Conflict and Resolution
Acts 6:1-7
Emmanuel Baptist Church; Rev. Kathy Donley
October 6, 2024
Note: A recording of the worship service in which this sermon was preached may be found here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eBtuTxIe_p8
I was at physical therapy this week when I became aware of a therapist who was speaking quite loudly. I had never noticed this therapist before. I just continued doing my exercises, counting more deliberately in my head because he was also counting sometimes. I noticed that his patient was having a hard time following his directions. When he told her to lie on her side, she went on her back first. When he said to bend her knee, she held it straight. Pretty quickly, I realized that English was not her first language. And I wondered if he was repeating his directions loudly in the hope of overcoming a language barrier. Because that’s a thing we do, isn’t it? A few minutes later, I noticed that he had a second patient. The second patient seemed to be very comfortable with English, but the therapist spoke just as loudly. I concluded that the volume on his inside voice was just turned up high.
One of the first recorded church conflicts seems to have involved a language barrier. On one side were the Hebrews. These are folks who spoke a Semitic language, most likely Aramaic. On the other side were the Hellenists. They spoke Greek. The Hebrews were from Israel, possibly from Jerusalem itself, but also from Galilee and other parts of the country. The Hellenists might have been from anywhere in the Roman empire – from Syria, Cappadocia, Rome or Egypt, just to name a few examples. They are people whose families had had to migrate and live outside their homeland for the same reasons that people migrate today – economics, natural disaster, war. But these particular folks have returned to their ancestral home, to Jerusalem. So the Hellenists are not necessarily a unified group. They all speak Greek, but they may represent different ethnic or racial heritages. Latino is a contemporary broad term. It refers to a person with ancestry in any one of 21 Latin American countries. Hellenist is a similarly broad term.
One important point – the people in conflict in Acts 6 are all Jewish people who have come to believe Jesus is the Messiah. They are not divided on religious lines, but ethnic and cultural ones.
A complaint arises. The Hellenist widows are being neglected. This is serious. From the time of Deuteronomy at least, widows have been seen as one of the categories of marginalized people for whom God’s people are to take special care. The Jesus-followers in Jerusalem are organized enough by this time that Acts 4 says they share all their possessions and there is not a needy person among them. But now, the Hellenist widows are being neglected, in the daily distribution of food.
What does this mean? It might simply mean that the Hellenist widows, the foreign widows, are not getting the food they need. That would be a problem. But the word that is translated as daily distribution could also mean “everyday ministry”. It could also refer to financial administration. So the problem may be that the Hellenist widows are being denied the opportunity to serve in the distribution of food themselves. They may not be recognized as leaders in the same ways that Hebrew widows are. They may not be trusted with the community cash.
Something has been lost in translation. It is not clear to us, as twenty-first century readers what the actual problem is. And that makes me wonder how clear it was at the time. There was a language barrier. Is it possible that the Hebrews, who were in charge, didn’t even completely understand the Hellenists’ complain? Confusion about the real problem is often part of conflict, isn’t it? A whole lot of times, we rush in to fix it, and our fixing does no good because we didn’t address the real issue. Then when the complaint arises again, we say “What more do they want? You just can’t please those people.”
In some way, the foreign widows are being neglected. The word translated neglected means to overlook or disregard. It is not a deliberate, malicious action. It is unintentional. The Hebrews are probably not even aware that they’re doing it.
The Hebrews have the home field advantage. They represent the dominant culture. They are the citizens; the Hellenists are outsiders. They are the true Israelites; the Hellenists carry with them foreign ideas and habits. In today’s terms, we might say that, in comparison, the Hebrews have privilege. It is all relative, isn’t it? Because all of them live under Roman occupation. To say that the Hebrews have privilege is not to say that they don’t struggle. It is to say that their viewpoint, their way of life, is considered normal, while the Hellenists deviate from the norm.
To their credit, the Jerusalem community takes the Hellenists’ concern seriously. They decide to appoint a task-force to resolve this. The community deliberates and names seven respected, wise men to do this work. If we read carefully, we notice that the men all have Greek names. The implication is that the power to resolve the problem is being handed over to those who best understand it. This is a countercultural solution in its own time and I would say, even in our time. The Seven are not being put in charge of distribution just to the Hellenists, but to everyone. The foreigners are being entrusted to use the community resources for the good of all. That’s a pretty big step.
Kudos to those first-century folks for figuring that out. Well-done. I mean that sincerely, and yet . . .
They still are a bit clueless, aren’t they? I mean the original complaint is about Hellenist widows. Their solution is elegant in addressing the Hellenist part, but it disregards, it overlooks the fact that the widows are women. The church’s solution is to appoint seven men and zero women to address what is first and foremost a woman’s concern. (Gee, I’m so glad that two centuries later we don’t do that any more.)
Women are recognized with leadership authority equal to and even surpassing men in other parts of Acts, so we can’t blame it entirely on first century culture. As radically inclusive, as boundary-breaking as this new faith community is, sometimes, they just don’t get it. They just lapse into well ingrained patterns. Luke reports this conflict and resolution with no hint of awareness that in a story about women, he only reports the names of seven prominent men.
What does this story have to do with us? Or maybe, what can we do with this story?
First, we might understand it as a call to listen with humility. Especially to listen to the voices of those in the minority, those whose life experience is not well represented by the dominant culture. If you are a person with privilege, listen extremely carefully. Deliberately open yourself to understanding a viewpoint that is not yours. Some of us don’t recognize our privilege. If the shampoo and soap you use is in the health and beauty aisle and not in the section labelled “ethnic”, you enjoy dominant culture privilege. If you can move through life without being racially profiled or stereotyped, you enjoy dominant culture privilege. Those of us with that privilege can easily overlook or disregard the needs of those in the minority. If we sincerely want to follow the God of radical inclusion, we have to be more intentional about listening without getting defensive, listening without leaning into our own viewpoint, but listening with openness to someone who tells us the real problem.
Second, this story is about shared power and shared resources. Working together, trusting each other, for the good of all.
Lastly, for today at least, this story underscores the fact that racial diversity does not equal racial reconciliation. Just because a community might contain people from multiple ethnic backgrounds with varying skin colors does not mean that community is anti-racist. It can easily be a community that claims to be color-blind instead of recognizing and celebrating color-diversity. Or it may celebrate diversity in its speech while subtly continuing to exercise white dominance with every fiber of its structural being.
Diversity by itself is not enough. Deliberate, full inclusion and empowerment is the work and purpose of God.
The church in Jerusalem hears the concern and responds. The story ends by saying that the word of God continued to spread. We might notice that Luke’s accent is not on the growth of the church, but the word. “The word of God is not something the church hears or announces, the word of God is what the church lives or manifests. . . . the church’s vitality is the vitality of God’s word. . . .If the conflict between the Hellenists and the Hebrews is not resolved, it will hamper the church’s ability to live authentically according to its identity.” [1]
If we do not confront and combat racism or ethnocentrism or religious nationalism within our own community, it will hamper our ability to live out our calling and identity. That is just as urgently true now as in the first century.
What is also true is that we will never get it all right at the same time. And so we continue to celebrate, to struggle and to serve in the ever widening circle of God’s grace. Amen.
[1] Matthew L. Skinner, Intrusive God, Disruptive Gospel: Encountering the Divine in the Book of Acts, (Grand Rapids, Brazos Press, 2015), pp. 41-42