Acts 6:1-7
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As we continue our series through the book of Acts, we’ve seen a lot of evidence of God’s presence in his church. We’ve seen the Holy Spirit filling the disciples at Pentecost, empowering them to testify about the resurrection of Jesus and the Kingdom of God with clarity and courage. We’ve seen signs of that Kingdom in miraculous healings, and we’ve seen how the church community responded to persecution with strength and prayer. We’ve seen the Christian community being radically generous with one another, selling their land and giving whatever they had to meet the needs that arose around them. In all of this, God’s presence in his church is evident.
But what I love about Acts is that the author Luke does not aim to give us an ideal picture of the church, but a real picture of the church with all of its warts and blemishes. As the church grew from a small band of disciples to a community numbering in the thousands, they went through growing pains and internal conflict. They wrestled with ethnic diversities and clashes of culture. But what is abundantly clear is that just as God is present in the more flashy moments of the church, the preaching and healing and boldness, Luke wants to emphasize that God is in these difficult moments as well - guiding his community through relational tension and logistical problems and helping to raise up new leaders in the church to meet new needs that arise. God is in both the flashy and the mundane, the amazing and the ordinary, the successes and the struggles. Both are important. Both are crucial to the word of God spreading, but while we are quick to recognize God’s presence in our victories and in the extraordinary, we also must recognize that God is present with his people in their struggles and their defeats and in the ordinary moments of life. The church isn’t perfect, but God is always present.
So this morning we’re going to talk about a temptation and a principle. A temptation that we need to be aware of, that we need to avoid; and a principle that we need to accept and abide by. Both of these are found in Acts chapter 6.
“Now in these days when the disciples were increasing in number, a complaint by the Hellenists arose against the Hebrews because their widows were being neglected in the daily distribution.”
So the church community has exploded. What began as a small band of disciples is now a community that is thousands strong, and it includes people from all over the map. This is truly a multiethnic community. Incredibly diverse. But while they were all a part of one church family, what we see is that a clash of cultures and ethnicities has embroiled the community. The Hellenists were Greek-speaking Jews who’s families came from outside of Israel. They had adopted many Greek customs as they followed the Lord in Greek culture. In Jerusalem, they were a minority culture. Meanwhile the Hebraic Jews were those who spoke Aramaic, and they grew up in the ancestral lands of Israel. They were steeped in Hebraic customs and traditions.
Now this rivalry between the Hellenists and Hebrews had exited for a very long time in Jewish culture. These two camps didn’t get along very well, and tragically we can see that this ethnic conflict was now being perpetuated in the newly formed Christian community.
So the complaint from the Hellenists was that their widows, the most vulnerable people in society both economically and socially, they were being neglected by the Hebraic Jews. Their needs were being overlooked. The temptation that had infiltrated the church as it grew was the temptation of favoritism - favoring one culture, elevating one group over another.
Now, we don’t know why this happened. It could have been a logistical error that was bound to happen when the community grew by the thousands in such a short time. Or, it could have been an intentional favoritism based in a cultural division that had infiltrated the church that resulted in one group being taken care of, while the other was left out. Either way, this temptation of favoritism must be taken very seriously in the community of Jesus, because we all know that we naturally gravitate towards people who are like us. People who talk like us, look like us, think like us, vote like us. People in similar life stages, socio-economic situations, races, and ethnicities. We tend to form communities with people who are like us.
But what can so easily happen is that as we separate into these different groups filled with people who are like us, the temptation to favor our group, to elevate our group over another, even in the church community where Jesus has broken down the barriers that would divide us, even in the church community this favoritism can creep in. And what is the result? Division and injustice. What happens is that we stop looking outside our group for those who are in need. We stop pursuing our neighbors, because we’ve stopped looking beyond the people who are just like us.
