Then an angel of the Lord said to Philip, “Get up and go toward the south to the road that goes down from Jerusalem to Gaza.” (This is a wilderness road.) (Acts 8:26)
The fact that an American woman not named Williams won the U.S. Open Tennis Championships a few weeks ago was notable and brought some attention to Sloane Stephens and her victory. It also brought attention to her coach, Chicagoan Kamau Murray who’s overseeing the creation of a new tennis center on Chicago’s South Side. That may have caught more than a few people by surprise. A tennis center (called “something of a cathedral to youth tennis” by Chicago Magazine) on the South Side? Who knew?
Well, I did. After having gone for a walk.
I finished reading “The Blood of Emmett Till” a few weeks ago and I learned that the church where Emmett’s funeral was held wasn’t far from where I live. I also learned that the church is 14 miles to where he’s buried in Alsip, IL. I decided to go on a prayer walk from the church to the cemetery as a way to “get proximate’, as author Bryan Stevenson encourages people to do (“We cannot make good decisions from a distance. If you are not proximate, you cannot change the world.”) One can read a lot about the challenges facing Chicago’s West and South Sides, but, in contemplating the walk, I realized I had never spent a lot of time in those parts of Chicago. The first part of the walk took me down State Street and when I hit 54th Street, I noticed this large structure being built (seen above) with a sign that said XS Tennis Village. One wouldn’t be surprised to see something like this in some of Chicago’s tonier suburbs or neighborhoods, but, here, it sticks out. Beautifully sticks out.
When people reflect on the story of Philip and the Ethiopian eunuch in Acts 8:26-40, there are natural parts of the passage on which to focus. Philip’s interpreting Scripture for the eunuch. The eunuch asking to be baptized. But when I read this passage the other day, I was struck by verse 26 (shown above). Philip isn’t told to wait for the eunuch to come to him. He’s told to take the wilderness road. And then, in verse 29, when Philip spies the eunuch riding in a chariot, the Spirit says, “Go over to this chariot and join it.” So Philip puts on his running shoes, catches up and asks the eunuch, “Do you understand what you’re reading?” This leads to Philip explaining the Scriptures and leads to the eunuch asking to be baptized. All of this stemmed from Philip’s listening to God’s command to, “Get up and go…”
What is your wilderness road? Is God calling you to the unfamiliar? Whether it’s a walk into the unfamiliar or hustling to meet up with a new acquaintance, I believe God asks all of us to get up and go.