The Ethiopian Eunuch. What an unexpected Scriptural character he is. He is far outside of the bounds of religious acceptability. As a eunuch he was either born with ambiguous genitalia or he was castrated before puberty. He may have been castrated by choice, but the far more likely explanation is that he was castrated so that he could work alongside a female ruler or chosen to work beside a female ruler because he was born intersex. The fear was that court officials still remaining fully male would try to have a child with the female ruler in order to start a new dynasty.
We are told that the Ethiopian Eunuch was in charge of the treasury of a female ruler. Being a eunuch and a court official was a mixed bag. On the one hand he probably had a great deal of wealth and responsibility. The eunuch was literate, so was fortunate to receive an education. On the other hand, the Ethiopian eunuch also could never marry and have children. Hormones were not understood in that day and age, so there were likely long-term health implications for eunuchs. And last but certainly not least, society treated eunuchs as second-class citizens, even if they had wealth, education, and access to power. A eunuch would look and sound like neither a man nor a woman and as such would exist outside of the gender norms of the day and therefore would always exist somewhat outside of their community. Roman society, not unlike our own, conceived of gender in binary terms—you were either male or female, with nothing in between tolerated. There may have been some tolerance for women transitioning to become men, likely because maleness was seen as the norm and as superior to femaleness, but not much tolerance for men who were in some way more feminine or of a gender identity different from the accepted binary.
This binary view of gender was also true in ancient Judaism. Both Leviticus 21:20 and Deuteronomy 23:1 kept men with crushed, mutilated, or missing genitalia from full participation in Israel’s worship. The Ethiopian Eunuch may have travelled to Jerusalem to worship, but it is very unlikely that he was allowed to actually worship in the binarily gendered space of the temple. Men on one side, women on the other and no ambiguous people allowed in.
And yet, it is to this one who lives outside of the norms of society that the Holy Spirit sends Philip. And when Philip finds the Ethiopian Eunuch, he finds a person reading a scroll from the prophet Isaiah. The prophet who in chapter 56 of the book of Isaiah envisions redemption and inclusion of the sexually ambiguous, inclusion of the eunuch. Isaiah wrote:
3Do not let the foreigner joined to the Lord say,
“The Lord will surely separate me from his people,”
and do not let the eunuch say,
“I am just a dry tree.”
4 For thus says the Lord:
To the eunuchs who keep my Sabbaths,
who choose the things that please me
and hold fast my covenant,
5 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
that shall not be cut off. Isaiah 56:3-5
We often talk about the conversion of the Ethiopian Eunuch, but I wonder if he was the only one who experienced conversion in that chariot that day. Surely Philip knew the prohibitions listed in Leviticus and Deuteronomy. Surely Philip was a man of his culture and time. And yet he talks with the Eunuch, and when the Ethiopian eunuch says, “Look, here is water! What is to prevent me from being baptized?” Philip responds with an immediate “nothing!” He doesn’t require the Ethiopian eunuch to change, be healed, or do anything. Philip accepts him exactly as he is.
I don’t think it is an accident that this story is in our Scriptures. I think the Holy Spirit was calling those first Christians and every Christian that has lived since then to take down the boundaries we use to divide people into groups—into insiders and outsiders. Following Christ was a radical act 2000 years ago and it still is today. We may like an ordered world in which people exist in very defined roles, such as man and woman, but this is not the world God wants, this is not the world God is dreaming into existence.
If you have paid attention to the news lately, you will have noticed a lot of headlines about legislation in various states around our country seeking to limit the rights of people whose sexual identity, gender identity, or sexual orientation are outside the categories that we have liked to think of as “normal.” According to the website translegislation.com, attempts to block basic healthcare, education, legal recognition, and the right to publicly exist for transgender and nonbinary people through legislature in this country have been growing at an alarming rate.
In 2021 there were 143 bills brought forward in state legislatures with 18 passed. In 2022 174 bills with 26 passing. In 2023 600 bills were put before state legislatures with 87 passing. In only 4 ½ months into this year there have already been 547 bills brought forward with 24 passing. For example, the state of Idaho passed legislation this year stating that there are only 2 legal genders, male or female. Another Idaho law regarding bathrooms states:
Requiring students to share restrooms and changing facilities with members of the opposite biological sex generates potential embarrassment, shame, and psychological injury to students, as well as increasing the likelihood of sexual assault, molestation, rape, voyeurism, and exhibitionism.
I have read the research and the science. All of this legislation is trying to solve problems that do not exist. There is no evidence that minors are being forced by mentally unstable parents to undergo transition care. There is no evidence that people are calling themselves transgender in order to sneak into bathrooms to see members of the opposite sex. There is no evidence that transgendered women are flooding sports and winning all the competitions or that cisgender men are pretending to be transgender so that they can go through long, expensive, and often painful transition therapy that is not completely reversable, just so they can get an advantage and compete against women instead of men.
What there is evidence for is the harm that is done to young people when they aren’t supported in their journey to understand themselves and their gender identity. There is evidence that playing sports as a child and/or adolescent contributes positively to social development, feelings of belonging and inclusion, development of individual and corporate goal-setting skills, and a general sense of well-being. After all, isn’t that why we have our kids play sports—or have we gotten too caught up in winning and losing?
Think for a moment about sports. The only divider we use in this arena is gender, and yet there are many things that give one person an advantage over another. Perhaps we should only allow people of average height and hand size to play on basketball teams, since being tall and having big hands gives you an advantage. Maybe Michael Phelps shouldn’t have been allowed to compete at the Olympic level as his larger than normal lung capacity gave him a great advantage in the world of swimming. Why is it that gender is what we get caught up in and is it perhaps time to widen our boundaries and understanding? And most major medical and psychological associations agree, including the American Academy of Pediatrics and the American Psychological Association. These groups oppose all of the anti-LGBTQ legislation appearing in our state legislatures, because they know the science and they don’t believe the myths.
We also know that throughout recorded history and since time immemorial, cultures other than those cultures arising from Western Europe, have recognized, revered, and integrated more than two genders. Hundreds of indigenous societies around the globe still retain their own long-established traditions for three, four, five or more genders. For example, the Navajo culture has a gender category called nadleehi, or two spirits. A nadleehi is not a boy who wants to be a girl or a girl who wants to be a boy, but instead is someone who is both a boy and a girl. Native Hawaiian culture has a third gender category called mahu, or those who embody both male and female spirit. In cultures that have a third gender category, these two-spirited individuals are revered and called upon to perform critical spiritual and religious functions within their communities.
Being a follower of Jesus is not always comfortable. Even our God is nonbinary: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit will frequently take us places we don’t want to go and challenge us to be open to people we are accustomed to excluding. But what we always need to remember is that God made the tent big enough for each of us in spite of our foibles, weirdness, sinfulness, and imperfection. The only response to the grace God has granted to each of us is to open our arms as wide as we can and to show the same grace to everyone we meet, no exceptions.
And the eunuch said, “Look, here is water! What is to prevent me from being baptized?” He commanded the chariot to stop, and both of them, Philip and the eunuch, went down into the water, and Philip baptized him.
Amen.
