I’m Pete, and I Won’t be Your Server Today

       Future shock!  The flat world! -- appropriate terms for the first quarter of the twenty first century -- especially here, in the home state of some of the most impressive technology anywhere.  I don’t have to tell you what it’s like.  You live it.  Some of you know things about our technological prowess that would make the rest of us marvel – things you can’t tell or even hint at.  Yes, we’ve gotten the message loud and clear -- “If you told us you’d have to shoot us.”

       About twenty years ago, soon after I arrived in Moorpark, I approached a local company, Kavlico, about using their spacious cafeteria for worship.  They graciously considered it – but after they researched it, they informed me that anyone who wanted to join us for worship would have to apply six months in advance for a security clearance – even to go into the cafeteria.  I thought that would at least make for a good slogan:  “Are you patriotic enough to worship with us?”

       In a place and time of such awesome change, it’s nice to have some things to hold on to – things like the old time religion and the familiar church.  There is something about religious communities that make them among the most conserving and traditionalist groups in a society.  The clerical vestments of some churches were the clothing of everyday Romans of the fourth century.  Contemporary church terminology is filled with words from dead languages.

        But, despite the tendency to stay put, you may have noticed, our church is changing too – not the message but the structure.

       A pastor named Calvin Miller describes the stages and attitudes a congregation goes through as it grows.  We have experienced many of these over the past nineteen years.

        Miller writes:  “As an artist, I have noticed that I can freehand a pretty good circle – as long as the circumference is small.  But if the circle is large, I cannot hold the radius equal around the more and more remote center.  The effort grows eccentric.  Further, simple geometry ordains that it’s harder to see the center of the circle from a wider circumference.  So the real tension of the growing church is hidden in the desire:  ‘Let’s keep this circle perfect.’  The corollary is that the circle must therefore remain small.”

       Miller tells of a time in the development of the church he served, “I began to hear the ‘first circle’ criticizing the newcomers: ‘These (new) people don’t love this church like we do.’ A protective exclusivism was born: ‘Should we let people sing in our choir if they’re not members of the church?’

       “At this stage, the number of members and adherents began to grow so numerous that lines of communication, which once had intersected with me at the hub of the circle, now began to bypass me.  My worst adjustments came in trying to reach out to early members who seemed to grow intentionally aloof. Were they psychologically retaliating because they weren’t the “in crowd” they once had been?  Even though I tried to tell them that I, too, was experiencing these feelings, they were unconvinced.  In most cases, the pain I felt was sponsored by the spiritualized criticism of those who left.  None of them quit the church for the real reason of “psychological insecurity.”  But some of them found other reasons for leaving like: “Your sermons don’t feed us anymore!”  (Though I hadn’t consciously changed my preaching from when it had been feeding them).  Others wanted a “truly compassionate” pastor; others wanted one who would “preach the whole counsel of God.”  Still others left because we weren’t being true to the “historic traditions” of our denomination.”

      “All this was traumatic for me,” Miller confesses.  “I learned at great emotional expense that it’s okay to lose members.  Indeed, I later learned that not every potential member of the church has needs that our congregation can best meet.  Still, I have never lost a family without guilt and pain.

       “Shortly after we had gathered three hundred resident members and had hired our second full-time staff person …I discovered that we not only had formed a church softball team, but that we were doing very well in the city league.  I read it in the paper.

       “It was the first time I could recall something that “major” being done without my having some role in the decision.  My ego was bruised.  But the men said that I had been “away” when the crucial decision was made, and they knew I wasn’t too “athletic” anyway, so “a group of us got a team together, and we didn’t take any church funds to pay the league fees, so we knew you wouldn’t mind.”

       “’I don’t mind’ I said. “It’s just the principle of the thing! Except that sometimes, late at night, I would pray that they’d lose the championship game.

       “They didn’t and my administrative grief was compounded by the emergence of huge trophies all over the vestibule – blue and gold plastic icons of the decision I never made. Like Zwingli in reformation Zurich , I had the awfulest urge to sweep through the church smashing softball trophies.  But I knew it was simply sour grapes.”

