’t look or act like most Lutheran pastors I know.  She’s over six feet tall with short, salt-and-pepper hair.  She’s heavily tattooed.  She has “a tendency to swear like a truck driver.  And she was once a standup comic with a big drinking problem.”[10]  But Nadia knows the good news: There’s always room for one more in God’s household, even one more like Nadia. 

Before seminary and ordination, Nadia discovered her call to ministry when she delivered a eulogy for a friend who had committed suicide.  She says “that while addressing the crowd of academics and queers and comics and recovering alcoholics” at the funeral, she realized:  ‘These people don’t have a pastor, and maybe that’s what I’m supposed to do.’”

Well, Nadia went to seminary and she was ordained.  When it came time to decide where she would serve, she said this to her bishop:  “’Look, you could put me in a parish in the suburbs of some small town, but you and I both know that would be ugly for everyone involved, so how about I just start one?’”  The bishop said, “’Yeah, that sounds better.’”

So Nadia founded a congregation in Denver, Colorado called the House for all Sinners and Saints.  “[Her] congregation includes LGBT people, people with addictions, compulsions and depression, and even nonbelievers.  ‘Some churches might have a hard time welcoming junkies and drag queens, we’re fine with that,’ she says.”[11]

After the Denver Post did a feature story on Nadia and the church, the congregation of 40 or so, doubled overnight.  Suddenly, “’bankers in Dockers,’” were showing up, and 65-year-olds from the suburbs, prompting what she calls an ‘identity crisis.”

“’It was awful.  I just looked around, I was like, ‘Man, these people could go to any mainline Protestant church in the city and see a bunch of people who look just like them.  Why are they messing up our weird?!’” she says.

Nadia called a meeting to discuss the invasion of her ‘indie boutique of a church.”  Nadia reports that during the meeting, “Asher speaks up…and says, ‘As the young transgender kid who was welcomed into your community, I’d just like to say that I’m really glad there are people here who look like my mom and dad because they love me in a way my parents can’t right now.”[12]

This is how Nadia understands her role:  “’My job is to point to Christ and to preach the Gospel and to remind people that they’re absolutely loved.’”[13]  Amen to that!

So here at Travis Park United Methodist Church, in this place that we call home, isn’t it true?  “‘There’s room galore.’”  Within the expansive, inclusive, unconditional love of God it doesn’t matter who we are, what we’ve done, where we’ve come from, what we look like, or who we love, there’s an invitation:

“Och, come awa’in!  There’s room for one more,

Always room for one more!”[14]

Thanks be to God!  Amen.