Bill Loader writes on his website that, what killed Stephen still snuffs out life, and we need to see that such activity appears wherever the appeal to love as the highest priority is resisted, and violence is preferred as somehow “right” or even as “just”. Jubilation, Loader says, at the killing of anyone, both saint and sinner, even a terrorist leader puts us among those who threw stones at Stephen.
It was the persistence of Jesus that love and truth have priority and that no one be deemed beyond God’s love that led to his demise and it leads to faith’s demise even today and even in Christchurch.[1]
Faith is threatened with demise when, in the name of a god of their own making, people persecute those who are different to themselves because the world judges faith by the persecutors.
When extreme ‘Christian’ sects demand the death penalty for homosexuals and Nigeria changes its laws accordingly then the whole church is blamed. Some American ‘Christian’ states are even legislating the death penalty for abortion while lawyers are getting rich protecting wealthy paedophiles.
I wrote my first letter to a politician who was seeking re-election with the promise of restoring the death penalty. I got a very polite reply telling me that my opinion was in the minority, but thankfully the death penalty was never restored.
Faith is also under threat when leaders of any faith respond with violence to any alternative understanding of what it means to be faithful. and that is what the story of Stephen’s martyrdom is all about.
In John’s Gospel there is a discussion among the religious leadership, and Caiaphas the high priest for that year says, ‘You do not understand that it is better for you to have one man die for the people than to have the nation destroyed.’ (John 11:50) Caiaphas was concerned that Jesus’ interpretation of their religious tradition would not only lead to widespread public disorder and Rome would act to violently repress any such unrest.
Like most leadership, particularly in societies that have a hereditary ruling class, Caiaphas and the other Jerusalem leaders saw themselves as the best people to lead. From their perspective any challenge to their leadership was a threat, both to their privileged position and therefore to the whole nation.
History vindicates Caiaphas’ fears because when a rebellion did occur the Romans destroyed the temple and killed and dispersed the people. The nation then ceased to exist until the modern state of Israel was proclaimed on the14 May 1948.
However, killing Jesus did not stop that happening and instead resulted in the founding of a faith that included non-Jews and became a major civilising force. Unfortunately, once Christianity gained authority and status it also sought to maintain that authority through violence just as Caiaphas did.
Nevertheless, our justice system takes a reverse point of view to Caiaphas and that is probably because of the Christian influence on our culture.
Our justice system insists on the right of an accused to a fair trial and in his Commentaries on the Laws of England William Blackstone wrote in 1760 ‘It is better that ten guilty persons escape than that one innocent suffer’.
We can in fact trace that principle back to the book of Genesis where Abraham bargains with God for the lives of the people in Sodom. In chapter 18 we read ‘Then Abraham came near and said, ‘Will you indeed sweep away the righteous with the wicked? Suppose there are fifty righteous within the city; will you then sweep away the place and not forgive it for the fifty righteous who are in it? Far be it from you to do such a thing, to slay the righteous with the wicked, so that the righteous fair as the wicked!’ Then Abraham continues this argument until he gets the number down to ten righteous people and God replies ‘For the sake of ten I will not destroy it’. (Genesis18:23-32)
However, although our justice system has followed William Blackstone’s advice the people television interviews after a major crime often give the appearance of preferring to blame anybody in a quest for that mysterious closure we all seem to crave. Indeed, history and myth are full of stories of mob justice where the innocent have been murdered so that vengeance is satisfied and that is where we come to the story of the stoning of Stephen.
Luke has linked this incident to Jesus’ crucifixion, but where the crucifixion was a legal execution Stephen’s stoning was a lynching, the mob administering their own understanding of justice. Stephen had preached to a crowd and had insulted their religious sensibilities. From the perspective of Stephen’s audience Stephen had blasphemed, taken God’s name in vain, and defamed God. Therefore they decided to punish Stephen, not just on behalf of the authorities but also on God’s behalf.
It always intrigues me when people feel the need to administer punishment on behalf of an all seeing all powerful God, particularly as those same people are often ready to attribute people’s misfortune as divine punishment. Such a god would appear quite able to administer whatever punishment was required.
It was probably only a very few people who were enraged enough to stone Stephen to death. But such rage is highly contagious. People enjoy the feeling of belonging and are terrified of being out of step with everyone else. So any mob can easily turn violent.
That fear of being different is not completely unfounded because being out of step with popular opinion is what got Stephen killed.
However, it is people who dare to move ahead of popular opinion that change the world. But when we step out on our own we need to know where we are going. That brings us to our Gospel reading.
In Jesus’ farewell speech John has not only been portraying Jesus’ last words to his disciples, but also considering his readers both present and future, which of course includes us!
The disciple’s distress and confusion about Jesus’ fate represents the confusion and distress in our own experience and, by employing the individual disciples to enhance the drama, John creates a message that is simple and telling.
We live in a world where fitting in with the crowd is unlikely to drag us into a lynch mob but could well immerse us in conspiracy theories, misogyny or the criticism of minority or marginalised groups. In such a world this gospel passage informs us that we should trust that God is just as Jesus told us and demonstrated to us.
If we include more of the story of Jesus from the other gospels this means that we can trust in the God of compassion in which there’s a place for us within the process of transforming our world. We are reassured by today’s passage that the meaning of life is to share Christ’s compassion in the world and ensure that it is a world that has a place for all.[2]
As we consider both these readings together, we can understand that the divine realm is an inclusive culture where different perspectives are valued and outcasts are welcomed back into the community. The God we meet in the Christ image is not a God that needs us to punish or exclude those who have alternative perspectives. The God we find in Christ Jesus calls us into dialogue with alternative perspectives because through such conversations we are all likely to find a greater truth.
Jesus’ farewell speech to his disciples recognises that the discipleship way is a difficult journey but it provides a road map for that journey. Through the beginning this chapter of John’s Gospel Jesus assures us of his closeness to God. We are told that we can assume Jesus and God are one and so what we can learn of Jesus gives us an image of the divine unimaginable mystery.
We live in a world where it is so easy to be swept along by popular opinion and to find acceptance by agreeing with the majority view. In such a world it may well appear that conformity makes for a safe, if somewhat flat world. But the reality is that it is those who dare to sail to the very edge of the known world that discover the world is a dynamic globe of shifting plates and extreme changes in climate and weather patterns.
Our world is a world in which peoples are formed by migration upon migration as new orders are born from past chaos and death and despair is the prelude of resurrection and restored hope.
To make the discipleship journey through such a world we need to load the Gospels into our personal guidance system and with Christ as our destination. We must live out the words of Jesus to Thomas in today’s Gospel reading.
Jesus said to him ‘I am the way, and the truth and the life.’ (John 14:6)
[1] http://wwwstaff.murdoch.edu.au/~loader/AActsEaster5.htm
[2] http://wwwstaff.murdoch.edu.au/~loader/MtEaster5.htm
