Moved By Light

Text

Philip guides the Ethiopian Eunuch. Acts 8: 26-40.

Sticky Note Version

Interruptions keep us from assuming we know how the story ends.
They're what we pray for with “Thy Kingdom Come.”
Interruptions keep us translating written Word into life.

Pray: I welcome God…transforming me and this world with interruptions.

Sermon

I have a lot of stories to tell about all the surprising ways God is at work in this world, but the most important thing I'll say today is this: God wants into your story. And your story isn't over. Don't think you know how it will end yet.

God wants an invitation to interrupt your life, even if you think the ending is already written.

A friend of mine had that happen. He was in hiding from persecutors, when he woke up one morning to find an angel on his bed. Sad news is, this guy is dead: I've only met him in a book. Good news is you can meet him there too.

(This is my own, very free translation from the Greek. I weave it into preaching while reading from a major translation.)

26 An angel of the Lord said to Philip, “Get up and go down south. Walk on the road from Jerusalem to Treasure City [aka Gaza].” (It's wilderness there, desert, the middle of nowhere, the haunt of Spirit work.) 27 Philip got up and got on the road.

Philip got interrupted. He was hangin' out in Samaria avoiding Saul. Now an angel says, “Cancel your appointments. You need to go to the other side of Jerusalem.”

Interruptions. Don't you love them. One minute you're at work, trying to get on top of things. Then the phone rings and an hour and your day changes.

I have a friend named John. John lived what I dreamed of in college. In 1987 went to Papua New Guinea (PNG) to translate Scripture for the Arop people. Things were going well and John probably had a timeline for how things needed to go. Then in July 1998 they got interrupted. Most of you have lost a file on a computer. Some of you have lost a computer. But they lost the translators' village. Tsunami–three waves–wiped the village out. Files, computers, houses, friends, one translator, washed away.

Okay, back to that desert road.

On that road traveled the Secretary of the Treasury of Ethiopia and his entourage. [Yes, he was a eunuch. Moderns aren't sure what to do with that. We tend to fixate on it or ignore it. It just means he was was trusted with things close to royalty, so close that there had to be no question about him affecting the royal bloodline and no question that he'd want to sieze power and start his own dynasty. In some ways, it was a like a top-security clearance, but the dues were higher. And yes, he served queen titled or named Candace, who was probably in charge of all things physical in Ethiopia while the king took care of all things spiritual.] The secretary had been on his face, a.k.a. worshipping, in Jerusalem 28 and was now riding his bullet-proof Mercedes with the bullet-proof windows rolled down because they didn't really have glass back then.

And this important guy was getting interrupted…by ink. He was reading Isaiah 53:

32…“He was led like a sheep to the slaughter,

and as a lamb before the shearer is silent,
so he did not open his mouth.
33 In his humiliation he was deprived of justice.
Who can speak of his descendants?
For his life was taken from the earth.”

He might be reading it in his second language or his third. But he understands enough to know he doesn't understand. But he is stopped because of that line, “Who can speak of his descendants?” because it reminds him of himself. (Boys and girls, eunuch means he can't be a daddy. Ever.) He's rich, but no line. And here Isaiah is talking about somebody who is really important, but can't have kids, and unlike the Secretary, is completely powerless.

It amazes me that Scripture time and again has that power to stop me in my tracks. To halt a caravan. To come into a day and turn it on end.

Back to John Nystrom. Village washed away. Disaster, right? Of course. But when they rebuilt the village inland a bit it became a center for translation. Soon 11 related languages had started translating Scriptures.

Good news, right? Of course, but it also caused problems. Making a Bible takes a lot of work. Pick yours up. Easy to buy, isn't it. Now, go make me one. In fact, make me 500. I don't mean buy them. I mean, make them. And while your at it, paraphrase a version for second graders. We'll split it up by rows. You see the problem. It takes tools to manage a project like that. More so with 11 of them.

That's where people like Brian and me come in. The shape of Bible translation has changed so much since I first dreamed of doing it. I can't boast of “my work.” Not really. I'm on a team of four people who write software that helps indigenous people make Bibles. People get disappointed when they ask where I live and I tell them. But I work in 800 places with over 2400 people who make Bibles for languages with populations over 1 billion (that's not outlandish when one of the languages is Mandarin and another is Arabic. We support both minority and majority language revisions.).

