A Church attuned to the Spirit of surprise:
In human terms, Philip took the wrong road – and there he was met by the Spirit of God, who showed him why he was in the middle of the desert. And he found himself speaking to someone who was the wrong person, in human eyes. It was the wrong recipient of God’s message; Luke always points us to the Gospel for the excluded. The Ethiopian was a foreigner so could not enter the temple, a eunuch so wrongly considered by the people of his time to be outside God’s purpose. He was doubly outside
Luke’s stories in Gospel and Acts are of refugees, the poor, those of no honour. Seen in hospitals, schools, prisons, rubbish dumps and food centres. Seen here in the past and now.
Yet in God’s eyes there was nothing wrong. This was the right time, right road, right scripture, right person, right opportunity for baptism.
The Bible tells us to be where the Spirit sends us, not by human wisdom, and the Gospel reading shows us the foundation of what Philip was doing.
Great joy to celebrate the new Anglican Province of Alexandria at All Saints’ Cathedral in Cairo this evening. May it draw on the history of the saints and their inspiration; and may it proclaim the Gospel afresh in this generation! pic.twitter.com/vV9b6eQQOH
— Archbishop of Canterbury (@JustinWelby) October 8, 2021