Festival of St. Stephen

December 26, 2005

Pastor Steve Loy

Readings:  2 Chronicles 24:17-22; Psalm 17:1-9, 15; Acts 6:8--7:2a, 51-60; Matthew 23:34-39

I was in Memphis, Tennessee the beginning of this month for a preaching conference. There were two highlights of the trip and neither of them involved Elvis. Although I saw numerous Elvis impersonators, references to Elvis and at least one bronze statute of Elvis. The other thing that was not a highlight was the dirt-cheap ticket to a Memphis Grizzles basketball game that I bought off a scalper. Though I have to confess the brand new $300 million Fed Ex Center is a pretty awe-inspiring arena. The two highlights, which will be no surprise to you, were both preachers. The first was a man named Brian Blount, an African American professor of New Testament at Princeton Seminary. He gave a paper from his new commentary on Revelation, a reading from an African American perspective. His sermon on Revelation 12 was one of the most challenging, provocative sermons I have heard in years. The second highlight was a stop at the Civil Rights Museum. The founders bought the Lorraine Motel where Martin Luther King was killed and built the museum around it. At the time of King's death the motel was the only one in all of Memphis that accepted black patrons. The Civil Rights Museum has preserved the front just as it was when King was shot. I found myself a little unsettled at first glance. An image that I have seen dozens of times in pictures was suddenly in front of my eyes and I had a hard time grasping the reality. Standing in front of that motel is like stepping back in time forty years.

The second story balcony where King lay, is marked by a wreath. The stain on the concrete where his blood pooled as he died has been cut out and replaced. I suppose to leave the stain would seem too morbid. On this trip King was in Memphis to support the sanitation workers who were on strike asking for wages that would bring them up to the poverty level. Over the previous four years King had increasingly battled depression. On the night before he was shot, King had begged off from the rally at the Bishop Charles Mason Temple Church feigning illness. When Ralph Abernathy and Andrew Young arrived at the rally there was an overflow crowd who made it clear they wanted to hear from King. Bernard Lee went back to the Lorraine Motel and asked King to come and simply make an appearance. After a 30 minute introduction by Abernathy, King spoke for forty minutes without a note to a standing room only crowd of eleven thousand people.

In his speech titled "I've been to the Mountaintop" King laid out his strategies for effecting change in Memphis. His strategies included the sanitation workers strike, a boycott of businesses and transfer of money out of banks that supported racism. He quoted from scripture and told stories and recounted previous attempts to assassinate him. Over the years, the death threats, the bomb threats, the telephone calls in the middle of the night had begun to take their toll and King became increasingly preoccupied by his own death. At the close of the speech he said,

Well, I don't know what will happen now; we've got some difficult days ahead. But it really doesn't matter with me now, because I've been to the mountaintop. And I don't mind. Like anybody, I would like to live a long life - longevity has its place. But I am not concerned about that now. I just want to do God's will. And He's allowed me to go up to the mountain. And I've looked over, and I've seen the Promised Land. I may not get there with you. But I want you to know tonight, that we, as a people, will get to the Promised Land. And I am so happy tonight; I'm not worried about anything; I am not fearing any man. Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord.

You can imagine the reaction of the crowd as King's words, the rhythm of his speech, the tenor of his voice whipped them into action.

The next day King was shot. He died instantly as the bullet severed his spinal cord just below the chin.

The Museum offers a moving account of civil rights beginning with the slave trade in the United States and ending with the most recent efforts to promote human rights around the globe including the work of Ghandi and Mandela.

There are two holidays that are glaring reminders of the violence that Christianity elicits from some people, the slaughter of the Holy Innocents on December 28 and the festival of St. Stephen on December 26. From time to time one of those two Holy Days fall on the first Sunday following Christmas and the violence associated with their observance is a stark contrast to the sweetness and light of Christmas. St. Stephen may be the most notable because it is literally the day after Christmas. Early traditions suggest that December 26 is the actual day of his martyrdom. The most famous reference, of course, to the Festival of St. Stephen is in the Christmas song

Good King Wenceslas looked out on the Feast of Stephen,

When the snow lay round about, deep and crisp and even.

Brightly shone the moon that night, though the frost was cruel,

When a poor man came in sight, gathering winter fuel.

For the most part St. Stephen passes us by as a minor character in the biblical narrative. His story, while an important part of the early church, takes up only two chapters in the book of Acts. In chapter 6 he and six others are appointed the first deacons of the church. Their responsibility is to make sure that the widows are provided for. But apparently Stephen was more than a passive table server, he was a fiery preacher. His sermon, recounted in Acts chapter 7 begins with a brief overview of Israel's history and culminates with the words we just heard, calling the Jewish leaders stiff-necked, uncircumcised of heart and ears, betrayers and murders who oppose the Holy Spirit. Before the words are out of his mouth, men are throwing their coats in a heap and bending for rocks. As the stones beat him to death he prays in the same prayer that Jesus used from the cross, "forgive them" and "receive my spirit." Within two chapters he has been chosen, ordained, and killed, a brief, but memorable career in the church.

The other preacher I encountered in Memphis was Brian Blount, a New Testament professor at Princeton. Preaching in front of a room full of women and men who teach preaching must be one of the more uncomfortable tasks he has faced. Here's how he began. "A good friend told me once that my sermons did not have blood on them. The observation was not meant as a compliment. He meant, he went on to explain, that he thought I put together sermons that were technically proficient. He thought that I wrote well, organized my thoughts clearly, and developed my images appropriately. He sounds like one of you homiletics professor type people, doesn't he? Say all the nice stuff first, then get to the big BUT. So, naturally, he says, "But, you don't have a most important component. Your sermons don't bleed."

The festival of St. Stephen, following on the day after Christmas, when the smell of candles is still in the air and the echoes of Silent Night haven't yet faded from the halls, is important. Because the Christian life is a mix of sweetness, light, hope, fulfillment, resurrection newness, and blood. We simply can't have the grace without the challenge. We can't have the joy without discipleship. We can't have the mountaintop vision of the Promised Land without the journey through the wilderness. There is no Easter Sunday without Good Friday death.

The Festival of St. Stephen is the reminder that a good sermon may lead to stoning. That was King's experience, and Luther's. Like Brian Blount, for most of us our friends are likely to tell us, "You pray really well, you go to church every Sunday, you care for your family, you love your neighbor - and then we know there is this big but on the way - but our lives don't bleed.

Here's Blount's closing paragraph.

As one who has all too often kept it clean, I say "enough!" As much as I hate to admit it, my friend was right. It's time for preachers, black preachers, for this black preacher, but also for white preachers, Latino preachers, for women preachers, for tall-steeple preachers and no-steeple preachers, for anyone who preaches about a slain lamb in this Lamb slaying world to stop playing it clean and safe. It's time to get bloody.

 

Readings 1/2/05:  Jeremiah 31:7-14; Psalm 147:12-20; Ephesians 1:3-14; John 1:[1-9] 10-18

Readings 1/6/05:  Isaiah 60:1-6; Psalm 72:1-7, 10-14; Ephesians 3:1-12; Matthew 2:1-12

Sermon 19 December

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Sermons for 2005