Transcendence: The Gospel for the Marked
Acts 8:26-40
When I first arrived in Victoria after being called to Broad View United in 2022, one of the things I was most excited about was attending the Moving Trans History Forward conference at UVic.
One fascinating lesson I took from the conference was Julia Serano’s keynote speech on the Marked People—marked, marginalized and excluded. They are seen as questionable, illegitimate, or extraordinary, and because of their unexpected or remarkable traits, they are subject to intense, often hostile, scrutiny.
In Donald Trump’s second term, shaped by nationalism and economic protectionism, the logic of exclusion marks people as enemies of the state. Trump’s executive orders are swiftly carried out against those who are marked. Transgender members. Unauthorized immigrants. Those who challenge his power, or his toxic vision of a ‘pure’ America.
Even if policies like deportation, troop deployment, and enforcing a binary view of gender do not stem from broad social consensus—or if voters did not fully grasp their consequences when casting their ballots—support for them persists. Therefore, we must ask difficult questions—not simply because the United States is our neighbour, nor merely because its tariff threats impact Canada’s economy and society, but because, as the world is caught in the turbulence of this storm, we must consider what kind of nation, global village, church, or community we should envision and build—and what the Hebrew Scriptures and Christian Gospel teach about these matters with “agony and questions.”
Who are the marked—and therefore suffer—when the storm of nationalism and economic protectionism sweeps across our lands? Who comes under attack in the name of economics? Social scientists already warn us: these executive orders are not truly about economics. Beneath the rhetoric of national economic stability lies something much deeper—exclusion. Society’s apathy is invoked, a word that literally means “nonsuffering”—the avoidance of, or inability to, suffer or recognize the suffering of oneself and others.
This kind of exclusionary nationalism is not an anomaly—an odd or unlikely exception that surfaced under Donald Trump, as if it had no precedent. Rather, exclusion has been a consistent force throughout history—across the Western world, the so-called First World, the U.S., Canada, and beyond.
Gale A. Yee lifts the veil to reveal the full menu of exclusion in “Of Foreigners and Eunuchs: An Asian-American Reading of Isaiah 56:1-8” (2011). She notes that immigration policies have grown increasingly intolerant and exclusionary, targeting immigrants and refugees as the foreign “Other”, subject to discrimination, harassment, and violence. From bans against Middle Eastern refugees to futile attempts to build border walls, these measures fuel ethnocentric fears. Asian-American history offers stark examples: the 1882 Chinese Exclusion Act not only barred new immigrants but also led to violent expulsions known as “the Driving Out.” The most extreme form of exclusion came during World War II, when Japanese Americans and Japanese Canadians, even those born here, were forcibly interned, reinforcing the stereotype of Asian Americans as “perpetual foreigners.”
In this story, the Eunuch is the marked one. Luke introduces this new convert to Judaism with three key markers. First, he is an educated court official of Candace, queen of the Ethiopians, overseeing her entire treasury—a figure of power and wealth. He travels by chariot, a detail Luke repeats three times, emphasizing his status; he has a driver at his command. He reads from an expensive scroll of Isaiah, indicating his literacy and resources.
Yet two other markers define him even more than his chariot. He is a Eunuch and an Ethiopian. Luke calls him a Eunuch five times, marking his gender-liminal identity—a figure who disrupts the male/female binary. Greco-Roman literature describes Eunuchs as “neither male nor female,” existing between genders, unsettling societal norms. Seen as unmanly, soft, or effeminate, they served female rulers—here, the queen of the Ethiopians, not a king—symbolizing subordination to a woman.
The final marker: his Ethiopian identity. In the Greco-Roman world, Ethiopia represented the very edges of the known world, a place at the margins of “civilization.” Ethiopians were perceived as barbarians, either demonized or idealized, their “burnt faces” and dark skin marking them as somatically different from Roman citizens.
Let us examine the social background of the Isaiah passage that the Eunuch reads and inquires about in today’s scripture. The Eunuch asks, Who is this “Sufferer” Isaiah describes—the one who, like a sheep, was led to the slaughter? The one who, in his humiliation, was denied justice? The one whose life was taken away? Who is this “man of suffering” in Isaiah 53—the one so marred in appearance as to be beyond human semblance, wounded, crushed, despised, and rejected?
In ancient Israel, Hebrew Scriptures such as Leviticus and Deuteronomy prohibit two marked groups from public, religious worship. These were not allowed to enter the temple: The foreigners and the Eunuch. For example, Deuteronomy 23:1: “No one who has been emasculated by crushing or cutting may enter the assembly of the Lord.” Additionally, there were three kinds of categories of “foreigners” in ancient Israel. “Get”: who resides in Israel and enjoys certain legal protection and inclusion in worship and community. “Zar”: not only foreigner, outsider, stranger, alien, but one whose strangeness is threatening. Then, “Nekar, ben nekar, and norky”: the non-Israelites who were forbidden to worship in the community and excluded from the temple.
The Ethiopian eunuch in today’s scripture did enter Jerusalem and worship. However, it is very understandable that he still finds connection to the sufferer he was reading about in Isaiah.
‘Like a sheep he was led to the slaughter,
and like a lamb silent before its shearer,
so he does not open his mouth.
33 In his humiliation justice was denied him.
Who can describe his generation?
For his life is taken away from the earth.’
I can imagine the Ethiopian eunuch thinking, and feeling the suffering in himself and in the sufferer in the reading: This sounds like me. This is my story. Who is the prophet writing about? Because this one walks in my sandals. This one is in my place. I must know—who is the prophet writing about?
