Clarity Crumbles II: Acts 6:1-7 and Mark 10:35-45

Even as I was listening to the preacher, however, I was beginning to listen to the text, which I had open on my lap. A few things began to play with me, both from Acts 6 and Mark 10.

The first realization was that one might interpret the choice of Stephen as a failed choice. He, along with six other guys, was chosen to serve tables to ensure a just distribution of food to widows. Mundane but important stuff. Congressional staff stuff. It might be good to have the Spirit and faith to do this but, as with many jobs, having too much of one or the other might make one dissatisfied with the mundane job.

So, is that what happened to Stephen? We have no record of him actually putting even one day in at the tables. We don't know if he met in a committee with the other six, whether he was instrumental in compiling lists, acquiring goods, disseminating information about distributions, taking complaints, etc. These are the essential tasks of a distribution network. All we know is that he, filled as he was with faith and the Spirit, began to work signs and wonders among the people. Multiplying loaves? Was that the way he served tables? Probably not. Effecting the "sign" or "wonder" of administration? Probably not. In other words, in all likelihood he didn't do his job.

Well, does it matter? And, related, did the apostles blow the search? Luke, the author of Acts, ignores this issue by focusing on the growth of the church and Stephen's position as the church's first martyr. But I am dying to learn whether, in fact, the distribution system actually was set up so that widows were no longer neglected.

I will never get an answer to that question, I fear. But what I want to know is whether the text gives us any guidance at all about making searches or about how we, when hired for a job, need to go about our work. Was it good, for example, that the search criteria of "full of the Spirit and of wisdom" (Acts 6:3) were used or is this like asking for Ph. D. degrees to teach introductory plumbing? Was Stephen mismatched from the beginning and did he search out other venues of service because he became bored? So, is Stephen's martyrdom the indirect product of a botched search?

Then, another question presents itself. Should we, when we are hired for a particular job, just follow Stephen's lead (in fact he is lauded by all Christian preachers) and go for the big and sexy stuff in service to God rather than the mundane things we were hired for? My experience is that most employers expect you to do the job for which you were hired; very few would actually put up with a guy hired to "wait on tables" going around working miracles. But with so much emphasis in the text on the glory of Stephen's martyrdom, are we in any way justified in thinking that the path of obedient service to God is in following our own inclinations rather than our job description? I tried this in a number of jobs, all with unhappy results.

The problems compound if we connect Acts 6 with Mark 10. That latter text is beloved for its clarity in stating the priorty of service in Christian discipleship. But you wonder, as you study it more closely, if Jesus was really playing "Gotcha" with the two disciples. Let me illustrate. They came to him with arguably an illegitmate request---it is the desire for a naked power grab. Or, putting it differently, their approach to Jesus showed that they really hadn't understood him very well.

So, maybe Jesus is just playing with them. Maybe he is being serious. We can't hear his tone. One problem is that Jesus seems to be somewhat like the football coach who says, "No pain no gain." The impression he gives is that in order to get the "high position" for which they are asking, they need to go through a similar "baptism" and "cup drinking" as Jesus. So, he asks them, in the manner of the demanding coach, "Well, you gonna pay for it?" "YEAH!" "Ya willing to experience some pain?" "YEAH!" "Will you pay the price?" "YEAH!" But then, after he asks them all these things he, as it were, pulls the rug out from under them.

"The cup that I drink you will drink; and with the baptism with which I am baptized, you will be baptized.." (v. 39).

However,

"to sit at my right hand or at my left is not mine to grant.." (v. 40).

That is, all pain and I can't assure you the gain.

Now maybe Jesus is playing with them because they had made an illegitimate request. Is the message, then, that if you ask for something you oughtn't to ask for that you run the risk of losing everything, something like the teaching "Whoever wants to save his life (i.e., assure his future at the right or left hand of God) will lose it....

But this doesn't seem right because of what happens in the next few verses in the passage. In those verses Jesus, just before urging them to become servants, says "Whoever wishes to be first" must be the slave of all and "whoever wishes to be great" must be a servant. Does that mean that it is OK to wish for greatness and for being first? But isn't that what the two disciples were doing? Doesn't Jesus just play with those who express those wishes? Or, were they expressing these wishes without the requisite humble attitude? Thus, is it all in the attitude and the service? If we are serving people, it is OK to want to be great? But if you really want to be great and, because of this desire, serve people, is the service somehow tainted because you are doing it not for the virture of the service itself but only for the greater end--your glorification?

Conclusion

Well, I don't want to go further on these two texts today. Suffice it to say that when I began to let the text speak to me, the simple platitudes about service and humility seemed to crumble right before my eyes. I was filled with other questions, questions that seemed to arise right out of the text but really which had little or nothing, ostensibly, to do with service or humility. The questions only semed to add to greater complexity and unclarity. Maybe that is the function of reading the text, to create in one a sense of multiple possibilties of reading so that one will simply come back to the text tomorrow. If that is the purpose of reading it, I am quite happy--though it is a far cry from the way I was taught to preach in seminary and which I heard this morning. But, for some reason, I am more than happy to live with the ambiguities and even potential contradictions. Unlike those who issue dire warnings regarding living in ambiguity, however, I am not planning to murder or rape anyone today. Indeed, it is hard to do that when most of life is solitary...

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