Saturday of the 2nd Week of Easter (Year C)
Ac 6:1-7; Ps 32:1-2,4-5,18-19; Jn 6:16-21
Ye cannot serve God and manna.
This punny riff off Mt 6:24 summarizes the beginning of today’s reading: The apostles are stretched wafer-thin, trying to both preach and manage the daily food distribution to the poor. As a result, they left out the Greek Christian widows during the latter, and probably didn’t give full attention to their anointed task of spreading the Word of God.
So they asked the faithful to nominate seven men of upstanding character and spirituality, to whom they would delegate the temporal tasks of the fledgling church, freeing them to focus on their primary task of evangelization. These seven would be the church’s first lay deacons, from the Greek διάκονος (“diakonos”, lit. “servant”).
Though the modern Catholic Church distinguishes between ordained deacons and lay ministers, I believe we are all called to “diakonia” with the same sense of Spirit and wisdom, the former to inspire others with our words and actions, and the latter to discharge our responsibilities in a moral and practical manner. In the words of David Haas:
We are called to act with justice.
We are called to love tenderly.
We are called to serve one another, to walk humbly with God.
Amen.