“Stoned for Jesus”
For those who don’t know life at Seminary really isn’t all that different from life anywhere else. Things you might think would never happen at seminary often do. For instance a couple of my class mates thought it would be a good idea to smoke marijuana one evening. Chances are if they had kept it contained in their dorm room they would have gotten away with it. However these two guys decided to smoke marijuana out on the front steps of one of the main buildings on campus. Now it was evening, classes were over and usually most people would have headed off to their dorm rooms to study and the two could have gone un-noticed even in such a public place. This particular evening for some strange reason a Princeton Police Officer happened to be walking through campus and caught a whiff of the stuff and charged both of them. As I recall nothing major happened to either of them, I think they did go downtown for booking but it seems to me the worst of the whole ordeal was facing the harassment they received from the other students making fun of their stupidity. I remember the academic dean at the time wasn’t laughing and was extremely worried about how this news would be released to the community, I am sure he feared the headline “Princeton Seminary Students getting stoned for Jesus.”
As I reflected on the passage from Acts chapter 7 that we read a few moments ago I couldn’t help but think of that story. My classmates weren’t the first to get stoned for Jesus in fact the Bible has several accounts of people being stoned for the Lord the most famous of them being Stephen. Of course there wasn’t any part of Stephen getting stoned that was enjoyable for him perhaps other than he died in service of the Lord. Stephen a church figure with whom we are not very well acquainted comes on the scene in Acts chapter 6 and is put to death in chapter 7. We are familiar with the apostles Peter and Paul and while they say a lot in the book of Acts it is Stephen this little known character who has the longest speech in the entire book of Acts. Stephen is one of the early Christians, one of the first to follow the way of Christ as the church is still in its fledgling stage. However already Stephen has exhibited behaviors consistent with the gospel causing others to identify him as one who is filled with the Spirit and full of faith. It is for this reason Stephen is among those assigned to the task of caring for the widows. Helping the widows, apportioning food among them was a ministry of the church. A ministry the apostles performed but found they were spending so much of their time feeding widows that they did not have time for preaching and teaching. So the apostles called upon trustworthy and spirit filled people like Stephen to carry out this important ministry. Stephen’s Spirit filled nature may make him a great care giver but all his talking about Jesus gets him in trouble with some of the Jewish Leaders. He is put on trial and charged with blasphemy against Moses and God. Stephen retells
So Stephen is this great guy, he is full of faith, filled with the Spirit, lives a life of service to others in this caring ministry, loves to talk about Jesus, and the end gets killed for his conviction; so what doest this mean for you and me. Are we supposed to get stoned for Jesus? I mean the good kind of stoned not the bad kind of stoned, or maybe I should say the bad kind stoned not the good kind of stoned. Oh I guess they are both the bad kind…what I mean is the kind like Stephen got. I don’t think we have to provoke people to throwing rocks at us to live out our faith to its fullest, but I do think that like Stephen, our faith, our desire to follow the way of Christ does call us to make certain sacrifices. Stephen was determined to follow quite literally in the footsteps of Jesus so he doesn’t fight back when the crowds attack him. When the rocks start flying he simply prays “Lord receive my Spirit.” Stephen makes the ultimate sacrifice in service of God. In our current time and culture it is rare that our faith calls us to make this kind of sacrifice and that is good because we often struggle with making little sacrifices let alone big ones.
Sacrifice is tough because we want to hold on to what we have, but why should we be surprised that in our faith lives we are called to make sacrifices when we have to make sacrifices in other aspects of our lives. If you want to be a good parent you learn to make sacrifices. If you want to be fit and healthy you learn to make certain sacrifices. If you want to live in a nice house, or drive a fancy car you learn to make sacrifices. If you want to be a good spouse you learn to make sacrifices. Whatever it is in life that draws us and spurs us on usually requires us to make some sacrifice; why should our faith be any different. If you want to follow Jesus then you need to be prepared to make some sacrifices. Perhaps sacrificing your popularity when you know you can’t go along with popular opinion because you faith leads you to believe otherwise. Perhaps sacrificing some of your time, talent, or treasure to aid in the proclamation of the gospel. Perhaps sacrificing some of your preconceived notions to follow the way Christ is leading you this moment this day. Perhaps sacrificing some of your anger and forgiving that one you have held a grudge against for so long the way Stephen forgave his accusers and attackers. The benefit of sacrifice is that it leads us to significant and surprising outcomes. Often times in letting go we find ourselves in a place we never could have imagined.
A young, successful business man was cruising through the neighborhood in his new Jaguar. Watching for children among the parked cars he slowed when he thought he saw something. As he passed a brick hit his door. White hot with rage he slammed on the brakes and jumped out of the car, grabbing the nearest kid he could find and pushing him up against the car demanded “What in the heck do you think you are doing?” “That is a new car that dent you made is going to cost a lot of money to repair.”
The boy was apologetic, “please mister I am sorry but I didn’t know what else to do. I threw the brick because no one else would stop.” With tears streaming down his face he pointed to a spot just around the parked car “It’s my brother; he rolled off the curb and fell out of the wheel chair and now I can’t lift him up. Would you please help me get him back into his wheel chair? He’s hurt and he’s too heavy for me to lift by myself.”
Moved with pity, the young executive, now fighting back tears of his own, hurriedly helped lift the boy’s brother back into the wheel chair. He dabbed the boys cuts and scrapes with a clean handkerchief and told him everything was going to be ok. “Thank you and may God bless you” the boy said as he continued pushing his brother down the street.
The man looked at the dent in his shiny new car and it was very noticeable but he never had it repaired. Instead he kept the dent as a reminder to not go through life so fast that someone has to throw a brick at you to get your attention.
May we not have to have bricks thrown at us to make the sacrifices we need to make in order to follow the way of the Lord. May we listen intently for God’s still small voice so that we may hear and follow without the use of such brutal attention getters. At the same time may we not suffer the persecution that Stephen did for doing what we think is faithful. I don’t think that will be necessary because I don’t believe we are likely to be called to get stoned to serve God. Be that get stoned like my classmates or get stoned like Stephen I don’t think we are likely to be called by God to do either any time soon because we don’t have to die to serve God. We simply have to live in a certain way and move in a distinctive direction, that direction being the way of Christ. Amen.