This is one of the reasons Jesus was both wildly popular and wildly hated. He was always breaking out of the cultural barriers that divided people. He was always looking beyond his group, his culture, to find those who were in need. One of my favorite moments in the Chosen, an innovative TV series about Jesus’ ministry, one of my favorite moments is when Jesus is in Capernaum and he calls Matthew the tax collector to follow him as one of his disciples. The rest of the disciples, people like Peter and James and John, they are dumbfounded that Jesus would invite a tax collector who was a traitor to the Jewish people, to be a part of his traveling ministry. And Peter comes alongside Jesus and says, “Well, this is different.” And with a twinkle in his eye, Jesus responds, “Get used to different.” Jesus showed no favoritism, and his people must not either. We are one in Christ, so we must always be willing and ready to look beyond our own group and culture to meet the needs of our neighbors who are different from us. We must avoid this temptation of favoritism.
So this is the temptation. Now for the principle.
So the Hellenists brought this complaint to the apostles, and we continue the story in verse 2:
“And the twelve summoned the full number of the disciples and said, “It is not right that we should give up preaching the word of God to serve tables. Therefore, brothers, pick out from among you seven men of good repute, full of the Spirit and of wisdom, whom we will appoint to this duty. But we will devote ourselves to prayer and to the ministry of the word.”
So what’s going on here? Well, I can tell you that the Twelve apostles are not creating a hierarchy of ministry. In saying that it is not right for them to give up preaching in order to solve this issue with the widows, they are not saying that preaching the Word is more important than feeding the poor. What they are saying is this: we can’t do everything. We can’t do everything, so we’ll continue to do what we’re called and gifted to do, and we’ll empower people in the church community to take on this new ministry to meet these pressing needs.
So often pastors hear things like this, “What’s the church going to do about homelessness in our county? What’s the church going to do about loneliness in nursing homes? What’s the church going to do about racial injustice? What’s the church going to do to care for the refugees? What is the church going to for singles or families or discipling our children?” These are really great questions to be asking, important questions, but the reality is that a lot of the time when we ask these questions, what we are really asking is “What are the church leaders going to do about homelessness or racial injustice or discipling children? What are the pastors going to do about these needs?” What’s underneath a lot of these questions is the expectation that the church leaders are the ones who should be meeting the needs of the community.
But the church is not the pastors or the leaders. The church is all of us. From the beginning we’ve said that the church is the community that is continuing the work of Jesus by the power of the Holy Spirit. The community. The body of Christ has many different parts, all unified in Jesus, all empowered by the Spirit to reflect Christ to the world, to meet the needs of others, and to live into the reality that the Kingdom of God has come and is coming and will come.
Notice that is was not the leaders of the church that spotted this issue with the widows. It was members of the community. They saw the need, they brought it to the leadership, and the apostles did not then say, “Thank you for bringing this to our attention. As, you know, we’re the only ones that have been divinely empowered to meet this need, so we’ll get to work on this straight away!” No! They gather the whole church community together and asked “How can we as the church resolve this issue and ensure that it these widows are being taken care of? Who’s passionate about this? Who’s gifted in this area?”
Here’s the principle guys: the church is strongest and most effective in spreading the gospel when each person is actively participating in the mission of Jesus in the recognition that they are empowered by the Spirit for that very purpose. Do you believe that? Do you believe that the Lord has entrusted a ministry to you, and he has empowered and equipped you by his personal presence in the Holy Spirit to meet the needs of your neighbors? Do you believe that? Because Redeemer needs you to believe that. Our city, our country needs you to live by this principle.
Some of you are passionate about certain areas of ministry. Some of you are passionate about racial justice. Some of you are passionate about refugees. Some are passionate about carrying for the elderly, the lonely, the addicted, the wounded, the depressed. Some care deeply about homelessness and food insecurity. Wherever your gifts and your passions intersect the needs of your neighbor, that is your ministry. That’s where the church needs you to be, where the church needs you to bring the presence of Christ through your presence. The church is strongest and most effective when each person is actively participating in the mission of Jesus in the recognition that they are empowered by the Spirit for that very purpose.
So we’ve been warned of a temptation, and we’ve been encouraged by this principle. We need to be wary of being blinded to the needs of others because they are different than us and our group, and we need to recognize that we are the church together - and we’ve all been entrusted with the ministry of Jesus, to meet the physical and spiritual needs of our neighbors. And we’ve been equipped for that work by God the Spirit.