Jesus, Inexhaustible Source of Binding Love

 

Jesus, Inexhaustible Source of Binding Love

 

Acts 6:1-7

 

In her sermon on last Sunday, Pastor OOO introduced the unhappy event of Ananias and Sapphira with the phrase “But there was …” at the beginning of her passage in Acts Chapter 5. In today’s passage as well, we have another “But there … were” and, with this, we can expect that the early church was faced with another serious problem. What was the problem and how did it threaten the life and unity of the early church, which was still like a newborn baby?

 

While the number of believers was increasing rapidly, there were rumblings of discontent. That was, the Greek-speaking believers complained about the Hebrew-speaking believers, saying that their widows were being discriminated in the daily distribution of food. At that time, the members of the early church were largely divided into two groups, one those who spoke Greek and the other those who spoke Hebrew or Aramaic. It is believed that the Hebrew-speaking Jews had a sense of superiority over the Greek-speaking Jews based on their birthplace and language, and the communication barrier between the groups might foster suspicion. In this situation, it was not a small problem that Greek-speaking poor widows were discriminated in the daily distribution of food. When we examine the complaint carefully, we can see that many serious issues were involved in that. First of all, the victims were poor widows who were racial, economic, gender and social minorities. This problem also involved daily distribution of food, which was one of the most basic human needs. To make matters worse, the problem happened in the form of discrimination, which is regarded as the ugliest injustice in human societies. Considering all these involved issues, this problem could develop into a great storm and drown the church. It could crush the church and break it into pieces.

 

Then, how did the apostles solve the problem? The Twelve called a meeting of all the believers and said to them, “We apostles should spend our time teaching the word of God, not running a food program. So, brothers, select seven men who are well respected and are full of the Spirit and wisdom. We will give them this responsibility. Then we apostles can spend our time in prayer and teaching the word.” First of all, the apostles made it clear that they should devote themselves to the ministry of God’s Word rather than to table service. Still concerned over the matter, they had the brothers choose seven respectable men to take charge of food distribution. By doing so, they could save the church from being divided by the sensitive problem and, at the same time, they could concentrate on preaching the Word of God to people. They solved the problem very wisely, very lovingly to the poor widows, and very reverently to God.

 

This story has a happy ending as told in verse 7: “So God’s message continued to spread. The number of believers greatly increased in Jerusalem, and many of the Jewish priests were converted, too.” Meditating on this passage, however, I could not feel the happiness. I could not relieve myself from anxiety. Rather, my heart became heavy. Actually I was somewhat alarmed by the seriousness of the problem that the apostles had to cope with in their ministry. They barely escaped the disaster of the atom bomb caused by the food distribution problem. I complained to myself, “Why can the church not be free from such troubles?” Then I vaguely grasped what I was worrying about. It was the fact that the church has very limited resources but there are too many people to be taken care of and there are seemingly unlimited needs to be satisfied. The church is a community of love, at least, in name. It is open to everybody, the Jews and the Gentiles, the poor and the rich, the weak and the strong, kings and paupers. I don’t know who would come here. Considering my limited resources, I wish that there would not be many poor Greek-speaking widows. But I should not pray in that way. The poorer they are, with greater joy and brighter smile I should welcome them. Can I do that? Can I bind them together with such love when I am poor?

 

One day, Jesus taught people until late in the open field, and the number of people gathering there exceeded 5,000. Jesus knew that they were all hungry and needed food to eat. So he called the disciples and said to them, “You give them something to eat!” But the disciples could not understand what Jesus was talking about. They answered bluntly, “Sir, we have only five loaves of bread and two fish” (Lk 9:13). They didn’t care about the people’s hunger. And when they learned that the crowd was hungry, they didn’t want to be with the crowd any longer. To the disciples, the people were no more than an annoying burden. The disciples wanted to disperse them as soon as possible. So they urged Jesus, “Sir, let them go out and find food by themselves.” They wanted to get away from the poor people and to have a hassle-free time with Jesus as their boss of the cozy exclusive inner circle. The disciples didn’t have binding love. Their narrow mind could not hold the 5,000 hungry people together.

 

But Jesus insisted on feeding them and performed a miracle with the five loaves and two fishes. Jesus created food far more than enough and all the people there were fully satisfied and they were happy. Going further, Jesus invited them to true satisfaction, saying “I am the bread of life. He who comes to me will never go hungry, and he who believes in me will never be thirsty” (Jn 6:35). For the people, Jesus was an inexhaustible source of food. In Jesus, they didn’t have to wander around to find food. In Jesus, they didn’t have to fight with one another because of insufficiency. Everybody was happy and they could become one within his binding love. Jesus’ provision was so abundant and Jesus’ love was so strong.

 

I have my own story about binding love. I have two brothers and two sisters. When I was young, we lived together happily under my mother’s tender care. one day, my mom had to visit a relative in a city far from my place, and we five siblings were left home by ourselves. We had to spend a night without mom. My mom gave us many instructions especially about eating and sleeping. After having given all the instructions, she told us repeatedly, “Don’t fight! Don’t fight! Be nice to one another! Don’t fight, please!” In two or three hours after she left home, however, we began to fight over something very trifle. Then the youngest boy began to cry and no one could calm down him. Then I blamed the eldest sister for that and she lost her temper. Everything went into chaos, and we were all very sad and tired. Sitting in a gloomy face, we just waited for mom, and the following day she came back. As usual, she cooked a delicious dinner for us and we all enjoyed the meal happily. Strangely, now there was nothing to fight over. We restored our joy and no one cried or complained. Mom’s binding love tied up us together again.

 

Diversity is blessing but only with binding love. The early church in Jerusalem embraced many different groups as its members. Especially, the Greek-speaking believers played very important roles for the spread of the Gospel to Asia Minor and Europe. If the apostles mishandled the food distribution problem among the Greek-speaking widows, they might have suffered the split of the church and God’s work could have been damaged seriously. Led by the Holy Spirit, however, they turned the trouble into blessing and the Jerusalem church grew into the base station of world mission. To tell the truth, in Jesus our resources are not limited at all. only our love is limited. I pray that we may learn the binding love of Jesus who gathers all peoples and nations into one family under his care and provision.