Been Thinking ...

On Saturday, the Laughing Pastor posted a reflection on preparing to preach on the New Testament story of The Stoning of St. Stephen. As he rightly noted, there is NO WAY to soften this story.

Stephen stood and proclaimed the Gospel, and as a result of his foolish boldness, he was bludgeoned to DEATH by the crowd who took up stones and pummelled him ...

Stoning is NOT a pleasant way to die, and there is NO way to make this moment into a warm pink fuzzy story that is palatable to the masses. The death of St. Stephen is a stark and startling reminder to all of us of the risk we SHOULD and MUST be willing to pay for our faith.

Too often, in the west we stand in our safe haven of "The Church" and are isolated from any real threats to our safety, our wealth, our privilege or any thing else that may cause us to take a chance ...

And so we speak in muted tones about "martyrdom", shake our heads with sad disdain, and write our cheques (from our surplus rather than from our necessity) and like Little Jack Horner, sit in our corners praising ourselves for our good works.

The story of Stephen calls us to MORE ...

The strength of the story is that there are many roles we can occupy ...
- we can be the martyr Stephen, bludgeoned to death for his faith ...

- we can be Saul/Paul who watched the action, approved of it and later was driven to his knees by God and transformed to the Gospel ...

- we can be one of the judge and jury who found Stephen wanting ...

- we can be one of the crowd who so blithely took up stones and cast them in mindless violence ...

- we can be one who was horrified and fled, averting our gaze and fearing for our safety because like Stephen - we too believe in the Gospel ...

- we can see it all and simply weep bitter tears at what humanity is capable of inflicting upon itself ...

Whatever role we find ourselves in though, we should hear the words of Jesus that speak through the clamour for blood ... words that say things like:

"Let the one with no sin cast the first stone ..."

and

"How can you remove the speck in your sister's eye, when there is a log in your own eye?"

and

"Do unto others, as I have done unto you ... "

and

"Love one another ..."

In the face of Stephen's horrific death we hear that gentle whisper who calls us to something bigger and better ... a different way of being and living in faith ...

The stoning of Stephen is ultimately about FEAR ... being afraid of something new ... being afraid of change ... being afraid of something that moves us out of our comfort zone and causes us to confront a mirror wherein our shortcomings, our sins and our flaws are exposed to the blinding glare of day light ...

We seize the stones and instead of fixing ourselves, we try to destroy the one who brought us this discomfort ... We hurl the stones in anger hoping - almost praying - that with their release, our lives will be restored and we will not feel that fear ...

But the whisper breaks through and as we hear the words something stirs ... and in that moment, the stones drop from our hands as we hear the words - "let the one with no sin cast the first stone ..."

Our certainty that we are sinless evaporates ... our resolve weakens ... and instead of harsh judgemental anger we feel the fear and uncertainty ... and in THAT moment rather than condemning Stephen we drop the stone ... we own our shortcomings ... we name our sins ... and as a child of God ... we seek the gift of Grace ... and utter the simple words ...

"I'm sorry ..."

And The Resurrection breaks through ...

The Stoning of Stephen is a hard story to hear ... but it is a harder story to live ...

BUT thanks be to God, that Grace will ALWAYS triumph ... and in the face of death comes LIFE!!

Dayenu !!