The Lines That Divide Us: Sermon on Galatians 3:1-9, 23-29

Scripture can be found here...

“You foolish Galatians! Who has bewitched you?” Wow. Do you hear it? The frustration? The passion? The sheer urgency of what Paul is trying to say to the church in Galatia? Again this week we are reading from his letter, addressing these people about one of the fundamental conflicts facing their community, and Paul is past the point of being his pastoral self, being his supportive self, being what we ministers like to think of as a “non-anxious presence.” Paul is raw. He is agonized. He might even be angry, because they Just. Do. Not. Get. It.

The conflict is the same one we spoke of last week. It’s about the dividing line some want to draw about who is in and who is out of the community of Jesus-followers. As Paul summarizes, it’s about “Jew versus Greek,” the opposing positions of whether or not the historic marks of Judaism need to be carried forward in order to follow Jesus faithfully. But it makes me think of so many other dividing lines that we face day to day, in our homes, in our communities, in our culture. So, here, I will share some recent experiences of “the lines that divide us.”

Fat versus Thin. Well, the internet exploded this week when remarks by the CEO of Abercrombie and Fitch were circulated. Among other things, he said that Abercrombie and Fitch only carries women’s sizes up to 10 because the store doesn’t want its core customers, whom he described as “the cool kids,” to see “people who aren’t as hot as them” wearing the clothes. They carry men’s sizes to XXL because athletes—well, male athletes—are still considered the “cool kids,” even when they’re extra large. He summarized A & F’s marketing strategy by saying, “Abercrombie is only interested in people with washboard stomachs who look like they're about to jump on a surfboard.”

Putting aside issues around health, which we all should take seriously, as well as the common sense notion that every business has a marketing strategy which we may or may not think is a good idea, it’s rare to have someone state so baldly and unapologetically such a nasty and exclusionary world view. Writing for the Huffington Post, Amy Taylor observed,

Mean-spiritedness aside, Mr. Jeffries' comments raise a flag about a bigger, more troubling cultural issue. Pretend, for one moment, that instead of fat chicks, unattractive people or “not-so-cool” kids Mr. Jeffries had said “African Americans” or “homosexuals” or “single moms.” As a society, we would rise up and crucify any brand that flaunted that kind of exclusionary business plan.[i]

Black versus white.  Another news story, even bigger than the one about people who are judged to be too big, was the story of three women and a child who were rescued this week after nearly ten years in captivity in Cleveland. A neighbor, Charles Ramsey, in the middle of eating his lunch, heard pounding on a door and screams for help, and responded by helping to break down the door, releasing a young woman whose abduction nearly ten years earlier had made the national news. When the police arrived, they discovered two more young women as well as a small child. The heroic neighbor was later interviewed, and I’m sure many of you saw that interview on TV or the internet. The interviewer asked him, “What was the girls’ reaction when they came out?” His response was striking. “I knew something was wrong when a little pretty white girl ran into a black man’s arms. Something is wrong here. Dead giveaway.”

In the middle of being instrumental in helping to save three women and a child, by all accounts a hero, Mr. Ramsey made a profound observation about race relations in this country. That a white woman should see a black man as her helper and rescuer revealed to him the extraordinary nature of the moment. It was, as he said, a dead giveaway.

Christian versus Muslim. I was in a downtown shop when a gentleman came in looking for a particular item, which the owner of the shop promised to help him find. The shopper had been referred by a friend, and as he turned to go, he said, “And you won’t have to wait for me to pay you,” evidently a reference to his friend. We all laughed. And then he said, “You know, no one should make you wait for your pay. There is a precept in Islam, ‘Pay your laborers before their sweat has dried.’”

He went on. “I can’t stand it when Muslims give themselves a bad name. I hate it that Islam has been hijacked by people who have it completely wrong, terrorizing and bombing people. You know what Islam means? It means ‘peace, submission.’ And Muslim means, ‘one who has submitted to the peace of God.’ Muslims believe that Jesus was right when he said that the greatest commandment is to love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind and strength, and to love your neighbor as yourself. That’s what Muslims believe.” A few moments later, he left, seeming relieved to have imparted a message that was clearly urgent to him.

