Easter People...know Jesus in community and conflict

Series: Easter People...

A review: last week, in one of the final stories in the gospel of Luke, we saw how Easter people meet Jesus in their vulnerability and hospitality (on the road and at the table).

Now this week, we move into the second part of what Luke recorded for us. Into the book of Acts.

A reminder that Luke penned this two-part work… the Gospel of Jesus Christ and then the sequel we call Acts. Some of you may know it as the “Acts of the Apostles” … in essence, Luke and Acts give us the rubric for understanding the Story of God (as revealed to us in the person of Jesus) and the Story of God’s People (the Holy Spirit at work in and through - and even in spite of - the people who follow Jesus)

As we explore this idea of “Easter people,” we’ll spend a little time in Acts for the next few weeks, also dipping into Galatians. One of the letters - syncing us up with the early church and the missionary journeys of Paul.

Two dangers we need to name as we approach the book of Acts:

1. our tendency to romanticize the early church. To think of it in terms of how things ought to be. How simple things were then as opposed to the complexity of the modern church. But as we read Acts, we will hold together the work of the Holy Spirit with the actual human community in and through which the Spirit was working.

2. our tendency to write off the early church as being totally out of touch with the things we face in 2021.

Let’s attempt not to fall into either ditch - let’s hold onto the tension of a human community empowered by the Holy Spirit. Then and now. And all the centuries in between.

Today, we jump in at Acts 6, so I want to give us a little context for that before we begin to read.

In Acts chapter 1,

In Acts chapter 2 - Pentecost (stay tuned, we’ll circle back to Acts 2 later!)

In Acts chapter 3

In Acts chapter 4

And by the end of Acts chapter 5, the apostles have been incarcerated and whipped, but are found rejoicing. Willie Jennings describes this “absurdity”… this way:

They were treated like criminals and disobedient slaves and yet with perfect clarity they understood that their lives were now fully joined to the life of Jesus, a life of glaring dishonor. Something utterly path-breaking was taking place in and with them. Honor systems were being turned upside down and torn apart, freeing people from their caste-making power, and criminality and slavery were being collapsed onto God and those who preach Jesus the Christ, freeing the people from their identity-constituting power. (William James Jennings)

Now in chapter 6, we pick up right as the mission broadens from its geographical focus on Jerusalem. We pick up with a community and get to take a little peek into their conflict.

Michele, would you read the first section of our text?

[Acts 6:1-7]

Ah, the early Church.

Divided even then. Hebraic Jews vs Hellenistic Jews.

Locals vs those who had been part of the diaspora. Who did things a little differently. Spoke differently. Were “other.”

Also, whenever a group manages to grow a little, it turns out that organization will be required. What worked well when it was small and grassroots suddenly can’t cover all the needs anymore. We’ve all experienced this.

But here, we see this division of labour - “WE” (the apostles) will do the spiritual work of proclamation of God’s word and “YOU” (Greek-speaking ones) can focus on the important (but less important) work of making sure the needs get met. There is something organizational going on, but there is also something sociological… there is an us and them developing. We’ll do the spiritual heavy-lifting and you take care of the practical needs.

Now, this has become a model for many churches.

Deacons, elders, clergy, laity, pastoral team, land & property committee, benevolent funds and our ever-lauded PREACHERS.

So, a question. Is this in the book of Acts as a prototype for how the church should be structured?

Well, we have this conflict, this complaint.

And we have a solution. Pick 7. And let’s commission them to take care of what’s being neglected.

And it works. This proposal pleased the entire community. (That’s a rare thing in a church meeting!) And it also works in that vs 7 tells us that God’s word continued to grow, more are added to their number. And even some of the Jewish priests embrace faith in Jesus as the Messiah.

If we were to close the sermon here, we might be able to say something nice about how if people just split up the things that need doing, we can cover all our bases and the church will grow.

Except the text keeps going. Listen to what happens to one of the deacons - one of those Greek-speaking, Spirit-filled men who the apostles laid hands on and commissioned to take care of the vulnerable.

Michele, will you continue the reading?

[Acts 6:8-7:2a] (last words are “listen to me”

What is going on here? We had this new system that was going to fix everything. Found these seven Spirit-filled men. And everyone was pleased with the arrangement. Isn’t that a sign of impending success?

