Fr. Benjamin Thomas – Sermon 5.10.2020

Due to a weak internet connection last weekend, Fr. Benjamin’s sermon was not able to be heard in its entirety. Please enjoy it here:

Throughout my ministry, I have talked with a lot of people who wonder about the Christian faith. Many of them have been raised in church and drifted away. Others have never really been people of faith, but they are still curious about what a priest thinks about this or that. These conversations often end up in one of two places. The first place is the criticism that Christians are too heavenly minded to be of any earthly good. You know the type of people I am talking about—people who talk about God all the time, but talk is the total output of their religious commitment. The other place these conversations end up is in the observation that a lot of stuff churches do could be done just as well without any belief at all. There are plenty of good people in the world who help the poor and care for others who don’t follow Jesus. So why not just be a good person and get on with life? From the standpoint of a preacher, this kind of here and now evaluation seems to work pretty well as we follow the lessons during Easter. In normal years when Acts is the first lesson of the service. On the second Sunday of Easter, we already see the fruit of the Resurrection in that first reading from Acts 2. Peter preaches, then the next Sunday, a very large number of people are baptized. Last week, we would have normally heard from Acts how the new Christian community grows in love and discipleship through worship and prayer and fellowship. I don’t doubt for a minute that this group of Christians believed in the Resurrection, but their belief did more than promise pie in the sky. The message of this religious awakening in the Jewish community is full of here and now results. People sold their property and gave it to charity. People whose lives were wrecked by disease were healed through the faith of the disciples. People came together in tightly knit communities and shared their lives in mutual love and understanding. But what about when it seems the work that you are doing does little good at all? How do you decide what the fruit of faith is in difficult times? For example, this week, when it seems that these visible fruit of religion in the early chapters of Acts has turned into harvest of sour grapes. Stephen, one of the seven deacons ordained to look after the welfare of widows in the community, has become famous for his work among the poor. He has been living and preaching the good news of Jesus in and around Jerusalem. Like Peter, Stephen is a convincing speaker, and when the the book of Acts states that he “full of grace and power, [and that he] did wonders among the people,” this is a pretty strong hint that Stephen performed miracles. But, as we have heard moments ago, the end result of Stephen’s religion is an angry mob dragging him out of town where they stone him to death. So what about the good that religion is supposed to do here and now? Being a Christian is supposed to be good news, and it appears that Stephen’s religion has failed. His words have incited a mob, and Stephen dies well before his time because of his faith in Jesus.What good has Stephen’s Christianity done for him or anyone else? It’s a question well worth considering, but I think that there is good news to be found even in the worst moments of Stephen’s story. One piece of good news is for Stephen himself. When he is facing death, he “gazed into heaven and saw the glory of God and Jesus standing at the right hand of God.” The second piece of good news is even as he was dying, Stephen was still changing lives. Stephen prayed to God to forgive the people who were in the process of killing him. In the midst of all this violence, one detail I am almost positive that Stephen did not notice was that the people throwing the rocks at him had “laid their coats at the feet of a young man named Saul.” Defining the fruit of religion is difficult, but Paul’s list from Galatians seems to apply very well to Stephen: “the fruit of the spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control.” In his last moments on this earth, Stephen seems to have all these things: his angelic face speaks of joy and peace, not to mention self-control. When Stephen looked past the curtain of this life and into the reality of God, he saw Jesus and was moved by a vision of love and kindness. The fruit of religion in Stephen’s case is right there for those who are willing to see it. Stephen held his life lightly, he cared for others more than himself, and when he was faced with unspeakable hatred and violence, he turned to God and displayed a divine love for those who were at that very moment killing him. For me, the fruit of religion in this life was clear in Stephen’s case in his ministry, in his preaching, and especially at the moment of his death, but not even Stephen could not have guessed the impact of his death. A young politician named Saul watched Stephen die, and it is this Saul, who a few chapters later, will convert to the Christian faith and change his name to Paul. The same young man who presides at Stephen’s death that will go on to preach the Gospel to thousands and compose over half of the New Testament. So, if someone ever asked me what good religion does, I would be tempted to point to the example of Stephen and explain that the good we do is often not apparent in the moment. Just like Stephen, we do good things that may seem futile or even painful in the moment, but in the end, the God who brings the dead to life will bring the good deeds that we begin in faith to their full completion.