You know what's an even bigger shame? Most of you here don't even give a ****.
And, you know, most of you are probably more upset that I said **** than you are about the fact that 50,000 people died today of hunger."
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My pastor told this story today at the end of his sermon on Acts 6:1-7. He heard Tony Campolo speak once and this is a quote from him. Acts 6:1-7 is about a problem...and a solution.
In those days when the number of disciples was increasing, the Grecian Jews among them complained against the Hebraic Jews because their widows were being overlooked in the daily distribution of food.
The problem: People were going hungry because of injustice in the area.
So the Twelve gathered all the disciples together and said, "It would not be right for us to neglect the ministry of the word of God in order to wait on tables."
The disciples knew that they needed to help these people but they also knew that they could not let themselves be distracted from the task that God had entrusted them with: to spread the Gospel.
"Brothers, choose seven men from among you who are known to be full of the Spirit and wisdom. We will turn this responsibility over to them..."
The solution: They chose people to make sure that these people would get food and not go hungry any longer. And, when they chose people to give this mission to, they had high expectations: for them to be baptized in the Holy Spirit and have godly wisdom. They chose people that they knew they could trust.
"...and will give our attention to prayer and the ministry of the word."
They refused to be distracted from their calling...even by something great!
This proposal pleased the whole group. They chose Stephen, and man full of faith and of the Holy Spirit; also Philip, Procorus, Nicanor, Timon, Parmenas, and Nicolas from Antioch, a convert to Judaism.
As my pastor pointed out, these names don't mean a whole lot to us because we don't know these people, we don't know what they mean. However, all these names are of Greek descent, meaning that all of the people that the disciples chose to oversee this mission to feed the hungry were Greek...just like those who needed help. They were so sensitive to the needs of the people they were trying to help and realized that they may have felt like outsiders and needed people who could identify with them!
They presented these men to the apostles, who prayed and laid their hands on them.
They did everything with prayer!
So the word of God spread. The number of disciples in Jerusalem increased rapidly, and a large number of priests became obedient to the faith.
As a result, they had SUCCESS!
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How tragic to think how true this quote really is... How often do we get stuck sweating the small stuff? We get hung up on denominations...the way people look and dress...pastors cursing during a sermon...kids playing (maybe a little too wild of) a game... There are so many things that are just not THAT important. When it comes down to it, the real question is: Are we showing people who God is and what His love is like? Are we living out our lives for Jesus? Are we being good examples of Christ?
The Spirit of the Sovereign LORD is on me, because the LORD has anointed me to preach good news to the poor. He has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim freedom for the captives and release from darkness for the prisoners.
This is Isaiah 61:1...and it is also Luke 4:18. When Jesus went to Nazareth, we was taken to the synagogue and stood to read. Out of all of the passages that he could have chosen to share with the people gathered there that day, he chose this. This...which told them that he had not come for the popular, the privileged...but instead for the poor, the brokenhearted, the captives, and the prisoners. Because God loves and cares about those people, the least of these, that we so often brush to the side, to the far, dark corners of the earth.
But because God has a heart for the broken, we should as well. We should care for them and help them because we have been blessed with so much. God has given us more than some can ever even imagine...why? I don't believe that God wanted anyone to go hungry or live in such extreme poverty. So why are we so content to allow it to happen, day after day?
And it isn't just those who are hungry either. That's not where God's love and compassion ends, and neither should ours. His heart also breaks for the unborn child about to be killed in that clinic; for the little boy in the orphanage in Uganda or Ukraine, or in a foster home only fit on paper here in America, with no one to love them and show them how wonderful and lovely he is; for the young girl who should be dreaming about being a teacher when she grows up but instead she is not even enrolled in school herself because her parents do not have the money to pay the school fees; for the 21-year-old young woman who has been raped more times than she cares to admit, to think about, because she's been enslaved by her pimp for the past 12 years.
These situations are so incredibly unjust. Some of them are too difficult for us to even imagine being in because we live in such extreme wealth, whether we realize it or not. But it's time to stand up and refuse to allow this injustice to rule our world.
We need compassionate generosity. We need to share what we have with everyone else. Why not? If we have to have a little less so someone else can stay alive?
Really, how big of a sacrifice is that?
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