But according to this, Stephen the deacon isn’t “staying in his lane”… isn’t he supposed to be serving food to widows? What is he doing? And when he gets into trouble, he preaches a sermon…which is where we left off.

Stephen the Storyteller, tells the council - a group of deeply religious people - the story of THEIR faith. Only he doesn’t tell it in the way they’re used to hearing it. He thinks they have missed the point of their own story. (vs. 51ff)

Well, not shockingly, it doesn’t go well for Stephen. in vs 54 it says

54 Once the council members heard these words, they were enraged and began to grind their teeth at Stephen. 55 But Stephen, enabled by the Holy Spirit, stared into heaven and saw God’s majesty and Jesus standing at God’s right side. 56 He exclaimed, “Look! I can see heaven on display and the Human One standing at God’s right side!” 57 At this, they shrieked and covered their ears. Together, they charged at him, 58 threw him out of the city, and began to stone him. The witnesses placed their coats in the care of a young man named Saul. 59 As they battered him with stones, Stephen prayed, “Lord Jesus, accept my life!” 60 Falling to his knees, he shouted, “Lord, don’t hold this sin against them!” Then he died. 8 1 Saul was in full agreement with Stephen’s murder.

Ok. So where does this leave us?

We divide things up to organize our faith communities, but what if we do so in such a way that we “set ourselves against the Holy Spirit”?

What does this text tell us about Easter People?

Easter people

- whether they lived in the 1st century or are living in the 21st -

know Jesus in community and in conflict.

Community will always be challenged by the “others” among us.

And no matter what our commonalities, humanity excels at “othering”… I mean, look at the early church… a group of Jewish believers, who are continuing to increase in number, but they figure out how to take care of their vulnerable, but do so in such a way that allows for - is potentially even BUILT in such a way that some of those in need can be overlooked. One overlooked widow is a mistake. But a neglect of a whole section of a community? That has to be addressed.

One source of conflict we SHOULD be having is over those who are being neglected. Who are the orphans & widows among us? What are the parallels for us? Widows still exist for sure. Orphans too. And we ought to continue to care for them. But what are the people who are made vulnerable by the way our society works?

Easter people know Jesus in community and we know Jesus by the community.

The way in which we express community are one of the most fundamental ways we encounter Jesus. In serving and being served. In recognizing a need (whether someone else’s or our own) and then coming around to make sure that need is met.

What about conflict? Do we really meet Jesus in conflict?

Well, I don’t think that we necessarily will encounter Jesus when we have conflict, but I do think that conflict is a natural part of growth. And that the Spirit often asks us to pay attention to something outside the “bounds” and that is almost always going to lead to conflict of some kind.

Think about the times when you have seen growth in this church, or in any other church you’ve been part of…and I don’t just mean “we added a lot of people from the other chirches in town because we were the cool church of the moment. I mean times when the Spirit was stirring something and people were coming to faith in Jesus and finding a place to grow in that faith in a community of other believers.

Think on those experiences if you’ve had them… was that growth conflict free?

I promise you it wasn’t. The conflict might not have been out in the open, but it was very likely there.

We can’t spend money on _____. We’ve never done that before. If we welcome that person in, what it more people like them decide to come along?

What if community is messier and more complex and in constant need of upkeep and reformation? What if community isn’t always a “plus” in the equation? What is community is sometimes costly? What if it means sometimes serving in this when we’d rather do that? What if community is gift, but is also a challenge?

And what if conflict isn’t necessarily a sign of the absence of the Spirit? What if people struggling with something is a sign of the Spirit at work? A sign of growth and possibility? As well as a sign of a healthy community in that people know it’s okay to disagree, to push back, to ask questions.

Friends, I really want SWCC to be that kind of place. And, I think that on our best days, we are.

The good news of Acts 6 and 7 - in the midst of complaint and neglect of widows, of conflict and martydom - is that the kingdom of God is not something nostalgic that we’re trying to get back to (aw… the early church). And neither is it something completely separate from what we read about in the book of Acts. We are part of the story of God’s people - part of that epic tale that was begun by Luke in the second part of his writing. But that he intentionally left unfinished… which invites us to participate ...