"What they said pleased the whole community"

We just had the privilege of having Hlobisile Nxumalo, director of Acts of Faith, a youth program in Swaziland, lead our workshop March 1-2 at Bethany Bible School.  Hlobi is trained as an accountant, but her broader passion seems to be management and, in particular, management as it pertains to the church.  She led the students of BBS in thinking about how they lead and participate in meetings in their churches.  She emphasized processes of communal decision making and building consensus in the church on divisive issues.

In her presentation on Saturday, Hlobi drew our attention to Acts 6:1-7, the text which tells of the choosing of the first deacons in the early church.  Hlobi stressed verse 5a: "What they said pleased the whole community."  Within the text, verse 5a might be quickly overlooked, a throwaway comment on the way toward a greater point.  I suspected, nevertheless, that in fact Hlobi had directed our eyes toward the very structural heart of the text--and thus the interpretive key to its message as a unit.

As I investigated the structure of Acts 6:1-7, I found an unmistakable inclusio, a two-part frame marking off the text as a distinct unit of thought.  The text begins by emphasizing that, "during those days, when the disciples were increasing in number" (6:1); it ends with a similar thought: "the number of the disciples increased greatly in Jerusalem" (6:7).  In other words, the inclusio in the text pertains to the growth of the church; the church moves from growth to growth.  Growth is the frame of the text.

This is not to say, however, that the growth of the church is something to be taken for granted, an inexorable harvest of increase until disciples of Jesus cover the earth as the waters cover the sea.  On the contrary, the growth of the church passes through many troubles and trials, progressions and recessions more akin to the tides crashing on the beach during the course of a day.  Thus we read that, "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" (6:1).  With an initial burst of growth comes conflict.  Precisely on the heels of triumph comes frustration.  The sailing of the church is not smooth.  As the disciples were increasing, the Hellenists were arguing against the Hebrews over the equality of care for widows.  The church increased; the church was dividing.

The conflict over equal care, a matter of justice, might have destroyed the church, fractured the hard-won work of Christ's cross which had broken down the dividing wall of hostility between Hebrew and Hellenist.  Instead, however, the conflict was an extension within the life of the church of the cross of its Lord, an opportunity to confront the powers of injustice and dispel them through perseverance in love for others.  So it was that "the twelve", the acknowledged leaders of the church, "called together the whole community of disciples" and proposed a distinct course of action toward justice (6:2, 3-4).  Their proposal--the appointment of deacons (servant leaders) to be responsible for the distribution of food to Hellenist and Hebrew alike--"pleased the whole community" (6:5a).  The community which the twelve had "called together" to discuss the problem of injustice was the same community which was "pleased" by the appointment of deacons.

One of Hlobi's main points, therefore, was that the transformation of the conflict, signaled in the story by the satisfaction of the "whole community" (v. 5a), was the involvement of the "whole community" in the decision-making process.  Because the twelve had "called together the whole community", the "whole community" was "pleased".  The solution to the problem belonged to the whole community as much as it belonged to the twelve.

In addition, we might add the following lessons from this text:

1. Don't rest on your laurels.  Times of frustration are bound to follow times of triumph.  Frustration need not have the final word, but the church will need to work through conflict.  In the positive, this might be expressed, in the parlance of the New Testament's apocalyptic texts, as the injunction to "Keep awake" or "Here is a call for the endurance and faith of the saints" (Mk 13:35, 37; Rev 13:10).

2. Growth is dependent upon maintenance.  The increase of the community is related to the health of the community.  The church's inner life affects its outer witness.  The life and processes of the community have a direct affect upon its capacity for attracting outsiders.  The church must thus attend to its inner life, to the maintaining of justice among its members, and to the spiritual practices that enable it to attend to the needs of members.  Thus the twelve were wise in not forsaking "the word of God in order to wait on tables" even as the "waiting on tables" through the appointment of deacons was the solution to the needs of its members.  Spirituality and justice are the requirements for lasting growth.

-Joe

individual, community, God: the church at peace

Two weeks ago, I participated in a pastoral ordination for one of our members of Mennonite World Conference.  The event had been on our calendar for the entire year—it was much anticipated.  Because I had been asked to give leadership to the ordination, I did a lot of research on the practice of ordination within the Mennonite Church, trying to get my head around how to relate a structure or process for ordination within my sending denomination (MCUSA) to a much less-defined practice within the church in this case.  In the end, I think we managed something that could be deemed a success—a blending of practices, roles, and personalities that marked one pastor’s identity as a servant of God to the people to whom he has been called.

