The Feast of St. Stephen, Deacon and Martyr (December 26, 2021)

May the words of my mouth and the meditations of our hearts be alway acceptable in thy sight, O Lord, our strength and our Redeemer. Amen.

On February 1 of this year, the democratically elected government of Myanmar was deposed by the Tamadaw, Myanmar’s military, who seized power. The government then declared a year-long state of emergency. This overreach caused numerous protests, labor strikes, a military boycott campaign, a pot-banging movement in which residents in Cities hit pots and pans as a symbol for driving away evil. On February 28, during the height of this unrest, the military decided to crackdown on the protestors. But there was a moment which has been described as Myanmar’s version of Tianamen Square in which a Roman Catholic nun, Sister Ann Roza Nu Tawng, placed herself between the police and the protestors. She pleaded with the police not to beat, arrest, or crack down on the protestors. The police went away for a time but came back later in the day. They killed two people. But Sister Ann went back and knelt in front of the police and begged them not to shoot or arrest anyone, even as the tear gas made it hard for her to breathe. Sister Ann was prepared to die as bullets were whizzing by her: “They opened fire and started beating the protesters. I was shocked and I thought today is the day I will die. I decided to die.” Sister Ann did not die; but her willingness to die for others makes her a martyr in will because that insistence on the dignity of others because they’re made in the image of God is at the heart of martyrdom, a topic that we meditate on on this the Feast of St. Stephen.

St. Stephen is often described as the protomartyr because he was the first Christian to go all the way to death for his faith. He is now the patron saint of Altar Servers, Deacons (so that covers most of us up here), headaches, horses, and stone workers. But his story is the story of martyrdom, a word which means to give witness to something. It is a special gift for the Christian to be able to give up their lives for their faith, as Psalm 116:15 states, “Precious in the sight of the Lord is the death of his saints.” Stephen shows us the radical reversal which is at the heart of the Gospel, the heart of the Christmas story, and therefore he is a model for us.

Stephen was one of the seven deacons who were appointed to wait tables (help the poor) so his disciples could continue their ministry of Word and Sacrament. Out of the newly ordained deacons, Stephen is mentioned first and seems to be the most impressive as he was described as “full of the Spirit.” His ministry was successful, he performed great works among the people which inevitably led to opposition from the Jewish religious establishment. He was dragged before the Sanhedrin and, just like they did with our Lord, his enemies put up false witnesses to lie about him. The charge was blasphemy, claiming that Jesus would destroy the Temple and change the customs of Moses. Stephen didn’t use his trial to launch a traditional defense; instead, he used his platform to preach a sermon in which he summarized the Old Testament by tracing God’s interventions in the history of Israel. God called Abraham out of a land of pagans, made a covenant with him, and gave him a son, even in his old age. This is the same God who was with Joseph even when his brothers sold him into slaver. When Joseph hit rock bottom, God gave him favor and wisdom in Pharaoh’s eyes which gained him a place of power and eventually reunited him with his family. This is the same God who delivered Israel from slavery in Egypt through Moses. This is the same God who guided Israel in their 40-year journey and dwelt in the Tabernacle among his people, and was faithful to them, even when they went astray by worshipping idols. But, according to Stephen, the Old Testament is even more revolutionary in that it points to a radical distinction between the idolatrous worship of the nations who viewed their gods as contained in idols or temples that they constructed. Rather, the Old Testament, which would have been Stephen’s complete Bible, testifies to a God who is so radically other than his creation that he cannot be contained in a building built by human hands. Yes, God dwelt among his people Israel in a unique way in the Tabernacle and the Temple, but this was just a foretaste, a preview of how he dwells among us in our Lord Jesus Christ who, as John says, is God tabernacled among us. The refusal to listen to Jesus on behalf of the Jewish leaders is an indictment. But rather than listen to Stephen’s words, the Jews replicated the behavior of their ancestors who killed the prophets sent to them by God: “When they heard these things, they were cut to the heart, and they gnashed on him with their teeth” (Acts 7:54).

As the crowds prepared to stone him, Stephen saw into heaven where he beheld Jesus standing at the right hand of God. Now this is a curious image because Psalm 110:1, which is what Luke is alluding to, describes the Messiah sitting at the right hand of God, not standing. Some scholars have said Luke is mistaken in his quotation, accidentally saying standing instead of seated but that doesn’t give Luke, who was a very meticulous author, enough credit. The fact that Stephen saw Jesus standing at the right hand of God has judicial overtones: Jesus is acting as both advocate and judge for Stephen, vindicating his good and faithful servant. There’s also a sense in which standing represents hospitality so we can say Jesus is welcoming Stephen, granting his prayer that his spirit would be received. When Stephen reports this vision, the group decides they’ve heard enough and begin stoning him. Technically, this action was illegal because only Rome had the power of capital punishment which is why the Jewish leadership was so insistent that Pilate be the one to execute Christ. So this group that stoned Stephen is nothing more than an illegal lynch mob that operated independently but with the tacit approval of Jewish leadership as the crowd lays their cloaks at the feet of Saul the Pharisee, who would become Paul the Apostle. And as they cast stones at Stephen, he prays a two-fold prayer that closely models the Summary of the Law. The first and great commandment is to love the Lord with all your heart, soul, and mind. Stephen’s love for God is made manifest in his requests that our Lord receive his Spirit. The second commandment in the Summary of the Law is to love thy neighbor as thyself which is evident in Stephen’s prayer that God not hold the sins of his executioners agains them, a request that models Jesus’ cry from the Cross for the absolution of those who were crucifying him. And with that beautiful prayer, Stephen died.

