So! It’s Easter!
Christ has risen, Alleluia! Now
we all go home, the church is planted and blooms, and we all live happily ever
after. Right?
Well,
no. In this long arc of story, which we
began in Advent, with the Gospel of Luke, we now come to the book of Acts. In our Bibles, it is labeled as “The Acts of
the Apostles”. Many believe that Luke
and Acts had the same author, and it is one long narrative, in which Jesus
begins his ministry in Galilee, moves to Jerusalem, and the Gospel spreads from
Jerusalem, to Judea and Samaria, and eventually to all the world.
And
we like to believe that the early church was pristine, holy, a place of love
and light. We sometimes look back to
that time, or to times in between then and now, in the church, which we think
were “the golden days”- no fighting, no factions, no conflict.
But
that is not so. It is entirely
fiction. The early church in Jerusalem,
the earliest church, was as full of friction as the church is today. There are several groups- the Judeans, the
Hebrews, the Hellenists- those from Greek speaking cultures—and many
others. And apparently, things are not
rosy. Perhaps it was a traditional music
vs praise band music fight. Or a “from
here vs come here” fight. Or a
disagreement about the hymnal, or the pews, or the color of the rug, or how
much the Session should decide. To make
matters worse, the widows, the poorest of the poor, are apparently not getting
taken care of—or at least that’s how it seems to some.
Acts 6:1-7
Now during those
days, when the disciples were increasing in number, the Hellenists complained
against the Hebrews because their widows were being neglected in the daily distribution
of food. 2And the twelve
called together the whole community of the disciples and said, “It is not right
that we should neglect the word of God in order to wait on tables. 3Therefore, friends, select from
among yourselves seven men of good standing, full of the Spirit and of wisdom,
whom we may appoint to this task, 4while we, for our part, will devote ourselves to prayer and to
serving the word.” 5What they said pleased the whole community, and they chose
Stephen, a man full of faith and the Holy Spirit, together with Philip,
Prochorus, Nicanor, Timon, Parmenas, and Nicolaus, a proselyte of Antioch. 6They had these men stand before
the apostles, who prayed and laid their hands on them. 7The word of God continued to
spread; the number of the disciples increased greatly in Jerusalem, and a great
many of the priests became obedient to the faith.
The
word of God continued to spread, the widows are being fed, the whole community
is happy with this arrangement. Stephen,
along with others, has been elected and ordained to what we now call the office
of deacon. Stephen is a man full of
faith and the Holy Spirit. Just the kind
of fellow we’d love to have on the Board of Deacons or on Session. Things
should go well from here, right?
8Stephen, full of grace and power, did great wonders and signs
among the people. 9Then some of those who belonged to the synagogue of the Freedmen
(as it was called), Cyrenians, Alexandrians, and others of those from Cilicia
and Asia, stood up and argued with Stephen.
Woops. Stephen is full of
faith, doing signs and wonders. Stephen
didn’t stay in his assigned role. He
went from waiting on tables to preaching, and healing. And people are not
happy. So not happy, that they trump up charges against him, get him arrested, hire
false witnesses to make a charge of blasphemy.
And Stephen is dragged before the high priest, and asked if “these
things are so?”
And Stephen, full of grace and power, stands up, and gives a
big, long speech, recounting salvation history.
Much like the great prayer of thanksgiving, [which we will pray in a
little bit], the big prayer we pray at communion, Stephen recounts the mighty
acts of God…..
So! Every one, won over
by his rhetoric and his faith, is astounded by his wisdom, they clap him on the
back, they apologize for the mis-understanding, and they all go home and live
happily ever after…..right?
Again, no. Sadly, the
early church does as poorly with conflict as we do now. Stephen ends his great
prayer of thanksgiving with this:
51”You stiff-necked people, uncircumcised in heart and ears, you
are forever opposing the Holy Spirit, just as your ancestors used to do. 52Which of the prophets did
your ancestors not persecute? They killed those who foretold the coming of the
Righteous One, and now you have become his betrayers and murderers. 53You are the ones that
received the law as ordained by angels, and yet you have not kept it.”
