Easter V, Year B
Acts, 8:26-40
1 John, 3:18-24
John, 14:15-21
+ In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
IF WE WERE A MORE CYNICAL PARISH, we would have hired some lawyers and accountants and created an association or an institute to protect Christianity. I certainly don't believe that such an organization is necessary, but with a direct mailing campaign and a sophisticated website, we could be raking it in this week.
On Friday, the Hollywood version of Dan Brown's blockbuster novel The Da Vinci Code opens at cinemas in your neighborhood. The book has sold $45 million copies, and the film could be even more popular. The Da Vinci Code's portrayal of Christianity is false, misleading, ridiculous, and it has upset many Christians.
Last week, The New York Times reported, "Christians have not been this worked up about a movie since Martin Scorsese's Jesus stepped down off the crucifix in ‘The Last Temptation of Christ' in 1988." While I'm sympathetic to these offended Christians, my pride is far too fierce to allow myself to be worked up by a tawdry artifact of popular culture.
I admit that I've not read the book, and highly doubt that I'll see the film. My avoidance derives not from moral outrage, not from disgust by its blasphemy, but from aesthetic disdain. Trusted friends and critics, including non-Christians, dismissed it as literary trash. Indeed, in the few excerpts I've read, the writing is atrocious, laden with clichés.
The Times piece summed up the plot: "two sleuths uncover a conspiracy by the Catholic Church to conceal that Jesus married Mary Magdalene and that the myth of his divinity was written into the Bible at the Council of Nicaea in 325 A.D. by the Roman emperor Constantine." The Church, of course, uses all means possible, including murder, to hide the real truth about Jesus. Although the publisher marketed it as fiction, Dan Brown, the author, claimed in the preface that "his descriptions of artwork, documents, and rituals ‘are accurate.'"
The book proclaims worn out ideas and paranoid conspiracy fantasies. Here's a taste: Jesus is not God, but only human; Jesus married Mary Magdalene; they had a daughter; Jesus choose Mary Magdalene – not Peter – to be the rock upon which to build the Church; Christians should worship Mary Magdalene; Constantine compiled the Bible; the Church did not consider Jesus divine until three hundred years after his death; for centuries the Catholic Church has ruthlessly conspired to cover up the truth.
If I got exercised and heated about absurdities like this, I would've had a heart attack years ago. We should not be surprised or shocked. We're Christians, in part, because the world can be a very silly place, and when we became Christians, we were told to expect hostility to the gospel. We should recall how our Lord faced opposition, even murderous opposition. He never responded in kind. We should recall the Sermon on the Mount – turn the other cheek, do not insult, do not seek retribution, love your enemy.
Cardinal Francis Arinze has encouraged Christians to consider legal action against the film-makers. Archbishop Angelo Amato, a senior Vatican official, recently said of The Da Vinci Code, "If such slanders, offenses, and errors had been directed at the Koran or the Holocaust, they would have justly provoked a world uprising. Instead, directed at the Church and Christians, they remain unpunished." Oh dear, I suppose we should have a pity party. Self-pitying, feeling sorry for ourselves, licking our wounds – perceived wounds – is pathetic. It is not a good strategy for advancing the gospel.
Christians we should be highly circumspect in how we respond to provocations like The Da Vinci Code. We don't want outraged bombast to overshadow our charity and mercy as arguably was the case when ‘The Last Temptation of Christ' was released. Do we really want to look like the Muslims who rioted about the Danish cartoons insulting Muhammad? We should trust God: truth outshines lies, love casts out fear, mercy triumphs over anger, the gospel overcomes hostility.
Many Christians see the movie as an opportunity for evangelism and teaching, instead of righteous indignation; it's a moment to discuss, not dis. That strikes me as a wise, temperate, Christ-like response. We should ask, "Why has the book become so popular? What attracts people to Dan Brown's fanciful ‘history' even though every serious scholar – Christian and non-Christian – scoffs at it? Is its popularity not evidence of a spiritual hunger?" Christians have something to learn here. We won't learn much factual from Brown's book, but it might inspire us to learn more about the Bible and Church history, and even more it might help us to learn about how our culture sees Christianity. That would help us be better evangelists.
Why might people buy into such a preposterous conspiracy theory? Might it have something to do with the Church's steady offering of scandals, be they ordained pedophiles or greedy, self-promoting televangelists? Might it be that frequently the Church is far less than transparent and open? Might it be that Christians sometimes try to stifle debate and discussion? Might it be that Christians often generate more passion about judging people instead of helping the poor and those in need?
For about the first ten years I was a Christian, even after I became a priest, I usually refrained from referring to myself a ‘Christian' because so many people in our culture associate the word ‘Christian' with judgmental priggishness, sanctimony, anti-intellectualism, hypocrisy, and negativity. We should be aware of the way our culture sees us.
