Sermon:
October 29, 2006
Morning Services

Scripture:
Acts 6:1-7

It didn’t last long, really, the disciples’ first attempt at communal living—selling everything they had, bringing it together for distribution, so that no one claimed anything as their own, but everyone had enough. Just two chapters later, what happens? The Hellenists—that is, the Greek Christians—complain because their widows aren’t getting as much aid as the Hebrew Christian widows. 

Maybe it was greed or racial prejudice on the part of the Hebrews. Maybe it was grabbing on the part of the Hellenists. Maybe it was neglect on the part of the apostles. Maybe it was just a faulty method of distribution—good intentions run amuck. Whatever it was, it wouldn’t be the last time the church would have to deal with the tension between ethnic groups, the “haves and have-nots,” ways of effectively meeting need, appropriate social services. It wouldn’t be the last time the church would have to deal with the deeper issue of the balance between word and work, sacrament and service. 

So they moved to structure the ministry, to balance the role between the ministry of preaching and the ministries of compassion; to find the balance between soul work and servanthood. And in order to do it, they chose Stephen and Philip, along with five others whom we had never heard of before and never hear from again, to focus on the ministry of food, the ministry of serving, the work of compassion. 

They did it, I hope, not to divide the ministry and pit one against the other, suggesting one was more important than the other. But even if that were the case, for us it models the balanced ministry, the whole ministry of the whole church in proclaiming the Gospel and doing the Gospel. 

To be fair, it’s easy to see why they would focus on the evangelistic role, isn’t it? 

This is, after all, the first proclamation of the faith, the first preaching of the good news. They had to get the word out, to rally the people, before they could do much of anything about serving the widows and feeding the hungry, right? It’s easy to understand why the preaching ministry would take precedence. After all, Jesus’ last command to the disciples was to go and preach the word to all nations, to be his witnesses in Jerusalem, Judea and Samaria and to the uttermost parts of the earth.

And besides, look at the results! Peter preached and three thousand responded. Then Luke says the church was adding daily those who were being saved. Under the word of the apostles, people were being healed, lame men were walking, and it seems the whole city was buzzing about the signs and wonders. So why wouldn’t you focus on the preaching of this powerful, life-changing word? 

But behind the scenes, back in the upper room… 

Back in the gathering of the community, there were real people with real needs. And if the church was going to model this new life in Christ, it had to live out both sides of the Gospel: 

• the preaching of the word and the work of ministry

• the witness to Christ and the compassion of Christ

• the concern for the soul and care for the body

• the work of the apostles and the work of the deacons

• sacrament and servanthood

• side by side

Now I wonder why, after two thousand years, has it always been so hard for the church to get it right? 

It seems the church is always getting caught between the two and, depending on your theology, drifting to one extreme or the other—evangelism, preaching the word, saving souls on the right, passion for social issues on the left, favoring Peter’s preaching or Stephen’s serving, all the while failing to find the fullness of ministry Christ intended for the church. 

When I was a kid back in Clarion, the church life I experienced was marked with a zeal for preaching. We went to Cherry Run Camp Meeting in the summer and revival services in the fall, with the calls to conversion and salvation, altar calls, invitations, commitment services, always accompanied by missionaries from around the world telling the story of salvation to all the nations. There was a passion and energy in it which was important in my call to ministry, and I hope is still a crucial part of my ministry today. 

But back there in Clarion in the ’50s, no one ever talked about the implications of the Gospel for race relations. No one ever talked about the need for changes in society, the living wage, diversity in the work place, social justice. No one ever talked about the word of the Gospel in relation to what we then called the “Cold War.” We would send missionaries to preach in Africa, but I never heard of things like colonialism or apartheid. And as the issues in the world pressed in upon us, for many people that kind of a church became totally irrelevant. 

Then I went to seminary in the late ’60s and early ’70s and I saw the passion of the peace movement, the civil rights movement, the feminist movement….all growing out of the gospel. But there was no mention of personal salvation, no invitation for a personal encounter with the living Christ, no acknowledgement of the need of God’s grace to redeem my own sin. We seemed to be bouncing back and forth between an evangelistic message with no social power and a social gospel with no heart or soul.

In my first appointment to three little country churches in western Pennsylvania, we were celebrating an anniversary. I had the audacity to invite the bishop. And lo and behold, Bishop Roy Nichols came to preach. He was the bishop of my ordination, one of the first African American bishops in the church, a true saint and a great preacher. I remember him saying he saw the church as a great eagle with two wings—one the personal evangel, the other the social gospel. He said with only one wing the eagle flops around, getting nowhere. But with both wings, the eagle can take flight and soar. 

