In the name of the
Crucified and Risen Lord. Amen.
What does your faith cost you? Have you ever thought
about that? The title of a very
well-known book by Dietrich Bonhoeffer is The
Cost of Discipleship. In it, Bonhoeffer writes about cheap grace and costly
grace. Cheap grace is forgiveness with repentance, membership without
commitment, baptism without discipline. Costly grace though is much harder.
Costly grace is what we see on display in our reading from Acts, where Stephen
gives up his life. In light of that sacrifice made by Stephen, the question
before us this morning is: what is the cost of our discipleship?
If you’re here to hear this sermon, you’ve given of your
time. You could have been somewhere else this morning, you could be doing many
other things. Many of you have chosen to be generous with your money and
support this church financially – that’s certainly a cost of your discipleship.
Perhaps your faith compels you to do things that you really wouldn’t otherwise
do: being nice to people you don’t like, volunteering in the community,
standing up for justice when it would be so much easier to remain silent. Spend
some time considering that this week: what is the cost of your discipleship?
The deacon Stephen is the first martyr in the Christian
faith. The cost of his discipleship was a high as it gets. As he is being
killed, he says “Lord Jesus, receive my spirit,” which is reference both to
Psalm 31 and Jesus’ words on the Cross – “Into your hands I commend my spirit.”
I think that’s quite possibly the hardest prayer to pray. We only have one life
with no chances to have another. Giving things like time and money are certainly
valuable, but giving our life is a cost of a different sort.
Based on
a passage written in Romans by St. Paul, the great Eucharistic Prayer from Rite
I says – “And here we offer and present unto thee, O Lord, our selves, our
souls and bodies, to be a reasonable, holy, and living sacrifice unto thee.” And
as we heard today from 1 Peter “You are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a
holy nation, God’s own people, in order that you may proclaim the mighty acts
of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light.”
Not many
of us will ever be called to pay such a high cost for discipleship. It’s very
unlikely that any of us will become martyrs for our faith. And to be honest,
I’m glad for that. I hope that the only time that I utter the words “Into your
hands I commend my spirit” is when I’m quite old and am dying peacefully with
my family around me. But to ignore the possibility of martyrdom would be to
ignore some important aspects of our faith, so let us turn our attention to
this story from Acts.
The
whole of the seventh chapter of Acts is about this episode between the deacon Stephen
and the Temple authorities, though we only heard from the final six verses of
that chapter. Stephen caught the attention of the authorities because he was
preaching that the Spirit of God was available to all and was present
throughout the world, hardly a blasphemous claim by today’s standards. But at
the time, the Temple was seen as the place where God’s presence could be found.
And if you controlled the Temple, well then you had tremendous power. The
message that God’s presence was available everywhere was a troubling one to
those in power. So Stephen is brought in to give testimony regarding his
actions, and he offers a long sermon about the history of Israel, paying
special attention to the ways in which Israel had been disobedient to God.
As he is
concluding, Stephen says “You stiff-necked people, uncircumcised in heart and
ears, you are forever opposing the Holy Spirit, just as your ancestors used to
do.” Well, that was the final straw. They dragged him out of the city, because
murder inside the city wasn’t allowed, and stoned him to death.
Luke,
who is the author of Acts, notes that when Stephen speaks of his vision of
Jesus, that they “covered their ears.” How do we do the same? I’ll admit,
sometimes when people have stories about Jesus walking into their kitchens and
carrying on conversations, I might be a bit dismissive. Obviously, we cover our
ears when we choose our own set of facts to believe. Whether its where you get
your news, which books you read, or which people you treat as “credible,” we
are all guilty of ignoring information that we disagree with. The famous
theologian Karl Barth once said, when speaking about the revelation of God, “God
may speak to us through Russian Communism, through a flute concerto, through a
blossoming shrub, or through a dead dog. We shall do well to listen to him if
he really does so.” So let this text from Acts be an encouragement to uncover
our ears and listen to see if the grace of God might be found in some
unexpected places.
There is
another aspect of this narrative that greatly influences our understanding of
what it means to be a Christian and that is the way in which Stephen’s death
parallels Christ’s death. It shows us that discipleship is about imitation as
much as it is about veneration. God doesn’t need our worship, God doesn’t need
our praise, God doesn’t need our obedience. Rather, because God has chosen to
be revealed in the person of Jesus and lived a life of love and sacrifice, we
know that God desires the healing of what has been wounded, the restoration of
that which has been broken, the fullness of relationships that have been
strained.
God,
through the Prophet Amos, says “I hate, I despise your festivals, and I take no
delight in your solemn assemblies. Even though you offer me your burnt
offerings and grain offerings, I will not accept them; and the offerings of
well-being of your fatted animals I will not look upon. Take away from me
the noise of your songs; I will not listen to the melody of your
harps. But let justice roll down like waters, and righteousness like an
everflowing stream.” The Prophet Micah asks “Shall I come before the Lord with burnt-offerings, with calves a
year old?” and realizes that Lord requires that we do justice, love kindness,
and walk humbly with God.
