Here’s an interesting excerpt from an Easter sermon on inclusion given by “the sarcastic Lutheran.”

As many of you know, last week Seth and I attended the Rocky Mountain Synod assembly – the legislative body for this region of the Lutheran church.  For more than 10 years my denomination has been talking about human sexuality.  Much like the early church who were convinced that gentiles could only become Christians if they changed into being Jews first (which, for the record, involved a rather unpleasant process), much like our first century brothers and sisters there is a segment of the church today who thinks that if we extend the roof of the tent to include “the gays” then the whole thing will come crashing down around us.  We must “evangelize” them – ie. change them into us before they will fit. Or else the roof can’t hold.  Meanwhile the other side of the church is all about “inclusion”.  We must extend the tent to include the marginalized, the less fortunate the minorities.

    But then we have this story of Phillip and The Ethiopian Eunuch.  A text which I have always heard as being about evangelism. “The conversion of the Ethiopian Eunuch” it was called.    I was always told that the message of this text was that we should tell everyone we meet about Jesus because in doing so we might save them.  We might convert them.  We might change them into being us. 

But today I’m not so sure.  Because if the Eunuch was reading Isaiah as he returned from Jerusalem having gone there to worship – see if he was reading Isaiah then I would bet he was also familiar with Dueteronomy, specifically 23:1 “No one whose testicles are cut off or whose penis is cut off shall be admitted to the assembly of the Lord” Anyone have that one as a memory verse growing up? This law strictly forbids a Eunuch from entering the assembly of the Lord.  Their transgression of gender binaries and the inability to fit in proper categories made them profane by nature.  They do not fit in the tent.  But the Eunuch went to Jerusalem to worship despite the fact that in all likelihood he would be turned away by the religious establishment.  The Eunuch sought God anyway.

You can link to the whole thing here.