Some time earlier this year, I came to the realization that this year, 2015, is the 30th anniversary of my ordination as an elder in the United Methodist Church. Wow, I thought, thirty years. That’s a long time. I noticed, for example, during Annual Conference this June that many of the clergy who retired this year had not served for 30 years. I was a bit startled. I didn’t feel like a geezer. I never saw myself as one of the old guys of the conference. But I guess I was. I am.
I started paying attention to how many times I said, “well, when I started we didn’t do it that way,” and things like that. I started noticing how many of my contemporaries were retired or retiring. I got a letter recently from the denomination telling me I had served enough years to quality for retirement. I was stunned. I had never seen myself in those terms before. I still felt like the new kid. Like one day I’d grow up to be a real minister. That for now I was just bumbling along learning the ropes. Picking up a few tips here and there, but haven’t really figured this thing out. It was a revelation of sorts. Not quite sure what sort, still working on that. But some sort.
Anyway, in sharing some of my incredulity around various groups at church, there were those who heard the anniversary date and determined that some public notice should be made. They commandeered the calendar and chose a date for this recognition. I said yes, some time ago not really thinking it through. Well, now here it is. We are taking a break from our Holy Spirit series, which is a good thing, a breather you might say, in the series about breathing. And this weekend, a group has gathered to construct the order of worship and the subsequent activities all as a way of recognizing my longevity.
I insisted that we don’t gather to worship me (or worse eulogize me), but that it is a genuine worship of God in Christ through the activity of the Holy Spirit. They countered with “trust us.” They gave me my responsibilities, and one of them is to preach on a text of their choosing. So, I will do that.
Acts 6:1-6 NRS Now 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. 2 And the twelve called together the whole community of the disciples and said, "It is not right that we should neglect the word of God in order to wait on tables. 3 Therefore, friends, select from among yourselves seven men of good standing, full of the Spirit and of wisdom, whom we may appoint to this task, 4 while we, for our part, will devote ourselves to prayer and to serving the word." 5 What they said pleased the whole community, and they chose Stephen, a man full of faith and the Holy Spirit, together with Philip, Prochorus, Nicanor, Timon, Parmenas, and Nicolaus, a proselyte of Antioch. 6 They had these men stand before the apostles, who prayed and laid their hands on them.
The first ordination, they told me. That’s why they chose it for me to proclaim. Well, yes. The first ordination of the church after Jesus had left. To ordain means to set apart for a special task. So, technically the first ordination in the Christian movement was when Jesus names the twelve. He set them apart to learn and to follow. Or, you could argue that the first ordination was when Jesus sent them out to proclaim the good news. The twelve or the seventy, depending on which Gospel you read. That was when they went from being disciples to being apostles. Ordained, set apart.
But, yes, this one, was the first one in the church, the fledgling movement that was becoming an institution, becoming an organization. This was the church realizing that to be the church it was going to take a lot of help. They were limping along on good intentions and personal passion. And doing pretty well, according to the first five chapters in Acts. But now in chapter six we’ve got trouble in River City. There is favoritism, there is neglect, there are those slipping through the cracks. In short there are the ills of any human organization. No matter how great the desire, there is scope for things to go wrong. Any they did. The widows of the Hellenists (the Greeks, the outsiders in some circles, the immigrants you could say. One commentator even goes so far as to suggest that the word used to name them implies that they didn’t even know the language of the community in which they lived) were being neglected in the daily distribution. A system had been established for caring for those who had no other means of support. And it worked for some and not for others. So, a complaint was raised.
And a new system was created to help make sure that this particular problem didn’t continue. The twelve said choose seven men whom we will set apart (ordain) for the task of serving. Waiting tables is the phrase that they used in the description. And everyone said, “good idea!” And they picked Stephen and some other guys.
Ok, that was unfair. But it kinda reads like that, doesn’t it? “Stephen, a man full of faith and the Holy Spirit, together with ...” Not faith in the Holy Spirit. But full of faith and the Holy Spirit. And if you know Stephen’s story, he had a short but brilliant career as an ordained member of the clergy. But back to him in a moment.
This ordination was to service, not proclamation. The apostles were reserving the proclaiming and the teaching to themselves. They were ordaining what we now call the Order of Deacons in the UMC. So, I asked, is it the thinking of the organizers of this event that I am like the apostles and now I’m going to choose folks to come alongside and help me? Is this a way of tapping into my consistent theme that the church is actually run by the laity, the priesthood of all believers, and that no one ought to see him or herself as being able to run the whole show on their own? I was glad that they had picked that up, feeling good about my ability to cast a vision.
No, I was told, you’re one chosen. You’re the one ordained, right? You were chosen to serve in this way. But they were chosen not to preach but to wait tables. My first appointment back in Indiana after seminary I was an associate to a senior pastor who had a different view of ministry and the role of the minister than I did. One day we were heading out to a meeting of some sort. And someone met us at the door and asked if we could help unload his truck. I said sure and went to help. The senior pastor stood looking at his watch. Later he made it known that I shouldn’t have done that, that what we were going to do was more important than unloading a truck and I made us late. Besides they need to recognize our position, give us the honor due the post. Right? I thought a moment and kinda shrugged, I am a servant, I said. And he didn’t have a response to that.
I hope I haven’t become like that pastor on that day. I’m not an apostle, I am a servant. Called to whatever task God has in store for me. I need to follow that call, whether it is standing to preach or waiting on tables. God will use the gifts I have, that God has given me, in the way that fits the Kingdom best. Stephen was chosen to wait tables, but all we hear about him after this moment was he was preaching and teaching. He was martyred for preaching. Maybe if he had stuck to waiting on tables he might have lived longer. But he took the ordination and made it into what God had in mind in the first place. The apostles, as they usually did, stumbled on something that was bigger than they knew. They started a tradition, a ritual, a structure that almost immediately became something they didn’t foresee. Because God was in it. It has always been my hope that I follow not my own ideas of ministry but the calling that God has laid on me. Some of my dreams and hopes for the task I was given have been realized over the years, others have not. And I am content with that. Content to be where God finds me useful and the church is able to become the church where I serve.
I read this passage in lots of different versions, trying to get an handle on it. Even some really old ones. One of those old versions took the verse where our text says reads “Therefore, friends, select from among yourselves ...” and it read “Wherefore, brethren, look ye out among you...” I liked that for some reason. Look ye out. A good description of the process of ordination. It means, choose from among yourselves, but it sounds like look out! You chose these folks, now look out. A good word of warning for the church as a whole. Look out, I’ve been doing this for thirty years. Look ye out.
Shalom,
Derek
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