Witnesses Joseph and Jacob
August 19, 2007
Acts 7:9-16
Stephen had been chosen by the Apostles along with 6 others to figure out how to get food to the Greek Jewish Widows of the Jesus community. Stephen was forwarded as one of the seven because he met the criteria: 1. Stephen was someone that the community respected. 2. Stephen was a person of faith, mature faith who responded to the Still Speaking God in visions and prophecy. 3. He followed his wisdom which due to faith was steeped in the Spirit. He was the kind of man of faith that everyone wanted to be. Stephen steps forward to follow God’s call and voice and is immediately attacked by those in power. He’s not who he really says he is, they cry out. He is not Holy but he is evil and his power over others prove it they say. And so the text we have here today is part of a long sermon of Stephen’s response to his accusers that he is not a good choice for this job, he is not a man of faith. And he begins the sermon by connecting himself to the roots of his faith. He begins by connecting himself to where he’s coming from. Stephen is willing to connect himself to his roots even though he has begun to do something different. And, his story is important, because being a person of faith is risky business. He’s not an apostle, he’s not a star and yet the persecution now comes to him. Whenever someone steps up and into the light, when we begin to feed the hungry, see the cast out and left behind, we become suspicious to the forces of power. Stephen stands in that place holding tightly to his forebears and today we are reminded of Jacob and his son Joseph.
Stephen’s overarching goal in reaching back to the ancestors is to remind those who are accusing him of how they are playing into God’s plot just as those who have opposed the work of God have always played a part in the story. For Stephen, he is a person of faith because being on this journey of faith has taken him into many unexpected place. Places that were full of life and light, deep community, hope for tomorrow, gratitude for today, and when the path was filled with wretched moments, horrifying sights, still God was with him. And through this all it changed him. Not for the better or the worse. It simply changed him, made him different than he was before. This redemption we speak about in our faith tradition has often been defined as something that we need to be saved. We need it because we’re not good enough. We need it because there are parts of us that are disgusting and ugly. And some traditions in the Christian church consider it a litmus test, this redemption, creating another word on the rolodex of terror, separating out the sheep from the goats labeling all who don’t measure up as unworthy of redemption resulting in hopelessness for all eternity. However, we in the United Church of Christ consider redemption something that we participate in. Redemption is the way in which we participate in the Reign of God and we find that participation saving. Participating in how God becomes real, incarnate, present in this world opens us to the light and love of God allowing us to become beacons, vessels, treasures of hope for all those who ache for more than what our culture proclaims. This is something that happens unbeknownst to us, there isn’t a secret formula, there isn’t a good line and a bad line. Redemption is simply that journey we undertake as people of faith to be with God. And it is the being with God that changes us, just like Stephen. We become different. For when we embody the holy. When we open ourselves to seeing with the eyes of God, we see differently. When we open ourselves to allowing the Presence of God to fill up our lives we encounter the day differently, feeling the world in new ways. It is this walk of redemption that allows Stephen to stand before his accusers strong, like Jesus with his accusers. This work of standing against empire has been going on since the beginning and it can not stop the still speaking God from reaching out and into our very essence.
Once you’ve been on the journey of faith for awhile. And you begin to recognize this change within yourself, you then want to create a world where the bright colors and peace can be shared with a joyful community. You want the mercy and compassion you experience to be available to all. So you begin to look for partners in this work, and that is what really threatens the empire, when we begin to gather and grow in number. This creates conflict. And, conflict goes back to the beginning, it is as old as the story is old.
Stephen goes back to his roots of father Jacob and the story of his sons. His sons who were jealous of their brother Joseph. They felt their father Jacob favored him more than he favored the rest of them. So, they sold him off into slavery. When we are on this journey there are many times that we want our own way. There are many times when we are driven by the desire to be the best one, the favored one, the head of the class. And this switches our goal from being filled with the Holy one to our own personal goal of what I want. This shift in center, creates a shift in outcome. And, Joseph turned out to be quite a star. There must have been something about him, something special, that thing the brothers detested. That thing was the God light. For even as Joseph was being sold into slavery, God was with him. And Joseph was open to God’s presence on this death dealing journey. Joseph held himself open to God and centered himself in this journey allowing the path to be out of his control but his relationship completely within his power of participation. No matter what is happening in our lives what a relief to know we can participate in this Reign of God. No matter how ugly the times are, to be able to open ourselves to God, to be able to fill ourselves with the presence, that can change every and any situation on the path.
How is it that we can participate in the reign of God…We can be as Joseph’s brothers fearful and closed. We can be as Jacob, clearly duped and out of touch. We can be as Pharoah, completely oblivious. Or we can work to be open like Joseph. Even when we are sold from our own families of origin, cast off to never be seen again. Even when we are propelled as resident aliens into a strange land. Even when we become people of power and substance. Even when we are confronted with ghosts from our past, with people who did us wrong. No matter where it is that we find ourselves of life’s journey, God can meet us there and we can participate in this work of incarnating God. Of allowing God to fill us up with the Presence and experience wherever we are full of the Holy One.
Right now I feel like I’m in the pit, being sold off into slavery. And, it’s scarey down here, frightening, disorienting. I’m not sure what is going to happen, I just know that it’s not what I pictured happening or planned on happening. So, even here I’m going to work hard to choose my role models. I am going to try to keep my spiritual disciplines up more than ever, that I might open myself to the Holy even here in the pit. For when we open ourselves to God in the pits, God meets us there. And, then as things happen, I will just pray to be opened and accompanied by the Holy One, it will change the very light in which I see what is happening. And, I pray through this discernement process, I will continue to meet the criteria laid out in our ancient texts, that I will maintain your respect, that I will continue to have and work out of a mature faith, and that I will follow the wisdom of the Spirit. It is my experience, which is keeping my fear at bay, that when we are able to work out of this place, we come out differently than we could possibly imagine.
Let us pray.