All Jobs Matter
Acts 6:1-7
Introduction
With this being Remembrance Sunday, I can’t help but think of conversations I have had in the past with veterans, especially of the Second World War. I was blessed in my previous church to have a good group of WW2 veterans that I was able to get to know and hear their stories.
One man told me how he lied about age to join and that he landed at Juno Beach on D-Day. It was an exciting story that he had. That might be the kind of experience that we expect. But another man told me that his job was not to fire a weapon but to drive a truck. Without transportation, the troops couldn’t get to where they needed to be. Another man told me that he never left England, but remained there as a cook, helping to feed the troops that were stationed there. Troops can’t fight if they can’t eat. Another veteran told me that he never left Canada during the war. He was in the air force and he was posted where they were training the pilots. His job was to help clear the wreckage when the pilots crashed. The part he played to make sure pilots were trained here so they could fight in Europe was just as important as the person who was in that landing craft on Juno Beach.
Why do I bring this up? Because we are thinking about Remembrance Day but also because there is a lesson here for the church. Whether we like to admit it or not, we have a hierarchy of roles within the church. There are certain jobs that we think of as more or less “spiritual.” But that is a mistake. All of the roles are important and a healthy church requires many different types of activity, none of it more or less spiritual than the other.
The passage that we are looking at today is a point where the simple structure of the church was no longer working. Things were becoming more complex and it had having results that affected real people. Let us take a look.
A Potential Crisis
At this point in the church, there is a pretty loose structure. There are the followers of Jesus, with the apostles having a recognized authority. The church has role to preach the gospel and to help those in need. It is pretty much the same thing we are supposed to do.
People are excited about Jesus and are willing to preach him even in the face of persecution. However, zeal does not always translate into the skill and structure to make things work smoothly.
An issue had come up. At this point the church was all Jewish in background. However, there were differences among Jews. There were the Jews that had always been in Galilee or Judea and spoke Hebrew or Aramaic. Then there were the Jews from families that had moved all around the Roman Empire and beyond and had now come back. They would have spoken mostly Greek. One of the groups that the church were taking care of were the widows, since there was no government support nor job opportunities. The Greek Jews felt like their widows were being neglected in favour of the Hebrew Jews.
It doesn’t matter if that was the case, because all it takes to split a church is the appearance of corruption. This was a dangerous moment in the history of the fledgling church. The apostles had to act quickly and decisively. But they couldn’t just step in take care of all the work. If they spent all of their time supervising the distribution of food, they would have no time to preach. It is not that feeding the widows was unimportant, but they couldn’t do everything and they already had a role.
Their solution was to appoint another group to take over work that need to be done. There already was a Twelve, now there would be a Seven. Please notice this closely. It does not say that they grabbed whoever was available to do a job that no one wanted. They sought out the best of the best, people filled with the Spirit and wisdom. These were gifted individuals who were greatly respected. In fact we know far more about Philip of the Seven than we do of Philip of the Twelve. The added detail of their appointment is that most of them have Greek names. The apostles sent a clear message that not only is caring for the needy important, so is the unity of the Hebrew and Greek Jewish Christians.
The other thing we should note is that we have a Twelve and a Seven. Those are two of the most important biblical numbers. They could have chosen six or eight but they went with seven. The apostles were making it clear that the Seven were just as important as the Twelve, even if they had a different role. What we need to see here that the church had different areas of ministry and all of it deserved attention.
Avoiding Crisis
This is all very interesting but what does it mean for us? We can look at this and see it as biblical trivia or we can see this as a guiding principle for the church throughout the ages.
The church doesn’t have just one role. It is not just to preach the message of Jesus, although that is central to it. If that was all we needed to do, we could all just stand on street corners and yell to everyone we met. But we are not just called to tell about Jesus, we are called to love like Jesus. Jesus preached but he did many other things. Jesus got involved in people’s lives, he showed compassion, he fed the hungry and healed the hurting. We have seen in these first chapters of Acts that the church was supposed to continue to do the work of Jesus.
So what does this passage look like today? While pastors are not apostles, pastors do focus on prayer and preaching the Word. And the Seven are often looked at as the prototype of the deacon. So a church has pastors and deacons, end of story.
That is not exactly the case, although it is good to have pastors and deacons. The principle is deeper than this. The point of this passage is that there are different roles and it is important to have godly and skilled people in those roles, not neglecting one area for another.
We want the Word of God preached here. We also want a building in good shape that we can gather in. We want the opportunity to worship, both with music and other means. We want to be able to care for our own. we want to be able to reach out to our community, meeting their spiritual and physical needs.
One person cannot take care of that. More than that, one kind of person cannot take care of all that. For the church to work properly, we need to all work together, using the gifts that God has given us. I cannot imagine one person in the church as not being involved in some way. We have people who cannot get out regularly. But they can pray and they can call up someone with a word of encouragement. Some of us can sing, some of us can’t. Some of us are good with finances, some of us are not. We always need people ready to serve in areas like Deacons and Management, but there are plenty of other areas that never make it on an org chart.
It is always difficult to get volunteers. But I suspect that has more to do with filling blank spaces than matching the right people with the right opportunities.
We are in a historic time in our church with the COVID-19 pandemic. We want to do more than survive, we want to thrive for God’s kingdom. I know I can’t do that by myself. Even the official leadership team can’t do it. But we can do it. All of us together. What role will you play?
Conclusion
The conflict between the Greek and Hebrew speaking Christians was only a symptom of what was really going on. The church had grown and was getting beyond the simple structure that they started with. The church and the leadership had to adapt to changing circumstances. It was getting beyond the Twelve, beyond the apostles.
If we are going to move forward, not neglecting vital areas of our church ministry, we will need your help. There is not one person part of this church that doesn’t have a role. Christianity was never meant to be a spectator sport. Let us know what your gifts and passions are. Let us know the areas in which you are willing to serve. And let us build the kingdom of God together in our community.