Like Paul’s message was urgent. There are so many lines we allow to divide us. I’ve named just three. But if we look closer we begin to notice that the lines blur, because, as it happens, larger people like to be fashionable and comfortable, just like smaller people; and in a moment of fear and danger, people come together without regard for things like race but thinking and acting only with regard to helping, and finding safety; and people of different religious beliefs can have core values in common, such as peace, loving God with all you are, and loving your neighbor as yourself. The dividing lines are not so absolute as some would have us believe.

And as astonishing as that notion is to us, imagine how it was for the Galatians. “There is no longer Jew or Greek,” Paul tells them.  Which means that there are no second- and third-class Jesus followers, no Christians who are superior by virtue of their religious practices. “There is no longer slave or free,” he goes on. Which means one of the most ancient and rigid societal classifications—who is owner and who is property—has no bearing on who is a member of the community of faith, or what their position is in that community. Just like that. “There is no longer male and female,” Paul insists. Which I am confident his audience finds nearly unthinkable, because many people, many churches of Jesus Christ still have a tough time fully embracing the notion. “For all of you are one in Christ Jesus.”

All of you are one. Which doesn’t, by the way, mean “all of you are indistinguishable from one another,” or “all of you believe exactly the same thing,” or even “there is no difference between any of you.” If you look around, you will see that our creating God loves diversity… no two of us are alike, even if we are twins. We are unique, and uniquely gifted, and the community—the church, the neighborhood, the workplace, the world—needs our unique and irreplaceable gifts if it is to thrive. All of you are one. And all of you are different. And that difference is precious. It is difference that enables creativity, and innovation, and art. It is difference that opens our eyes to the extraordinary—the contrast of purple and orange and green, which seem so opposed, and yet in a garden, sparkle and show one another’s beauty. It is difference that enables blessing to flow, from one to another to another.

And still, and yet, “all of you are one.” It all comes back to blessing. Do we believe that blessings are to be gathered up and stored like keepsakes in a china cabinet, or hoarded like bottled water and cans of soup for an apocalypse? Or do we believe that blessings ought to flow through us, like water in a riverbed? Paul reminds his Galatian church that one of God’s promises to Abraham was that all the Gentiles, literally, all the nations, would be blessed in and through him, through his descendants. We are blessed, not so that we can have yet another dividing line, those who are blessed versus those who are not blessed, but so that those lines will be erased once and for all. We are blessed so that we can be a blessing to others. So that in sharing our blessings, we all may truly be one… not identical, not uninterestingly bland and mashed together like so many potatoes, but one in the Spirit, one in the Lord. One. So that the distinguishing mark of being a Christian will be, as Jesus prayed it would be, love. Thanks be to God. Amen.

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[i] Amy Taylor, “An Open Letter from a 'Fat Chick' to Mike Jeffries, CEO of Abercrombie And Fitch,” Huffington Post Women Blog, May 10, 2013.

Belonging: A Sermon on Galatians 1:13-17; 2:11-21

Scripture can be found here...

UCLA Professor Jared Diamond has written a book called The World Until Yesterday, in which he looks at traditional cultures and examines what they have to teach us. One of his most striking observations is the fact that, until almost 10,000 years ago, every human being on this planet lived in fairly small tribes, of anywhere from a few dozen to a couple of hundred people.  And because of that, it was almost unheard of, nearly impossible, to have an encounter with a stranger. Everybody in your tribe literally knew everybody else in your tribe.

So if you did, unthinkably, run into a stranger, here’s what would happen. You would sit down together, and begin reciting the names of everyone you were related to, everyone in your tribe, until, hopefully, you found someone in common. If you didn’t find that common person, that human thread to bind you together, your options were to run or to kill. Xenophobia, what modern psychologists would describe as “irrational fear of foreigners or strangers,” was the normal state of those for whom the glimpse of an unknown face was terrifyingly out of the ordinary.

