* A word about the selection of passages I'm writing about through Lent, below.
This morning we are plunked down in the middle of the famous "speech" of Stephen before the council of High Priests. First, some background.
Stephen was one of the first deacons chosen by the early church; he was one of the "Hellenists" (aka, Greeks/ Gentiles) chosen to remedy unfair food distribution to widows, based, alas, on ethnic/ religious background. (After a utopian beginning to the Acts of the Apostles, the people of the church start to settle into old, socially determined patterns of prejudice.) Stephen is immediately heaped with praise ("a man full of faith and the Holy Spirit"), and seen to perform "wonders. and signs among the people." Before long, he is arrested and brought before the council. In his defense, he makes a long and detailed speech, recounting the history of God's covenant people, beginning with Abraham.
So, picture this: This gentile guy is trying to school the descendants of Aaron on Jewish history. And his focus, I'm sorry to say, is one of those things that raises concerns about anti-Semitism in the New Testament. According to the Jewish Annotated New Testament, Stephen's speech highlights the disobedience of the Israelites. The Hebrew Scriptures do this too, of course (see: pretty much all the prophets), but they do so in the context of God's steadfast love and continued faithfulness to God's covenant people. Stephen's overall narrative seems to highlight the ways in which people can be called by God, but disbelieved/ persecuted by God's people. Like Jesus. Like Stephen.
When we catch up with him today, Stephen has gotten as far as the call of Moses, which he summarizes succinctly. Forty years after Moses had to vamoose out of Egypt because he killed a guy (a harsh taskmaster who was abusing Hebrew slaves), God's messenger appears to him in the wilderness, in the flame of a burning bush.
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| "Burning Bush/ Tree of Life" quilt; made by Janet Rutkowski |
Moses is amazed. He stops. He turns aside to look at it.
God identifies Godself as the God of Moses' ancestors.
God tells Moses to remove his sandals, as he is standing on holy ground.
God tells Moses: God has heard the cries of the oppressed Israelites, and has come to bring rescue.
God tells Moses: "Come, now, I will send you to Egypt."
I want to say this about Stephen: He paid attention when learning his catechism. Yes, he has heard and interprets some things through his own outsider (non-Jewish) lens, which sometimes means he leans heavily on what sounds like anti-Jewish bias, which is a problem to be examined by Jesus-followers of any age.
But he has made the story his own. He tells the story of Moses' call simply, reverently, and with awe of his own, because he understands that ours is a God who sometimes appears in unexpected places and at unexpected times. Ours is a God who both calls us to follow today, where we are and as we are, but who also roots us in story. This story. Our story. Our is a God who yet may appear to us in burning shrubbery, and that is both fantastical and, actually, true. Stephen has made God's story his story, and he tells it with gusto. In the end, it gets him killed.
Stephen gives witness to all God has done-- before him, and through him, and into a future he will participate in as the first named martyr in the New Testament. "Martyr" is a Greek word that simply means, witness. Today, Stephen's witness reminds us that God called Moses, and God called him, and God calls you and God calls me-- every day, in new and unexpected ways.
* About those scripture passages: A new Presbyterian Church (USA) Book of Common Worship was released in 2018, and it is a fantastic resource for so many reasons (including a new, inclusive marriage liturgy). One of the big surprises for me was the option of a new (to me) Daily Lectionary that is tied to the Sunday readings. In the previous edition, the Daily Lectionary was a two-year cycle and was not connected in any way to the Sunday Revised Common Lectionary, a three-year cycle.
This year I am reading (and using for these reflections) the new three-year, RCL Daily Lectionary option, which is designed to bridge the Sunday readings-- to keep us in themes that are connected to where the RCL takes us, Sunday to Sunday.
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