Sermon

Acts 6:1-8; 7:55-60

Practicing Resurrection: Healing

By Rev. Amy Butler

Who knew waiting tables was such a dangerous job?

I certainly never considered the possibility that pursuing a vocation of waiting tables was a life-threatening endeavor when I applied for and was hired as a waitress at Pizza Hut the summer after my freshman year of college.  I loved the job—I got to meet a lot of interesting people; the time flew by; free pizza . . . .  Pretty much the most dangerous thing that happened that summer was an encounter with some slightly compromised potato salad on the salad bar.

Later in my life, though, I did see how waiting tables could be dangerous.

Mark and I took a trip to Israel in March of 1996.  Our first evening in Tel Aviv was exciting—we strolled the streets passing falafel stands and taking in the bustling crowds.  We were tired from our trip so we decided to have a quick dinner at the Hard Rock Café in the Dizengoff center in downtown Tel Aviv.

After dinner we returned to the hotel and prepared for our bus trip the next day to Jerusalem.  And Jerusalem was amazing—we had a great day taking in sites that we’d only read about and standing in places we’d imagined from Sunday school.  We were exhausted when our clearly agitated tour leader herded us onto the bus and announced: there had been a terrorist attack in Tel Aviv and we would have to be careful reentering the city.

Just a few hours before on that warm afternoon, a young suicide bomber decided to lie down on a street corner near the automatic teller machines at the Dizengoff center and blow himself and those around him to pieces.  13 people died that day, just the day after we had been eating at Hard Rock Café, the front door of which is located . . . right next to the automatic teller machines.

Watching horrific events like that happen via CNN from halfway around the world is bad enough; to be in the city rocked by such violence was utterly fear-inducing.  How on earth could a community allow its differences to deteriorate the fabric of its society so profoundly that any hope for healing and reconciliation is ripped apart on one warm afternoon when a bomb goes off?

You know the wait staff at the Hard Rock had to wonder how a job waiting tables could ever become so dangerous.

And perhaps the same kind of questions surround the life of the Apostle Stephen in today’s Acts passage.  Stephen also waited tables, and, in fact, had been selected by the apostles to head up the program the first church undertook to care for those among them who were hungry.  In order that those who were preaching could be free to proclaim the message, the 12 disciples chose 7 additional leaders to serve those who were hungry.

Now, we only heard the bookends of Stephen’s story this morning, but we know he was killed—stoned—by other devout members of his community.

Who knew waiting tables was such a dangerous job?

Stephen’s story exposes the rift that was occurring within the community in which he lived.  Now, remember: there was no distinction between Christian and Jew at this time.  While those who called themselves Christians gathered in homes to remember Jesus, they also worshipped in the temple and lived as devout Jews.

But, those who called themselves followers of Jesus were stirring things up because they insisted on stepping in where there was already quite a rift in the community.  Hellenistic Jews like Stephen, those who spoke Greek and were the product of Greek culture, were considered outsiders in Jerusalem.  But the Christians were welcoming them in . . . and making them leaders!  Most Jews in the Jerusalem community spoke Aramaic and considered it their holy obligation to resist any influences of Greek culture.  The Christians’ decision to care for the widows of Greek-speaking Jews—to serve them dinner—was causing all sorts of uneasiness for everyone.

So, Stephen was already in the middle of a controversial situation.  To make matters worse, Stephen was an eloquent speaker and recognized leader, and often had opportunities to speak to the gathered community in the temple.  In between the verses we read in chapter 6 and the account of Stephen’s stoning in chapter 7, Luke records an incredible speech of Stephen’s, given in the temple and directed rather pointedly to those who were uneasy about all the changes going on around them.

Stephen’s speech told of the way in which God’s Spirit had led the Jewish people through a powerful journey of faith, often taking them into unknown places and asking them to follow.  He reminded those gathered in the temple of all the many ways in which God had consistently asked them to step out of what felt comfortable and follow the movement of God’s Spirit, even when that movement seemed strange, foreign, unusual.

Stephen spoke very pointedly, with some frustration even, to the gathered community.

He was so excited about what he saw as God’s leadership into a new expression of faith—one that allowed full participation of folks who were on the fringes of the community—and he was not afraid to speak his opinion loudly, even though it was different from the opinions of most gathered there.  He reminded the people of God’s ever-present invitation to all of them to see life and faith in new ways, and he lamented their inability to let go of what they’d always known to be true and follow the leading of God’s Spirit.  “You stiff-necked people,” he said, “forever opposing the work of God!”

Well, you might imagine folks’ response.  This impassioned speech of Stephen’s enraged the folks gathered in the temple.  They were so angry they took Stephen out to a pit on the side of the town, threw him in face first and began to hurl rocks at him.  Those rocks killed Stephen.

What kind of community, you ask, could allow its interaction to deteriorate so dramatically that, faced with differing opinions, the end result is severing of relationship, violence, even death?

It’s not very often that we look at the scripture account and use what we read there as an example of what NOT to do—usually we’re looking to the text for examples of how we should be living.  But today we read a cautionary tale of this community so intent on preserving divisions and protecting the status quo that a call to recognize the movement of God’s Spirit resulted in violence and death.

