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1 December. Acts chapters 7-8
Carrying over from yesterday’s reading to today’s is the story of Stephen, known as the first Christian martyr. Given that is my first name, I feel an association with him, though of course I hope I will not suffer the same fate.
It is well known that Stephen was stoned to death for blasphemy as he claimed to see Jesus standing at the right hand of God in heaven. What is less well known is the speech he gave in his defence to the first, trumped-up charge of “saying that Jesus will destroy this place and will change the customs that Moses handed on to us.” (6:14). That was the key word – “change”. Religious people don’t like change, they much prefer to stick with the customs they know, whether those customs were started by Moses a thousand years earlier or by the last-but-one vicar twenty years ago.
So Stephen, inspired by the same Holy Spirit who had empowered this church administrator to perform miracles of healing (6:8), gave a long and detailed account of the life of Moses, to demonstrate that Moses himself was open to change in very radical ways. Here was a man adopted as an infant by a princess and forced to serve the oppressors of his people (presumably a reference to the Romans is implied here), then at the age of forty forced to flee the country and become a nomad for having made a mess of trying to bring about justice, then forty years later at the age of eighty having a vision of God that drove him back to Egypt to confront the political powers, and finally spending the last forty years of his long life leading millions of refugees out of Egypt to the brink of the promised land. Moses would have been the first to say that listening to God’s call and obeying it, however much that may disrupt your routine, is far more important than sticking with the routine for its own sake. “It’s about time you changed, because that’s what God is telling you” was the theme of his sermon. They did not like it one bit. And thus ended the ministry of this promising church leader, but like Jesus calling out for forgiveness for his persecutors as he died.
If Stephen is my inspiration, that means that I too have to be willing to change. Twice I have changed careers, and moved several times, in response to God’s call. But I am still in middle age and he may call me to change again. Those who get too attached to a particular way of doing things are likely to be left behind when God moves on with his followers, and I don’t want to miss the boat.