As St.Luke tells the story in Acts, the Jesus movement began to ripple out. After the martyrdom of St. Stephen the persecution of the followers of Jesus causes them to move away from Jerusalem. At first they spread the message in Samaria — among Jews who were not well regarded by the Jerusalem elite. The next ripple is described as the encounter between Philip and the Ethiopian eunuch. This ripple showed the spread of the early Church was pretty dramatic — to Africa, to someone whose sexuality was suspect, to someone who was likely a convert to Judaism. (The Jews who settled in Egypt after the destruction of the kingdom in the sixth century B.C. were not reluctant to welcome proselytes.) Our lesson: we must find ways to welcome those who are different from us into the mercy of the gospel.
