“But as the believers rapidly multiplied, there were rumblings of discontent. The Greek-speaking believers complained about the Hebrew-speaking believers, saying that their widows were being discriminated against in the daily distribution of food.

² So the Twelve called a meeting of all the believers. They said, “We apostles should spend our time teaching the word of God, not running a food program. ³ And so, brothers, select seven men who are well respected and are full of the Spirit and wisdom. We will give them this responsibility. ⁴ Then we apostles can spend our time in prayer and teaching the word.”

⁵ Everyone liked this idea, and they chose the following: Stephen (a man full of faith and the Holy Spirit), Philip, Procorus, Nicanor, Timon, Parmenas, and Nicolas of Antioch (an earlier convert to the Jewish faith). ⁶ These seven were presented to the apostles, who prayed for them as they laid their hands on them.” (Acts 6:1-16, NLT)

Well, this morning, the church celebrates Pentecost, a holiday that is often considered “the birthday of the church.”

We’ll get to that. 

But first, I want to begin with a wonderful, though maybe apocryphal story attributed to the anthropologist Margaret Mead. 

You may have heard it before. 

But supposedly Mead, late in her career, was asked what she considered the earliest moment, or very first sign of human civilization.[1] 

The possibilities are endless, right? 

Maybe it was forging metal for tools (or, of course, for weapons).  The beginning of agriculture instead of hunting or foraging.

Anyone who still watches “Survivor” might cast their vote for the control of fire. 

But Mead said that, for her, the beginning of civilization was marked by the skeletal remains of a healed thigh bone.

Because, she explained, wounded animals in the wild would not have survived breaking a leg bone. 

They would have been left to fend entirely for themselves, and before very long, they would have been gobbled up by some other hungry creature.

So by that logic, a healed thigh-bone meant that someone got help from somebody else—someone who nursed and cared for them while they got better. 

For Mead, this is where it all began. 

She argued, “Helping someone else through difficulty is where civilization starts.”

So hold on to that idea for just a moment, because I’m going to argue that the true birthday of the church – the very first true sign of “Christianity” – might be at a slightly later moment than the one we’re marking today.

My thought on this is pretty simple. 

Usually, certainly traditionally, we celebrate Pentecost as “the birthday of the church,” as I said. 

We have our reasons. 

Mostly, it’s because on Pentecost, there is this miracle.

All of these folks from different parts of the ancient world suddenly hear the gospel in their own language, and for a moment, it felt like God was personally reaching out his hand for each of them. 

For a moment, people seem to forget their differences and remember that they – we – are all children of God and members of one great human family, that our divisions are false and often end in sin.    

The church has never forgotten what it glimpsed in that moment.

How could it?

But if all the church had was just this momentary glimpse, wonderful and miraculous though it was, I’m not convinced it would have been enough. 

It’s too passive.  It doesn’t show us much of anything being activated beyond amazement. 

This is where Mead comes in for me. 

Because I wonder if she might suggest that a slightly later moment is what shows us the real birthday of the church – the story we’ve heard from Acts 6.

You just heard it: it’s not much of a story. 

Some of the earliest followers approach the disciples to say that their widows, which is to say, their vulnerable ones, aren’t getting their share of the food that gets distributed whenever the church gathers, as was the practice. 

O.k., fine. 

And yet, the names mentioned are worth noticing.

They’re foreign names – Greek names – the names of people whose fundamental claim on the time and attention of the hometown crowd in Jerusalem was a little different, and in some ways, not to be assumed in the same sort of way.

They know that. 

If you’ve ever had the experience of being a person who’s “not from around here,” you know what it can be like. 

For however long, they’ve been putting up with being ever-so-slighted – getting maybe not quite so full a plate or the same broad and ready smile when they come up to the serving table.

They catch a visible impatience when their mothers and grandmothers are moving too slowly or when they plotz down somewhere where all the seats are being saved.

They’ve noticed. 

What I love about this moment is that they push back.

Actually, that’s very important. 

Because it’s the first time since Easter that we hear about something getting activated by the message of the Gospel.

For the first time, people recognize that they are no longer just guests at the feast who should be grateful that they get to be there at all. 

It occurs to them that they are Christians, too.

So: shoulders back, head held high, they step forward and claim the dignity of being children of God.

They’re not making trouble, and, thankfully, it isn’t received that way; but they’re holding the community to its own promises – its own highest ideals. 

It is a crucial moment – maybe even the moment when the church is born. 

Because in so many ways, church should really be our word for what happens after Pentecost…after that first miraculous moment of invitation, when something is activated within us, and we begin to recognize claims on one another, and to live into what it means to say yes to one another, as God teaches us to do.    

This is especially important for us to hear on the day when we confirm our young people and celebrate their entry into full membership in our own community. 

Church, the operative word there is “full.”  

As of today, they are no longer guests in any church, anywhere, and above all, they are not guests in this one. 

They should not be.

This is what’s so great about Confirmation. 

It begins with inviting young people to become more like us. 

When it ends, if we’ve done it right, we get the opportunity to become more like them. 

By God, I hope we will. 

We could use a strong dose of their passion and compassion, their questions, and their refusal to follow blindly what one of them describes as “the pattern of others,” particularly when that pattern includes “dishonesty, selfishness, intolerance, and apathy.”

Over the course of this year, we have worked very hard to turn them into the most independent-minded, tough-loving, freedom-seeking, fact-checking, inclusive, generous, and, if need be, infuriatingly stubborn Christians in the whole world. 

Which is to say, we’ve tried to turn them into Congregationalists.

Now, because we’ve succeeded, that’s what they’ll do, and that is what they will expect of us.  

They’ll vote and serve and question and urge and give just like we do—though maybe differently than we have—and this, not because they don’t get it somehow, but because, in the most important sense, they do.    

Because now they are part of this thing…this thing that comes together on the other side of inspiration, when something is activated within us, and we begin to say yes to one another and yes to God.  

In a world that remains all too ready to leave behind its wounded, the church shows that Jesus offers another, more civilized and far more holy way.

Today we celebrate as, shoulders back and heads held high, they step forward, and the church is born anew.   

Amen. 

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[1] For an argument that the story is, indeed, apocryphal, see Gideon Lasko, “Did Margaret Mead Think A Healed Femur Was the Earliest Sign of Civilization?” (16 June 2022) Sapiens.org.  https://www.sapiens.org/culture/margaret-mead-femur/