The Death of Stephen: Reflection on April 17, 2005; Acts 6:1-9, 7:2a, 51-60; W.P. Mahedy

We learn from the Gospel reading today (Jn 10:1-19) that Jesus is not only the shepherd of the sheep, but the gate through which the sheep enter as well. Jesus has come that we might have life and have it abundantly. That is the point Stephen was making in his speech to the Sanhedrin. They didn't like what he said and so they killed him. A little background.

Stephen was among seven chosen to work with the Greek speaking, bicultural Jews from the different nations who were living in Jerusalem. It was probably about a year after the death and resurrection of Jesus and the disciples had not left Jerusalem, so the Gentile mission had not yet begun. The authorities who killed Jesus expected his followers would disband and eventually end up in other messianic movements as had been the case so many times before.

The proclamation that Jesus had risen from the dead and was Lord of all was intolerable to them. They had arrested and flogged the Christian leaders, but they had killed no one yet. So Stephen, faithful to his mission to the bi-cultural, Greek speaking Jews, had been preaching in a synagogue which had members from different nations. It was these people who found the message more than they could bear, so they grabbed him and dragged him before the Sanhedrin. Stephen then preached to the leaders of his people. When he finished, they were so enraged they formed a lynch mob, threw him in a pit and killed him by stoning--without even going through the legal requirement of clearing his execution with the Roman governor.

Stephen's sermon and his murder were decisive moments in Christian history. His martyrdom began the exodus of Greek speaking Christians from Jerusalem, taking them to different places where they spread the Gospel. Present at Stephen's death was Saul of Tarsus, who became Paul the apostle with his mission to the Gentiles. James, the brother of John, was killed shortly afterwards and the original twelve apostles then began their own missionary journeys. Stephen's death pushed the Church out into the world.

Why was Stephen so controversial that he was killed? If you read the long section of Acts which is left out of the reading, you will see that Stephen makes the case that neither the land of Israel nor the Temple are absolutely necessary for the fulfillment of God's plan. He shows that the leaders of the people had always rejected God's word. These leaders to whom he was now speaking were "a stiff--necked people...who always resist the Holy Spirit." They had finally "betrayed and murdered the Righeous One sent by God."

Why did the Roman empire, which so readily tolerated all kinds of religions without any problem, consider the followers of Jesus so dangerous? There is a direct line--a trajectory--from the crucifixion of Jesus, to the killing of Stephen and then James, to the persecution begun by Nero and continued by Trajan at the end of the century, to the sporadic persecutions of the 2nd century, to the systematic efforts by Decius and Diocletian to exterminate Christians in the 3rd and early 4th centuries. You can see why the Sanhedrin wanted Stephen dead, but why did Rome also try to wipe out the Christians? They knew that if Jesus is Lord, then Caesar is not.

Jesus, the Good Shepherd, the gate through the sheep enter the sheepfold, is also Israel's Messiah and King--and precisely because of Israel's status within the purposes of God, Israel's king was always supposed to be the world's true king. "His dominion shall be from one sea to the other; from the River to the ends of the earth" (Ps. 72.8). "The root of Jesse shall rise to rule the nations; in him shall the nations hope" (Isa. 11.10, cited Rom. 15.12).(N.T. Wright).

But this Messiah-King-Shepherd achieves his goal by failing to achieve anything. He is executed on a cross--the cross being a symbol of Rome's absolute power over life and death. With the resurrection of Jesus, the cross became a symbol, not of Rome's power, but of the Lordship of Christ. The early Christians subverted the meaning of the cross and they also subverted and ultimately converted the empire. They came not to rule, but to be in love and service to others as was Jesus their Lord. In this way Jesus is Lord and Caesar is not.

By the time Stephen was killed, the cult of Caesar was not simply one new religion among many in the Roman world, but it had become the dominant cult in the Empire, and was the means whereby the Romans managed to control and govern the huge areas that came under their sway. Who needs armies when they have worship? (Wright, ibid). Early Christians obeyed civil law but they reserved their ultimate allegiance to God. They did not accept the empire's basic assumptions. They were truly different. For Jesus is Lord and Caesar is not.

Jesus was crucified because his Kingship demanded an entire new way of being in the world. Stephen's speech to the Sanhedrin made this perfectly clear. There was simply no room in the Roman empire for these people. They were persecuted until the 4th century when the Church was freed by a Christian emperor--but then the Church itself began to acquire the trappings of secular empire. Christians are no longer a threat to the world's empires because they have been co-opted by them. The words and example of Stephen call to us across 2000 years, reminding us of who we are supposed to be.

What is the current empire? What are its ideologies and belief systems? Well, it's many things. Nation--states--ours being the most powerful--are the present inheritors of ancient Rome--at least in part. But the increasingly ruthless and dehumanizing global market seems to be superceding even nations. In fact, as global economic interests come to buy and control more of national political systems, the two merge into a system that rivals ancient Rome in its power to dominate.

The ideology that blinds us to the menace we face and that makes us complacent is to be found within ourselves. We have come to believe in individual self-fulfillment as the supreme good. We now believe in the "imperial self." It is this which enables the materialism, consumerism and greed which feed the new empire. Each individual, supposedly free in a political and economic sense, now makes choices which supposedly express and embody the self--but which really destroy the personal spiritual center and create a vast "spiritual wasteland." In this respect, we may be worse off than were our spiritual ancestors in ancient Rome who had a clear sense of community.

