The Church is Rooted and Growing
Acts 6:1-15
When I was a student pastor, and servicing in my first church in a pastoral role, one of the members of the church told me that she decided when she turned 70 years old she could say whatever she wanted, whenever. When I met her, she had been practicing this way of living for some years. And she had committed to it. And you know before I even tell you that the primary things that she was saying were not compliments, or encouragements. No, what I remember are the complaints. These would come up in phone calls during the week, in meetings with no warning, or as an aside Sunday mornings. With distance, I have learned to appreciate that she at least came to me, and didn’t just stir trouble. I also appreciated that she clearly cared very much about the church that she was a part of. I learned to frame it like that, and not take things so personally.
But I will tell you, there were moments when she started talking that filled me with dread, “ What is she going to say about me/the church/the children/some member this time?”
I thought about her when I read that the widows were starting to complain in the earliest church in Jerusalem. It made me wonder if they complained a lot. They had a lot to be upset about. First as widows. It’s upsetting for anyone to lose their spouse or children. But these women, without a husband or sons, had nothing. They had no way to support themselves, feed themselves, care for themselves. And woo on them if they have only young daughters--it cost money to marry off a daughter. And you need her to marry, or you all will be stuck. Widows might beg for money or sell themselves.
It’s why the Torah Laws require that the Jewish people care for the widow, don’t neglect the people with nothing. It’s not her fault.
AND they weren’t from Jerusalem. They weren’t from Palestine. They were Hellenistic, they spoke Greek. And it’s possible that they were part of the Jewish diaspora from way back. But that form of Judaism had often adapted, transformed, looked different from the one that had been able to stay close to the temple. They were immigrants, followers of Jesus but different. They had no community support, no nation, no shared first language to unite under.
The Torah also requires the care of immigrant, because they too had been foreigners in a foreign land, they too had been immigrants, don’t forget where you come from and how quickly things can change. Don’t forget about the outside who had nothing.
So, the foreign, dependent, widows, who don’t speak the language, start complaining. And maybe someone rolled their eyes before they even heard what was said. Maybe they just pretended to listen and walk away. Maybe this is just the story in my head but it seems like it’s the way that we, humans today, might or might want to respond.
Maybe someone got defensive and said, “Look lady, I get it, there might be some areas of growth in our food distribution. But you have cut us some slack. We’re doing the best we can. And need people keep coming, we’re growing! This success! So, it’s not going to be perfect. We’ll figure it out in a couple of months… things will settle down.”
And these widows are starving and don’t have a couple of months.
Maybe it was a much bigger issues and way more painful than it is written in Acts--the cleaned up and shortened story. Maybe there were layers of saying something, people to talk to, before it got to the Apostles.
Regardless of the story I’m making up here, something had gone wrong. Someone among the Apostles took it seriously enough to realize they might be in trouble.
Like Jesus’ first draft might have said: Where 3 or more are gathered, there will be conflict.
Not here at Emmanuel, never Emmanuel. But just in case it comes up in the future....
Because conflict is inevitable.
The Greek word for church is Ekklesia--the household. So we consider ourselves family. And the diakonos--the deacons--is the ordering of the kitchen, the food service, the physical care of the family. And families have conflict.
One of the things about churches, about the congregation, about the community, is that it’s about theology, it’s about God.and what we think about God roots us. It defines us, defines our view of self, video of each other, and the whole world. It is super personal.
Some of our beliefs are given and engrained in us as children long before we realized that we could choose what we believe. Those are the days of clear faith, of defined answers.
Some beliefs are soaked up from the world around us, those things that oddly popped up and you don’t know where they come from. During confirmation one year, a student said she didn’t believe that God is an old white man--a belief never taught to her explicitly in that congregation, but just in the ether of world.
And some beliefs newer, are hard fought, grow with effort and maybe pain.
However you have come to what you believe, it’s a part of you. It makes up who you are. And sometimes, it feels like all that you believe could be ask risk if someone says the wrong thing, if something is moved, if a new person walks in, if someone doesn’t share your belief, if someone challenges it.
The building, the worship, the mission service, the communion is the manifestation of those beliefs. They become the focal point of what they mean, how they are lived, how they might be at risk.
