Luke 23:33-34a, 46
Acts
6:1—7:2a, 44-60
Today we continue with the narrative lectionary which moves into a study of the book of Acts, which is a book we usually do not spend a great deal of time on. There are really important lessons in today’s reading, especially for our country and our culture at this very moment.
At that time, there was a huge
debate between Hebrew disciples and immigrant Greek-speaking disciples. The Hebrew disciples had felt that they were
the true disciples. They were the ones
who grew up in or near Jerusalem, they understood the laws, the practices, the
rituals. There was no room for these Greek-speaking
immigrants into Jerusalem. The Greek
speaking followers recognized that their authority was not being honored, they
were not being respected, they were not being treated as full human beings, let
alone full members of the church of Jesus.
Their widows weren’t being cared for.
So they ordained another group of Greeks whose primary job was to care
for the poor, etc., allowing the original disciples to focus on speaking and
leadership, etc. The resolution was
finally reached to this conflict when seven of the Greek, immigrant leaders
were chosen to be ordained into the diaconate.
As part of the diaconate, then, they would primary do the caring for the
poor. It was a resolution. Or rather, people THOUGHT that a resolution
had been reached. After all, some parity
had been officially stated between the two groups.
But then we come to today’s reading.
Stephen was one of those immigrant Greek-speaking disciples. And he was not only good at caring for
others, but he was wise, a good speaker.
He was doing amazing things as a leader of the people. And he was falsely accused by the Hebrew
speaking Jews from Jerusalem of betraying and denying Abraham, the laws, and in
particular the centrality of the temple.
We don’t know why he was accused, but we can guess. We can guess that it was because he was
Greek, or because though he joined their ranks, he did not give up who he had
been previously. I want you to think
about that. He joined them, but he still
remained himself, a Greek-speaking immigrant into the faith. And he dared to do what some of the other
leaders saw as their job alone.
We see this in the church. White churches yearn for people of color to
join them. But they don’t want those who
join to join as themselves. They want
them to CHANGE in order to join. To
speak the “right” language, both literally and metaphorically, to behave in the
ways that we have decided are acceptable, are right, are appropriate. We do this with children too. Of course we want more children in the
church! But we expect them to behave
according to the rules we have set up: no talking in church, dress
appropriately, use the language we want you to use, even if you don’t understand
it and it has no meaning for you. We do
this too. And so we can understand their
anger with Stephen. They “welcome” him, but
only in so much as they expect him to become like them rather than welcoming
him truly as he was: a Greek-speaking immigrant to their community.
Well Stephen isn’t putting up with
it. So when he is hauled in front of the
authorities, he has the audacity to speak truth. He gives an entire history of the Jewish
people, of God’s actions among them (this part is skipped in today’s reading)
and then he ends with his own condemnation of the practices of the Hebrew or
Aramaic speaking disciples – he says they are not following the laws! And then he accuses them of crucifying
Jesus. They accuse him of not following
Moses. He accuses them of killing Jesus.
Different sides, each accusing the
other of destroying what matters most deeply to each side. Attacking, accusing. In today’s story that ended with Stephen’s
death. On January 6, 2021 that ended in
five deaths. These accusations, these
attacks from both sides: when we cannot hear one another, when we cannot listen
to one another, when we cannot tolerate truths that don’t agree with what we
want to believe, people die. We know, we
understand that there are different versions of the truth. And people feel so strongly over what is “true”
that they are willing to kill, to fight with violent measures. That was the case then and it is the case
now. Stephen is speaking truth but it is
not what they want to believe so they kill him.
(as a side note, in Stephen’s case,
his death in many ways also mirrored Jesus’ death: Jesus experience of being
accused, killed and then from the cross asking forgiveness for those who were
killing him. Stephen did the same.)
Much
of this conflict between Stephen and the other Christians centered around the
understanding of the temple. It had been
a source of conflict for a very long time: where is the correct place to
worship? Does it have to be in the
temple in Jerusalem? Many Jews at the
time believed so. The Samaritans were
another group with the same beliefs, the exception being they believed God
could be worshiped in other sanctuaries.
