Doing Justice (Third Sunday of Easte;r Acts 6:1--7:2a, 44-60; April 30, 2017)

Doing Justice

Third Sunday of Easter
Acts 6:1--7:2a, 44-60
April 30, 2017

Rev. John M. Caldwell, PhD
First United Methodist Church
Decorah, Iowa

This is long reading with two parts. There is a part about the selection of deacons to run the church food pantry. Then there is a part about one of the deacons, Stephen, who got stoned, well, who was stoned by a crowd for alleged blasphemy. There are two sermons in there, too.I was going to preach the one about how Stephen got stoned, but my eye was caught by something, something in the first part of the text. I noticed, and not for the first time, that the seven men who were chosen to supervise the food distribution to the widows all had Greek names: Stephen, Philip, Prochorus, Nicanor, Timon, Parmenas, and Nicolaus. Yep, all Greek names. And then I started thinking about how those men were chosen and it occurred to me that there is something very unusual going on in this reading. Let me see if I can show you just how unusual.

The "church" had grown in Jerusalem. I put church in quotation marks because it wasn't really very organized. It was still very much in the movement stage of things. There were a few men and women who were leaders, but their roles were still fluid. There were no policy manuals, charters, or by-laws. All of those things, even our own Book of Discipline, were very much in the future and were often responses to various crises.

This was the first such crisis, a result of growth in numbers of the Jerusalem community of Jesus-followers. They had a program to distribute food to widows. Widows were often in a tough spot. As far as their family of origin was concerned, they were part of their husband's family. To their husband's family they were considered non-family members who were in possession of extended family wealth. If they had no grown sons to support them they had few allies or sources of help.

So the community of Jesus-followers undertook to provide the widows who were part of the movement with their daily bread and more. I imagine that this policy aided their evangelistic work among widows.

What complicated this was that the community was basically bi-lingual. At this early point most of the community spoke Aramaic. The rest of the community spoke Greek, the common language of the eastern Mediterranean world. This wasn't just a language division, but also a cultural and even ethnic division. Outside of the community of Jesus-followers, there was a certain amount of negative feeling--of mistrust and even dislike--between the two groups.

As we heard, this negative feeling also existed inside the community. Not only that, but it was being reflected in how the food pantry was being run. Aramaic-speaking widows, that is, widows from Judea, were getting three grocery sacks of food, while Greek-speaking widows, were only getting two. The Greek-speaking part of the community thought this was unjust, so they complained to "the Twelve." The Twelve in turn called the whole community together. It wasn't right, they argued, for them to stop preaching in order to wait on tables. So, pick out seven qualified men to organize and reform the food distribution program as needed.

Okay, first of all, now I'm thinking this wasn't so much a food pantry as a community meal program, where the Aramaic-speaking widows could go back for seconds, but the Greek-speaking widows could not.

Second, weren't there any women who could have overseen a food distribution program to support widows?

And, third, I'm wondering if pastors haven't been given an effective complaint-reduction strategy here. When someone complains, put them in charge!

Well, none of that is remarkable. What is remarkable is what came next: the community appointed seven men. The mostly Aramaic-speaking community appointed seven Greek-speaking to be deacons, a Greek word that means minister, which is a Latin word that means table-waiter.

We don't have any of the minutes of the meeting other than what the Twelve say and what the community decided, but the conversation must have included something like this from the majority, Aramaic-speaking party: You Greek-speaking folks say that there is an injustice in the way our community has supported widows. We believe you. So we would like for you to run this program the way you think it should be run. Decide what needs to be done. Show us what justice for your widows looks like. And that's what we'll do.

A majority Aramaic-speaking community with Aramaic-speakers in charge, showing favoritism toward Aramaic-speaking widows turned over its power to the Greek-speaking minority to arrange a part of the community's life more justly. That never happens!

I imagine that it didn't happen without a struggle. Like I said, there were no minutes from the meeting, just the apostolic charge and the decision. But I'd be surprised if there weren't some voices who objected: Yeah, but if we let the Greeks run things then our widows will be the ones getting short-changed. At very least some of them thought this. It was a risky move. Yes, the Greek-speakers could have simply turned the tables. To trust that they wouldn't was taking a real risk. But they believed and trusted the Greek-speakers and took the risk. And we do not hear that their trust was betrayed.

It's hard to imagine any community acting the way this early Christian community acted. I know how people in power usually deal with these things. For as long as they can, they deny that there is a problem. Or they tell the victims that change is coming, but it will be slow. Or addressing this injustice isn't possible yet because there are other more important priorities.

Then, if they are forced into acting, they'll set up a commission with representation from all sides: six Greek-speakers, six Aramaic-speakers, and a Latin-speaking moderator. They'll do everything they can to shift the focus from justice to fairness. The commission can look at the rules of the game as long as no one questions whether the game should be played at all.

In the end, they will do as little as possible as long as they can avoid the appearance of unfairness. That's what people in power usually do.

Imagine if they didn't!

Imagine if the Ferguson Police Department sat down with the Ferguson community and said to them, You have said that law enforcement in your community is unjust. We don't completely understand why you say that, but we trust that you're speaking honestly from your experience. What needs to change? How do we make this right? You tell us and that's what we'll do.

I know there would be voices that would say, Are you crazy? Crime will run rampant! Police lives won't be worth anything! You can't put them in charge!

It would be risky. The people in charge would have to decide that doing justice was more important than being in charge. They would have to decide to trust the Ferguson community to know what justice would like in Ferguson, MO.

In the United Methodist Church we put our LGBTQ clergy on trial for whom they love. Clergy who perform weddings for every adult couple who want to commit themselves to a lifetime of loving are brought up on charges. We declare that the consecration of an elder in good standing to the office of bishop is illegal, because she is joined in love and marriage to a woman. We appoint commissions with tiny minorities of LGBTQ people to have conversations about the full range of human sexuality, fully prepared to reject their conclusions at the special General Conference in 2019.

Imagine instead that the Council of Bishops sat down with LGBTQ clergy and laity and said to them, "Tell us what justice for you would look like in the United Methodist Church. And that's what we'll do."

The radical approach to doing justice in the real world practiced by the early Christian community is easy to overlook. It lies just at the edges of what it is even possible to imagine. But that doesn't mean that we shouldn't live toward it. This is one reason why I'm so enchanted by the model of Sister Parish. When we go from North to South, we don't go with money bags; we don't go with a list of things that would make their lives better if only they listened to us; we don't go convinced that we know what good news would be for them. We go to listen and to learn. We go to form tentative new relationships, afraid to do or say the wrong thing, worried that we'll misunderstand or be misunderstood. We find instead people who are willing to take the risk of befriending Americans. Given the history of our country with the nations of Latin America, we do not underestimate how risky that might seem. But they do it anyway. They forgive our mistakes. They welcome us into their homes. They share what they have. They tell us their stories of struggle and resistance and survival.

It is that trust and willingness that allow me go to Potrerillos, Chilatenango, El Salvador, where lives are so difficult for so many because of policies that help make life so easy for me, and say to them, I know that grave injustices have been committed and continue to be committed against you by my nation. I have an intuition of what injustice looks like and I see far too much of it. If I'm wrong about that, please correct me. Tell me what justice would look like. I will believe you. I will stand with you. I will work to make it happen.

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