Rev Neil Whitehouse
May 2, 2015 sermon
‘Why are you here?’
Reading : Acts 8:26-40, Philip and the Ethiopian eunuch
‘Why are you here?’ is a question I asked to myself when I was called by this church, to be your minister today.
‘Why are you here?’ Is a question I wish to ask you.
‘Why are you here?’ Is a question the Ethiopian Candace must have asked when he finds a stranger, Philip, is able to answer his questions.
For myself I am glad to be here, very glad. It is the fifth beginning in my pilgrimage of ministries and as time goes on it is easier for me to realise how this has not been in my control.
I have to admit that several other scenarios have come into my head asking this big question: ‘Why are you here?’ Sidney Poitier in ‘Guess who is coming to dinner?’ – (otherwise put, Why has our nice white daughter fallen for a black man?), or at times when there is such a rich-poor gulf across the world, the scenario from Charles Dicken’s Oliver Twist, as Oliver dares to approach the Beadle serving food for ‘more please’, or Dorothy in Wizard of Oz, finally arriving at the end of the yellow brick road, to demand aid from the all powerful wizard.
Dorothy has been taken up by a whirlwind – to find ‘ this isn’t Kansas anymore!’ which echoes with the story in Acts and Phillip being taken by the Spirit.
Like Dorothy, I am a long way from home: I was ordained in 1992 in Newcastle England as a British Methodist minister, after working three years for the Methodist Association of Youth Clubs (MAYC) and training in London and Cambridge. Although people have often said to me, you don’t look like a minister! (which I take generally as an intended compliment) I have in fact had a long and thoroughly mainstream formation, in fact I count myself extremely privileged to have met and worked with some of the finest Methodist leaders, lay and ordained. In that sense, I know I owe a debt to the founder John Wesley (Here is a bust of him). Wesley was conservative and radical, even ahead of his time, insistent on good education and the importance of spiritual experience, and I carry these many facets too.
But I should go further back to my childhood and adolescence; I was born in Wolverhampton in the English midlands, the youngest in a family of four, my parents and sister who is two years older. We were taken to the local Methodist church founded in 1926 which had a large Sunday School and Youth Club. It was thanks to this MAYC group, Questors, that I had my first spiritual awakenings and became counter-culture to my peers, taking an interest in Church. I ended up leading the Questors Sunday night programme.
As a school boy I wanted to make a positive difference to the world through biology and entered Liverpool University studying Marine Biology, ultimately taking Zoology. On my 19th birthday, I was walking down the residence corridor and the phone rang. For some reason I decided I would pick up, and help someone get their message, but the call was for me. My mother, saying Happy Birthday, but also that I had been invited to join a new international youth exchange programme, going to the Caribbean. I said yes, went to Jamaica and the Bahamas, and ended up working for the Church nationally organizing this programme for three years, my first paid employment and part of the national MAYC staff team, touring the country with a global vision. (Here, I still have my plaque).
At the end of this I chose to live for two years in Notting Hill London, mixing with some of the disadvantaged youth who were homeless or Christian youth discriminated because of their sexuality, and also as (student) prison chaplain. This included working briefly alongside the great Rev. Lord Donald Soper, with a mentor Leslie Griffiths, also future President and Lord, and Ken Howcroft who is currently British Methodist President. Who would have thought!
One thing about Wesley is that he was authoritarian, and the structure of the church still places or ‘stations’ ministers where they will work. So after 3 fantastic years in Cambridge University, I was stationed in north London, Gospel Oak and served five years there in a group of four churches, mine being the smallest community, similar to WPUC today.
Towards the end of that first appointment I invited my boss, Chair. of the District, to travel by bus into the heart of London, to tour Soho and take on the vision I had for a social and spiritual centre for the disaffected LGBT community. It came true and my second appointment was five years running this charity in Soho, including organizing after-care for bomb victims when a gay pub next door was attacked, killing 3 and injuring 85.
I took sabbatical in 2001 including re-visiting Montreal and meeting United Church reps. for the first time, just here at Presbytery Offices, and 6 months later I had moved; to serve Rosedale-Queen Mary United Church, in NDG, for nearly ten years, and thence McGill Ecumenical Chaplaincy for four. During that time, just as St Paul was a tent-maker, I became a massage therapist, a second career that has already helped bring security and balance and new insights to my life as a minister.
So this is some of my journey, that helps me answer ‘Why I am here’ So many changes, choices, events, and so much beyond control.
Now its your turn. Why are you here?
As you get to know me you will realise I often will expect you to answer questions during a sermon, but lets start gently and I ask you an easier question. How long have you been worshipping here?
More than a year, five, ten, twenty, thirty years? Less than a year?
Are you here for the first time, visiting? I have a request for you.
Please come back, and ask a friend to come with you!
Just as it was conversation that changed lives long ago, we trust the same is true today: all churches will invite visitors back but this invitation for each of us to take, whether we are new or longstanding here, is to join us at a special time of regeneration, to be new as I am new, to grow in qualities and share in a journey none of us can control or predict, as God is at work.
Members old and new, we shall listen to the Spirit of God, moving us in conversations, friendships and service. ( and Lets share our own Why are you here at coffee time.) Did you notice that it was a meeting of old and new in the dramatic story of the Acts of the Apostles we read today: the Ethiopian official in his chariot invites a complete stranger to sit with him and discuss God.
What a surprise, even shock, it must have been for this pilgrim to find his reading of the ancient text of Isaiah provokes a bold confident interruption from Philip. this man must have asked himself, what was going on ‘Why are you here?’ Who sent you?’
We have no explanation why the Ethiopian official is already dedicated to the Jewish religion. But his identity as a foreigner and a eunuch is significant. For all his devotion, he could never enter the heart of the Temple to which he made pilgrimage. The nearer he was, the more conscious he would have been of being excluded, limited to the outer Temple precinct, the court of the Gentiles. Going home, reflecting, it was comforting to turn to Isaiah, because it has a bigger vision of global inclusion: then Philip arrives, not the Apostle, but a Christian chosen to take the story of Jesus to Samaria. The official is struck by the story Philip shares with him, he recognizes its truth and asks to be baptized.
I want to pick out features of this conversation that do not rely upon the historical accuracy, that do not place unbelievable events in the way of hearing and following the Gospel today. The Christian message took root in Samaria and Ethiopia, in violent and volatile times. It was an extraordinary message of peace, not revenge.
There was a correspondence between the risks and courage of the first followers of Jesus and Jesus himself. It was a way of vulnerability, weakness and yet humble truth, a truth that individuals were clearly trusting their lives to: and finding it worked, it brought hope and forgiveness, friendship and love; people yearned to share this beauty; each person following The Way knew it was not their private special experience but something primal, for a new humanity, all inclusive, neither Jew nor Gentile, open. – the Spirit was as free as the air, all need to breathe.
We too live in vulnerable times, a weakness in being Church, shared anxieties for the future locally and globally, but we speak of the same story of Jesus and The Way and find ourselves in it, blown by the Spirit, grounded in Love.
And this, is why we are here today.
Thank be to God. Amen.