From time beyond time, human beings have tried to distinguish for ourselves which tribes we live in. We have worked hard to figure out whether or not we “belong.” And we have fashioned rituals and marks and tattoos and all manner of things to place on ourselves to say, “Here. This is my tribe.”

From ancient times, three thousand years at least, one mark of being a Jew, a member of God’s covenant people, was a mark borne by men on their bodies, circumcision. There were other signs of belonging, of course. Eating according to the kosher laws, resting and worshiping God on the Sabbath, the seventh day of the week, learning Torah, the law. Many markers… tribal markers, if you will… of what it means to be a member of God’s covenant people. And because Jews and Christians are sprung from the same roots, because Jesus and his first followers were Jews, there was a time when it was assumed that those who would be Jesus-followers, must bear all those same markers of belonging.

A man whom we first met several weeks ago, when we heard the story of the first martyr, Stephen, was instrumental in changing all that. You might remember the man named “Saul,” a minor character in that episode, who was watching over the coats of those who were heaving rocks at Stephen until he was dead—(“run or kill”). Saul approved of all that, and he describes himself later as “zealous for the traditions of his ancestors.” Which, take note, is not necessarily a good thing. Saul is a case study in how ‘zeal for the traditions of our ancestors’ can place us in opposition to what God is doing. All this went on until, a little while later, when God pulled back the veil, and Saul had a face-to-face encounter with the Risen and Living Christ. Saul’s entire life was turned upside down. From that point on, that persecutor of Jesus-followers—the one who, by his own admission, was violently trying to destroy the church—became a Jesus-follower himself, became the author of much of what the church continues to find, well, authoritative. We know him as Paul.

And we know him as the author of the scripture passages we’ve read today; they are from a letter Paul wrote to a church in Galatia, an area of the region still called Anatolia, part of what is modern day Turkey. Once upon a time in Galatia, Paul tells us, a dispute was roiling about the issue of “belonging” within the tribe of the Jesus-followers What is the marker of belonging to the community that has sprung up around Jesus, what we call the Church? What do we have to do… do we have to keep kosher? Must the men and boys bear that particular sign of belonging to the tribes of Israel on their bodies? Worship on Saturdays, perhaps? How do we know we belong?

We belong to the family of God, as it turns out, not because of what we do, but because of what God does. “We know that a person is justified not by the works of the law but through faith in Jesus Christ,” Paul says. Well, sort of. The new Common English Bible translates that phrase, “the faithfulness of Christ.” We belong to the family of God… we come to have our own faith in Jesus Christ as our redeemer… not because of what we have done, but because of what God has done.

This is one way of understanding how and why many churches, including ours, baptize babies and children too young to be able to profess their faith in Christ. This beautiful, smart-as-a-whip child was baptized today, not because she has come to an understanding that Jesus is her savior, although, maybe she already has inklings in that direction. She has been baptized today because of a Divine nudge in the hearts of her mom and stepdad. God decides these things, and then we cooperate; that is how it works in the world of Jesus-followers. And Beloved Child, by being baptized today, “belongs” to us, here at Union Presbyterian Church, the same place where her mama and stepdad were married not too long ago. But really, this is so much bigger than us. Beloved Child belongs to the whole church of Jesus Christ, and it belongs to her… wherever she goes, the church will be there for her. Not because of anything she did or did not do, but because of what God did, what God does, and what God will continue to do for her, throughout her life, and beyond her life in this world.

Baptism, we are told, puts a mark on us. Today it has put a mark on this Beloved Child, telling her and everyone who knows and loves her that just as she belongs to the family of her mama and daddy and and stepdad and sisters and brothers and aunts and uncles and grandparents, she also belongs to the family of God that takes its name from Jesus Christ. The faithfulness of Jesus has reached out to touch her, and claim her, and bless her, so that one day she will be able to say, for herself, in her own words and actions, “Christ lives in me.”

So welcome Beloved Child of God. Welcome to this family of God, and welcome to this communion table. The mark of our tribe is simple: Jesus invited you, and we welcome you. We cannot wait to see what Jesus does in your life. Thanks be to God. Amen.