In my own preparation for the event, the text that grabbed my attention was 1 Timothy 4:12-5:2, a text in which the three participants named above—the pastor, God, and the people—are clearly visible.
The text is marked by a frame of implicit conflict or potential conflict within the church.  Such conflict is acknowledged in Paul’s exhortation to Timothy, “Let no one despise your youth” (4:12), and in his counsel to Timothy, “Do not speak harshly to an older man” [Greek: presbyter] (5:1).  In other words, at the beginning and end of this unit of scripture, conflict or the potential for conflict in the church is assumed.  If it was not so, why then does Paul deem it worthy to affirm Timothy’s calling in the face of those who would “despise his youth”?  Likewise, if the potential of young leaders such as Timothy to deride older leaders were not present, why then do we find Paul warning Timothy not to “speak harshly to an older man” (5:1)?  Indeed, the text acknowledges that conflict is close at hand.

But if the context of the text is conflict, then the substance of the text pertains to how Timothy—the addressee of this epistle (1 Tim 1:2)—might conduct himself within that conflict.  And though Christ is nowhere mentioned in this unit, we might not be surprised to learn that the method Paul lays down for Timothy for dealing with conflict has Christ written all over it.  To those who would despise his youth, Timothy should—rather than returning derision in the form of speaking harshly to an older man—“set the believers an example in speech and conduct, in love, in faith, in purity” (4:12b).  Timothy is not to concern himself with the insults of others, becoming fixated on them, but to “give attention to the public reading of scripture, to exhorting, to teaching” (4:13).  These are the things—the things of God and not the things of human beings (Mk 8:33)—that Timothy should “put into practice”, “devote [himself] to”, “continue in” (4:15, 16).  Timothy’s responsibility is to the scripture, the teaching of scripture, and his own integrity to that scripture-shaped life in the presence of others.  Indeed, Timothy is to “pay close attention to [himself] and to [his] teaching” (4:15).  As far as it concerns Timothy, the pastor for others, the scripture judges him before it judges his flock. 

The conduct of a Christian leader, therefore, is self-reflection, humility, and submission to God rather than the presumption to be like God.  The leader sets an example (4:12) of dependence on God which the people can follow—not with regard to the leader but to the leader’s Leader.  The goal of the church is not to play “follow the leader”; the church follows the leader in following God.

As implicit in the text as the conflict is the power of the example of “love, faith, and purity” to overcome the conflict.  It is entirely possible, even likely, that for a time the example will be despised by those who love darkness more than light (Jn 3:19).  That does not mean, however, that the example of love is not ultimately efficacious, for it is the power of God for all who have faith and even now are victorious precisely in keeping their purity in love in the midst of derision.  In the best of times, by God’s grace, the example of enduring love (which is Jesus Christ himself) will even win the derisive.  The example of “love, faith, and purity” always leaves open the door to redemption, the cessation of hostility and the embrace of peace—and that is why Paul commends it to Timothy.  Indeed, Paul insists that the example “will save both [Timothy] and [his] hearers (4:16).

At the very heart of the text is an image of the “saved” church.  It is an image of the people of God, so to speak, “in the beginning”, perhaps before the despising of youth and cruelty to the old had become a threat to genuine peace.  Paul reconstructs the memory for Timothy.  “Do not neglect the gift that is in you, which was given to you through prophecy with the laying on of hands by the council of elders” (4:14).  The memory of what the people of God once were points to the reality of what the people of God will be.  Before it forgot its true calling, the community recognized the gift of God to individuals among them and acclaimed God’s gift by a show of support in the presence of all.  That which was given to one “through prophecy”, God’s Word breaking in to human experience, was affirmed by the many “with the laying on of hands by the council of elders. [Greek: presbytery].”  He who would deride those who called him, and those who would despise the one they called, are themselves called to remember who they really are in Christ.

-Joe

the baptized life

Over the weekend I taught on the subject of ecclesiology, the theology of the church, at Bethany Bible School.

I studied and selected several texts for the lesson, one of which was Acts 2:41-47.

Acts 2:41-47 is framed by two statements which speak of people being "added" to the number of the apostles.  First, after Peter's Pentecost Day sermon, about "three thousand people were added" (2:41). Finally, after descriptions of the early life of the apostolic community, the text states that "the Lord added day by day to them those who were being saved" (2:47).  These parallel statements about "addition" also invite comparison between those who were being added.  In the first instance, those who were added were those who "welcomed [Peter's] word and were baptized" (2:41).  In the second place, those who were added were those who were "being saved."  The text begins with addition through baptism and ends with addition by salvation.  One wonders, therefore, how baptism and salvation are related.  

