In his book The Compassionate God, the Taiwanese theologian Choan-Seng Song writes about a fractured and divided world seemingly “destined for destruction at our own hands”. Many would agree. However he goes on to remind us that there is an alternative, the creation of a God-sourced “communion of love.” He writes: “As God moves, God suffers with the people, sheds tears with them, hopes with them . . . Until the time when the communion of love is firmly established in the world of strife and conflict, of pain and suffering, God moves on in compassion. We have no alternative but to move on with God toward that vision of a community of compassion and communion of love.”
Such a communion is anticipated in tomorrow’s reading from Acts chapter 8, where we are introduced to a church that brings together human life in all its richness and diversity. It begins with Philip, a disciple of Jesus with a Greek name, representing a cultural bridge between the Aramaic-speaking disciples of Jesus and the Greeks, and extending even further to include a Nubian official from what is modern-day Sudan. Philip with his Greek name represents a significant step outside the strongly anti-Greek elements within Judaism. But the reading takes us into more complex issues as we discover in Philip’s encounter with that Nubian official on “the road that goes down from Jerusalem to Gaza” - described in the reading as a wilderness road – a fitting description that applies to this day albeit for different reasons. The official who was a servant of the Ethiopian queen had been to Jerusalem to worship and was returning home. However we are also told that the man was a eunuch, neither fully male nor female – another way of being. The fact that he had been to Jerusalem to worship is interesting because according to Leviticus 21:20 eunuchs were forbidden to enter the temple. Isaiah 56: 3-5 takes the opposite view, advocating not only access to the temple but full integration into society. Mixed messaging in the bible. However, Philip had no hesitation, deciding that this man, an outsider to some, was worthy of baptism into full membership of the Christian family, Choan-Seng Song’s “community of compassion and communion of love.”
There are lessons to be learned from this story when we reflect on the complex matter of gender identity, a divisive issue in today’s church and in wider society where some exploit populist feelings against LGBTQ people and others in furtherance of their political ambitions. This message sent to an NSPCC helpline by a mother reminds us of the difficulties faced by families trying to support those marginalised by public disapproval and worse: “I’m calling in relation to my teenage son. A couple of months ago I noticed a change in his mood and after a bit he mentioned he’s questioning if he’s gay. I haven’t told my husband yet as I’m afraid how he might react, and I think my son feels the same; his dad has openly made negative comments about LGBTQ people before”. The world can be a very lonely place not only for those who don’t conform to what is generally considered “normal”, but for their families too.
Tomorrow’s epistle from the First Letter of John has a message for the church about making space for those the wider world sees as outsiders as Philip did. It also has a message about how to handle controversy within the church. Probably written late in the first century, a time of bitter doctrinal divisions, the author reminds his readers of the first principles of discipleship. “We love [God] because he first loved us. Those who say, ‘I love God’, and hate their brothers or sisters, are liars; for those who do not love a brother or sister whom they have seen, cannot love God whom they have not seen. The commandment we have from him is this: those who love God must love their brothers and sisters also.”
