Sermon: April 20, 2008

Dr. Tom Long, Professor of Preaching at Candler School of Theology in Atlanta, is one of my preaching heroes.  An excellent lecturer and preacher, he is also a prolific author, and one of his recent books is titled, Testimony – Talking Ourselves into Being Christians.  It is an apt volume to explore during the Easter season as we return, week after week, to the book of Acts and the stories of those who first testified to the love of God made known in the death and resurrection of Jesus.  One of those first witnesses was Stephen, the account of whose martyrdom we heard in our First Reading today…And one word in Stephen’s testimony given before he was stoned to death – the word “look” – brought to mind a story from Dr. Long’s book.   He says that the essence of testimony can be summarized in that one word, “Look!”

Dr. Long writes:  Late one cold winter’s afternoon, my wife and I stood on the Maryland shore of the Chesapeake Bay, looking westward and watching the sun go down.  Sunsets on the Bay can be breathtakingly beautiful, but this particular sunset was, quite honestly, nothing to write home about…I would have rated it, say, a 4 on a scale of 10…As the sun slipped completely beneath the gray waters of the bay, I turned around to watch our beagle…sniffing around in the marsh grass behind us…And I was about to walk back to the house when I became aware that my wife was tugging on my sleeve…”Look, Look!” she had been saying for I knew not how long.  I turned around to the surprise that in the short moment I had looked away, the western sky had been transformed.  This sunset had saved its best for last…Like the glowing coals of a dying fire whose flames have already vanished, the sunless sky had begun to burn with an array of vibrant oranges and yellows.”

Long goes on to reflect on what he learned from this moment…He realized that his wife’s urging to “look, look,” was for his sake, not for hers.  He was facing the wrong direction so she spoke and pointed him toward the magnificent glory of God’s creation.  And Dr. Long concludes:  So it is with testimony.  We see the hand of God at work in life, and we don’t want other people to miss it… what else can we do but say, “Look, look!”

 Stephen was one of the members of that first community of believers called to help with the food distribution to the widows and orphans in the community.  You see, as the community grew the 12 apostles soon realized that they could not do every task themselves, so Stephen and several others were blessed for the ministry of hands-on service, while the apostles tended to prayer and proclamation.  But Stephen, the writer of Acts tells us, did not only wait tables, but became a powerful witness to the Good News of God’s love shown to us in Christ.  Indeed, in Acts chapter 6, we are told, “Stephen, full of grace and power, did great wonders and signs among the people.”  His faithful witness ultimately provoked a confrontation with the opponents of the earliest Christians, and following a particularly powerful sermon, a mob dragged him out of the city and stoned him to death…We know Stephen as the first Christian martyr.

 However, Stephen might have escaped with his skin if he had not said that one word, “Look.”  After his sermon he had a vision of “the glory of God and Jesus standing at the right hand of God.  ‘Look,’ he said, I see the heavens opened and the Son of Man standing at the right hand of God.’”  For those who refused to believe that Jesus was the crucified and risen Savior, it was the last straw!  If Stephen had just kept that vision to himself, he might have lived.   But raised by the Holy Spirit to testify faithfully, he did so to the end.  He saw the glory of God and said, “Look!  You’re facing the wrong direction!  Turn around!  Look!”  …It was not for Stephen’s own sake that he said it, but for the sake of those who still could not see the glory of God in the face of Christ.

And this story – even with its violent ending – comes into our midst, on the wings of the Spirit, to teach and to give new life as we testify to God’s living presence in the world.

Faithful testimony to the glory of God present in our lives is what we are re-created to do in our baptisms!  We are re-born by water & the Word to say, “Look!”  - not at me - but at God’s amazing goodness and grace in our lives!

• “Look!” one of our church members said to me when I visited him in the hospital not so long ago.  “God has shown us such grace through the people of St. John’s.  They have prayed for us, stopped to see us here in the hospital, brought us food…They’ve embraced us with such love!”  And I – who am often facing the wrong direction – anxious about so many things that are, finally, of pen-ultimate importance, was turned around to see the glory of God revealed in this community!
• “Look!” the Bishop of the Western Iowa Synod of the ELCA said to those gathered in Weertz Hall for dinner on Friday evening – all those attending the Global Mission Event we hosted this weekend.   He told how that synod, where there has been not a small amount of dissension over the years, had been renewed, transformed, by their companion synod relationship with the Southern Diocese of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Tanzania.  In example after example, the Bishop told of the Spirit of the Risen Christ raising up gifts and talents  - and bringing healing to their brokenness – as they entered more intentionally into that companion relationship.  “Look,” he kept saying – not at us – but at the power of God to raise the church to new life!  …And, truly, everyone in the room “turned around” to behold the glory of God!

 As individuals , but also as a community of faith – we are also raised by Christ to testify, to say – in word and deed – “Look!”.  Or as the writer of our 2^nd Lesson puts it:  “…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!”

 And, yes, that testimony, that faithful cry of “look at the presence of Christ in this world in which we live” will always be resisted.  It will provoke confrontation, it will invariable get us in trouble; indeed, some will lose their lives because of it!  … There are many who do not want to hear or see God’s grace – this grace that values all people, that exposes our hate-full and greedy lives and calls us to repentance, this grace that claims us first before family or nation.  Those whose lives profit from the sinful status quo want the church to practice a “polite, civil, mentally balanced religion,” not turn into a crowd of witnesses joyfully saying, “Look!  Look!” at the gracious, just and generous presence of Christ in our world!  So, when that chorus becomes too loud, the opponents of Christ seek to ridicule, shame or persecute the community into silence.  But the Good News that supports this story of Stephen’s martyrdom is that God’s Holy Spirit is capable of sustaining us – just as it sustained Stephen – to continue in faithful testimony to the end.  God is capable of sustaining us!  And that is Good News, indeed!

 We are not called to save the world, to save Iowa, to save Des Moines!  God has done that in Christ.  We are raised up, again and again, by the power of God, to tug at the sleeve of a suffering world saying, “Look!  Look!” at the glory of God in the face of the Risen Christ who forgives all your sins and loves you and all of God’s children – no matter who you are, no matter what you have done –  with an everlasting love.

Look!  Look!

 Thanks be to God.                                                                                AMEN