St. Stephen, Deacon and Martyr - December 26, 2010 (Acts 68--7:2a, 51-60)

“Good King Wenceslas looked out, on the feast of Stephen...”

That lesser-known Christmas carol about a Czech king from the tenth century is most likely how most of us have heard of St. Stephen, (and, for that matter, King Wenceslas). Coincidentally, the next line of the song goes like this:
“When the snow lay round about, deep and crisp and even.”

It seems to be a common occurrence—even in Virginia—to have snow lying round about on the feast of Stephen, which is the day after western Christmas. People might find it a bit perplexing, if not jarring, that on December 26th, one blessed day after the celebration of Jesus’ birth—when we are presumably still glowing with joy and peace from hearing the story of what happened in Bethlehem—we commemorate the death of St. Stephen, one of the church’s first deacons and the very first recorded martyr of the church.

It does seem a little odd, I suppose. Stephen was stoned to death out in public, quite a contrast from the serenity of the manger birth. Stoning was a horrible way to die. People picked up rocks and pelted someone with them until he or she died, usually of internal injuries. While they did this, they typically shouted insults. This is the image with which we are presented one blessed day after Jesus was softly laid by his mother in the hay and the angels and shepherds gathered around in adoration. It’s not that we have anything against Stephen or that he died for the faith, for that matter, but maybe we need a little down-time after Christmas before we dive into all that heavy stuff.

Stoning of Stephen, Saint-Etienne-du-Mont

But whether you are fazed by the juxtaposition of these two seemingly contrasting commemorations or not, one point needs to be clarified: St. Stephen’s Day is not placed after Christmas. Rather, it is the other way around: the celebration of Christ’s birth has been placed on the day before the day to remember St. Stephen, Deacon and Martyr. You see, no one knows exactly when Jesus was born. Christmas did not officially end up on December 25th until the beginning of the second century, and even then that was only in churches of the western traditions, of which we are a part. Eastern strands of Christianity retained their Christmas celebrations on January 6th or 7th, the original date of Christmas, and still do to this day. The commemoration of St. Stephen, on the other hand, appears on some of the earliest Christian calendars on either the 26th or 27th of December, which leads some historians to believe that December 26th or 27th or some date around here may actually be the date Stephen was martyred. So, with that in mind, we end up with the strange and perhaps startling conclusion that before Christians were celebrating the birth of Christ, they were commemorating the deaths of their saints!

It is in the deaths of the baptized—whether they were martyred or whether they died peacefully from natural causes (but especially if they are martyred)—where we find the pinnacle of their witness to Christ. At the point when this life ends, one’s faith can cling to nothing else but God. At that moment, the hopes and fears of all their years are thrust into God’s hands in the hope that Christ, the one person who has triumphed over death and the grave, will call them to eternal life. For those in the early church, this was extremely important. Birthdays were rarely mentioned or cared about. It was one’s date of death that spurred those still living to look to heaven. Stephen’s last words in this morning’s lesson from Acts, as the stones come raining down, testify to this: “Lord Jesus, receive my spirit. Lord, do not hold this sin against them.” Not only does he cling to Jesus as he dies, but he also sees it as a chance to testify.

The word “martyr,” in fact, actually means “witness.” Someone who is killed on account of their faith gives the utmost witness to that faith’s hope. Stephen’s martyrdom was the first recorded martyrdom in Christianity. He was the first person to die because of Jesus’ resurrection. If I were an early Christian, or even if I had been hurling those stones, you’d better believe that would make an impression on me—watching someone refuse to back down from this assertion that Jesus of Nazareth rose from the dead. In fact, that should have an effect on any Christian living today. One of my colleagues once called this “St. Reality” day. Perhaps so: confessing faith can lead to hard times, even death in some cases. And so we continue to commemorate St. Stephen as one way of reminding us of this reality.




