Let’s be clear from the very start. This was never

supposed to happen. Nearly every piece of this story is

all wrong.

The place—all wrong. A wilderness road between

Jerusalem and Gaza far from anywhere the apostles

expected the gospel to go.

The people—all wrong. Afterall, Philip was a deacon. He

was supposed to be serving tables back in Jerusalem,

not leading Bible studies in the desert. And as for this

outsider, his name appears on no approved list of

baptism candidates.

The process—all wrong. There is no committee. There’s

been no session vote, no statement of faith carefully

reviewed in advance.

And yet here they are. Philip and this unnamed

Ethiopian official, sitting together in a chariot on a road

to nowhere, reading Isaiah out loud and asking what

these ancient words mean for them now. And then, on

this wilderness road in the middle of the desert, behold!

There is water. A stream flowing through the desert. As

if someone knew they were coming.

Theologian Justo González calls Acts the fifth gospel—

Matthew, Mark, Luke, John, and the Holy Spirit. And the

Spirit, in the ancient church as in ours, is a disruptor, a

kind of holy menace. The Spirit often sends us places we

would never choose to go.

The Ethiopian is powerful, a treasury official serving in

the courts of the queen of Ethiopia. He has gone to the

right places and asked the right questions. Still, it is not

enough. The laws of Leviticus and Deuteronomy are

explicit on this point. He is categorically excluded from

membership in the community of faith. Not because of

his beliefs. Not because of his character or his spiritual

practices. Not because of his personal piety. But

because of who he is. His body is the border. People like

him stay outside.

Which means that what Philip should do, good deacon

that he is, is clear. What he should say here is carefully

prescribed. If faithfulness means guarding the boundaries

he’s always known, he should gently, pastorally explain

that the grace of God has its limits, and that this stranger

on the road—as well-meaning as he might be—falls

outside those limits. That is what the institution would

require. But just watch what the Spirit does.

The passage he is reading when Philip catches up

to his chariot is Isaiah, Chapter 53. We call it “the

suffering servant” passage. Led like a sheep to the

slaughter. In his humiliation, justice was denied him. His

life is taken from the earth.

Philip asks the man, “Do you understand what you

are reading?”

“Well, how can I understand it unless there’s someone

to explain it? To guide me? About whom does the

prophet write these words? Is he talking about

himself? Or about someone else?”

The Ethiopian eunuch is asking what the text means.

But underneath, he is asking something deeper. He is

asking whether this story—about one who is humiliated,

denied justice, excluded—whether he could belong in

that story. He is asking, “Is there a God in the universe

who knows what it is like to be me?”

Philip begins to tell him about Jesus—God in flesh the

world would reject. And there on that desert road, with

the scroll of Isaiah unrolled before them, something

Rev. Christopher A. Henry

Senior PaStor

Acts 8:26-40; Isaiah 56:1-8 May 17, 2026

7700 North Meridian Street • Indianapolis, Indiana 46260 • SecondChurch.org • (317) 253-6461cracks open. He does not wait to be invited or examined.

He does not submit a proposal or a statement. He sees

the water—that stream that has no business being on

a desert road—and says, “What is to prevent me from

being baptized?”

I find it the most direct, urgent, and vulnerable question

in the entire Book of Acts. There’s such a tenderness

to the question. What is keeping me out? What wall

separates me from the grace I now understand?

And here’s the truth. The technical, legal, institutional

answer to his question is: everything. The list of barriers

separating him stretches a mile long. Philip—well-versed

in the ancient texts—could recite them all. He could list

them one by one. What is preventing you? How much

time do you have?

But something in Philip has cracked open, too. And so,

this deacon, this servant of the Lord, wades into the

water without pausing to consider what the apostles

back home would think. The Spirit has gotten there

first. Now Philip knows. But you should know that God

was not improvising there on the desert road. God was

already on record. If Philip had turned three chapters

further in the book of the Prophet Isaiah, he would come

to these words in Isaiah 56, words that name the eunuch

specifically—name the ones the law excluded—and

promised them a place within the walls.

My house shall be called a house of prayer for all people.

I will give them a name better than sons and daughters.

The foreigners shall come from the north and the south

and the east and the west. My house is for all people.

In other words, the Spirit on the desert road was not

changing God’s plan. The Spirit was fulfilling God’s plan.

The Spirit was not breaking the Bible. The Spirit was

teaching Philip how to read it through the lens of grace.

Over the years, I’ve heard sincere, well-meaning people

I love and respect say, “I want to be more inclusive. I

really do. But the Bible…” If that’s where you are, you are

not alone. Many of us were taught that taking scripture

seriously means drawing lines that limit the reach of

grace. Letting go of that—even questioning that—can

feel like losing your footing.