Friday Five: May Play Edition

"Mois de Mai", Tres Riche Heures du Duc de Berry

It's May! And it smells so good outside. I can close my eyes and remember the golden hours after dinner as the days grew later and later, and we got to play outside until called home. It makes me want to go outside right now and play!

Of course, not all of us are in the northern hemisphere... plenty of RevGals and Pals are experiencing a season that is turning cold and blustery.

So to all of you, wherever you may be, how will you (or would you like to) play this month?

1. Tell about your favorite outdoor play

I am a baseball/ softball girl. There is nothing like the feel of a bat connecting with a ball in that sweet spot that sends it flying... I have incredibly fond memories of being covered with that red clay dust at the end of a great softball game.

2. Tell about your favorite indoor play

I love word games, and of those, Scrabble must be my favorite. In recent years I discovered the game Cathedral, and have spent many happy hours at that.

3. Tell about a game you (or your friends) created

When I was 5 my friend Mary Kate and I created the Pixie game. We created Pixie dust, sprinkled it all over ourselves, and tried to fly by jumping down a flight of stairs. (Too bad the Pixie "dust" was made of flour, sugar and water.  Mom wasn't too happy about that.)

4. Tell about a game that is new to you

I love "Words with Friends," but, sadly, my  aging computer won't load it any longer. New Favorite: "Draw Something."

5. Tell how you would like to incorporate play into your workday

My friend Janet has tons of little mechanical toys on her desk. I think this is a great idea... a little stress reliever, something to laugh with when folks drop in, and decorative too.

The Ends of the Earth: A Sermon on Acts 8:26-39, For the Sunday After the Boston Marathon

"The Risen Lord" by He Qi

Scripture can be found here...

Best laid plans.

Sometimes the news of the week kind of picks up the pastor’s idea of what she wanted to preach, and throws it into a blender with all sorts of other realities. What comes out doesn’t really look like the original concept. “Outcast and Stranger,” was my title. I was focusing on the unnamed Ethiopian eunuch, and I wanted to talk about the ways, despite his high status in the royal court, he was “othered,” cast out. Someone who either through a fluke of nature or the flick of a knife had become unable to father children… That is the delicate way I am going to say what I am trying to say. Which meant, according to the Law of Israel, that he was unwelcome in the Temple. Leviticus was clear:

The Lord spoke to Moses, saying: ¹⁷Speak to Aaron and say: No one of your offspring throughout their generations who has a blemish may approach to offer the food of his God. For no one who has a blemish shall draw near, one who is blind or lame, or one who has a mutilated face or a limb too long, ¹⁹or one who has a broken foot or a broken hand, ²⁰or a hunchback, or a dwarf, or a man with a blemish in his eyes or an itching disease or scabs or…   ~ Leviticus 21:16-20

And then there is a description of something, some accident that might befall a male. And that male could never approach God almighty to offer a gift of food in the Temple.

The passage is Leviticus 21:16-20. You can look it up.

I was going to talk about how the prophets responded to this law, talking back, as it were, to this understanding of God—the reading Kevin shared with us from Isaiah—

Do not let the foreigner joined to the Lord say, “The Lord will surely separate me from his people”; and do not let the eunuch say, “I am just a dry tree.” ⁴For thus says the Lord: To the eunuchs who keep my Sabbaths, who choose the things that please me and hold fast my covenant, ⁵I will give, in my house and within my walls, a monument and a name better than sons and daughters; I will give them an everlasting name that shall not be cut off.   ~ Isaiah 56:3-5

And then I was going to talk about how, through that Isaiah passage, and through this encounter with Philip, good news came to the eunuch, one who had formerly been outcast, a stranger. Welcome had been proclaimed. That’s what I was going to talk about. That was pretty much my sermon, until Friday, the day of the lock-down in the cities and towns around Boston and Cambridge and Watertown, MA. And then I started to think about Philip.

