I’ve always focused in Acts 6:1-7 on the
fundamental importance of meeting the needs of the poorest. That’s why that reading was linked with
Deuteronomy 15:7-11 which speaks of the need to give to the neediest with an
open hand and generous heart and Psalm 46 which speaks of the need to care for
the neediest.
But as I turned to this chapter this week
my eye fell on the opening verse and I found myself reflecting on big issues
around us in the world today.
How do we cope with living in a world with
a multiplicity of languages, a multiplicity of ethnicities, a multiplicity of
cultures? Do we hanker after some
supposedly long lost time when there was a single culture. In these islands, speaking as someone who
speaks Welsh, we would be hard pressed to find such a time. Speaking as someone whose elder son is a
Yorkshireman even within England Europe . And then there are so many words brought in
from Latin and the Romans and from
French and the Normans.
Maybe, there never has been such a time.
Maybe, we should actually recognise that in
every generation there is a multiplicity of peoples, languages and cultures in
any land.
How
do we cope with such a multiplicity?
Fear it?
Or grasp it?
It is very easy to read the Gospels and the
New Testament in a ‘black and white way’, the way I read them in Sunday School
long ago, thinking the Jewish people were the Jews. Jesus introduced something different and his
followers were ‘Christians’, as if there was a single way of being Jewish at
the time of Jesus and a single way of being ‘Christian’ at the time of the
infant church.
It was a small step to thinking that the
Jewish way was based on Law and the followers of Jesus discovered ‘grace’ as if
there was no grace in the Old Testament.
I have a feeling those who follow such a path need to look again at the
text of the Old Testament!
What’s fascinating is that at the time of
Jesus there were many different ways of being Jewish. Indeed the Jewish world was touched by the
different cultures of that time.
The inscription on the cross was in Latin,
Greek and Hebrew – maybe Jesus would have understood Latin, spoken Greek, read
Hebrew and been very much at home in Aramaic.
Why do we assume he was a mono-linguist, those of us brought up in England
The different cultures around gave rise to
very real tensions.
Those tensions were very much to the fore
in the Jewish world in the time leading up to the time of Jesus. At times the tensions were greater. At times they were less.
It was about 170 years before the time of
Christ that things came to a head. It
was with the spread of Greek thinking and Greek culture that the faith of the
Jewish people was put under pressure.
The Seleucid empire centred on Syria was putting pressure on Judea
and the Jewish people – so much so that with the accession of Aniochus IV,
Epiphanes, someone called Jason became High Priest thanks to his willingness to
engage in all sorts of bribery and corruption.
Interviewed by the King he offered 360
talents of silver – a massive sum of money.
And got the job.
What 2 Maccabees tells us gives a glimpse
of the way the Jewish people felt threatened by the adoption of too much of the
Greek way of life.
2 Maccabees 4:11-17 He set aside
the existing royal concessions to the Jews, secured through John the father of
Eupolemus, who went on the mission to establish friendship and alliance with
the Romans; and he destroyed the lawful ways of living and introduced new
customs contrary to the law. 12 He took
delight in establishing a gymnasium right under the citadel, and he induced the
noblest of the young men to wear the Greek hat.
13 There was such an extreme of Hellenization and increase in the
adoption of foreign ways because of the surpassing wickedness of Jason, who was
ungodly and no true high priest, 14 that
the priests were no longer intent upon their service at the altar. Despising
the sanctuary and neglecting the sacrifices, they hurried to take part in the
unlawful proceedings in the wrestling arena after the signal for the
discus-throwing, 15 disdaining the
honors prized by their ancestors and putting the highest value upon Greek forms
of prestige. 16 For this reason heavy
disaster overtook them, and those whose ways of living they admired and wished
to imitate completely became their enemies and punished them. 17 It is no light thing to show irreverence
to the divine laws-- a fact that later events will make clear.
The Maccabean revolt sought to redress the
balance. It did for a while. But then the Romans came to power. And the pressures were on once again.
One good barometer was sport. How sport came to rule the roost. Ambivalence.
Andy Murray last week, a thrilling finish to the Test this week. Junior Rugby on a Sunday morning. Junior Cricket on a Sunday.
Big pressures.
Let’s bring Christian values into sport –
we’ll do things on a different day. But
the Christian values are squeezed out.
Is this right? Big pressures.
It’s not long once the Romans really come
to power that Herod comes to power and the Herodian dynasty is
established. The High Priests are
appointed by first Herod the Great, then his son Archelaus has the
responsibility before it is then put into the hands of the Roman procurator.
This is a real hellenizing tendency.
Herod has no qualms – a contemporary Jewish
historian describes his remarkable building works …
Herod the Great extended his generosity to many cities outside his boundaries. F or Tripoli, Damascus and Ptolemais he
provided gymnasia, for Byublus a wall, for Berytus and Tyre hhalls, colonnades,
temples and market-places, for Sidon and Damascus theatres, for the coastal Laodicea
Even Athens and Sparta
But
his endowment of Elis was a gift not only to Greece
This all gave rise to big tensions.
