“Stephen’s Witness” Acts 6:1—7:2a, 44-60

 Often when people think about the Book of Acts certain things will come to mind. First is usually the Pentecost story, this phenomenal moment in Acts, chapter 2, where the Holy Spirit comes down upon the disciples and they begin to speak different languages to proclaim the Gospel message. Sometimes its the thousand up thousands of people who were added to the church’s numbers because people were going forth and preaching the Good News and lives were being transformed. Still other times its this idea of what the early church looked like - being in each other’s homes, worshipping together, eating together, and sharing everything in common.

If it is the later, by Acts, chapter six, no longer is the idilic form of the early church from Acts chapter two present. Now there is dissension brewing. Part of having everything in common was this daily distribution of food to those in need. Only now some of the Hellenistic Jews are saying that the Hebrew Jews are favoring their own widows instead of looking out for all.

And the disciples have a problem.

But let’s take a moment to unpack what that problem looked like. We have heard time and again the commands throughout the Hebrew Scriptures to look out for the widow, the orphan and the stranger. However, now a very particular issue has arisen about that command. See, the first line of defense for taking care of those who may be marginalized is the family. The blood family. Think back to the story of Ruth and Naomi, where Boaz helps take care of them because they are blood. If that fails, then the wider community is supposed to step in and take care of those in need.

However, now there is this additional layer - baptism. See when folks became baptized in the early church, it would often cause a rift between them and their blood family. If their whole household isn’t baptized with them, they may become cast out. Or even if a house hold is baptized, they may no longer have the wider support of the extended family or community.

When people joined the early church, they truly needed people to step in and fill the gaps where the family and Jewish society would have been before. Now was that system perfect? By no means. Think back to all of the times in the prophets when God charges the people of not looking after the widow, the orphan and the stranger. But now what they once would have known, even in its imperfections, has to be replaced by the new spiritual family, the church. 

So a serious question is being raised here - we say that we are all part of this new family, but are some people being favored over others? Are those who are Hebrew Jews being treated as more important than the Hellenistic Jews?

To see what happens when there truly is such favoritism in the body of Christ, look no further than 1 Corinthians. The apostle’s certainly do not want this to be true in perception or action so they need to come up with a plan and fast. 

So the twelve bring together all those who call themselves disciples and essentially say that the church is growing so fast that they need to both attend to the social ministries before them but not lose sight of the proclamation of the Gospel. In other words, the magnitude of the work is way too large for just the apostles any more. They affirm their call to preach, but start looking around for wise, Spirit-filled people to be in ministry.

Enter Stephen. Along with Philip, Procorus, Nicanor, Timon, Parmenas, and Nicolas. 

While on one hand, the wording of the apostle’s about not waiting on tables would make it seem like they were looking down on the ministry of these men. But in truth, they were fulfilling both the vision of the early church, from its very inception, that Acts, chapter 2 view of being in community, as well as fulfilling God’s command found in Scriptures. They were prayed over and sent to do all that God had called and equipped them to do.

And the word of God spread even farther.

But now that the dissension from within had been dealt with, dissension from without starting to bubble up. Some translations even go so far as to call it “opposition” who argue with Stephen. Only as the Spirit was empowering Stephen to speak, no one could speak against his wisdom and truth. 

So when the arguments didn’t work - then came the lies. “Have you heard about Stephen? He’s saying all sorts of things wrong about God. He’s leading people astray. In fact, he says that temple is going to be destroyed and all that Moses has taught doesn’t matter.”

One lie led to another. Until Stephen was called before the high council. And friends, he didn’t even need to speak, because the glory of God just shone right through him. And when he did give voice to the truth, he took it the whole way back to scripture, leading people from the time of Moses to Jesus to today.

And people didn’t want to hear the truth. So they had him killed.

Recently, I was talking to my dad about times when the church has got it wrong. Chiefly about science. For those of you who don’t know, one of my brothers is a chemist - his fancy title is medicinal chemist, but I just tell people he makes drugs. And he loves Jesus. This is the way that he honors and serves God, by using his gifts to bring God’s healing to the world.

So, here my dad and I were talking about the people that the church has excommunicated through the years for saying true things that they just didn’t want to hear. Things that they didn’t believe to be true - like the earth orbits the sun, and the sun doesn’t orbit the earth. For this, Galileo was condemned of heresy. People just didn’t want to hear it.

When we read Stephen’s words today we think “of course!” Of course he was speaking the truth! Of course he was doing the work of God! Of course he was given wisdom from on high! How did these folks miss it?

They missed it, friends, because they thought he was a heretic. They were trying to protect what they always believed to be true - thinking his words were a threat that would lead people astray. Sure, he may be doing some good work with the widows, but that’s only because they have been caught up in this new practice that tore them away from their homes and communities.

Friends, there may be times when people think that we are saying or doing the wrong thing. There may be times, when even those closest to us may disagree with us. There are certainly going to be times when our faith and life is Christ is costly, but we still bear witness. We bear witness to the way of truth. We bear witness to the lives God is reaching out to in care. We bear witness to the life transformation that can only come through Christ.

Stephen could have walked away that day - but he no longer would have been the person the community called forth and trusted with important things. He could have saved his life, but lost his soul. Friend, let us not be people who set aside our heart in order to preserve the crowd. Let us be people of passion and service. Love and action. Truth and grace. Amen.