The Stoning of Stephen, Annibale Carracci (1603-04)

 
Other than being the church’s first martyr, Stephen was also one of the church’s first deacons. What was a deacon? Well, we learn from Acts, chapter 6, that a conflict was arising in the early church over the distribution of alms and food to widows in the church. The widows of Greek descent were complaining that the widows of Jewish descent were getting a greater proportion of food and financial assistance. Therefore, the disciples gathered the believers together and hammered out a way to deal with the problem. They decided to appoint seven people and entrust them with the task of keeping the church books accurate and making sure that the money that was being collected for the needy was being distributed fairly. Those seven were called deacons, a Greek word that means, literally, to “wait on tables,” or “to serve.” Stephen was one of those original seven deacons, which essentially makes Stephen one of the first people to get pressed into serving on Church council. For that alone we should remember him and say, “God rest his soul!”

Stephen was active in the early church and helped it spread and grow. He is described repeatedly as a man full of grace and power and filled with the Holy Spirit, doing great wonders for the people. However, almost as soon as Stephen is chosen as deacon, he is arrested and brought before the council of the synagogue because of what he is saying about Jesus and about God. He is asked by the high priest about what he is preaching, and Stephen responds with a long sermon which basically recites all of the history of Israel, from Abraham all the way through Moses and the prophets, giving testimony of how God had been calling them to faithfulness. God has a long legacy of loving the people of earth. In fact, God’s is the longest legacy in the universe of loving humankind, yet his people continually have a hard time recognizing and responding to that love, instead choosing to worship other false gods and going their own way. The people get enraged at what Stephen says to them (he calls them stiff-necked, which is what Moses had also called them) to the point that they throw council procedure out the window and drag him out of the city right there and kill him.

There is a lot we may observe and remember from the account of Stephen’s martyrdom, but one of the most critical things worth noting is how sin and evil must resort to lying in order to make gains in this world. It is not by accident that the first question that used to be asked at a person’s baptism was, “Do you renounce all the forces of evil, the devil, and all his empty promises?” They’ve changed the wording a little bit in the new hymnal, but for years that was the question put to a person who was being baptized. It was way of acknowledging that the only way the devil can advance his agenda is to make empty promises and spread deceit about God and what God has done for creation. The truth is that God has the longest and best legacy of love and justice in the history of the universe. Stephen speaks the truth as he knows it, that Jesus is the lone Righteous One who answers God’s call of complete and utter faithfulness without fault, even to death, on behalf of all people. Yet each time Stephen speaks, this truth is confronted with profound lies and falsity.

When he first starts to preach and do wonders of the truth in verse 11, this truth about God kicks up some protest. They stand up and argue with him. Then, as the scene continues, more lies. His accusers secretly instigate—that is, the start rumors—that Stephen is blaspheming. Then a little later we learn false witnesses are set up to bring charges against him before the council, even though when they look at him they see the face of an angel. Eventually, after his long, truth-filled speech, the accusers actually cover their ears in order to keep the truth out. Sin must lie and attempt to cover our ears in order to deny the reality that God loves the world and calls it to faithfulness. Sin must resort to lying and diverting attention and covering ears in order to drown out the truth of yesterday, that the word became flesh and lived among us, full of grace and truth.

Cologne Cathedral

And we, even we who consider ourselves so faithful—we who love to reminisce about the birth of this Jesus—even we can and will forget this wonderful reality from time to time. We can just as easily hold the stones in our hands that will listen to the lies and try to silence and stifle the love God has for creation. C.S. Lewis, the British writer who converted to Christianity in adulthood, once said, “A true Christian’s nostril is to be continually attentive to inner cesspool.” By hearing both the story of Christ’s birth as well as the stories of the saints who lived and died telling of that truthful love we can keep our hearts open to God’s power to cleanse our inner cesspools. It helps us remember that, like it or not, this is where our Lord’s birth leads us: to public witness of his love. The biggest lie that sin will tell us is that we are to keep it private, an inner cesspool of still, silent devotion. 

Therefore, let us know what deacon Stephen knew and exuded from his personality, full of grace and power: that Christ, the baby born in Bethehem is faithful for us, even through death. Just as we may still be imagining Mary and Joseph gathering up their helpless son and cradling him in safety, Jesus gathers us up and pulls us from the lies and deceit of the world—and of ourselves—and holds us to him like a mother hen holds her baby chicks. Just as Stephen looked up to see the glory of God, with Jesus standing at God’s right hand, we are promised that one day we will see him thus.

For now, see this truth in the wood of the cross, and taste it in the bread and the wine. Feel this truth in the water splashed on your head at baptism. Sing this legacy of love in the hymns of the church, and pray this truth with the might of Stephen, deacon and martyr.