We know from earlier on in Acts and for
that matter in Luke that Jesus drew followers from all parts of the Jewish
world and from beyond as well. In Jerusalem
There were also people who followed Jesus
who had no time for this kind of compromise across cultures – their
understanding of Jewishness was very much more clear. No, we must stand out from the world and its
culture and not go along with it.
There is a tension between the two groups of people that is keenly felt. And that tension spills over into the church.
It is very easy to look back at the past
through rose tinted spectacles and imagine that the past was a time with few
problems, no problems. But from the
word go the church had differences.
Maybe that should come as no surprise. For Jesus spoke into different cultures. What he had to offer was for everyone. He drew Galileans, zealots, Pharisees,
experts in the law, Samaritans, Centurions – a whole range of people to follow
him.
By the time we reach Acts 6:1 it is highly
significant that in the infant church there are Helenists and there are
Hebrews.
What is interesting here is how the church
community, the followers of Jesus that church in Jerusaelm dealt with the
divisions that reared their ugly head.
People from both those tendencies were drawn to Christ.
And they brought into the church the
tensions that were around in the Jewish world.
The first of those fracture points comes in
the tension between the Hellenists and the Hebrews – those content to be Jewish
through the medium of the Greek language and harness the Greek culture, and
those who wanted their Jewish to stand out and be different.
Acts
6:1 Now during those days, when the
disciples were increasing in number, the Hellenists complained against the
Hebrews because their widows were being neglected in the daily distribution of
food.
Clearly there was a falling out.
He Hellenists are convinced the Hebrews are
neglecting their widows.
Fascinating glimpse of the way the church
worked in that society – a daily distribution of food. And within that those ancient laws taken
seriously that the needs of the most neediest should be uppermost.
What happens is fascinating.
There is quite a specific problem.
Acts
6:2 And the twelve called together the
whole community of the disciples
This is one of the those moments when we in
our Congregational Way of Being the church find our roots in the New
Testament. The apostles call the whole
church together. This is something that
needs to be resolved by everyone together.
They share the problem and then suggest a
way for the whole church to address the problem …
Acts
6:2-5 2 And the twelve called together
the whole community of the disciples and said, "It is not right that we
should neglect the word of God in order to wait on tables. 3 Therefore, friends, select from among
yourselves seven men of good standing, full of the Spirit and of wisdom, whom
we may appoint to this task, 4 while we,
for our part, will devote ourselves to prayer and to serving the
word." 5 What they said pleased the
whole community,
So there are to be seven people who will
serve as deacons – the apostles will devote themselves to prayer and serving
the word while the deacons will serve the needs of the community and the most
poor.
This is put to the church … and notice that
there is a sense in which the whole church come to a mind … the process we seek
to follow through in our Church meeting.
5 What
they said pleased the whole community,
The whole community choose …
Acts
6:5 5 What they said pleased the whole
community, and they chose Stephen, a man full of faith and the Holy Spirit,
together with Philip, Prochorus, Nicanor, Timon, Parmenas, and Nicolaus, a
proselyte of Antioch.
Do you notice something?
They all have Greek names!
So the whole community decide that to meet
the needs of the widows of Hellenists they will choose people best placed to
serve those needs with the same language, the same kind of cultural background
from the Hellenists’ community.
At this point there is not the attempt to
get everyone into the same way of thinking – to say the Hellenists must all
become Hebrews or vice versa, but in the church even at this point there is a
willingness to affirm the different communities within the one community of the
disciples of Christ.
There is a wonderful conclusion.
Acts
6:6-7 6 They had these men stand before
the apostles, who prayed and laid their hands on them. 7 ¶ The word of God continued to spread;
the number of the disciples increased greatly in Jerusalem
Even the final comment. The priests.
Were they more of the Hebrews, or were they comfortable to work within
the Herodian temple? Interesting
thought.
Isn’t it wonderful that the picture of the
early church is actually a picture of a church with a multiplicity of
languages, a multiplicity of ethnicities, a multiplicity of approaches to
culture and they affirm those differences while harnessing everyone to work
together in Christ.
Maybe this is the key for us today. To affirm the multiplicity, delight in it and
seek to follow Christ in such a way as to enable those differences to live side
by side, yet find a oneness in Christ.
It was Jonathan
Rowe at our weekend away who drew our attention to the nature
of Heavenly glory when it is people from all tribes and peoples and languages
who stand before the lamb singing. It
is the essence of God’s glory that the multiplicity of languages is heard.
If you want a foretaste of heaven on earth
don’t look for a place with a single culture, a single language, look instead
to a High Street where every language under heaven can be heard … for that will
be a foretaste of that rich multiplicity there is in heaven!
After
this I looked, and there was a great multitude that no one could count, from
every nation, from all tribes and peoples and languages, standing before the
throne and before the Lamb, robed in white, with palm branches in their hands.
They cried out in a loud voice, saying,
‘Salvation
belongs to our God who is seated on the throne, and to the Lamb!’
And
all the angels stood around the throne and around the elders and the four
living creatures, and they fell on their faces before the throne and worshipped
God, singing,
‘Amen!
Blessing and glory and wisdom
and
thanksgiving and honour
and
power and might
be to our God for ever and ever! Amen.’
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