      The point for us is that as churches grow and develop, we all have to allow for some diminishing of closeness and control.  In a sense, this is born of self-denial.  We need to create  space in our relationships so others can come in.  We need to change so that all those not yet born again may also come to know Christ.

       That was the great theme, of the capital campaign we held in 2003 that is bearing such fruit today right outside this window.  We asked “God made room for you, will you make room for others?”  You answered that question with a resounding “Yes!”

       That action meant deliberately loosening our grip on the Moorpark Presbyterian we have known.  But in lessening our grip, we not only set others free, but we also free ourselves.  It takes courage to stand without clinging, but only as we release our grip are we free to stand straight and self-sufficient.  The maturing Christian finds sufficiency in Christ and not in clinging to another.  At the heart of all relationships in a growing church is the strength of Christ.

       This, at long last, brings us to the biblical point of this morning’s sermon -- that growth brings change and change requires new structures.  But in the face of growth and change, the important thing is to be faithful to what God has called and gifted us to do. The whole first half of the sixth chapter of Acts is the story of how the church changes to accommodate the growth God is bringing.

       We face the same challenge.  I will promise you right now that this church will change.  But in this change we will never change what we shouldn’t change – things like our love for people and our radical commitment to God’s word.

       I believe that Acts shows us Satan trying to disrupt the growth of the early church.  Three thousand received Christ at Pentecost.  So Satan tries persecution.  The result is that another 5,000 plus are added.  In Acts 5 and the story of Ananias and Sapphira, he injects corruption.  Peter asks them, “Why has Satan put it into your heart to lie to the Hold Spirit?”  In Acts 6 we see how Satan seeks to sow a spirit of murmuring and gossip among God’s people, hoping to set believer against believer.

       We explored two Sundays ago how that didn’t work – how the church opened itself in love and trust.  So the devil’s fourth attack is the cleverest of them all.  Having failed to overcome the church by persecution, corruption or dissension, he now tries distraction.  If he can preoccupy the apostles with administrative issues, which, though essential, are not their calling, they will neglect their God-given responsibilities to pray and to preach.  This will leave the church without any defense against false doctrine.

      The immediate temptation for the apostles is to take  look after the institutional needs of the church – especially as it comes to the distribution of food to the widows.  This is a huge  temptation.  No one wants others to think they think they see themselves as above common work.  Then there will be the accusing questions “You are not willing to wait on tables?  Are you better than Jesus?  He washed your feet, and now you will not even set a plate before a hungry woman?  Didn’t Jesus say, ‘The greatest among you will be your servant.’?

      Peter answers the temptation this way: “It is not desirable for us to neglect the word of God in order to wait tables.  I’m Pete, and I won’t be your server today.”   That’s a vital principle of helping lead any growing church.  The Apostles are called to a specific task and need to concentrate on that task. They keep their focus.  Luke says in verse 7 that the result is that the number of disciples in Jerusalem increases rapidly, and (a remarkable development) a large number of priests become obedient to the faith.

       Now there is no hint that the apostles regard social work as inferior to pastoral work, or beneath their dignity.  It is entirely a question of calling.  The Apostles don’t have the liberty to be distracted from their priority task.  Ministering to divisions between old-timers (Jewish Christians) and new arrivals (Hellenists), caring for elderly widows, and faithfully administering church funds are aspects of service to the Spirit.  They just aren’t the Apostle’s proper role.

       You really need to protect me and your church at this point. I have a tendency to enjoy every part of church life.  I like to keep a finger, and sometimes two or three fingers, in many pies.  I am what one friend of mine describes as a “mosquito in a nudist colony” – faced with a lot of opportunities and wanting to bite everything at once.  Part of your ministry to me and to this church will be to keep me on task and not doing what could be better done by someone else.  Your personnel committee and Session are good at this.

       Peter says in verses 2 and 3: “Select seven men of good reputation, full of the Holy Spirit and of wisdom, whom we may put in charge of this task. But we will devote ourselves to prayer and the ministry of the word.”

       What Peter is saying here is that they, as pastors, have a unique ministry in the life of the church and that good stewardship requires that they give primary attention to that ministry.  What he is talking about here is the proper use of what the Bible calls, “spiritual gifts.”

