Chapters 6-8 - Conflict, Persecution, Trouble

There has been a kind of ideal community forming. Repeatedly, in the first chapters of Acts we have seen descriptions of a community of compassion and love. There has been trouble, too. Ananias and Sapphira died suddenly and violently. Some of the disciples had been imprisoned. Still it has seemed that a community of faith has been forming with relative ease, until chapter 6. 
In these three chapters the new community of believers is faced with the reality of strife and pain and conflict and its consequences.  
Chapter 6 begins the narrative of Stephen who most of us know will be violently killed. What is less known is that Stephen’s death is in part due to difficulties within the community itself. In chapter 6 we see that disputes have arisen in the community. The groups of people in the dispute are named. Basically, some of the community who were from a different place than many others issue a complaint that their vulnerable people are not being cared for as others are. The leaders and apostles decide to appoint people to oversee the distribution of food and help. When Stephen is appointed all seems to be well as he is a strong and loving leader. However, another group of people in the community, a group who had at times been excluded, opposes Stephen, even to the point of slander. This is how Stephen comes to be arrested. 
The world is terrible sometimes.  
The ideals of the community are hopeful and benevolent. The actions of the leaders are thoughtful and wise. The complaints of the people are valid and understandable. And yet, there is such terrible trouble. 
Stephen represents a new order. Those who complain about him can’t see the benefit of a new order, even if the old order pushed them down. It’s all so human. 
There is no defense for the lying and hatred, but it is a window into how even the best intentions can’t avoid unintentional and even terrible events. 
In chapter 7 Stephen will preach a sermon filled with history, seeking to show Christ as the centre. He will be killed, stoned to death as his sermon, his words from death row upset people so much that they hurl rocks at him. 
Then we are told that one of those looking on is named Saul. Saul loves this division and hatred. He wants the new community of faith utterly destroyed. Chapter 8 begins with 3 verses that could comprise a long period of time. The new community now faces a time of scattering. It is a place of prayer to imagine what those in the community would feel in a time like that. 
It seems that what started with such promise is already over. 

It’s easy at times to look around and come to the conclusion that there is no way forward. Even the people who are supposed to work together oppose each other. You can be brought down so low by the words or absence or judgment of a friend. 
And then you look and consider the larger powers, the economy, the challenges in our world. Then maybe you face loss yourself, your job, a relationship, your health.  

Dear God; 
Give me eyes to see. Let me feel the confusion and pain that would have been felt by your followers in these chapters. I can’t claim to know its depths, but I can seek to hear it, to sense it as I read and pray. Then let me know that over and over and over again we face times where hopelessness seems more appropriate than hopefulness. In that space, dear heavenly Father, in that space, let me hear your voice.