Jesus’ answer to them all? “You
Woman, believe Me, the hour is coming when you will neither on this mountain,
nor in Jerusalem, worship the Father. …But the hour is coming, and now is, when
the true worshipers will worship… in
spirit and truth…. God is Spirit, and those who worship Him must worship in
spirit and truth.” (John 4:22-26)
We
know that during this Covid time, that debate has come back. Is it necessary to worship God in a
building? Or is God really and truly
bigger than that and so can be worshiped and loved and served wherever we are? There are all of these rules about being back
in a building to worship. But the
worship of God happens in spirit and truth.
It’s interesting that this argument keeps coming back when the truth was
that the early Christian church, for the first few centuries, only met in
people’s homes. They did not meet in
cathedrals or special synagogue buildings at all until Constantinople. To this day, the Seder, the Passover meal,
the meal that we celebrate as the Lord’s Supper was always done in homes, in
people’s houses. But we have made it a
“special building” thing and in doing so, we’ve lost so much of the original
meaning – of connection with family, with intimacy in sharing that sacred meal
of remembering.
As
always, the good news is that conflict is an opportunity to change. It is a gift if we use it as such. It is an opportunity to be intentional as
move forward, to be intentional about how we listen, how we respond when we
don’t like or don’t want what we are hearing. All of these arguing people were
only willing to look outward, to attack the other, to blame the other. They covered their ears and did not want to
hear what they did not want to hear.
None of them were willing to look at themselves, to look inward. And none of them were also looking at the
resurrection. None of them were using
the gift of imagination and vision that God gives to all of us to see where the
new life was being born this time.
But
again, conflict is an opportunity for change.
Do you know why Latin is considered a dead language? It’s not that it’s not used. It is used.
We use it in music, we still use it in some religious liturgy. We use it in scientific names. The reason it’s considered dead is NOT that
it is no longer used. It’s dead because
it isn’t CHANGING. And in that is great
wisdom. Conflict is an invitation to
imagine differently, to envision differently, to do things differently!
I’ve
been reading a number of books recently.
One called Women Peacemakers by Barbe Chambliss, a friend of
Ruth’s. Another called Jan’s Story,
that my father passed on to me. A third
called Love is the Way, by Bishop Michael Curry. What is interesting is that in all of them
there is at least one section that is talking about hope, and about the
possibilities inherent in crisis. They
also, though, point out that the realization of those possibilities and that
hope: that these are dependent on a choice to step forward into the new
life that is being offered. It is a choice. Do we choose to get bogged down by the
traumas and crises of our lives? Or do
we take the invitations inherent in each scenario, and do we use the gift of
imagination that God has given us to us to see the possibilities inherent in
the crisis, the trauma. One of the women
in the book Ruth lent to me, Connie Ning, gives microcredit, and microloans to
women in Vietnam and Guatemala. These
loans are allowing women to begin many things: to start their own businesses,
to finance their children’s education, to send girls back into their
communities with new ideas, new visions, and new strength. Connie Ning’s program is funding all of
this. But because it is empowering the
girls and women to develop their own programs, it is exponential in its impact
on not just individuals but communities as well.
I
want to end by sharing with you a story that Lyle, once again passed on to
me. Apparently, there was at one point
in Russia a professor who spent an hour lecturing his community on how religion
was all ridiculous superstition. He was
very verbose, very articulate and at the end of his hour, his students were all
nodding their heads and even applauded in agreement. At the end of the hour he called up on old
Russian Orthodox priest and told him he could give a ten minute rebuttal. The old priest stood up and simply said,
“Christos Anesti!” which means Christ has risen. I’m certain you know what came next. We’ll try it here in English. When I say here loudly and with joy, “Christ
has risen” what happens here? Well, let’s try it out. “Christ has risen!” yes.
He is risen indeed. And even
after this hour long lecture, when the priest stood up and said simply,
“Christos anesti!” The students all said
with resounding shouts of joy, “Alithos anesti!” He is Risen, INDEED. No matter what our minds say, our hearts
experience God, and our hearts remember the experience of God. All the arguments, all the conflicts, all the
debates, all the differences in the world cannot remove that experience of the
risen Christ.
Conflict,
crisis, different view points, different visions, different understandings:
these are invitations and opportunities to see God anew. But we have a choice. Do we take the launching points of crisis
mixed with God’s gift of imagination to look, to see, to learn, to hear, to begin
anew? That is the invitation. To see where Christ is risen. To live the new possibilities God is given us.
Christ
is Risen! He is Risen, Indeed!
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