NOTES for Act 6:1-15

We see that as the number of people in the early Church grows (the community already numbered about 8,000 people), the "amount" of love per person, if love can even be measured, decreases. Some of the "nonlocal" widows were forgotten or overlooked in the distribution of food and other necessities of life. This does not mean that people stop loving and love disappears, but it does say that those who come in are bringing with them less love and more sin than is needed to maintain the community's overall level of "burning." Yes, every person is sinful, including the one who joins the Church. And each of us, when we came into the Church, brought our share of sin and our share of love. For we know only One who is alien to sin and brought into this world only love...

But none of this means that one should not go to Church, so that there will not be more sin in it. We come to the Church and to God in order to be freed from the darkness within us; each of us is a member of the Church, without whom it cannot be complete (see 1 Cor 12:14-22). And the Church needs each of us, just as Christ needs the love and acknowledgment of every person.

We are used to the fact that in the Church, as in voluntary organizations, everyone who is ready to take responsibility ends up responsible for everything at once. People run to priests with every kind of question. Most Christian leaders deal with all the problems that arise in communities. The responsible person is responsible for everything.

But the apostles frame the question in a completely different way. They know what the Lord has called them to do: to preach the Word of God. They understand that it is unrealistic for them to combine the ministry of the word with "administrative matters." Therefore they make a choice, and they choose what the Lord has called them to. At the same time, they do not ignore the problem. They simply say that people are needed to deal with this specific issue. The apostles pray for those whom the Church has chosen.

It is probably important for each of us to understand that there are tasks to which the Lord calls us and which we must do, and there are other tasks, also important and necessary, for which the Lord will choose someone else. The hardest thing is probably balance. Let us pray that the Lord gives us the wisdom not to do what He has not called us to do, and to do what He calls us to do, and of course not to demand from priests and leaders that they jump higher than their heads.

The community is growing, and everyday concerns are accumulating and becoming increasingly difficult to handle. Much in the journey of the New Testament Church resembles the journey of the Old Testament people: just as Moses, when he could no longer manage the burden, once appointed worthy people as his assistants, so now the apostles appoint ministers to deal with practical matters.

All would be well, except that the reason for introducing new ministries was not so much the organizational and household concerns themselves as the complaints of one group of believers about unfair treatment by another group of believers like them. The breach opened by Sapphira and Ananias widens; human hostility is brought into the community, and the first crack appears in the Church. It has not yet led to a schism: the conflict was resolved in time by a sensible distribution of duties. But the roots of the first conflict lie deeper. They are in our sins, which we not only forget to reject and cease to notice, but all too often and carelessly bring into the Church itself.

The account of the reprisal against Stephen begins immediately after the mention of his appointment to ministry, and the story of his witness lasts longer than the story of the ministry itself, so that we do not even know whether Stephen was given much time to work normally. But from what is said we can see that Stephen was a good worker, and it appears that what he did was enough for Christ's opponents to turn specifically against him.

It is impossible to refute Stephen; there is nothing to answer him on the merits, but they want to silence him by any means, and here lawlessness begins on the part of the accusers. In every unrighteous reprisal against Christ's disciples there is something reminiscent of the reprisal against the Teacher Himself: again the accusers stirred up the people and the elders and the scribes, again they produced false witnesses... But the Teacher had warned them in advance: "If they persecuted Me, they will also persecute you..." (John 15:20).

During the first three days after Christmas, we remember three different ways of confessing Christ and giving ourselves to Him. First we remember St. Stephen. He is the clearest example of how we should conduct ourselves if we are to be consistent in our choice and our trust in God. Stephen was one of those who were faithful in little, and therefore much was entrusted to him. He worked, preached, and bore witness to Christ through deeds and miracles. To work for Jesus, to take responsibility for what you do and for the people entrusted to you—this is the disciple's and brother's first and simplest path. Each person has a different measure of work along this path, and Stephen, a man who carried out his work to the end, who did not retreat a single step and gave his life for Jesus, is an example and helper to us all on this path.

On the first day after Christmas, the Church celebrates the feast of Saint Stephen, the first martyr. It is no accident that his feast is the first after Christmas. Stephen was the first to follow the path of Jesus all the way to the end—to death. It is the path of complete self-giving, of complete self-forgetfulness. And look at what happens when Stephen speaks of his vision. Those around him stop their ears. Surely this is not merely the pious desire of devout traditionalists to protect their ears from what they regard as blasphemy. They sense an unknown power in Stephen's words. Those words could change something in their hearts... and so they stop their ears and stop him—in the only way they know how.

For us, perhaps, it is important to reflect on our own response to a word addressed to us. Do we not sometimes feel a powerful urge to stop our ears?