When Differences Aren’t Barriers

Yesterday morning at church, we were thinking about the story of Philip and the Ethiopian… Philip, recognised to be a wise, godly man is appointed, by the church in Jerusalem, to distribute food fairly to the poor and needy in the local community… operating an early foodbank.

…Philip unexpectedly meets an Ethiopian eunuch, financial expert, an important politician. We thought about how different they were – in colour, social class, sexuality, background, culture, values… However, their differences aren’t barriers. The Ethiopian is transformed.

After church I had conversations with to several friends… people like me – my age, with my faith, people I’ve known for years. They were very comfortable conversations. I often talk to people like me – in age, interests, background…

I looked up and saw Christine chatting to Faith. Christine is a white, disabled, older, often troubled, lady in a wheel-chair; Faith is a lively, talented, intelligent teenage girl of colour. It was plainly evident that their differences weren’t barriers.

Musing…

Looking back… Conversations with Roman Catholic nuns… with Jacob, who I used to know as Wendy… with John and a bunch of strangers around his mother’s dead body. In each case I was with people very different from me, totally out of my comfort zone, but each encounter – that I believe was God-arranged – changed me.

Returning to the story… God had arranged this most unlikely of meetings between Philip and the Ethiopian. It often happens in the Bible – David, the teenage shepherd country-boy, meets Goliath, the experienced soldier and Philistine giant… Esther the Jewish orphan meets Xerxes the Persian king via his hareem… Jesus, the godly Jewish bachelor rabbi, meets the Samaritan woman who has already had five husbands and is on her sixth…

Today… I’m expecting to meet a number of folks I know well, folks that I’m comfortable with. It will be easy. But perhaps… there may be someone I don’t know, very different from me, whom God’s arranged for me to meet unexpectedly. It could change us both!