Hidden
Gems
3.
"Laid at Our Feet”
Acts
7:58-8:1; 9:1-19
First
Presbyterian Church
The
Reverend Donald E. Ray
July
10, 2011
When Tom and I settled on the Hidden
Gems theme for this summer, and I began reading and gleaning my mental
storehouse of Scriptural material watching for the sparkle and glint of a gem,
this narrative about Saul was among the first that caught my attention. I
wasn’t even reading in the book of Acts. For
a time, I didn’t look up the Scripture reference. I
accumulated enough other ‘gems’ to cover my Sundays and more. But
this one would not go away.
Being challenged to join a cause,
violent and bloody, doesn’t appear to be a gem. Gems
sparkle with brilliant facets and radiant color. If
I were to identify this ‘gem’ it would be black onyx, dark and foreboding,
yet always somehow intriguing. Onyx
is not naturally black but veined with colors. So
today’s gem, while it would appear dark with clouds of decisions and
challenges we would like to avoid, is veined with redeeming, healing, hope.
When we think of Paul the Apostle,
author of much of the New Testament, it is his tireless proclamation of the
Gospel of Jesus Christ across his world, his letters that shaped the fledgling
churches and define the freeing theology of Christian faith that characterize
his life. If gems are to be found,
we would expect them there.
But Luke’s inclusion of this story of
Saul at Stephen’s stoning is, I think, deliberate. The
defining moments in our faith walk are not always in the schools of learning,
meditations and retreats where we seek to draw near to God. They
often come in the challenges that are laid at our feet. The
defining moments in our faith walk do not necessarily begin in our Sunday
church, but in the choices we make daily and bring with us in our “God
meeting” moments.
To set the scene, Stephen had been
selected to deliver meals on wheels to widows. The
Apostles, in making arrangements for the care of these women with no means of
support, had directed that the men chosen should be of good standing, full of the Spirit and of wisdom. (Acts 6:3) Stephen
was overqualified to be a table waiter. Proclaiming
the way of Jesus, the Christ at every opportunity, he soon was engaged in
dispute with the Freedmen Synagogue and was brought before the Council. Mincing
no words, Stephen challenged their stubbornness in misinterpreting the
traditions for their own benefit. Thus,
the stoning.
Stephen’s executioners were of the
synagogue of the Freedmen, likely once slaves that had been granted or won their
freedom. One would think they would
have relished a free spirit. But
having followed orders all their lives, they found security in a structured,
legalistic religion. The natural
reaction to this attack on that religion which gave their life stability was to
rise in defense, to crush the threat.
Saul was a schooled Pharisee,
intelligent, articulate. He was
evidently there, watching what was happening. He
could benefit the Freedmen’s cause, defending their religion from this growing
horde of followers of the way of Jesus . So those who stoned Stephen laid their
coats at his feet, and won his silent consent, approval, and then just what they
wanted, an avid leader. Not long
after, breathing threats and murder, Luke
writes, Saul was on his way to
As his story unfolds, Saul joined the
Freedmen and took the path of defending what he held secure. It
turned out to be the wrong track. But
the greater sin would have been to take no track at all, to just stand idly by,
grumble and complain about what the world is coming to, to retreat to the
perceived safety of the synagogue class room.
Jesus told a story of a nobleman who
before taking a trip to be crowned ruler of his country, distributed property to
ten of his servants to manage while he was gone. On
his return, one had doubled his share, another had increased his by half again. A
third, claiming fear of his slave-master’s harshness as an excuse, had done
nothing with the money left in his charge. The
third servant was condemned for his doing nothing. The
point of the story: there are no non-participants in Jesus’ kingdom.
Religious correctness; racial, ethnic,
life-style prejudices; preservation of economic, personal, family, and
neighborhood security lay their cause at our feet. Standing
aside isn’t an option. In
organizations, when a vote is taken to approve a controversial issue, there are
some who abstain to declare neutrality. But
to abstain has the same result as casting a negative vote.
Their coats were laid at Saul’s feet.
Evidently he picked them up, handed
them back to the stone throwers, shook hands, and went to their next meeting. I
wanted the gem in this story to be somewhere in Saul’s life transforming
Had Saul not made the choice, had he
just gone back to his religious education classes to preserve what had always
been and never touched the now, he would not have been on the road to
Saul was a man of prayer. Pharisee’s
were men of prayer. Their prayer may
have been rigid, legalistic, self-serving, but they prayed.
Jesus told a story of a Pharisee and tax collector praying at temple. It
was natural for the Pharisee to be there. He
was a regular. The tax collector;
not so natural - more in apparent desperation, he begged mercy.
Saul was a Pharisee. So
when his world was shaken on his way to
Aha, the gem, I thought, as this
narrative continued to haunt me. But,
no. Gems are not only the sparkles
that adorn and decorate. The gem in
this story remains the challenges and choices laid at our feet.
What do we do when the coats are laid
at our feet? The too common response
of our culture is to acquiesce - “everybody’s doing it.”
The religious response is to entrench in orthodoxy, to dig heels into the
legalistic traditions that provide security, then to lash out at the offenders
with threats of the wrath of God. When
the coats are laid at our feet, we are faced with the challenges of the
difficult, the controversial, the contrary, the divisive. We
would just as soon not have to deal with the implication of what the world lays
at our feet. We step back, or we
take up the cause of defending what we know.
I, and evidently others, have had some
discomfort with Romans 8:28. The
long time standard, RSV translation among others, reads, we know that in all
things, God works for good with those who love him. . . That
rendering allows for an understanding of God always working for good but not all
things being good. The New Revised
Standard Version, the New King James Version, probably more accurate to the
original text and likely closer to Paul’s spirit reads, all
things work together for good. . .
Paul wrote to the Corinthians listing
those to whom the Christ had appeared concluding, Last
of all, as to one untimely born, he appeared also to me. For
I am the least of the apostles, unfit to be called an apostle, because I
persecuted the
Paul could never deny who he had been
and what he had done. Luke, in his
narrative of the early church, identifies that it was because of who Saul was
and what he had done that he became Paul, the follower of the Christ.
This gem that has haunted me these
weeks is the recognition that all things work together for good. Whatever
is laid at our feet - the challenges, the temptations, the opportunities, good
or bad, there is the key to what is next in our lives. In
our uncertainties, conflicting opinions, grey life when we want black and white,
we become paralyzed, waiting for the way to become clear; waiting for right to
be clarified, truth to be revealed.
But it is as we walk the road, the road
where people’s lives are dramatically impacted, the road where the course of
the world may be directed, making choices in the best we can see at the time, as
we act even if we set out on the wrong track, that the lightning bolt strikes.
And it will strike, and if we are people of faith, praying people, we will
recognize it and by grace we will become who we are.
Black is the most popular onyx, often
artificially treated to remove or cover the colored bands. In
its more common, natural form, onyx is formed in parallel, multi-colored bands.
As we move beyond the dark fear and foreboding of what the world has laid
at our feet, pick up the challenges, take on the opportunities, set out on the
road before us, we find the brilliance of the bands of God’s grace that opens
our vision and fills our spirits.
Amen.
Copyright
© 2011 by First Presbyterian Church