Hail the heav’n-born Prince of Peace,
Hail the sun of righteousness!
Light and life to all he brings,
Ris’n with healing in his wings.
Mild he lays his glories by,
Born that we no more may die.
Born to raise each child of earth
Born to give us second birth!
Hark! The Herald angels sing,
“Glory to the newborn King!”


Merry Christmas!

The Reverend Phillip W. Martin, Jr.

St. James the Elder, Apostle - July 25, 2010 (Mark 10:35-45)

By all accounts, James, the apostle, was a go-getter. To be honest, we know blessed little about most of the apostles’ personalities and motivations. The gospels were not written to tell their audiences the details of anyone other than Jesus—and, more specifically, the details of a certain sliver of Jesus’ life. Most of the people other than Jesus, play relatively minor roles in the story before fading into obscurity, and it is important that we do not attribute too many characteristics to them that just aren’t there. Yet, in spite of this fact, we are told enough about James and his brother, John, that he manages to come across throughout the New Testament as something of a zealot, an eager beaver.


He is one of the first disciples to respond to the call to follow Jesus. He is fishing in the boat with John and his dad, Zebedee, when along comes an itinerant rabbi from Nazareth seeking new disciples. No matter that an occupation of fishing was steady work—and apparently a family profession for the Zebedees—immediately, the gospel-writer Mark tells us, they leap from the security of the nets to follow this Jesus. James, along with his brother and Peter, are the only disciples to trek to the top of the mount of Transfiguration, where Jesus is revealed as God’s own Son. There is one point in Luke’s gospel, when the disciples and Jesus are making their way to Jerusalem, when the eager James suggests that Jesus command fire to come down and consume the Samaritan villages en route who have refused to accept Jesus. And no one else in the Bible, to my knowledge, is given a nickname by Jesus. Events like that one in Samaria and the one in this morning’s gospel text likely lead Jesus to dub James and John “Boanerges,” which is Aramaic for the “Sons of Thunder”.

The lesson from Acts illustrates that, even after Jesus’ resurrection, James’ instinct for zeal, his thundering passion for following Jesus, has not abated. In fact, in what seems like a fulfillment of Jesus’ prediction in the gospel lesson after James declares that he will, by golly, be able to drink the cup that Jesus’ drinks, James’ zeal leads to his death. At one point during the Acts of the Apostles, when the church was just getting going, members of the church hear that a great famine is expected throughout the earth. Rather than, perhaps, going into hiding and hoarding what they have to escape this potential tragedy, rather than circling the wagons, they organize a relief mission—an outreach pantry, if you will—to fellow believers in another region. In this case, a mission-driven church sticks its neck out, and Herod Agrippa’s sword comes slashing down, right on the head of James the elder. According the Bible, that makes James the first disciple to die for the sake of the gospel. According to legend, the executioner who was appointed to put James to death was so moved by James’ testimony that he converted to Christianity at the last minute and was beheaded simultaneously with James. Even if it is only legend, it certainly fits James’ “go-getter” persona that comes through in the gospels.

It is the episode from Mark’s gospel this morning which illustrates for James, however, that Jesus’ kingdom involves a certain kind of go-getting. James and his brother are so keen on following Jesus and so excited about the coming reign of God that they want Jesus to rank them as number one and number two. I’m sure they feel they’ve deserved it. After all, they’ve followed and listened like any good disciple should—and once they get to Jerusalem, it will soon be time to start handing out judgments and decrees. “We are able,” they confidently respond when Jesus asks them if they can drink from the same cup that he will. It is clear that they are eager to assume the roles of glory and honor. What is not clear is whether James and John and the other disciples understand the type of glory and honor Jesus will embody.