A mentor once asked me, “Do you think it is possible to

overestimate the love of God?” And something in me

cracked open.

Here is what years of careful reading have taught me:

the Bible is not the obstacle. The Bible is the reason.

From the moment God called a wandering people

and promised to bless all nations through them, to

the prophets who extended welcome to the discarded

and the dehumanized, to Jesus gathering an unlikely

group of followers to form a church with no walls, to a

Spirit who shows up on a wilderness road—the whole

arc of scripture bends toward a welcome wider than

we imagined.

The Bible has held up this truth all along. The Church is

still catching up to the wildness at the heart of its own

book. And the Spirit keeps moving—whether we are

ready or not. Sometimes the Spirit must move us out of

the way.

John was a lifelong Baptist from the deep south. He

taught Sunday school for thirty years. He was the kind

of man who had the scriptures memorized, and he

believed every word of them. I loved John. He lived close

to the Presbyterian church I served in Atlanta, and he

had begun attending just before I arrived there. As soon

as he started attending the church, he also started a

new Sunday school class. In a matter of months, it grew

to be our largest Sunday school class. We called him

John the Baptist from the deep south.

One Monday morning, John the Baptist asked to

come and see me. It sounded urgent, so we met that

afternoon. He sat down in my office, and he let out a

deep sigh. He asked if he could pray for us. Then, after

his prayer, he shared his concern. He said, “Pastor, I

need your help. Two women have started coming to my

Sunday school class. A couple. I don’t know what to do.

This isn’t what I grew up with.”

I asked him, “Well, John, what do you think you should

do?” I had no idea what John would say.

He sat with my question for a moment. He knew the

scriptures. John the Baptist believed every word of them.

THE IMPERATIVE OF INCLUSION

7700 North Meridian Street • Indianapolis, Indiana 46260 • SecondChurch.org • (317) 253-6461After what felt to me like an hour, he said, “I’m not sure

what I think. But I’m pretty sure I know what Jesus thinks.”

“What’s that, John?”

“Jesus thinks they belong right here. In fact, he’s

probably the one who brought them. Maybe to change

my heart.”

The couple joined the class, and then joined the church.

They were lifelong Presbyterians. They knew the

scriptures. Lived every word. Together the class opened

the words of scripture and listened to each other’s

stories, and over the course of years they built strong

and faithful community together. In fact, two years later,

the couple brought their daughter to be baptized in our

church. We needed an elder to stand with the family at

the baptismal font. The Spirit had been preparing for

that moment all along. Every scripture we read. Every

story we shared. Every step that was taken. And guess

who stood at that font. John the Baptist. It was never

supposed to happen. It was the most joyful baptism I

can remember.

That’s how this story ends. It ends with joy. The eunuch

goes on his way rejoicing. The Spirit gives us his

baptism as a charge to the church, a witness to what

happens when the walls come down.

There are people in our city, and in our pews, who

have spent years—some, decades—standing at the

border of belonging. Religious voices have claimed

Biblical authority to put their story, their very identity,

outside the grace of God. Too often, these voices have

sounded like our voice. Too often the church has not

only witnessed those walls; it has built them, and it has

defended them.

There are people in this space and who hear the sound

of my voice who know what it is to ask the eunuch’s

question deep in the privacy of their own hearts. Is

there anything in this story for me? Is there a God in the

universe who knows what it is like to be me?

And the answer to that question is yes. This story

belongs to you. You belong to this story. And the Bible is

the reason.

This is the church we need to be—what it looks like

when we follow the Spirit. There will be moments that

make us uncomfortable and even afraid. Imagine Philip

standing on the water’s edge. This was never supposed

to happen. When those moments come, listen deeply to

each other. Trust that the God of the wilderness road is

with us.

When we make space for those the world pushes to the

margin and space for the ones who thought they knew

where the lines were drawn, we are not going further

than God intends, we are catching up to where the Spirit

has always already been.

Our children are watching to see if we mean it. Our city

is watching to see if it’s true. The danger was not that

Philip went too far, overestimating the love of God. The

danger would have been staying on the shoreline. And

as it was, so it is today. The risk is to resist the call of

the Spirit.

There is an old spiritual the Black Church has been

singing for generations, shaped by faithful souls who

faced the worst of human power and held fast to the

promise no oppressor can withhold.

Plenty good room.

Plenty good room in my Father’s kingdom.

Just choose your seat and sit down.

Many stand at the border of belonging, wondering if we

really mean it. We mean it. There is room in this place.

Now, what is there to prevent us? Amen.