"Leadership"

So…

If your focus in life is not taking care of others, you have missed the point!

Think about it for a minute. 

Who have you been taking care of recently? For some of you it might be family, and the reality is that can soak up a whole lot of time and energy.

So, it may be that you don’t really have much energy for too many others. But…

Serving others is exactly what Jesus has called us to do. It is key to being one of his disciples. It is exactly what he modeled while here among us.

And some of us are not really doing that very well.

I know that is a harsh evaluation that might make some people uncomfortable, but it is the truth.

If your life is only about you, then…

You not only have you missed some amazing, wonderful, overwhelming experiences, but you have also missed the whole point of the gospel!

You’ve missed Jesus’ message, his life, death and resurrection, and even your unique opportunity to ‘make a difference” in this world.

Think of it this way, when that day comes that your obituary is written, do you want it to be that you were rich and handsome…

By-the-way, for some of us that ship has sailed - or that because you lived many lives were made better?

If you understand that calling - then the possibility is that you are ready for leadership responsibility in the church.

Because you are here to make a difference!

Because God created you to be the difference!

You were – hear this - specially and wonderfully made for this purpose!

So now, step up to the line and join with the others who have accepted the opportunity to work with other disciples to touch the lives of the folks all around us.

How? By seeing needs both inside the church and outside of it and finding ways to make a difference.

And that process of being the church is so wonderful illustrated in Acts chapter 6 as the church confronts a challenge and overcomes it by looking to see who God has sent among them to solve the problem and make a difference.

The issue at hand was the distribution of food – essentially a food pantry or soup kitchen – to the widows all over Jerusalem who had begun to look to the church for help in the midst of their poverty.

Widows in the first century were on their own for survival if they did not have family that could take care of them, especially if they could not work and provide for themselves.

The church, understanding that caring for those in need was an essential tenant of the gospel - one that Jesus lived out with his widowed mother Mary - knew that the struggling widows around them needed them.

So, they had begun a regular distribution of food.

But a problem arose, when the Greek speaking widows complained that the Aramaic widows were getting more food than them.

Sitting here twenty centuries later, we may miss the importance of this!

What was happening was that those distributing food to widows were giving more to women who were speaking the local native language, Aramaic, a kind of street Hebrew mixed with other Semitic languages, than those who were speaking the language of the Roman empire – Greek.

So, perhaps an introduction to a kind of racism within the church, a distraction that troubled the church well beyond the first century, when some Christians felt the need to distinguish between “real” followers of Jesus, and second-class Christians.

If you speak Greek, you are second-class, if you are a slave, you are second-class, if you aren’t circumcised you are second class, if you are a soldier, you are second class.

It has always infected the church. 
If you are black, or poor, or Catholic, or blue collar, or speak Spanish, or have certain illnesses, you are second-class.

If you don’t speak in tongues, or if you don’t wear jeans, sneakers and an untucked shirt while preaching, or the other way around a preaching robe, you are second-class. 

And the Apostles, those who knew Jesus most intimately, would have none of it!

Look at what they did! 

They gathered the whole church and then chose seven men (well they weren’t perfect I guess) all with Greek names, all who one would assume spoke Greek very well, including one who was not even born Jewish - Nicolaus - and after ordaining them, put them to work making sure that the church was caring for everyone equally!

Making a difference, making sure that there were no second-class followers of Jesus! 

And in order to make sure we do that, we as God’s people pick those who can help us care for those among us who might be treated differently, specifically from among the saints - who are them! Those who know the challenge and step up to make sure the gospel work gets done right!

Today we ordain and install those who understand the calling! And we challenge the rest to make sure we all see those who need our energy, intelligence, imagination, and love!

All of it in Jesus’ name! Amen.