And Brian…well, he's pretty amazing. There are a lot of people in this world whose Scriptures he has helped bring into print. He is uniquely skilled at starting, training, and finishing translation projects. We need ten of him.

So, back to the jungles of PNG. John has an exploding number of projects, and he has found ways to help them all get the job done. Great news, right? Well, now we've got another problem: roads. In PNG, roads and airstrips get erased. Interrupted again. Problem, right?

Back to the desert of Judea. Important Ethiopian is scratching his head about Isaiah when suddenly there's a commotion. He hears that unmistakable ka-chunk-chunk of a Browning because they guy riding shotgun really is riding shotgun, and he's pointing it out the window. Somebody was running towards the car until that very atttention-gettting sound stopped him. Here's why:

29 The Spirit told Philip, “Stick to tha car like dust.” 30 Philip ran to the Mercedes, heard the official reading Isaiah, and asked “Mr. Secretary, you probably don't understand what you're reading, do you?” 31 “If no one points me down the road to understanding, I'm lost,” the official said, opening his car door. “Why don't you join me?”

I'm not sure Philip had a lot of options at this point.

So Philip sat in the car with the Secretary of the Treasury of Ethiopia, 32 who was reading Isaiah 53: 34 “Tell me, please,” said the official, “who is the prophet talking about, himself or someone else?” 35 Philip began with Isaiah and explained the whole awesome story about Jesus.

Now, do you think anybody there thought their day would go like that? Do you think John Nystrom knew that a tidal wave would result in the huge problem of too many Bible translation projects?

That's the beauty of interruptions. They keep us from thinking we know how the story ends.

Back to the jungle. John wrote this in 2008:

As we work to finish Luke, there are so many chapters being changed at once that our very limited email link can't handle the volume. The translators are about to begin another translation workshop on Oct. 27th. We advisers have not seen their files from the last workshop, so they have no input from us as they begin the next workshop. We can't help the translators if we can't get the files.

Earlier this week, Arop translator Emil Ninkure left Arop village to go to Aitape town to try to mail a CD with the files on it. When he got there he found that the local post office is closed at least until the first of the year. This means we probably will now have to wait until after this next workshop to get the files. Even then, I don't know how we are going to do it.

I'm here to tell you that as we speak, my boss is in the Arop village doing the final testing on a fix to that interruption. I could tell you God showed us a way to train army ants to go between the villages just carrying the words that were changed, dipping their feet in ink, and writing the corrections in the other translators Bibles while carefully filing notes on the changes. I could tell you that, and you'd think I was lying, but if you turn those ants into electrons, it's not far off.

The really cool thing, is that fix resulted in our team finding a way for it to work for people around the world. In February I finished a global warehouse for translators. March and April I'm working on ways to make backups of that warehouse. In May, I hope to go to South America with Brian to help teach people to use it.

One of my obstacles is time. I'm half-time. I hope to ramp up to 3/4 time.

Hey, almost forgot about Philip.

36 Seeing signs for a rest area by a lake, the Secretary said, “There's water ahead. Do you have any good reason not to baptise me? No?” Then he tapped the driver and said, 38 “Stop the car!” He and Philip down into the water. Philip baptized him. 39 When they up, the Spirit of the Lord snatched Philip away. The secretary never saw him again. But a new life path had opened before him, and stepped onto it with joy.

That is why we do what we do. The goal isn't Scripture; it's disciples. But Scripture has this unique property: people meet Jesus in it. It happened then. It happens now.

I wonder how Philip would have answered, “Where do you work?” “Well,” he might say, “I've been living in Samaria, but at this moment, I'm in the Judean wilderness. But, truth be told, I've been working in Ethiopia.”

Can you imagine what effect the second highest official coming to Christ had on Ethipia? The Ethiopic church is one of the oldest and richest branches of Christianity, and legend is, that it started that day on a desert road.

So. You think you know how this story ends. But it's not done with you yet.