I hope our ministry initiatives, our church life and program lift up the balance between Peter and Stephen, worship and work, sacrament and service. 

• the need for creative worship alternatives to reach more people with the life-changing message of Christ—hence, plans for a fifth worship service—balanced with expanding mission team opportunities, including our first youth team to Africa next summer

• the emphasis on excellence in music and teaching ministries here, balanced with the vision of tutoring in Pontiac and ministries of compassion in Detroit

• care for our own house of worship through our “Home Fires” fund, balanced with the building of houses for others through Habitat for Humanity

• a commitment to make this a great place to raise our own kids, balanced with a compassion for all the world’s children through our global outreach and hunger ministries

This past week, some of us heard Alan Hamilton, pastor of Church of the Resurrection. He started the church with four members, and today it has almost twenty thousand members. He reminded us that this is our heritage as United Methodists. John Wesley called Methodism the “via media,” the middle way, bringing a balance between 

• the personal Gospel and the social Gospel

• grace and holiness

• science and faith

• piety and politics

• work and worship

• sacrament and servanthood

And with Adam, I have to believe there are lots of folks out there who are offended with the rigidity of the right and bored with the blandness of the left—people who are looking for a church that can bring together the best of both in a balanced ministry of word and work, sacrament and servanthood, Peter and Stephen. 

Back in those childhood days in Clarion, I grew up with a lot of the old gospel music of the church. I remember one which was sung by a Gospel quartet who used to come to our church. At the time, I thought it was great—peppy tune, memorable words, seemingly powerful message, with a high pitched tenor and a deep echoing bass:           

On the Jericho road
there’s room for just two.
No more and no less,
just Jesus and you.  

Then I read the Gospel and discovered they were not only sappy lyrics, they were nothing less than bad theology and biblical heresy. Because the Jericho road was the place where the Samaritan found the man in need. It was the road where compassion met human suffering. It’s not the road for “just Jesus and me,” it is the road where Jesus and I encounter the broken and the hurting and the dying of the world. 

Well, right here in the early days of the early church, it might have been the first time, but it wouldn’t be the last time the church would struggle with the balance… 

….favoring one or the other—Peter or Stephen, worship or work, soul work or servanthood—when the call of the church is to live out the whole Gospel for the whole world. 

Read on in the New Testament. James obviously confronted the same problem, so he admonished the church to “be doers of the word, and not hearers only.” He seems to address the same problem they confronted here in the early days of the early church: 

What does it profit if a person says he has faith, but has not works? Can that faith save him? If a brother or sister is ill-clad and in lack of daily food and one of you says to them, “Go in peace, be warmed and filled” without giving them the things needed for the body, what does it profit? So faith, by itself, if it has not works, is dead. (James 1:22 and 2:14)

But the good news is, Stephen “Found the Way.” He found the way to a balanced life of service in the name of Christ. 

Two final comments: 

1.  This kind of church life, this way of servanthood, isn’t cheap. 

In fact, next week we will see that it costs Stephen his very life. The way of balanced ministry, which brings together the word and the work of the Gospel, isn’t cheap. In fact, it is very costly. 

In this political season, we are fascinated by the promises of politicians of every stripe… basically, promising the moon. The message is, “You can have it all: defense systems, security fences, high property values, great schools, smooth highways, safe neighborhoods, high-paying  jobs, a peaceful world, men in space, a car in every pot and a chicken in every garage, and cut taxes at the same time. We can do it all and it won’t cost you a thing.” 

Sorry, but I can’t promise that. I can promise that a balanced ministry, a church which takes seriously the call of Christ to live out the whole Gospel, will cost a great deal. It isn’t cheap, but it is the way to life! 

2.  Second, this way of servanthood, this way of a balanced church life, is a choice. 

It’s up to you and me. You can choose to be a part of this kind of a church. You can choose to invest in this kind of ministry. You can choose the way of tithing, the way of faithful stewardship, the way of giving and generosity. Or you can walk away. It’s up to you to choose.  

All I can do is offer the invitation, the opportunity, the call to follow Christ in the way of servanthood, the way of Stephen, the way of life. 

All I can tell you is, that’s the only kind of church I want to be a part of.