As you can imagine, this
was not received well.
54When they heard these things, they became enraged and ground
their teeth at Stephen. 55But filled with the Holy Spirit, he gazed into heaven and saw
the glory of God and Jesus standing at the right hand of God. 56“Look,” he said, “I see
the heavens opened and the Son of Man standing at the right hand of God!” 57But they covered their
ears, and with a loud shout all rushed together against him. 58Then they dragged him out
of the city and began to stone him; and the witnesses laid their coats at the
feet of a young man named Saul. 59While they were stoning him. Stephen prayed, “Lord Jesus,
receive my spirit.” 60Then he knelt down and cried out in a loud voice, “Lord, do not
hold this sin against them.” When he had said this, he died.
8And Saul approved of their killing him.
This is the word of the
Lord….Thanks be to God.
So. Not a happy
ending. Certainly NOT the way for the
church, the church of Christ to behave.
Stephen is doing exactly what Christ calls him to do, is
behaving in a Christ-like manner- he knows his Scripture, he calls the church
to account- that’s that part about being “stiff necked”, and then, when he is
being killed- literally- by his own church members—he forgives them.
In reading this passage with the Elders in Lodi, we talked about
conflict, about how the early church handled conflict—when the widows were not
receiving their portion, the whole community talked, they came up with a
solution, they implemented a plan. It
went well—the problem was solved, the widows were being fed--and yet a few
short verses later, they are stoning a fellow church member to death.
Stephen, I hope, remembers Jesus words- “Blessed are you when
people hate you…Rejoice in that day and leap for joy, for surely your reward is
great in heaven. But I say to you that listen,
Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, 28bless those who curse you, pray
for those who abuse you.
Stephen has certainly done that. Stephen is called the first Christian
martyr. Martyr comes from the Greek word
for “witness” or “testimony.” Stephen has given his witness, both in his words,
and in his calling for forgiveness for those who killed him. And—to add salt to
the wound—Saul—who will later become Paul—is unmoved. He approves of the killing, he holds the
cloaks of the people throwing stones, so they won’t get stolen—and remains
unconvinced. In fact, it takes getting
knocked off his horse—by God—to show Saul the light.
In Easter we celebrate God's raising
from death the Righteous One, whose wounded hands and feet remain palpable. For
those who persist in God's way, suffering awaits. Ask Moses. Ask Jesus. Ask
Stephen. Ask Paul. In this season of new life, Luke summons the church to bear
fruits that taste of repentance (Luke 3:8).
So I ask ourselves- what kind
of a church are we? What kind of a
church do we want to be? What kind of a
church does God call us to be? I have a
friend from seminary, who, when interviewing with churches, always asks them
“How does your church handle conflict?”
Often there is an uncomfortable silence, some awkward body language
around the table. And most often, the
answer is “Oh, we don’t have conflict…not really.” But all of life has conflict—even in the
church. Maybe especially in the
church.
Do we want to be a church that
discusses, that works together in conflict?
Do we want to be—are we—a church that stones people—even if we use
metaphorical stones instead of real ones?
Are we a church that stands by, not actively picking up a rock, but
approving from our seat, while others do the hurling of stones?
To follow Jesus is to die like
Jesus. Perhaps conflict is the call to
die to ourselves, and follow Christ.
Christ will always have a
church. God is at work today, as God was
at the beginning of the church, in Jerusalem, in that long salvation history
that Stephen preached, in the long prayer we say at the Table. God works through imperfect people, stubborn
people, stiff-necked people. The Good
News goes forward. Perhaps the name of
this book of the Bible should not ne the Acts of the Apostles, but “The Acts of
God”.
Because Saul does get knocked
off his horse, by God. The church does
grow, and spread. Even today, when we
say the church is dying, the church is expanding and growing. The Good News does go out, in spite of
stiff-necked people like us, the church. Thanks be to God.