A possible explanation of the connection between baptism and salvation may be found in the description that falls between the bookends of verses 41 and 47.  Verses 42-46 are exclusively about what happened to those who were baptized, those who, like others after them, "were being saved."  After being added upon baptism, the text states that they "continued in the apostles' teaching, the breaking of bread and fellowship, and the prayers" (2:42).  These activities find an echo later in the description that they "broke bread from house to house", the centerpiece of a life of daily worship in the temple, "sharing food with glad and generous hearts, praising God, and having the goodwill of the people" (2:46-47).  Between these parallel descriptions are two other statements which each feature a couplet--the first "wonders and signs" (2:43) and the second "possessions and goods" (2:45).  The first statement says simply that "many wonders and signs were being done by the apostles" while the second specifically enumerates the activities of the early church: "they would sell their possessions and goods and distribute the proceeds to all, as any had need."  The structural parallelism in the text invites the reader to consider whether the "wonders and signs" of the apostles were not in fact the "possessions and goods" which they sold to meet human need.  Finally, in between all of these statements is the summary of the apostolic community: "All who believed were together and had all things in common" (2:44).  Everything else in the text is an illustration of this basic apostolic unity.

It is equally true, of course, that the central unity of the church in the text, around which everything else gathers, is itself the product of the distinct practices in the text which surround that center.  The unity of the church was forged by those who were baptized being devoted to "the apostles' teaching, the breaking of bread, fellowship, and the prayers."  Unity was forged by generosity and mutual aid, the fulfilling of human need.  Those who welcomed Peter's word about Jesus "continued" in that word, in word and deed.  It is that continuity with the message and ministry of Jesus that enabled those were baptized to become truly a church--a community devoted to one another under Christ in service to the world.  And it is those who continue in the baptized life to which the text points who are "being saved."

-Joe

the righteouness that exceeds

Last Saturday's topic at our Bethany Bible School conference was the synoptic gospels, or Matthew, Mark, and Luke. My preparation for teaching had been, first and foremost, to read through each gospel again and note the particular flow of each. For Matthew, I focused in on the content of Jesus' five major teaching sections, all so-marked by narrative comments, at the beginning, that "Jesus began to teach his disciples" (and "the crowds") and, at the end, "after Jesus had finished . . .." These sections are:

• 5:1-7:29 The Sermon on the Mount
• 10:1-11:1 Jesus teaches the twelve before sending them out with his authority
• 13:1-53 Jesus speaks in parables about the "kingdom of heaven"
• 18:1-19:1 Teachings about forgiveness/mercy
• 23:1-26:1 Final teachings before his passion

Based on these five sections, I came up with the following summary statement of Matthew's story in order to guide my teaching.

Jesus brings near the kingdom of heaven. Those who welcome the kingdom of heaven will receive it; those who reject it will not. The kingdom of heaven is the rule of mercy and forgiveness.

Based on this, if I had to pick one verse to summarize Matthew's story, it would be 5:20:

"Unless your righteousness exceeds that of the scribes and Pharisees you will never enter the kingdom of heaven."

I ultimately settled on this verse because it seems to include the main thrust of the five main teaching sections as well as an important feature of the material outside these sections--Jesus' confrontations with the scribes and Pharisees. I had wanted to use a more positive verse, for example, 5:7, "Blessed are the merciful, for they will receive mercy"--and this was a close second. Still, Jesus' conflict with the scribes and Pharisees reveals the way of mercy which defines the life, or "righteousness", of the kingdom of heaven that Jesus brings near. Jesus' interpretation of "the law and the prophets" (5:17), contra that of the scribes and Pharisees, is that God calls "sinners and tax collectors" to be God's people and approves the work of healing the sick on the day of rest, the Sabbath (9:10-13; 12:9-14). Or, as Jesus puts it in a phrase recorded among the gospels only in Matthew, God "desires mercy, not sacrifice" (9:13; 12:7). Another way that I would say this is that the sacrifice that God requires is mercy.

In illustrating these themes, I had quoted Jesus' words to the religious leaders of his day--"the chief priests and the elders of the people" (21:23, 45) and "the Pharisees" (21:45)--that "the tax collectors and the prostitutes are going into the kingdom of God ahead of you" (21:31). One man, seemingly surprised by this statement--as if hearing it for the first time--asked what it was that the Pharisees could have done that even the prostitutes would enter the kingdom of heaven before them. Why would Jesus speak to them in this way?

