A Stone’s Throw From Glory
Acts 7: 55-60
John 14: 1-14
Most scholars will tell you we don’t know a whole lot about Stephen. Here’s what we do know. Stephen is described by Luke as a man “full of grace and power.” We know he was arrested by the Jewish authorities who took exception to his preaching. They brought him before the council, and there he began to preach to them with a passion. That enflamed them to the point they drug him outside the city and stoned him to death. And thus, Stephen, became the first, according to Luke, Christian martyr.
While we do not have a lot of details about Stephen and his ministry, there’s enough information we can piece together what may have brought him to this place where he was martyred.
Picture the scene: It’s a few years after the resurrection and ascension of Jesus. That little band of followers of the Christ has expanded to the point they no longer can meet in private homes, or even the Upper Room. Now they’ve leased a Fellowship Hall where people come to get a free meal and maybe some needed clothes, and certainly some unconditional love.
Can you see the scene. Peter is the maître d’. And the waiters who serve the tables are former fishermen who laid down their nets to follow Christ. Picture a fisherman as a server in the Fellowship Hall. Dishes get broken. Orders get confused. It’s terrible confusion and soon nerves become frayed and tempers begin to boil toward the surface.
And back in the rear of the building where the apostles have established the gently used clothing shop there are other followers of Jesus who now are having to sort by size, to darn holes, to engage themselves in all kinds of activities that they never imagined when they entered into full-time Christian service.
A customer says to Peter, “Hey, I don’t want to complain because the food’s free, but it’s also burnt.” An apostle who’d been in the clothing shop shouts at Peter in Greek, “What is wrong with you? Don’t you send anyone else back here without knowing if we have their size.”
And that’s when Peter cried out, “That’s enough. Apostles are not cut out to run this place.” So they all get together and the elect seven folks to run the intricate details of the ministry, thereby freeing them to do what it is that apostles do. Steven and six other laypeople are put in charge. They roll up their sleeves ; they put on some aprons, and the place begins to have an air of organization and purpose.
Stephen, then, becomes the fellow who does the grunt work of the kingdom. The dishes get cleaned a lot quicker now. The clothes closet gets organized. Things began to flow in a steady way because a capable layman is in charge.
Has anyone in this room ever heard of John Sheeley? Anyone? Hmmm, I wish you had. John Sheeley was one of the most influential laypersons of the twentieth century. Maybe the reason you haven’t heard of him is he never wrote a book. Maybe you haven’t heard of him because he never occupied a prestigious pulpit. But I wish you could have known John Sheeley.
You see, John Sheeley was the fellow who every Sunday, Sunday after Sunday after Sunday, sweated bullets in trying to teach a Sunday School class to young teenagers. He studied the Word with a passion. He had a heart filled with love for all God’s children. And he led this inadequate preacher into the ministry.
The church will never be any stronger than the laity that make up its membership. The church will never witness to God’s presence in our world unless that witness comes from the laity.
Look around you, my friends. Don’t look up here at the pulpit. Look around you. Those people sitting all about you are what is the church. And you, you are the church. Think about it: the church will never be any more strong that are you; the church will never touch lives for Jesus except for those you touch; the church will never be evangelistic, mission-minded, the body of Christ on earth until you are.
When I was at my first church, I made did something, I don’t remember what it was, that upset some people. They had a meeting to talk about it. In that meeting sat Ms. Boyd. She was eighty-eight at the time. Her daughter was a leading scientist in cancer research; her son was the president of Georgia Tech, and she had been the teacher of almost everyone in the room at one time or the other. The chairperson of the group turned at one point to Ms. Boyd and said, “Ms. Boyd, you haven’t expressed your opinion.” She replied, “Well, I tell you, I don’t care what a Methodist preacher does. I don’t get upset about it. He’s not here long enough to make it worthwhile.”
And I wasn’t there long enough to make it worthwhile. But they were there. They stayed long after I left. And what they were left with was themselves, the laity of the church, the Stephens of their day.
So here’s the tricky part of the sermon. Here’s where I ask you, “When was the last time you made such a witness for Jesus the Christ that people got mad at you?”
Stephen could not be restrained in proclaiming Jesus. It got him killed. In today’s gospel lesson Jesus says, “Very truly I tell you, whoever believes in me will do the works I have been doing, and they will do even greater things than these, because I am going to the Father. And I will do whatever you ask in my name, so that the Father may be glorified in the Son. You may ask me for anything in my name, and I will do it.”
Will you do something for me this week? Will you think about Stephen, a layperson just like you. Will you remember how he witnessed and preached to others about Jesus to the point that they stoned him. And will you pray and think about you, yes you, making a witness here, right here in our community. And do you think it possible that your witness may bring you, too, within a stone’s throw
from glory.
Amen.
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