The 6th chapter of Luke’s Acts of the Apostles which we started to read on Saturday of the 2nd week of Easter begins with a social problem we shouldn’t overlook.  Some new converts to Christianity are being treated unfairly. “As the number of disciples continued to grow, the Hellenists complained against the Hebrews because their widows were being neglected in the daily distribution.”( Acts 6:1. Saturday, 2nd week of Easter) 

Substitute “Immigrants” for “Hellenists” in that text a more familiar situation emerges. New-comers are plainly not treated fairly, especially the poorer among them and they’re looking for something more.

The “Hebrews” are the first followers of Jesus, mostly Jews from Galilee. They’re Jewish Christians at home in the Jewish world, who fit into the religious and political Judaism of their time despite being followers of Jesus of Nazareth.

They’re part of the establishment.

In every age immigrants, once they gain a footing in their new home, learn to speak out for their needs. The Hellenists led by Stephen spoke out., Stephen’s fiery words seem to be only about  religious matters, but he’s also criticizing the closed world of Judaism that was early Jewish Christianity as well? 

Stephen’s criticism cost him his life and initiated a Jewish reaction that led to the expulsion of the Hellenists. They become immigrants again but they bring the gospel to new peoples, as Luke notes.

It’s  a misconception to believe, as some do, that Christianity spread easily without problems or sufferings early on. It’s also a misconception to believe that it spread solely due to the genius of Paul the Apostle. Paul was a great figure in the spread of Christianity, but the Acts of the Apostles read this week reminds us there were others, like the deacon Philip, who brought the gospel to Samaria. (Wednesday)

We wonder, too, about the Ethiopian official Philip baptizes. He surely brought the gospel to Africa. (Thursday) There were many others, not just apostles, not solely Paul, but immigrants like Stephen, who fulfilled  a divine plan they hardly understood.

Luke concentrates of Paul’s mission and pays scant attention to the other missionaries who brought the gospel to world around them. Nor does Luke explore social factors, like immigration, that led the spread of Christianity. He doesn’t tell the whole story. 

We are in the midst of an age of massive immigration, due to wars, climate change, religious discrimination and other issues. We tend to see these issues only in social or political terms.

This week’s readings from Luke remind us there’s more. God’s plan is evolving. Stephen marks a transition in the church. Luke will no longer concentrate on the church in Jerusalem. The church takes the path in the Gentile world.

I know it’s hard to see life differently these days. That’s why we have beautiful stain glass windows. To remind us who live in the dark we are living in a new creation.

St. Gregory of Nyssa, an early saint, says in a sermon: 

“The reign of life has begun, the tyranny of death is ended. A new birth has taken place, a new life has come, a new order of existence has appeared, our very nature has been transformed! This birth is not brought about by human generation, by human will power or by the desire of the flesh, but by God.

Let me explain it in clear language. Faith is the womb that conceives this new life, baptism the rebirth which brings it into the light of day. The Church is its nurse; her teachings are its milk, the bread from heaven is its food. 

It’s brought to maturity by the practice of virtue; it’s wedded to wisdom; it gives birth to hope. Its home is the kingdom; its rich inheritance the joys of paradise; its end, not death, but the blessed and everlasting life prepared for those who are worthy.

We’re living in the day the Lord has made – a day far different from those made when the world was first created and which are measured by the passage of time. This is the beginning of a new creation. On this day, as the prophet says, God makes a new heaven and a new earth. 

On this day is created the true human being, made in the image and likeness of God. This day the Lord has made is the beginning of a new world. This day, the prophet says, is not like other days, nor is this night like other nights. 

But still we have not spoken of the greatest gift it brings us. This day destroyed the pangs of death and brought to birth the firstborn of the dead.

I ascend to my Father and to your Father, to my God and to your God. O what wonderful good news! For our sake he became like us in order to make us his brothers and sisters, now he presents to his true Father his own humanity in order to draw all of us up after him.

What is this new heaven? It is the firmament of our faith in Christ. What is the new earth? A good heart, a heart like the earth, which drinks up the rain that falls on it and yields a rich harvest.”

Strange, haunting words to hear in the jumble of daily news reports from the world of wars and politics. So different from the words and images we swim in these days. Faith is a womb, he says, bringing life and hope. We’re living in the day the Lord has made. 

An “Alleluia” comes to mind.

Brother Michael Stromber, CP,  a member of the Passionist community in Queens, New York, produced this sculptor of St. Joseph the Worker some years ago while he was a missionary in Jamaica. Brother Michael is a fine artist as well as a worker who fixes almost anything, cars, toilets, broken light fixtures, chairs. Not much he doesn’t know how to do. He also flew planes in Guyana and Papua New Guinea carrying missionaries to their isolated mission stations.

I pass this sculpture regularly on my way up to my room on the 3rd floor in the monastery. The faces on the statue are blank, you can see, which is the way it is with so many ordinary workers in our society, isn’t it? We hardly notice them. We only see what they do.

In this case, that’s clearly shown in our sculpture. The most defined thing in it is the hammer in Joseph’s hand which he’s sharing with the young boy standing with him. He’s teaching the young boy how to work with it. They are absorbed in what they’re doing.

The people of Nazareth dismiss Jesus when he speaks in their synagogue! “Where did he get this wisdom? Isn’t he the son of Joseph, the carpenter?” The man who fixes things and goes unnoticed..

Our feast encourages us to see Joseph, the Worker, who went unnoticed and unappreciated in Nazareth and at the same time, to see the many like him who also do so much and are unnoticed. It calls us to recognize the dignity of work and so many things associated with it– the right to a just wage, equality of wages for women and men, the right to a job, the right to join other workers to seek good working conditions.

How important to pass on to the young what Joseph is passing on to Jesus. It’s a wisdom the people of Nazareth, unfortunately, don’t see.