Another woman asked me to elaborate on the beatitude, "Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven" (5:3).

I did attempt an answer to both questions, which probably will not sound here as it did on Saturday. I do think that the two questions are closely related. The Pharisees, to use other terminology from Jesus, were "last" in the kingdom of heaven, not "first" (19:30; 20:16), because they lacked mercy for their fellow human beings. And they lacked mercy because they were not "poor in spirit", or humble of spirit. They lived as though any righteousness that they enjoyed came from their own fulfillment of the law rather than from a hungering and thirsting for the righteousness that comes from and is God (5:6). The humble know that they need God as their flesh needs food and drink. With God as their goal, the hunger of the humble never ceases, for God is not a human being; God is always beyond. The humble seek God's praise.

By contrast, the proud seek the praise of human beings. Their goal is to be seen as righteous in the eyes of a community of like-minded individuals. If the community could fulfill their need of righteousness, the hungering of the proud would come to an end. For a time, perhaps, it does, as the proud take time to bask in the glory of their most recent achievement. Yet when the community's attention turns to an even later, more glorious achievement of another, the proud one recognizes that his hunger has not really been satisfied. He is still hungry.

Eventually, hopefully, the proud may realize that the community can never fulfill their desire for righteousness. Perhaps they realize, like the "poor in spirit", that the only way to be "filled" is always to "hunger"--for the righteousness that comes from God.

-Joe

prophetic loneliness

I have an excess of material in my heart and mind from studying in preparation for teaching a lesson on "the prophets" for Bethany Bible School earlier this month. I gave a shortened version of what I did at BBS for our Tuesday evening fellowship group this week. The last two Sundays at Mandela Park I preached on the experience of two different prophets, Elijah and Isaiah. In the case of Elijah I focused on his showdown with the prophets of Baal (1 Kings 18). In the case of Isaiah I found myself preaching on his call vision of the Lord in chapter 6.

Perhaps the unifying theme of the stories of Elijah and Isaiah is their loneliness. As people called to stand for their God, to speak his words to a rebellious people, they experience widespread, nearly total, rejection.

"To be a prophet is to be alone"--this is how I put it.

It is, therefore, precisely in their loneliness that the prophets embody the faithfulness that God intends for all his people. Standing for God, the prophets can no more rely for support on a people who have rejected God. The only thing, the only one, left for the prophet is the One. The prophet's support has been reduced to God. The prophet's only dependence is God. The prophet thus is privileged to know in his or her own person or very being that which is fundamentally true: that God is the Creator, Redeemer, and Sustainer of the universe. "There is no other", as God put it through Isaiah (Isa. 45:5).

One of the biggest dangers for my noble faith tradition, the Anabaptist, is mistaking the God who holds our life for the human community. Our language sometimes suggests that the community of the church is God. "We discern together," we say, "in the gathered community of believers". We speak as if this in itself is a safeguard against sin and the running amok of injustice, a balance of powers of sorts not unlike the set-up of the democracy in the land in which I have heard these words (America, the land of my earthly citizenship). We forget, however, that the early Anabaptists from whom we have inherited were not so much in their beginning an established faith community as they were a coming together of convicted individuals rebelling each in his own sphere against the rebellion of the established church. The Anabaptists were first and foremost lonely individuals, rejected at large by the culture in which they were born, eventually coming together to form an alternative community in the world. In the land of my birth, that alternative community is no longer alternative; it is dominant. The community has triumphed over the individual alone before her God.

The irony of all this is that the health of the community is dependent upon the holy loneliness of every one of its members. Every person needs to face that place in which they are rejected, in which the only one they have to go to is God. Each person needs to confront that one nagging fear, the avoidance of which has become his dependence, his security, his god. Only then, having found himself alone, does one discover that he is not alone. He is with his God. She is with her God.

In this light the cross of Jesus is the witness of prophetic loneliness par excellence. The crucifixion is the final cycle of prophetic loneliness opening up to holy communion. Jesus experiences on the cross that which he experienced numerous times on the way to the cross. Alone with the tempter in the desert, eventually finding strength in the Word of God. Deserted by companions in Gethsemane, persevering in prayer to his "Abba". Finally, on the cross, "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me" ends in "Father, into your hands I commend my spirit" (Mk. 15:34; Lk. 23:46). The final experience of human loneliness is God's fullest embrace. Loneliness and communion are two sides of the same coin in the life of God.

The prophet knows that life, and he is desperate for others to know what he knows.

-Joe