To Azotus – and beyond!

Philip was found at Azotus, and passing on he preached the gospel to all the towns till he came to Caesarea.

Acts 8.40

Buzz Lightyear… does this name ring any bells with you? He was one of the characters in the computer-animated film called “Toy Story”, and, as his name suggests, he was a spaceman. The little boy’s original favourite toy had been a wooden puppet cowboy called “Woody”, and part of the film’s plot revolved around whether the boy would turn his affection to the spaceman toy because he was more modern. Just like the Methodist Church, the boy was seduced by fresh expressions of puppets and new ways of being toys!

I remember one Christmas Day, a small but rather revolting child had brought his own Woody toy – a Christmas present – to the village church to show him off to the assembled gathering. The cowboy-toy, if you pressed his stomach carefully, would talk to you, with strident phrases like, “Howdy, partner!” The small but rather revolting child proceeded to do this throughout the service, and his larger but equally revolting parents did nothing to stop him.

Eventually, by the fourth carol or so, the child tired of this game, and tried to push his head through the bars of the chapel chair in the row in front of him. He succeeded, and, rather satisfyingly, got his head completely stuck. This, I thought, was a happy scriptural outcome to his misconduct… vengeance is mine, etc… Now, having been trained properly many years previously, I know how to extract a child’s head from bars or railings when it finds itself stuck therein… but I didn’t tell his parents how to do it… well, not immediately anyway. After they had panicked for a while, I showed them how it was done. Well, it was Christmas, after all.

Why am I telling you all this? It is a story that still makes me laugh, every time I remember it, and because Buzz Lightyear also had his own catch-phrases, one of which was: “To infinity, and beyond!” In my slightly surreal mind, Philip the Deacon in the Acts of the Apostles was a sort of first century Buzz Lightyear… “To Azotus, and beyond!”

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The story of Philip the Deacon is absolutely fascinating – and even more absolutely fascinating than you originally thought. Philip, one of the original seven deacons appointed by Saint Peter and the Apostles when they later realised that time prevented them from having both a ministry of preaching and of prayer and a pastoral ministry, is apparently not on a pastoral mission but on a preaching one – “he preached the gospel to all the towns…” The apostles had gone north to preach, but Philip decides to go south, on the road from Jerusalem to Gaza. His puts his decision of direction down to divine inspiration: “an angel of the Lord said to Philip…” On that road, he encounters the treasurer of the queen of Ethiopia, returning home after a pilgrimage to Jerusalem. Gaza was an old city of the Philistines, as was Azotus, which lies twenty miles to the north of Gaza.

Ethiopia, in the telling of this story, approximates to the area known as Nubia, and lies on the River Nile to the south of the Kingdom of Egypt. So the Ethiopian treasurer is making his way from Jerusalem to the Mediterranean coast, and thence via the Nile delta south and back home, thus avoiding the necessity of crossing the desert of Sinai.

Philip, after his momentous encounter with the Ethiopian, now changes his direction to the exact opposite compass bearing, and heads north, to Azotus, and thence through towns on the Mediterranean coast until he reaches Caesarea. After travelling together for a while, during the course of which Philip gives the Ethiopian all that is necessary for him to have a complete change of direction in his life and religious faith, the two separate and the distance between them rapidly increases as each now travels in opposite directions.

What exactly had Philip the Deacon offered to the Ethiopian? He gave him a full understanding of the scriptures, beginning with the foretelling of the Old Testament and continuing into the proclamation of Jesus Christ, which would form the substance of a New Testament. After that, he offered him a sacrament of baptism, so that the Ethiopian could begin his journey of new faith. The duration of their journeying together was of little importance. What happened whilst they journeyed together was all that counted. And what happened was all that was necessary to change a life. Philip went on in a completely different direction to tell the gospel in other places and to other people… to Azotus, and beyond!

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I frequently think of the people whose good and faithful lives changed my life in the most fundamental ways. I feel very blessed that I can count many people as having a significant influence upon my Christian faith. Let me just tell you briefly about two who gave my life something of the motivation that Philip the Deacon gave to the Ethiopian.

Howard Marratt taught me New Testament studies in London for four years when I was an undergraduate. His brilliant scholarship and inspiration, telling me about the theological giants of the twentieth century and helping me to understand the gospels in responsible, scholarly ways, not only prepared me to take my degree, but persuaded me that I did not need a fairytale faith in order to maintain a Christian pilgrimage into my adult life. As an old man, Howard Marratt declined into senile dementia and thence to his death, a cruel fate for such a brilliant mind. But I shall never forget him, though I walk the road still and he is home.

Gordon Wakefield was principal of my theological college for just one year (up to his retirement) when I was undertaking my ministerial training. He was one of Methodism’s very few true saints and scholars of his age. I was so impressed with his ministry that I asked a fellow student, “Why has this man never been President of the Methodist Conference?” to which the reply came, “You have got to be a Methodist to be President of the Methodist Conference!” It was apparently an old college joke. As a Methodist, Gordon was so ecumenical that many people thought that he was an Anglican. Indeed, the Archbishop of Canterbury had granted Gordon a Lambeth Doctorate of Divinity for his ecumenical work. But Gordon showed me and inspired me to discover and use the priestly aspects of my Methodist ministry. He faded into old age and death, pottering about the library of Lichfield Cathedral. But I shall never forget him, though I walk the road still and he is home.

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The duration of your travel together on the Christian road is largely irrelevant. What you share during your travel together is all that counts – that and what you do afterwards with the inspiration that springs from it. Pilgrims and travelling preachers pass on. That is what they have always done… Philip was found at Azotus, and passing on he preached the gospel to all the towns till he came to Caesarea. Do something with what you shared and were given whilst we travelled together. That is all that matters.