In order to explain it, Jesus compares the honor and glory that Jesus’ disciples are to seek to two professions—serving tables and being a slave—that not only required a lot of work, but were also traditionally looked down upon. In Jesus’ day and age, fewer kinds of work were seen as more demeaning than bringing people things while they ate and serving as a house slave. In a society where everyone was trying to accumulate honor for themselves by getting other people to do as many tasks for them as possible, willingly making the choice to be focused on others’ needs seemed backwards, counterintuitive. But that, as it turns out, is the way God’s kingdom works. In the world’s eyes, it is backwards, counterintuitive, upside down. The Son of Man came not to be served, but to serve. This is what happens when your leader goes to Jerusalem not to rule with power and might, but to overthrow the powers that be by suffering, being mocked, and eventually dying. This is what a kingdom looks like whose own leader comes in humility to put himself in a position to serve even the least among us, whose own leader is such a go-getter that he goes to the cross to get us saved.

The witness of the apostle James reminds us of our call to be a “go-getter” church—but not with a zeal that seeks worldly glory, or with a thoughtless passion that runs roughshod over everyone else. We are called to be a “go-getter” church in the manner that Jesus shows to James: where greatness is measured not by how strong or powerful we are, but by how we use our strength and power to serve others. We strive to be “go-getters” for God’s kingdom, where true honor is determined not by how many people listen to us, but by how attentively we listen to the needs of others. The witness of James the elder, apostle, reminds us that a church is not great which seeks to establish its authority through force or cunning or wealth. The church is great which embodies Christ’s authority through service, kindness and generosity. And a disciple is not one who seeks praise, or accolade, or status, but one who seeks to serve, often tirelessly, and often without recognition.

Vacation Bible School is happening this week, as evidenced by the African motif running throughout the church building. It will be a Baobab Blast!  One-hundred twenty four children will make their way through our doors each day this week, most of those not members of our congregation. I have always thought that Vacation Bible School volunteers are some of the best foot-soldiers that the gospel has, and we’ll have fifty of them this week. They will lead songs, teach crafts, make snacks. They will console homesick kids, resolve minor disputes, and apply band-aids. They will collect donations from little hands that will go to purchase mosquito nets to save the lives of children half a world away. They will get silly tunes stuck in their heads for about two weeks they will create and then tear down construction paper and hand-painted set designs within five days, and by Friday they will wonder how all of this made them so tired. All because they are a part of a “go-getter” church.

I remember distinctly the night in my former congregation when my first week of leading Vacation Bible School came to a close. We had held our VBS for two-and-a-half hours in the evening. As my volunteers and I reckoned it, each hour of VBS took an average of four hours in planning and preparation. I didn’t know about them, but I was exhausted, mentally and physically. That night I called my folks to let them know how it went. In all honesty, I called to let them know how ridiculously hard I had worked and how as a child I never realized Vacation Bible School was that draining and, to be totally honest, I expected my parents to praise me up one side and down the other. I was sure they’d think no one had ever worked as hard as I did in that Vacation Bible School.

But when I got done with all my complaints and embellishments about how grueling it was, how I clearly deserved better, my mom’s response was, “So? Well, yeah. Sounds like every Vacation Bible School I’ve ever done. It was exhausting in the eighties when you were a child. It’s tiring for the adults, but the kids love it. What did you expect, Phillip?”

What did I expect? Perhaps, deep down, I was expecting some other sense of glory other than the one that comes when serving Jesus. Deep down, I suppose I was expecting the church’s mission to happen without any real hard work and humility from me. What my mother’s response taught me was not too far off the lesson learned by James: that zeal properly placed and channeled for the kingdom of God leads to acts of service and tending to the needs of others. And it can seem slave-like at times. What I had expected was a place at the right hand of VBS-volunteerdom. What I got was a little death. A little death to myself. A death, but a life-giving one.

Those who are baptized with Jesus’ baptism all eventually learn the same thing: the path of glory and honor in the kingdom of God never leads to a retreat from the world. In fact, it makes us daughters and sons that thunder straight into it. The call to be a disciple is an invitation to share the message that has so wholly claimed us: into Judea where a devastating famine is about to hit…into the mud-huts of malaria-ridden African villages…into the needs of the nearby low-income neighborhood, into the hospital room whose air is heavy with mourning…into the friendship with the non-believer.

Yes, this can be tiring cup to drink, but it is a cup that never runs dry. Filled to the brim with Jesus’ own love and sacrifice, it always flows with the promise eternal life. Filled with the drink of gracious forgiveness, it refuels us to be a church that, by all accounts, is a go-getter.

Thanks be to God!



The Reverend Phillip W. Martin, Jr.