Philip embodied the welcome Isaiah proclaimed. Philip, who was a runner, someone pointed out this week. Our translation says he “ran up to” the chariot; in the Greek is “is running” alongside it. He was a runner. And once I knew that, well. This started turning into a different sermon.

This week’s bombings at the Boston Marathon had the effect of stirring me with memories of the time I lived in that city and the surrounding area, twelve years altogether. For two of those years I lived just a few blocks from the Boylston Street location of the explosions and the carnage. The most dangerous thing that ever happened to me on Boylston Street, right in that same block, was accidentally ingesting Midori liqueur in a chilled melon soup when I was five months pregnant. I took ballet lessons at a pared down studio in Watertown, taught by a wonderful friend who’d been to Russia and was steeped in Russian classical ballet technique.

By which I mean to say, for the past twenty three years, since I left that wonderful city behind for life in a different, and differently wonderful place, I’ve had a particular way of remembering the landmarks and the parks, the restaurants and the theaters, all the things that made up my Boston. Cut over to Boylston for a quick shortcut to Symphony Hall, or the Boston Shakespeare Company? Yes. Explosions and death on Boylston? Please. No.

You may recall that Philip, in addition to being a runner, was one of those disciples chosen to be deacons in last week’s reading. An ‘angel of the Lord’ drew him to this particular spot on a wilderness road. He ran, and then caught up, and then climbed into the chariot with the Ethiopian official, and they read Isaiah together. Here’s our bible’s translation of the Isaiah passage:

Like a lamb that is led to the slaughter, and like a sheep that before its shearers is silent, so he did not open his mouth. ⁸By a perversion of justice he was taken away. Who could have imagined his future? For he was cut off from the land of the living…  ~ Isaiah 53:7b-8a

Who is the prophet talking about, the Ethiopian official asked Philip. Is he talking about himself, or someone else? It is hard for me, this morning, to read about lambs led to slaughter without thinking about people cheering on their friends and family at the finish line… a Chinese grad student who had come to Boston University for a fresh start and a degree in statistics; a 29-year-old catering manager from Somerville, described by friends as someone who was always there for them; an 8-year-old boy who was waiting to hug a runner who happened to be his dad.

Do you notice that Philip’s answer is not given in detail? Starting with scripture, we are told, Philip proclaimed the good news about Jesus. I love that detail of the story, because it reports faithful biblical interpretation within the context of real life. When the prophet known as Isaiah first preached or wrote those words, the people of Israel, God’s people, understood this passage to be about them, collectively. Together, they were, Israel was, God’s suffering servant. Later, Christians read those words and recognized in them truth about Jesus. And through the centuries the people of God have continued to recognize themselves in these words. Christians under siege by the Roman Empire. Jews during the Inquisition and the Holocaust. This is the part of the power of the living, breathing Word of God: we continue to see ourselves and the world around us reflected here in these words, in and out of time.

The Ethiopian official’s response to Philip’s traveling bible study was swift: He, too, saw himself in the story. They were on the road from Jerusalem to Gaza, a part of the world in which improvised explosive devices are all too familiar. If you look at a map of this terrain, any body of water must have been tiny… a puddle, a rivulet. But it was enough. “What is to prevent me from being baptized?” he exclaims.

The answer is, of course, nothing. Nothing will be able to separate the Ethiopian eunuch, nothing will be able to separate you, nothing will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord. And that good news, the welcome of Jesus, is extended to this once-outcast child of God. The good news continues on its travels ‘to the ends of the earth.’

Those of you who just can’t stop reading a good story might have continued on past our stopping point of verse 39. If you did, you would have encountered that description of Saul, “breathing threats and murder” against the Jesus-followers. Acts is like that. The life of the early church was like that. Life today is like that. A story of inclusion and welcome side-by-side with one of murder and mayhem. And within a few verses, the murderous Saul is on his knees and being searched and known and loved by Jesus, the One who admonishes us to pray for our enemies.