As I mentioned earlier, a martyr is one who witnesses; it’s something we’re all called to do. But it can take different forms for different people. Not all of us are called to be killed for the faith. I’m reminded of Origen, who lived from 184-253 during intense persecutions in Alexandria, Egypt. His father was martyred and his mother had to hide his clothes to prevent him from joining his father. If Origen had been killed, the Church would be much poorer because his writing shaped the trajectory of Christian theology and engagement with Scripture for centuries. But when someone is called to die for the faith, we call this a baptism by blood, a martyrdom of will and deed. Dying for one’s faith is the bravest and most powerful one can do. Tomorrow, we celebrate St. John, the author of the Fourth Gospel. He wasn’t killed for the faith but we call him a martyr in will instead of deed. Most of us today, at least in the West, are called to be this kind of martyr. Certainly, dying for the faith is the hardest and most beautiful thing we could do but just because our calling may not be so violent doesn’t mean the Christian life should be easy or comfortable. In fact, those of us who are called to be martyrs in will must fight against apathy so that we can continually pour ourselves out as a continual offering to God of our souls and bodies. Because whatever shape martyrdom takes, it’s the essence of the Christian life because it is an identification with the death of our Lord. In Stephen’s story, it’s obvious not only because he was killed but also because of the literary connections between his death and the Passion of our Lord. For us, it’s when we are incorporated into his death through our baptisms, a reality which must be lived out in our whole lives. By virtue of baptism, we’ve pledged to follow in our Lord’s footsteps; to, like Stephen, pick up our crosses and follow him.

Now we might ask why we celebrate St. Stephen the day after Christmas. Why something that seems so dark and heavy during a season of light and celebration? The answer is that during this season of Christmas, we meditate on the Incarnation, the second person of the Trinity taking on a human nature. We reflect on the fact that this small baby in the manger is in fact God. Further, we contemplate on the fact that he wasn’t born into a family of status and power, of wealth, or privilege. He was born in poor and lowly circumstances. This season is the season of the Magnificat:

He hath showed strength with his arm; * he hath scattered the proud in the imagination of their hearts.

He hath put down the mighty from their seat, * and hath exalted the humble and meek.

He hath filled the hungry with good things; * and the rich he hath sent empty away.

The modern tendency may be to mourn for Stephen. His “extremism” led to him “throwing his life away.” In modern America, we don’t tend to like extreme acts of faith. But, as St. Augustine pointed out, without Stephen’s witness, it’s doubtful the Church would have had Paul. The Gospel works in the circumstances we least expect it to; victory is snatched out of the jaws of defeat.

One of my favorite novelists is Shusaku Endo, a Japanese Catholic writer. He wrote a novel called The Samurai, which is set in Japan during the 17th century crackdown against Christianity there. One of the characters is a Catholic missionary who gets exiled from the country and told not to return. After spending some time in a monastery, this missionary comes to realize his calling is to minister to the people of Japan any way he can, so he returns to the country, knowing that if he’s caught, he will be executed. Sure enough, he is arrested. While imprisoned, a Japanese official tries to get him to renounce his faith to save his life:

“Listen…don’t you think this whole thing is ridiculous?” On his way out, the official peered sympathetically into my face. “It’s almost as though you came to Japan simply so you could be arrested and meaninglessly killed. That’s just plain lunacy.”

“It’s not lunacy,” I replied with a smile. “It happened because of the way I am. It’s very much like what your Buddhist priests call karma. yes, this was my karma. That’s how it seems to me. But I believe now that God has made use of my karma to benefit Japan.”

“How do you think your God made use of it to benefit Japan?” the official asked, even more puzzled than before.

“Your question itself is the answer,” I asserted. I spoke with determination not only so that he might understand, but also to reaffirm my own feelings. “You have said that what I did was ridiculous. I understand that. But why did I knowingly perform such a ridiculous act? Why did I deliberately do something that sees so lunatic? Why did I come to Japan knowing I would die? Think about that sometime. If I can die and leave you and Japan to deal with that question, my life in this world will have had meaning.”

Martyrdom is incomprehensible to the world, but it unites heaven and earth; just like Stephen stands on the precipice with a window into his heavenly destination.

Verse 2 of Hymn #549, our post-gradual hymn today is pertinent:

The martyr first, whose eagle eye

Could pierce beyond the grave

Who saw his Master in the sky

And called on him to save:

Like him, with pardon on his tongue,

In midst of mortal pain

He prayed for them that did the wrong:

Who follows in his train?

Let us pray, brothers and sisters, that we would be ones who follow in St. Stephen’s train and, in so doing, pick up our crosses and follow our Lord.

In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost. Amen.