In truth, the heart of the Ethiopian eunuch and Philip’s encounter lies in the agony and question that suffering’s intense presence provokes. In Silent Cry, Dorothee Soelle explores the nature of suffering. What is suffering, and how is it experienced? Soelle asks, “Does not suffering always mean that I am exactly not what I do when other powers are doing something to or against me?” When external forces strip one of their authentic self and agency, suffering manifests—physically, spiritually, and socially. This Ethiopian Eunuch exists at the intersection of multiple margins: non-Roman, non-Jew, gender-transgressive, foreign. He navigates all of it on the wilderness road between Jerusalem and Gaza, as he returns home, at the threshold of the world he came from.
The book of Isaiah, composed in three sections, was written across different historical periods. First Isaiah addresses the period before the Babylonian exile. Second Isaiah, written during the exile, carries messages of comfort and the prophecy of liberation and return. Third Isaiah reflects the realities of post-exilic Israel, urging religious and social reforms, the rebuilding of the Temple, and a renewed vision of faith.
The post-exilic reality was far from the anticipated glory and peace. Though the Israelites had returned from Babylon, they faced deep internal divisions and hostility from surrounding groups. Religious purity laws intensified. In this context, Third Isaiah strongly emphasizes care for the poor and the oppressed, calling for the inclusion of foreigners—declaring that foreigners and eunuchs belong to God’s people. This marked a significant theological shift within the Jewish tradition.
Just as Christians and our contemporary society wrestle with similar struggles, the Hebrew Scriptures and Jewish communities contain distinct traditions—particularly evident after the return from exile—where an ethnocentric consistency of exclusion stands in tension with a prophetic consistency of inclusion. In Third Isaiah, various social groups compete to design Israel’s future after the trauma of exile. During this time, foreigners and eunuchs were excluded from the post-exilic Yahwistic community due to isolationist policies enforcing ethnic and religious purity—including bans on interracial marriage. Eunuchs were further marginalized for their perceived foreignness and strangeness.
Yet, in a dramatic and radical move, the prophet Isaiah calls for their inclusion, urging the community to pursue justice.
Countering the exclusionary laws written in Leviticus and Deuteronomy, Jewish scriptures elsewhere—Ruth, the Wisdom of Solomon, and others—proclaim a limited kind of inclusion, open to those who are already familiar. Remarkably, Isaiah delivers a radically different vision: in the coming days, God will bring all people to the holy mountain—including foreigners and eunuchs. Traditionally the Eunuchs lament that they are “just a dry tree”, those who will have no offspring. However, God declares through Isaiah: Yahweh will give each one a “monument and a name” which will be “better than sons and daughters" as well as "an everlasting name that will never be cut off.”
In our times—just like the community after the Babylonian exile—we cannot avoid asking: What kind of society, community, church, and vision of faith should we build? What hope for social action should we cultivate? Even in the era of Trump’s second term, we cannot deny or delay the inclusion that flows from the prophetic tradition of Yahweh’s justice. We must resist the exclusion that marks, rejects, and expels.
We cannot ignore the three categories of “foreignizing” in our society: Ger, Zar, Nekar. In the name of economics—but in truth, driven by the relentless force of exclusion—certain people are marked, excluded, and deported. Who are they in our context? How do we envision a post-exilic hospitable community and society, and where do we find its foundation? What do the Hebrew Scriptures and the Christian Gospel teach us? What is the Gospel for the marked?
In the ancient world, the third category of foreigner—Nekar—along with eunuchs, was pushed to the margins. Who are their counterparts in today’s global village? Just as widows, orphans, and foreigners were included in God’s vision of justice, so too must Nekar and eunuchs, be part of the community we dream of building.
In today’s reading, the eunuch, in rejoicing, declares, “Look, here is water! What is to prevent me from being baptized?” With his own agency, he embraces God’s liberating inclusion—one that centres the oppressed and transcends destructive powers like slavery, racism, xenophobia, and transphobia that mark people – both those being excluded and those who choose to exclude.
Gale A. Yee, in her 2011 article—more relevant now than ever - continues:
“Between 2009 and 2013, approximately 1.5 million unauthorized immigrants from Asia resided in the U.S., making up 14 percent of the total 11 million undocumented population… Although many of these immigrants may not be Christian, Isaiah 56:1-8 urges churches to provide a safe, hospitable space for them as they navigate the trauma of their various passages.”
In a world that is increasingly fearful of ‘the marked’, what kind of society should we envision? Must we write terror, fear, and exclusion into the very fabric of our country’s economy, our morals? The marked, the excluded, those deemed questionable, contestable, illegitimate—what will our response be?
Just because all of this is happening not in Canada, but in the United States, does that mean we can delay participating in this suffering and building a vision of faith and community?
This era, strangely enough, seems to demand or force apathy from us—as if living the best version of non-suffering is the best we can do. The suffering of others remains their suffering; we do not hear the silent cry. We do not see the lamb led to slaughter. We do not hear the one who, before its shearer, is silent.
But to see the crucified and risen Christ in that silenced lamb—that is the courage of the Christian. And that is honesty.
A very wise person once said: Do not seek to assume answers. Create generous space, welcome agony, and embrace the question as strategy.
We are called to walk the “wilderness road” (v. 26), the path of compassio (suffering with the crucified Christ and all who suffer.) Without compassio, there is no resurrection; together the inseparable path of compassio and resurrection, we walk the affirmation of love. Right now, we walk in the night. Yet, in this darkness, we carry the bright light of the suffering, compassionate, inclusive God.
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