       As far as God is concerned we are all the same.  We are all called as His children into one united family. But this unity is not the same thing as uniformity.  We are not called as Christians to think alike, dress alike, look alike and sound alike.  Our God is a genius at preserving unity in the midst of diversity and protecting diversity in the framework of unity.

       You can see this by looking at a forest.  All of the trees are green.  But within the greenness is an endless variety of shading.  The green is unified but the shades are diversified.  No shades clash.  No greens are ungreen or non-green or anti-green or more green!  That is how God works -- diversity in unity.

       Ephesians 4 is one of several passages where Paul talks about spiritual gifts.  Others are Romans 12 and 1 Corinthians 12.  In Ephesians 4:1-6, Paul writes that there is but “one body and one Spirit, one Lord, one faith, one baptism, on God and Father of us all who is above all and through all and in all.”  And then, in verse 7 he writes: “But to each, grace was given according to the measure of Christ’s giving.”  That is diversity in the midst of unity.

       The grace of Jesus Christ takes two distinct forms.  It comes to each of us as saving grace --enabling us to stand before a righteous God and be declared free from sin.  That is the first and primary usage of the word grace in the New Testament.  But grace also comes to us as what John Stott calls, “service grace.”  This is the grace which equips God’s people to serve in different ways “according to the measure of Christ’s giving.”

       The word for grace in the Greek language is “charis” from which we get charisma.  The word for gift is “charismata”.  You can see the relationship between the two.  The unity of the church is due to “charis” -- God’s grace which has reconciled us to Him.  But the diversity of the church is expressed in “charismata”…God’s gifts distributed to church members as He decides to distribute them.

       Paul writes in Ephesians 4:11:  “And He…Christ…gave some as apostles.”  Note the careful way Paul phrases this.  He says that Jesus did not give some the gift of being apostles.  He gave some as apostles.  The gift of the apostle was not a gift from Christ to the one who had received the apostleship.  The gift of the apostles is, instead, a gift of the apostle to the church. 

       We are in the church, partly for the purpose of being gift bearers to each other.  That is true of apostleship and every other gift that you may think of.  If I have a gift of teaching, that gift is not given to me but is given to you, through me.  If a person like James Mitchell has a gift of music it is a gift of Jesus Christ to His church through James.  If a person like Michelle Menzel has a gift of leadership, it is a gift of Jesus Christ through Michelle to His church  She is now expressing it in MOPs on a regional level. 

       This why the church speaks of the proper stewardship of gifts we are given.  We are not the owners of the gifts but are the channels of the Spirit for those gifts.  And it is my role and Janet’s role to help you discover and develop what God has already given His church through you.

       Gifts are important.  But I also want you to note one last thing in our passage from Acts – that gifts are not the only measure of where to serve.  Need is also a criteria.

       Look at Stephen.  He is described in Acts 6:5 as a man “full of faith and of the Holy Spirit.”  And so, what do they make him?  A waiter – a deacon – one who serves. 

       Now Stephen is obviously highly gifted.  But he doesn’t get up on his high horse.  He has the wisdom to know that the job he is being called to do is vital for the health and peace of that young church.  They’re going through growing pains, just like we will.

       Stephen is a good illustration of the principle Jesus sets down in the parable of the servant – that “the person who is faithful in little will be placed over much.”  Stephen is faithful over the little job of dividing food. And so he is handed the powerful ministry of the word.  Verse 9 tells:  “And Stephen, full of grace and power, was performing great wonders and signs among the people.”  And, if you read on through the end of Chapter 7, you discover that Stephen becomes the first Christian martyr.  Before he died, chapter 7 verse 55 tells us, “He saw the glory of God and Jesus standing at the right hand of God.”

      Now I’m not suggesting that if you become a deacon you’ll be stoned to death.  That would hardly be a good way to promote the discovery and use of spiritual gifts.  But I am saying that faithful service to one another leads us to the heart of God.

       So don’t wait to be asked.  Step forward to take role, to permit me to do the job God has called me to do, for the growth of your church, and, above all, for your own growth in the knowledge and joy of Jesus Christ.