Introverts and HIPAA Rights

Now there was an Ethiopian eunuch, a court official of the Candace, queen of the Ethiopians, in charge of her entire treasury. He had come to Jerusalem to worship had come to Jerusalem to worship and was returning home; seated in his chariot, he was reading the prophet Isaiah. Then the Spirit said to Philip, “Go over to this chariot and join it.” So Philip ran up to it and heard him reading the prophet Isaiah. He asked, “Do you understand what you are reading?” He replied, “How can I, unless someone guides me?” And he invited Philip to get in and sit beside him. (Acts 8:28-31)

The impact of this encounter can hardly be overestimated. With this singular act of witness, the congregation of Jesus Christ – up to now an isolated Jewish sect – became a mission enterprise. The Ethiopian Orthodox Church traces its origins to this meeting between Philip the Evangelist and the unknown Ethiopian bureaucrat.

The fact that the Ethiopian was a eunuch enhances the story, although today his condition would have been kept private under the provisions of the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996 (HIPAA). But the man’s unfortunate deficit does make him more memorable than other characters in Acts. Professor Barbara Lundblad of Union Theological Seminary once noted that every time she said “eunuch” in a sermon, men in the congregation would cross their legs, uncross their legs, and then cross them again.

The sparse details in scripture enable us to surmise a few things about our Ethiopian friend. He was probably one of thousands of men who were involuntarily castrated in order to fulfill a particular role in government for which a sex drive would have been inconvenient. Perhaps he was a personal valet to the monarch or a security guard for the king’s wives or daughters. The fact that he was in charge of Queen Candace’s treasury suggests he was exceptionally reliable and good with numbers.

As to Candace: we don’t really know who she was. The name – and its derivatives Kandake or Kantake – are generic references to queens or queen mothers in Nubia and Ethiopia. Whoever she was, she was clearly formidable fem.

Just what her treasurer was doing on the road from Jerusalem to Gaza, however, is a puzzle. Some scholars believe he was an Ethiopian Jew returning from a pilgrimage to the Great Temple, a speculation supported by the fact that he was reading Hebrew Scripture. That seems logical enough, although Father Peter Elvin, in his blog “Elvin Sermons,” notes that Deuteronomy 23:1 is not devised to make a eunuch feel welcomed to Judaism: “No one whose testicles are crushed or whose penis is cut off shall be admitted to the assembly of the Lord.” Really.

So if the eunuch wasn’t a Jew, who was he?

Some commentators point out that Luke may not have intended the word “eunuch” to be interpreted literally, and one scholar believes the Ethiopian may have been the first baptized gay Christian.

Other scholars see the color of the Ethiopian’s skin and his country of origin as evidence that the doors of the early church were wide open.

Dr. Jack Rogers, a Presbyterian Bible scholar, writer and seminary professor, wrote the Ethiopian “belonged to a sexual minority who was not fully welcome in the worship community of Israel.” Rogers exulted that “the fact that the first Gentile convert to Christianity is from a sexual minority and a different race, ethnicity and nationality together form a clarion call for inclusiveness, radical grace, and Christian welcome to all who show faith.”

According to Luke, Philip pounced on the Ethiopian’s chariot just as the man was reading the passage from Isaiah, 53:7-8.

Like a lamb that is led to the slaughter,And a sheep that before its shearers is silent,So he did not open his mouth.By a perversion of justice he was taken away.Who could have imagined his future?For he was cut off from the land of the living,Stricken for the transgression of my people.

Who, the Ethiopian asked, is Isaiah talking about? And Philip “proclaimed to him the good news about Jesus.”

All of us have grown up equating these prophetic Old Testament passages with the coming of Jesus the Messiah. I’ve often wondered if Philip was the first to make this connection in open testimony. No where in Isaiah is Jesus mentioned, and there is a school of thought that the writer was referring to himself in these passages.

But Philip gave the passages a powerful new exegesis that turned this African man into a believing Christian. It was a brilliant interpretation.

And then, just as the Ethiopian decided to begin a new life in Jesus, he looked down from his chariot and saw a puddle. The inexplicable appearance of water in the desert must be one of the more understated miracles in the New Testament, but the Ethiopian took it in stride. “What is to prevent me,” he asked, “from being baptized?”