Our new bishop alluded to this in his talk to the clergy last Tuesday when he said that we have a mission to the postmodern world--a world increasingly hostile to our message. We need to think about this, especially here as we prepare for next month's meeting to chart new courses for our parish. The Lordship of Christ is still incompatible with the Lordship of Caesar. The first step in dethroning Caesar must always be to see clearly what is going on. We live here and now in 2005. We are citizens. We participate in civic and economic life. We are limited in what we can do, but we do have some choices. We must first think like Christians before we can act like Christians. We are not isolated atomistic selves, striving only for our own good, we are members of the human community.

We must remember that any product is only a product--despite what the advertising suggests. Any government, including our own, is only a government. It is not a religious entity nor is it a font of wisdom and truth. Any flag is only a flag, not a religious symbol. The dollar, the euro, the pound are means of monetary exchange, not the means of salvation. Nor are our individual selves worthy of enthronement as objects of worship.

Remember Hans Christian Anderson's story of the emperor's new clothes. The emperor loved fine clothes and was hoodwinked by a couple of swindlers who promised to make him some beautiful new clothes, so fine that they would be invisible to all who were not smart and competent. As the two pretended to weave these new garments, courtiers were sent in to report on the progress. No one saw anything, but they could not admit this for fear of being considered stupid. So they reported back that the garments were beautiful. When it came time for the parade to allow the emperor to show off his new clothes, the emperor couldn't see them either, but he couldn't admit this. It took a small child to speak the truth: "the emperor has no clothes." Then everyone saw the truth about the emperor.

So our first requirement is to see the almost complete nudity of the various emperors who dominate our lives. If we first see they have no clothes, we can then begin to think and act differently in small ways. Our own imperial self is perhaps the most troublesome emperor we face. But if we face up to our own lack of adornment, we are open to being clothed truly with the garment of our baptism. For this we need prayer, bible study, reflection, worship.

I learned a great lesson in truth-seeing and truth-telling in connection with the fall of the Communist embodiment of empire. I visited Russia in 1988 and again 1989 to work with the Russian veterans of the Afghan war. We were not tourists and many of us were veterans ourselves, so we formed a real community with the former soldiers and with our interpreters, many of whom were college students. They told us the truth about their war and about what they and their families had suffered under the Communist regime. They no longer believed in their empire. The authorities did not like them hanging around with us and on several occasions security guards wanted to block us, but the young Russians simply disobeyed and once even pushed the guards away. Their new understanding of the truth empowered them to act. I watched a courageous young journalist tell ABC international TV news the truth about the war in Afghanistan.

Seeing the truth enabled the Russians to deepen their spiritual lives. Many of them told us they no longer believed in Marx and Lenin but in God, the real God--and this was anathema to the regime. I had a long discussion on faith with an interpreter in Leningrad and left her my Bible and Prayer Book. On Easter Sunday, 1989, in Moscow I celebrated Eucharist for the American delegation and some Russians. I instructed and gave communion to a young Russian who had not been in Church since his baptism as an infant. The Lordship of Caesar was shown to be a mirage and the Lordship of Christ began to emerge in a new way.

I remember an evening when we sat together and sang Russian and American songs. They sang with us "We Shall Overcome," and in that context the song acquired a new meaning. On our final day in Moscow, they invited us to twist the empire's tail by marching with them in their sacred May Day parade. They snuck us into the parade in their veterans' contingent, so we American veterans who had engaged in actual combat with Communism marched under Communist banners, mocking with our Russian friends their very evil regime. During the parade a young woman stood on the sidelines with an anti-communist banner. The police chased her away, but she too no longer believed and was willing to act.

The next year in the May Day parade a Russian priest marched carrying a paper mache cross and when he passed the reviewing stand he was heard to say: "Christ is risen." So the Lordship of Christ was publicly proclaimed in the regime's most cherished ritual. During that same year, the final confrontation occurred. Tanks surrounded the Russian White House in Moscow and threatened those who had revolted with death. But they would not yield. Olga, who had been an interpreter with us told me by phone what happened. She said that a Russian priest was taken into the White House and baptized some people who thought they would not live till the next day. She also related with great pride how "our boys," meaning the Russian veterans who had become our friends, went up and talked to the soldiers, telling them about the government's lies, and asking them not to fire on their fellow citizens They didn't and the regime fell. I learned a lot from these courageous young Russians. Through them I saw again the emptiness and ultimate deception of worldly empires and how the Lordship of Christ arises from the very heart of evil.

Our situation is very different. But as arrogance, avarice, militarism, individualism, greed and hubris continue to run amok, we see the emergence of some new branches on the tree of evil and of empire. John Paul II, who suffered under Communism and helped to bring it down, had nothing good to say about the capitalist empire with its rampant individualism and materialism. He saw it as much a threat to human values as was Communism. And so it is. It is simply another form of the cult of Caesar--and we must become as much a threat to the empire as were our early ancestors in the faith--for Jesus is Lord and Caesar is not.

When Stephen was dragged out to his death, he "saw the glory of God and Jesus standing at the right hand of God." With Stephen let us ascribe only to God all power and honor, might and dominion. Let us praise him alone now and forever. Amen.