And so this week, the lectionary gives us Philip, running to catch up with a chariot so that he can follow where the Spirit has led him. And it gives us the Ethiopian eunuch, who might well have seen himself in Isaiah, a kind of suffering servant, despite his position and status. And if our curiosity, or our hope for a word from God in these dark days, or simply the name “Saul” causes us to read on, we are met by someone who is murderous at the outset, but afterwards, a fervent messenger for the gospel he formerly tried to eliminate.

What are we to take away? How does this story make sense for us this week? Where is the good news?

The good news is that Jesus’ love continues to be carried to the ends of the earth by people like Philip, snatched from the Meals on Wheels rotation by an angel and sent to bring the outcast into the fold.

The good news is that Jesus’ love is carried forward by people like the Ethiopian court official, who, after his baptism, goes on his way rejoicing.

The good news is that Jesus’ love is even carried by people like Saul, later Paul, who begins by breathing threats and murder, and ends by promising that the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard our hearts and our minds in Christ Jesus.

The good news is that, even in a week like this, a week so filled with fear, and anger, and calls for retribution, the love of God in a suffering servant finds expression in an eight-year-old boy, in Martin Richard, whose enduring image is a photograph in which he is holding a handmade sign in response to the shootings at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, CT. The sign reads: “No more hurting people. Peace.”

In fact, that’s really all I wanted to say today. Let Martin preach the sermon. Take his message home. It’s the one we need.

No more hurting people. Peace.

Friday Five: A Healing Space

Thank you thank you thank you to RevGal Deb for the prompts for today's Friday Five.

I am an enthusiastic newspaper reader. Lately, however, world events have made it hard to read and process the pain in the world around me. Perhaps you have struggled with this, too.

So, with the events of the violence and tragedy from the Boston Marathon fresh in our memories, I thought it would be good for us to focus on where as RevGalBlogPals, we find healing, peace and strengthening. As a chaplain, there are days where I never seem to catch my breath, and invariably, those are the days that I need it the most! So with all this in mind, share with us these healing things

1. A piece of music
There are so many pieces of music I could name: the Brahms Intermezzo Op.118 #2; the Bach Air "for the G-String" (no snickering please); "By Way of Sorrow" by Julie Miller, the Cry Cry Cry version; the Girlyman version of "My Sweet Lord" by George Harrison. But I will share a song that never fails to slow my pulse, and steady my breathing, and fill me again with hope: Ani DiFranco's "Everest."

2. A place

If you know me, you will have heard me say this many times: the ocean. I grew up at the beach. It comprises my spiritual geography. It is the place where I learned things about God: Its immensity, its endlessness, the way it is powerful yet comforting; the way it throws me around and yet holds me tenderly; the way it chills and/ or refreshes; its sound, in any weather... still lapping sounds, powerful windswept sounds. The ocean is my healing place.

3. A favorite food (they call it "comfort food" for a reason)


Oh so complicated. I take "comfort" from certain foods that remind me of childhood, I supposed. My mother's recipe for spaghetti and meatballs! Chocolate chip cookies. But today, truly, I am taking comfort in having had a healthy breakfast that makes me feel good and gives me energy for the tasks and joys of the day.

4. A recreational pastime (that you watch or participate in)


Of late I have been watching an awful lot of TV. "Castle" falls in the category of "visual comfort food" for me: a good (often silly) story,  interspersed with interesting arcs for the main characters. But I am really looking forward to getting back to the pool. Swimming in the morning gives me such a profound feeling of  being centered, alive, and ready.

No pictures of me in the pool. :-) Here are Castle and Beckett. They're like family now.

5. A poem, Scripture passage or other literature that speaks to comfort you.


Those who know me well are sick of this  story. I was in seminary, in New York City, on 9/11, though far, far uptown and thus out of the immediate danger that took so many lives at ground zero. I was also participating in Clinical Pastoral Education, a 400-hour program as a chaplain at Beth Israel Hospital (the branch that has since closed, in Yorktown, right near Gracey Mansion). As I took the train and the buses I would pray Daily Prayer from the Presbyterian Book of Common Worship, and on Wednesday September 12, the psalm for the morning was Psalm 46. It made my hair stand on end, it felt so powerfully like God reaching to humanity in that devastating moment with words of solace and promise. I prayed that psalm along with the Kaddish for the dead, for a year.