The popularity of Brown's take on Christianity might also have something to do with his emphasis on the humanity of Jesus. People may be attracted to thinking of Jesus as a husband and father because too often Christians present Jesus as a remote, aloof divinity, separated from our experience. People may just be suspicious of the Church, figuring that the Church has perverted Jesus.
An important occasion in my conversion came during a comparative religion class in college. I still remember the professor passionately lecturing about Adolf von Harnack, a late 19th, early 20th century German theologian, who argued that the Church had not just distorted the teachings of Jesus, but had perverted the gospel. This was attractive to me. It's hard for people to dislike Jesus, but it's easy to dislike the Church. While I would not endorse much of Harnack's theology today, he engaged me, as it were, in a conversation with Christianity.
The Da Vinci Code can be a great blessing to the Church because it can get people talking about what really matters in life. It can unsettle us and prompt us to learn. We have to be open, willing to listen, to ask incisive questions, to engage in conversation. That's where the Holy Spirit can work.
That's exactly what happens in today's lesson in Acts. Led by the Holy Spirit, Philip engages with the Ethiopian eunuch. They have a conversation. They develop a relationship, and evangelism happens through conversations and relationships. Jesus comes to us through other people. In our relationships, people should be able to see Jesus in us, and we should look for Jesus in others.
In today's lesson, Philip responds to the Holy Spirit. He has good news – the purpose, the joy, the love of God. He is clear about why he follows Christ and how God has blessed his life. That's what he talks about. That's what we should talk about: how God has blessed my life. Every day, we should be able to say, "This is how God is blessing my life."
The Ethiopian eunuch is eager for good news. He's a serious seeker. He's endured much hardship and sacrifice to travel all the way to Jerusalem to worship. He reads the Bible, trying to improve his relationship with God. He's inquisitive and humble and open to ideas. He has a strong desire to learn.
In the context of our own culture, perhaps he'd be reading Dan Brown. Of course, he's reading from Isaiah the prophet when Philip engages him in conversation. Christians interpret the passage from Isaiah that he's reading as referring to Jesus – someone who has been cut off, without voice, humiliated, deprived of justice. Is this not also the story of the Ethiopian eunuch? When we meet people, we should think about where they're coming from, about what life is like in their shoes. Might not the Ethiopian eunuch know something about feeling cut off, without voice, humiliated, deprived of justice?
Deuteronomy tells us, "He whose testicles are crushed or whose male member is cut off shall not enter the assembly of the Lord." (Dt. 23:1) The Ethiopian eunuch's physical condition excludes him. Likewise, his nationality makes him an outsider – cut off. His black skin also made him peculiar. But if the eunuch was reading Isaiah, he knew of God's promise:
Let not the foreigner who has joined himself to the Lord say, "The Lord will surely separate me from his people"; and let not the eunuch say, "Behold I am a dry tree." For thus says the Lord: "To the eunuchs who keep my sabbaths, who choose the things that please me and hold fast my covenant, I will give in my house and within my walls a monument and a name better than sons and daughters; I will give them an everlasting name which shall not be cut off." (Isa. 56:3-5)
The Lord promises to gather in the outcasts and make them joyful in his house of prayer; the Lord promises to make his house a house of prayer for all peoples. (Isa. 56:8,7) The eunuch has hope, and Philip, moved by the Holy Spirit, tells the eunuch the good news that in Jesus God has fulfilled his hope. The Holy Spirit breaks through human barriers and includes all people in God's kingdom. The eunuch seeks God, and God welcomes him.
God is always seeking his lost sheep. He wants every person. Through his Holy Spirit, he calls his Church to reach out to all people, to converse with all people – not just people like us, not only people we like, not merely those who share our values and experiences. The Holy Spirit casts out fear so that, like Philip, we will reach out to the other, to the excluded, to the outsider. The gospel is there for all people, and nothing will bring it down.
+ In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
1. Michelle Boorstein and Alan Cooperman, ‘"Code"
as a Blessing in Heretical Disguise,' The Washington Post, 14 May 2006.
2. Laurie Goodstein, ‘Christian Foes of "Da Vinci Code"
Mull Tactics,' The New York Times, 11 May 2006.
3. Ibid.
4. Ibid.
5. Ibid.
6. I am indebted to an interview of Brian McLaren by Lisa Ann Cockrel
at www.sojo.net, the website of Sojourners. The interview inspires the
next several paragraphs.
7. Michelle Boorstein and Alan Cooperman quote Steve Weidenkopf of the
Diocese of Arlington making this point.
8. These concluding paragraphs derive from Anthony B. Robinson and Robert
Wall, Called to Be Church: The Book of Acts for a New Day,Eerdmans (2006),
pp. 111-131.
© 2006 Lane John Davenport
