SOPHIA ROOKSBERRY
Staff Writer
No two success stories look the same. While some feature impressive statistics and heaping accolades, other stories of success require only two players in the simplest settings. At the 9:15 a.m. Wednesday morning worship service in the Amphitheater, the Rev. Anna Carter Florence, Ph.D., argued in favor of smaller-scale accomplishments, using a familiar lens for the Chautauquan congregation: engaging in meaningful discussion.
“We don’t always get to choose our conversation partners, do we?” Florence said. “Sometimes they are inexplicably, yet blessedly, chosen for us to help us relearn everything we think we know about success and everything else, too.”
Titled “The Wilderness Parable,” Florence’s sermon drew from Acts 8:26–40 and centered around Philip the Evangelist, who began as a deacon but became a preacher after the martyrdom of Stephen in Jerusalem.
Philip was the first in the church to venture into new territory, and despite his lack of experience, he managed to convert a whole city of Samaritans. As the preacher responsible for the church’s “first big missionary success,” Philip was expecting an assignment of great severity when an angel of the Lord descended with another mission for him. Rather than a major city like Caesarea, the angel sent him to the middle of the desert on the wilderness road between Jerusalem and Gaza.
“For Philip, this had to be a blow — disappointing, discouraging, even baffling,” Florence said. “This angel was assigning him to a deserted stretch of road without a single village, which is not how church bureaucrats today usually respond to preachers who get results. No human being in their right mind would do such a thing, which is our cue to immediately suspect that the Spirit is involved.”
Sure enough, Philip soon encountered an Ethiopian eunuch — specifically, the treasurer for Ethiopia’s queen — sitting in a chariot reading from the Book of Isaiah.
“While Ethiopians were considered to be the most beautiful of peoples in the ancient world, his complicated gender identity, which would have included forced castration, and the laws in Palestine … concerning eunuchs — they were outcast in every sense — placed this man clearly on the outside of everything Philip was in his world,” Florence said.
Although Philip was hesitant to approach the eunuch and at first spoke to him with reluctance and disdain, the man in the chariot responded with a humble request for guidance as he continued his journey through the Scripture.
“[‘Guide’] doesn’t mean ‘explain,’” Florence said. “It doesn’t mean ‘correct.’ It doesn’t mean ‘enlighten.’ In Greek, the word means ‘lead,’ as you might do in a really crowded room with a friend who is threading your way together through it toward the exit or the light. In other words, the eunuch is not asking for a lecture. He’s looking for someone to walk with him through a crowded space as a friend.”
As Philip walked through the Scripture beside the eunuch, he preached to him as he had to the Samaritans. After their reading was complete, the eunuch scanned the horizon and, in the middle of a barren desert, miraculously found water and asked to be baptized. Philip obliged and, in doing so, learned how effective a simple conversation between two humans can be, no matter how different the cloths they are cut from.
“When we have someone to guide us, to walk beside us, to muddle through with us, it is easier to believe that God’s grace is for everyone,” Florence said. “Everyone, even us. This is a good story to read when we need to remind ourselves about that, or about what success is about. It’s not about accolades, success. It’s not about numbers. It’s about the one person who is waiting for us on a wilderness road with a chariot built for two.”
Robert Wilson Black, director of religion at Chautauqua, presided. The Rev. Richard D. Meadows, Jr., priest-in-charge of St. Philip’s Episcopal Church in Annapolis, read the Scripture. Organ Scholar Owen Reyda played “Andante” by François Benoist for the prelude on the Massey Memorial Organ. Roger Chard sang “American Anthem” by Gene Scheer, accompanied on piano by Maurita Holland. Also on the Massey Organ, Reyda played the postlude, “Toccata from Symphony No. 5” by Charles-Marie Widor. Support for this week’s chaplaincy and preaching is provided by The Mr. and Mrs. William Uhler Follansbee Memorial Chaplaincy and The Alison and Craig Marthinson Endowment for the Department of Religion.