It could have been that Stephen was too rash in voicing his opinion.  It could have been that he used language that made his message difficult to hear.  It might even have been that the timing was not exactly right for the delivery of such a message.  Martyrs and prophets are not generally known to be the most likable people, you know.  But here it is: there was a call to step out of the familiar and into an unknown future being created by God, and the message was so upsetting that Stephen was killed.

Friends, this was not a community practicing the resurrection quality of healing.

Instead, this community was one of divisions and hatred, pain and betrayal, disagreement that not only paralyzed them all but actively worked against God’s healing possibility for everyone.  They were not practicing resurrection.  They were not creating space for healing, both personal and communal.

Diana Butler Bass calls this quality of healing a signpost of renewal.  Communities that actively practice resurrection are communities of healing and hope, places where individuals torn and tattered by the pain of this world can come and have a soothing balm of love and care applied to their hurt.  They are gatherings of people who, despite differing opinions, are so intent on practicing the resurrection quality of healing that they live and work and pray together until their differences make their community richer, until individuals who feel excluded are healed, until they model together the possibility of healing hope for the world.  She calls that quality of healthy, resurrection community “creating Shalom”—peace, resolve, acceptance, wholeness . . . healing.

We want to create a community in which we are practicing the resurrection quality of healing.  Why?  Because we never want to be a community that promotes a breach like the one that led to Stephen’s stoning.  But also because we all—every single one of us—desperately needs the healing of God in our own lives.  And, we cannot find that healing if our community expression of faith is one that oppresses people who are different and opposes the ongoing work of God’s Spirit.

But how do we practice this resurrection quality of healing?

It’s certainly not by assuming we all share the same opinions.  That will never happen, not in a million years, and it shouldn’t.  Part of being open to the work and movement of God’s Spirit is recognizing the different ways in which God talks to each one of us and leaving room for the possibility that an opinion different from my own may be the best and most healing course of action for our community at this time.  A community of healing is one in which we can hear each other; we can respond to the work of God’s Spirit; and we can cultivate and maintain life-giving relationships.

One of the ways we do that is by spiritual practice together.  The community that ended up killing Stephen was focused on procedure and rules, not on openness to God’s Spirit.  When we practice our faith together by worship and prayer, service and study, we are creating a space where healing can begin to happen . . . both individually and corporately.

This week our own community will be gathering in prayer to offer the future of our church to God and to seek together God’s leadership and presence.  We’ve embarked here on an ambitious 5-year plan to grow this community of believers into a self-sustaining presence here in the city, and moving in that direction is making some of us uncomfortable . . . or scared . . . or even hurt!

As we listen and discern where we’re headed together we must gather in prayer to remember that we are a resurrection community of healing and that we want to step out boldly, not opposing the work of God’s Spirit but boldly walking into the new places God is leading us.

When we gather for prayer this Wednesday at 6:30 p.m. in the chapel, we will be a community intent on practicing resurrection by practicing healing, offering opportunity for God’s Spirit to soften our hearts and direct our actions, to help us listen for the leadership of God and empower us to step out in radical faith.  When we gather our different opinions together, our fears and hopes and doubts, and offer them to God, we are inviting God’s presence and responding to God’s leadership.  This is practicing healing; this is practicing resurrection.

But it’s not just corporately that we long for God’s healing.  It’s very poignantly individually, too.  None of us comes to this place of worship this morning full and whole and perfect.  All of us are in need of God’s healing in each of our lives.  All of us bring the broken shards of our lives, whatever that means, to this place, offering them to God.

When we are a community practicing resurrection, we will be a place in which God can begin the long, hard process of taking those shards and putting them back together again so that we become, not the same people we were before, but whole people nonetheless.

Writer Anne Lamott has published several books of essays narrating her own faith journey.  One of the important parts of her journey has been encountering a community of faith where she could, though very different from everyone else in that community, find hope, find healing in a life that left her bruised and battered.  She writes about this in her essay on why she makes her son, Sam, go to church:

“When I was at the end of my rope, the people at St. Andrew tied a knot in it for me and helped me to hold on.  The church became my home in the old meaning of home—that it’s where, when you show up, they have to let you in.  They let me in.  They even said, ‘You come back now.’”

We want to be people who practice resurrection, who live like the miracle of Easter matters.  To do that, we must be a community that practices healing, so that all the broken bits of your life and mine can be gathered here at the altar and crafted into a beautiful mosaic depicting God’s grace.

When we practice healing, we are practicing resurrection.

In response to the invitation to create a place for healing and hope, we will now enter a time of prayerful response.  It was a custom in the first church to anoint those who needed healing with oil and to pray for them.  We reflect that practice today as we respond.  When the music begins I will be at the front to receive you.  If you can’t make it down to the front, please raise your hand and get the attention of an usher; I will come to you.

If you need healing in your life . . . if you hope for healing in this community . . . please come forward for prayer.  I will place a small amount of oil on your hand and pray with you.

And as we do that together, we will be practicing resurrection.

Would you join me?

Scripture quotations from the World English Bible.

Copyright 2008 Amy Butler. Used by permission.