If you decide to pray it, notice the  "Selah's". Modern scholars aren't a hundred percent sure what "selah" means exactly. It might be a musical instruction,  since all psalms were written to be sung. It might mean, "stop, listen." I recommend taking it as a sigh, a moment to breathe. Breathe in the reassuring, loving presence of God for you. Breathe out God's love for the whole world. The Whole World.

¹God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble.
²Therefore we will not fear, though the earth should change,
though the mountains shake in the heart of the sea;
³though its waters roar and foam, though the mountains tremble with its tumult. Selah
⁴There is a river whose streams make glad the city of God, the holy habitation of the Most High.
⁵God is in the midst of the city; it shall not be moved; God will help it when the morning dawns.
⁶The nations are in an uproar, the kingdoms totter; he utters his voice, the earth melts.
⁷The Lord of hosts is with us; the God of Jacob is our refuge. Selah
⁸Come, behold the works of the Lord; see what desolations he has brought on the earth.
⁹He makes wars cease to the end of the earth; he breaks the bow, and shatters the spear;
he burns the shields with fire.
¹⁰“Be still, and know that I am God! I am exalted among the nations, I am exalted in the earth.”
¹¹The Lord of hosts is with us; the God of Jacob is our refuge. Selah
 
BONUS: People, animals, friends, family - share a picture of one or many of these who warm your heart.

There she is. You can see her arm, as well as her spinach croissant.

The Witness: Sermon on Acts 6:1-8:1

Phoebe, Deacon and Patron of the church, praised by Paul in Romans 16:1-2

Scripture can be found here....

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I feel as if an explanation is in order.

Since September, we have been following the Narrative Lectionary, which has taken us through a kind of “highlights reel” of scripture. We’ve gotten the Notable Characters, the Big Picture, the Big Story, roughly in narrative order—the story of God’s love for us, from creation to the day of Jesus’ resurrection from the dead.

Today, we deviate from that trajectory. Having finished our time in the gospel of Luke, we delve into stories of the fledgling church. But some of you may notice that we have skipped over a pretty Big Event… the story of what has come to be known as the “birthday” of the church, Pentecost. For these next five weeks we will read stories of the early church, and then return to that Big Event on Pentecost Sunday, May 19. And now, without further ado…

Deacons, sit up straight. This is your origins story.

It all started in the church kitchen. Or, maybe, the warehouse. Wherever it was the early church was organizing or preparing or otherwise resourcing its ministry of feeding its most vulnerable members.

And what they were doing was following Jesus’ lead. Jesus fed people… in fact, Jesus very specifically pointed to a meal and said, “Do this in remembrance of me.”

And feeding people didn’t start with Jesus, though he certainly raised the bar. The Hebrew Scriptures are filled with powerful exhortations to the people to care for the most vulnerable members of their community. In biblical times, that meant widows and orphans, because in a society in which women’s status mirrored the status of the man they were primarily attached to—father, husband, brother—a woman without such a man easily fell through the cracks. There was no social safety net, except for the kindness of the community.

And so the community that was the early church reached out. They used their resources to feed the most vulnerable.  And sometimes, they got it wrong.

Today’s passage begins with the note that, “when the disciples were increasing in number,” someone got upset because the food distribution was not working the way it was supposed to. The church was growing. They were welcoming new members. And in the midst of that happy chaos of life and strength and seeds that had been planted coming to flower, someone lost the list, or someone forgot what day they were up for delivering meals, or… something. It seemed to those who were complaining that they were being left out because they were from a different ethic group, the Greek-speaking Jews, as opposed to Jews who spoke Aramaic. Maybe they worried that, as newer members to the community, they were not valued as much as the original “pillars” of the church. And… my guess is that, the older, original members, those who had maybe followed Jesus in Galilee, might have been worrying that the older ways were going to be lost, that there would be changes, compromises, new members bringing new ways of being Jesus-followers.