This story leaves me in awe of Philip’s unhesitating initiative – not just his responsiveness to the direction of the Spirit, but because he overcame his crippling introversion. I surmise he was an introvert because as soon as he baptized the bureaucrat, “the Spirit snatched Philip away; the eunuch did not see him again.” (Acts 8:39).  This is exactly what an introvert does: disappear as soon as possible after the public exposure is over and blame it on the Holy Spirit.

In our family, introversion is common. Among our six offspring, only Katie is gregarious enough to initiate conversations with strangers. Within seconds she will ascertain a person’s name, age, birthday, marital status, basic health history, favorite singer, and the number of relatives they have named Katie. We try to discourage Katie, who is on a particularly loquacious point of the autism spectrum, from talking with strangers on public conveyances, especially airplanes where she is especially attracted to nervous passengers who hold the plane up with their white knuckles. Katie would have been all over the Ethiopian bureaucrat.

Neither Martha nor I have Katie’s outgoing nature. When we preach on Sundays, we don the role of an extrovert just as the Cambridge-trained Hugh Laurie assumed the persona of a gruff Dr. House when the cameras rolled. Role playing can be exhausting, and that’s one reason Martha and I look forward to Sunday afternoon naps. If the Spirit ordered either of us to chase after a eunuch in a chariot, we’d probably drag our feet and wave silently until it disappeared over the horizon.

I’ve always had a secret admiration for door-to-door evangelists, in part because I’m not wired to do it myself. I tell myself I’m too shy, but perhaps the reality is that I just don’t think fast enough on my feet to argue a perfect stranger to faith.

I’ve always regretted this weakness, and as we erstwhile born again Baptists know, nothing is more aggravating to born again Baptists than born again Baptists who can’t knock on doors to invite folks to be born again.

But one’s effectiveness as an evangelist is not determined by where one falls on the Myers-Briggs personality test.  There is a story told by a pastor who hosted Billy Graham to his city for an evangelical crusade. Billy arrived early, and the pastor suggested they stretch their legs in a stroll around the neighborhood.

Billy agreed, and the two men began their walk. As they passed yards and doorways, the pastor had an inspiration.

“Let’s knock on doors!” the pastor said, imagining the look on people’s faces as they saw the great evangelist on their porch. “Let’s hand out tracks and ask people if they know Jesus!”

Billy stopped walking and thrust his hands in his pockets. “Aw,” he said uneasily. “I’m just not very good at that.”

Sensing he had made a faux pas, the pastor changed the subject and the two walked on until it was time to drive to the stadium for the evening crusade.

There may be a lot of reasons Billy Graham was not comfortable knocking on doors and handing out tracks. Probably it’s not easy to do that when you have one of the most famous faces in America. And maybe this man who stood thousands of times in front of a microphone before 75,000 people was shy.

If Billy Graham is not wired to knock on doors to invite unsaved individuals to be born again, that’s fine with me. I don’t think anyone doubts his ability to bring inquiring souls to the hour of decision about where they will spend eternity.

He has his special gifts for witness, and door-to-door evangelists have theirs.

And who’s to say which style of evangelism is more effective – preaching to the multitudes or jumping into a moving chariot to whisper in the ear of an influential official?

According to church tradition, Philip the Evangelist (not to be confused with the Apostle Philip who walked with Jesus) did both. Before he ran into the Ethiopian, Philip was the first to preach the Gospel in Samaria and he continued preaching in coastal cities all the way to Caesarea, where he retired with four unmarried daughters. Twenty-four years later, when the Apostle Paul stayed in Philip’s home at the end of his third missionary journey (Acts 21:8-9) the Gospel of Jesus had taken root around the known world.

Part of that known world extended south to the horn of Africa and beyond. That the Gospel was planted there was due not to Philip’s eloquent preaching but to a quiet conversation he had in a chariot in the desert between Jerusalem and Gaza.

That is powerful news to us introverts.

And a gentle reminder to all of us that when the Spirit says go: Go!