I read this week: “The church was born in the tight space between faith and faith and forever lives in that space. Only the Holy Spirit keeps that space from collapsing in on us.”
The Spirit has come into our lives, in our communities, and reminds us hold lightly the way things have always been, because the Spirit brings change.
There are a couple of ways that the historical church responded to conflict and disagreements. In the earliest days of the church they hadn’t worked out what we believed, or unified the details. The Arians had a different idea of how God Parent and Jesus related to each other, they were nontrinitarian. And there were those who thought that God Parent and Jesus were the same, trinity. And in the 300s there were letters written about what they believed and insulting the other side (sounds familiar). And then there were international conferences called, councils, to decide what the truth was. Turns out, the truth was often decided by who had the most powerful friends--like in this case, the Emperor Constantine. It reminds me of 2 of my friends, who were very different, disagreeing about theology on the way to school and the quieter and smaller one looked at the other and said, “Just because you’re louder, doesn’t mean that you’re right!”
Sometimes, our response to conflict is to get defensive, to get loud, to amass the larger group of support, to draw hard lines in the tasteful church carpet, and dig our heels in. Sometimes, it’s to write letters, argue the point, make it personal. These are fear responses, even if we’re too in the moment to realize it. Fear of being wrong, fear of being left behind, fear of being powerless.
And I’m not meaning to throw all kinds of shade on the process our forefathers went through, it couldn’t have been pleasant.
But the other way we find in Acts, which was a more organic but still intentional process.
Everything they were about to do was rooted in their values, rooted in their mission, rooted in the person and the teaching of Jesus. And at the heart of those teachings is relationship--maintaining a community of care for each other.
The disciples framed the complaint as a need, in the context of who they are called to be, in the mission that they have been called to. This isn’t about the outsiders needing something, this is about equity in the community and living fully into the call of Jesus to care for the least of these. Maybe then it’s not a problem but a challenge to live fully into who Jesus was calling them to be.
The Apostles knew that they way things were couldn’t continue. They had been doing everything, leading everything, and things had become overwhelming. People had to eat! It’s in part of why they loved the message of Jesus, sometimes it’s why people come to church. And they had this inconvenient problem most churches want of uncontrollable growth. But growth of any kind is complicated, and requires change, and helps to have an open heart to see the situation from the other’s perspective, and through the lens of teachings of Jesus.
The disciples considered what they had around them. Jesus spoke of abundance and abundant living--they lived in a way that there was enough for everyone. What if they already had enough? What were their resources? They had some funds and they had some people. But more specifically, they had some people who had been part of their group for years. They had people who had owned businesses and run households. They had people who fished and farmed and cooked. Maybe, just maybe, they had everything they needed right in front of them already
What are our needs? Really and specifically. Is it more food? Better organization? Is it a room to store things? To cook? To serve?
When when a solution arises from what you have, does that solution serve the mission? The values? Does it honor, resemble the teachings of Jesus? Is it the fruit of what it means to be a follower of Jesus?
How will it change us? Who will we become? Are we willing to change? The church in Jerusalem would never be the same. They started the work of delegating the day to day work of the church, those leaders might have stayed in that position but Stephen wouldn’t--Stephen is also a preacher. The church would change because the Apostles were now able to leave, they could travel and preach because they knew the church in Jerusalem would be cared for. They church would continue to grow beyond Jerusalem to the ends of the earth because they were willing to be changed and open to what the Spirit was calling them to, making room for the next thing, and the next.
And if another problem arose--they would know what to do: be rooted in the teachings of Jesus--caring for the whole of the community, knowing there is abundance already, and being willing to bend and change as the Spirit moves.
This can be hard work. It’s easier to yell and point fingers and blame. It’s easier to pick sides and battle it out. It is easier to have one person just tell you what to do. Struggling in relationship is hard work. Conflict can be hard or scary but without it we can’t grow. Discernment can be hard or scary but without it, we’ll never know what amazing things the Spirit has in store for us. Discernment is the work that Emmanuel will be doing as you consider who you are and who God is calling you to be in the future, as you prepare your community for the right pastor in your midst. This kind of work together is complicated, but it is the work of our lived values, mission, theology among each other and in the world. It is living as we. It is the work of embodying the life and the teachings of Jesus. It is being church.