Probably, everybody was a little right, and a little wrong. Probably, every concern everyone had was legitimate, on some level.

And, knowing that things needed to change, that the growing church needed to figure out ways to do its mission effectively, the elders came up with a plan. Seven, they said to the people who were grumbling in the kitchen, “Select seven good people.” Ok, they said “good men,” at first, but very soon women would join their ranks. “Seven [people] of good standing, full of the Spirit and of wisdom, whom we may appoint to this task.” And that is what happened. The people who were feeling left out, who were feeling they had been neglected, selected people they knew to be wise and filled with God’s Spirit of love and generosity, and they elected them to be their deacons.

And you may wonder, well, why the need for wisdom? Why the need for the Spirit? Isn’t  this, simply, a food distribution problem?

They needed to be exemplary because, in becoming deacons*, they were becoming witnesses.

The Random House Dictionary defines a witness as “a person who, being present, personally sees or perceives a thing… a person [who] gives evidence.”

A deacon gives witness to the love of God in Jesus Christ. Sometimes they do that, as the earliest deacons did, by providing food and resources to the most vulnerable people of the community. Sometimes they give witness by visiting those who, because of age or illness,  can’t be present when the community gathers for worship or fellowship. Sometimes deacons give witness by bringing the Lord’s Supper to those who are sick or homebound. Sometimes they send care packages to those who are far flung, our college and graduate students. Sometimes deacons give witness by simply listening to someone pour their heart out.

Sometimes, deacons give witness by defending their faith. Stephen, an Aramaic-speaking Jew and one of the first deacons, found himself at the center of a group of fellow Jews who were questioning the claims of the Jesus-followers. He was hauled before the council of high priests, to defend his faith. He did, giving witness by means of a fiery sermon… “You stiff-necked people,” he roared, “uncircumcised in heart and ears, you are forever opposing the Holy Spirit, just as your ancestors used to do.” As someone noted, this is not exactly the kind of message that causes folks to shake hands with the pastor on the way out of church. “Great sermon today!” Shortly after this exchange, Stephen gave his final witness, with his life. Guess what the Greek word for “witness” might be? It’s martyr.  Stephen was not only the first deacon. Stephen was also the first martyr.

Deacons, this is your origins story. And if some of you are shifting in your seats at this point, a little unsure what you’ve got yourself into, well, then I guess you’ve accurately heard this particular story of the early church.

Deacons minister to the sick. And I don’t think I need to persuade anyone that our world is badly in need of healing. The kind of vitriol that led to deadly confrontations between people with different understandings of God in the early church is with us still. In my lifetime, we have witnessed Christians killing Muslims in Bosnia, Jews and Muslims and Christians all in deadly confrontations in the Middle East, violence against Hindus, Muslims and Christians in India. Oh, and Christians killing Christians in Northern Ireland. I’m sure there are more.

It’s enough to make one wonder, really, whether there is any hope. Enough, that is, until we remember another witness. Read chapter 7 of the Acts of the Apostles, and the first verse of chapter 8, and you will see him there, a young man watching the coats of those who are stoning Stephen. His name is Saul. “Saul approved,” the scriptures tell us, he approved of this sectarian act of violence. Later in his life, he will become a witness, not against Jesus, but for him, and he will write some of the most beautiful words ever committed to papyrus.

If I speak in the tongues of mortals and of angels, but do not have love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. And if I have prophetic powers, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing. If I give away all my possessions, and if I hand over my body so that I may boast, but do not have love, I gain nothing. ~ 1 Corinthians 13:1-3

What kind of witness does the love of God in Jesus Christ need today? How can we heal the kinds of division that lead people to believe their God wants them to harm or even kill? I believe we begin by being witnesses, yes, to the brutality of our age, but also to its beauty, to its kindness, to the kind of love that is patient and kind and never fails. We can be witnesses to that love. We can be like deacons, extending a hand in kindness to the poor, the struggling, the homesick and the homebound, all in the name of this love that has claimed us and will not let us go. Thanks be to God. Amen.

*Corrected from the awesome typo "beacons".