Off the Map - Acts 8:26-40

One of the biggest mistakes we make about religion is thinking that it will give us a roadmap for our lives. Whether it’s a set of rules to live by or the answer key to life’s biggest questions, we assume that religion will tell us where we need to go and exactly how to get there. People certainly think of Christianity that way, as a map of good behaviors with a heavenly destination. Sometimes a Christian map also comes with a list of bad behaviors and a different final destination. But I want to propose to you that following Jesus is really more like going off map. He does offer a guide of basic good practices, like loving our neighbors, learning to forgive, and letting go of things that keep us from realizing how much we need God. But that is only the beginning, minimal religious practice if you will. The real adventure begins when we reach the edge of that map and keep going. 

My parents had that kind of adventure on one of my first Sundays here at Christ Church. I was still very new to Arkansas, and this was going to be their first visit. They decided to drive down from their home in St. Louis. According to my dad’s spiral bound Rand McNally road atlas of the United States, and the Mapquest directions I had printed out and mailed to him in advance, the trip would take about 5.5 hours. So they left very early to make it to the 10:30 service. What I didn’t plan for, and they didn’t either, was extra time for going off the map. 

The backstory you need to know is that my parents were faithful Roman Catholics since birth. They raised me in that tradition, and I remember how our entire lives were shaped by that identity. Growing up, I knew that Protestants existed, but I’m not sure I had met any. When I joined the Episcopal Church as a young adult, my parents were wary, but open-minded. And at my ordination, they did their best to wrap their heads around the whole thing and be supportive as their daughter went off the map. Which brings us to their drive to Christ Church, Little Rock.

They were not here by the time the service started. When it was over, I found them in the narthex, looking a little frazzled. It turns out that they made a few wrong turns downtown, somehow opting to drive down a couple of alleys, and ended up at the Catholic cathedral of St. Andrew over on Louisiana. And sure enough, they went in and asked where they could find the priest named Kate. That was met with some confusion in a church that has only male clergy, but they eventually got it sorted out. As I see it, my dad - at least subconsciously - had tried really hard to hold onto the Catholic map he knew, even as he was being called to travel beyond it. For anyone who has had to go off map, you know it’s not an easy thing to do. But in a million different ways, the life of faith is about just that, going off map, past the terrain we know. Otherwise it would be called knowledge, not faith. Faith really begins at the edge of the map, where the search for joy, authenticity, and adventure begins. 

The conversion of the Ethiopian eunuch in the Book of Acts describes faith at the edge of the map is such a beautiful, funny, and moving way. Philip is walking along a wilderness road from Jerusalem to Gaza. Already we know that this story is set past where the usual GPS would take him. The Spirit tells him to chase down a chariot. I’ve never tried to stop a chariot on foot, but I’m guessing it’s not the most graceful maneuver. And the most extraordinary encounter begins. The chariot rider is reading a passage from the Book of Isaiah. He invites Philip into the chariot to interpret the text. In the course of their conversation, the Ethiopian comes to faith. He asks to be baptized, and they find water on the side of the road that will do just fine. He is baptized into the body of Christ, and they go their separate ways, rejoicing. 

There are almost more ways than we could count that that this particular story is off the map. If you’ve studied all those maps in the back of the Bible, you know that they all cut off before reaching the boarder of Ethiopia. Ethiopia is forcing enough to be totally off the map, and Philip finds the guy on an access road that no GPS would pick up. The Ethiopian’s religious identity is off the map, too. He is returning from worship in Jerusalem, so he could be Jewish, or not. The Temple was a tourist destination, much like the National Cathedral today. His economic class is off the map, too. He is both a servant of the queen and in charge of the treasury, riding in an expensive chariot. His wealth is ambiguous. His appearance, too, is probably off of Philip’s usual map. And last but not least, his status as a eunuch seems essential to the list of his off the map qualities. It’s hard for us to know just what that status signified at the time. But we do know this: this is the story of the Gospel of Jesus Christ being brought to a non-cisgender foreigner, now fully included in that holy fellowship. This should give us pause anytime we hear that people should be excluded from the reaches of God’s grace based on gender or sexuality or any quality of otherness. It’s so painful when the maps people use are too small.

There’s one more detail worth mentioning in the story. This scene is one of four conversion stories in a row - right in the middle of the conversions of Simon the Sorcerer, a Samaritan, Paul, a Pharisee, and the centurion, a citizen of Rome. Are you seeing a theme here? The Gospel is reaching far and wide, much further than the disciples originally thought it would, or should. I can only imagine Philip’s surprise when the Spirit told him to chase down the Ethiopian’s chariot. “Really, that one?”

That seems to be how the Spirit works. If the disciples’ adventures tell us anything, it’s that the Spirit constantly drives the good news to a wider and wider world. God’s love for humanity practically chases us down on the road, no matter how far flung we or anybody else is. Grace seems especially directed to those beyond the map. And to those parts in ourselves that we worry are too far off the map to be worthy of love. God keeps reaching further out, deeper in. The Spirit seems to do its best work when things are out of reach or off the map entirely. 

According the Book of Acts, the Spirit draws people together who have no business ever crossing paths. This is deeply hopeful. The Spirit then moves disciples ever outward, ever further off the map. This is also hopeful, given how tiny we tend to draw them. The Spirit keeps pushing, inviting, adventuring, starting right at the edge of the map. Sometimes we’re there due to a wrong turn past the familiar, or because our lives got unsettled, or because we encounter someone or a self God loves before we do, but that’s prime territory for the Spirit. So if you happen to find yourself at the edge of a map these days, take heart. That’s precisely where adventure in the Holy Spirit begins.