If Jesus
were merely a spiritual guru or even only the Messiah of the world, we could be
justified in thinking good thoughts about him and offer him only veneration.
But Jesus is more than that. Jesus ought not to be confined as the object of
our worship, rather Jesus is to be the pattern for our lives. The Church though
has largely chosen to worship Jesus instead of following him. We tend to
overemphasize his divinity so that we can say “Well, he was the Son of God, so
I can’t be expected to do what he did.” But the martyrdom of Stephen makes it
clear that those excuses don’t work. Jesus is the pattern for our lives.
When
Stephen sees Jesus in his vision, he calls him “the Son of Man.” Sometimes “Son
of Man” is translated as “the Human One,” and while that translation can be
problematic in some ways, it is helpful in that it reminds us that Jesus is not
only a teacher, not only our Messiah, but is also an exemplar in that he shows
us what is possible in our humanity. Bonhoeffers writes “When Christ calls
someone, he bids them come and die.” Discipleship isn’t about offering praise,
it is about sacrificing the fullness of our lives to God’s reign of peace,
reconciliation, and love.
The ways
in which Stephen’s death mirrors Jesus’ are important. Both are condemned by
the powers of this world for bowing down to God and not them. It’s a reminder
to us that if we are too cozy with those in power, or ourselves are those in
power, that it’s likely our faith is going to be corrupted. And both, in the
moment of their cruel and unmerited murders, bless their enemies. Jesus says
“Forgive them, for they know not what they are doing” and Stephen says “Lord,
do not hold this sin against them.” And that’s a tough act to follow. It’s one
thing to make some sacrifices for your faith, but it’s something else entirely
to pray for the forgiveness of those who are killing you. It should be clear by
now that the cost of discipleship, of following Christ, of making him the
pattern for our lives is quite high.
One of
the dangers in interpreting the Gospel is to put more emphasis on law than
grace. The Good News of God in Christ is not about what we need, must, or ought
to do. The Gospel isn’t about us, it’s about God. So this lesson from Acts
isn’t a moral lesson about how we just need to give up more in order to be good
disciples. Rather, it shows us what God does for us. Martin Luther King said “a
person who has nothing that is worth dying for is not fit to live.” The death
of Jesus, which was a pattern for the death of Stephen, shows us that there are
things worth dying for: things like love, justice, and obedience to God. And
because there are things worth dying for, then there are things worth living
for.
Think of
it in terms of money. If I told you that I have a coin that is worth a
gazillion dollars, but there’s nothing valuable enough to spend that coin on,
then the coin really isn’t worth anything if it can never be used. We have all
heard the phrase, “That’s not the ditch I’m going to die in.” But this story of
discipleship shows us that there are indeed ditches worth dying in, and those places
give meaning to our lives.
And when
we stand in those ditches of justice and righteousness, we are never alone.
Typically, when Jesus is portrayed in a heavenly vision, he is seen sitting at
the right hand of the Father. We even say this in the Creed – “He ascended into
heaven and is seated at the right hand of the Father.” But this isn’t how we
see Jesus depicted in Stephen’s vision, instead Jesus is seen as standing at
God’s right hand. He who was killed in the worst possible way, he who rose from
death on the third day, he who has conquered death, he who is at God’s right
hand stands up for you. As your legal counsel before the powers of this world,
Jesus stands for you. As your friend, Jesus stands for you. As you do battle
with temptation, with evil, with sin, with death, you are not alone, for Jesus
Christ stands with you. There is often a high cost for discipleship, for
patterning your life on Jesus’, but it is not a cost that you have to pay alone
because Jesus stands with you.
One of the things that I wonder about in this
text is the message that it sent to all those around Stephen as he knelt down
and died. Because Stephen made it so clear that his faith was worth dying for,
I wonder how it showed those around him how the grace of God could be
experienced in the midst of life. And what makes me wonder this is Luke’s note
that those who witnessed this stoning laid their coats at the feet of a young
man named Saul. Saul, of course, is the same as the great St. Paul before his
conversion to Christianity two chapters later in Acts 9. And I just wonder how
watching this innocent man who died in obedience to his faith in the living God
with a word of blessing on his lips for those who were killing him affected
Saul. It very well could be that this was the first seed of the Gospel that was
planted in Saul that would eventually sprout on the road to Damascus.
Obviously, it’s conjecture, but it reminds us of the truth that faith is
contagious, that love spreads, that mercy is transmittable, that sacrifice is
transformational to all who witness it. Faith matters.
Let us
pray: Lord God, we give you thanks for the example that you have given us in
Jesus. We thank for the truth of his Word and the example of his life;
for his steadfast obedience, by which he overcame temptation; for his dying,
through which he overcame death; and for his rising to life again, in which we
are raised to the life of your kingdom. Give us ears to hear and eyes to see
your grace all around us, even in unexpected people and places. May we, like
Stephen, be given by your Spirit the grace and courage to pay the cost of
discipleship. We thank you for standing with us when we are tested. Above all,
we thank you for the love that you have given us in your Son, for giving us
something worth dying for, and thereby something worth living for. Help us this
week to follow your example of loving at all costs. Amen.
