The Feast of Stephen reminds us that Christmas is a rebellious act of transformative love in a world of hate.
Stephen, martyrdom, and the good news
The Feast of Stephen | Matthew 23:34-39
Stephen has the distinction of being two Firsts. He is the first deacon lifted up by the church to a life of service. And he is the first martyr, killed for expressing his faith publicly. And it would seem, based on the timeline in Acts, that he didn’t spend much time in the one role before he assumed the other.
It is obvious that the apostles saw something special in Stephen, though. The author of Acts describes him as “a man full of faith and the Holy Spirit” and “his face was like the face of an angel.” So we can assume he was young, spirited, and deep.
It is a short leap to assume that he didn’t just look the part. They knew he was right. Stephen clearly had the “it factor”.
Stephen’s story is brief, but captivating.
And it begins during a time of growth, transition, confusion, and potential division. The apostles are trying to hold it all together after Jesus has gone.
In this loud moment, word comes to them that some people are not being fed. Specifically, Hellenistic widows are falling through the cracks. Greeks. Women. Widows. The very people Jesus would have pointed out need to be fed.
I’m not sure that this exclusion is purposeful or premeditated. And yet, at the same time, it doesn’t appear as if the Jewish men are lacking. In other words, there is a systemic problem. And the disciples realize that they alone can’t solve it. They need help.
They find some faithful people, raised up by the community, to serve. To ensure that everyone is fed. Everyone is included.
And the first one on the list is Stephen: a Jew with a Greek name. There is no question who God called him to serve.
It is easy to overlook this moment.
It was anything but obvious which way they would go. This was before the conversation about Greek inclusion. Before Paul and Peter sought to include non-Hebrews. And even before they determined the future of the faith was to truly go beyond Jerusalem.
They hadn’t yet taken Jesus’s commitment to everyone as being represented in their organizing. Of course they should’ve known it would. Jesus had included outcasts among the disciples! To us, this is a next logical step; for them it felt like a step too far.
Today we may take this sort of inclusion and representation for granted. But we can’t deny how clear-eyed their response to the pressing need was. They saw the moment for what it was.
People needed feeding and they sought to make it so everyone could be fed.
What they didn’t do was to say sorry, there isn’t enough for everybody. And notice, too, that their response wasn’t rationing or longer lines. Instead, they got some more hands involved to make sure every mouth got food.
Stephen wasn’t martyred for the food.
And it was not that he made sure Greek women were fed. It clearly has to do with what he said.
The author of Acts gives us a clever juxtaposition. Stephen and the other deacons were called to “serve at tables” to free the apostles up for ministries of preaching and teaching. And yet, here is Stephen out preaching. It would seem that whatever the apostles’ intentions, the Holy Spirit has her own.
I suspect that our sense of order guides our interpretation. We want the apostles to be like our bishops and these first deacons to be like our deacons. Some of it is about continuity. But much of it is about order and making sense of things.
Even so, it shouldn’t actually surprise us that one called to serve at tables would be preaching. Because that is precisely what service and advocacy is.
Acting is preaching.
When we seek to include the marginalized and make sure they have the material means of survival, we are proclaiming the Good News of Jesus Christ to the world. We know that’s what we’re doing when we collect for Toys for Tots or the Point in Time Count. Maybe not in so many words, but conceptually we all understand that it is what we do.
If it were an indiscriminate act of generosity, we wouldn’t collect toys for tots, but toys for people. But that isn’t the mission. We collect for children in need.
What we do naturally is to filter out which discrimination heals and restores. Because God loves all of us, we serve the ones not already at the table.
This is entirely different than the discrimination that hurts and divides. The kind that leads to Greek widows not being fed, LGBTQ teens kicked out of their homes, and refugees treated like prisoners of war.
And if this is all sounding a bit political, then you’re clearly following along.
This is why they conspired to kill Stephen. Not because he actually said anything blasphemous, but because what he said implicated them in their own political act.
Jesus came to restore the world and they would rather maintain the tradition of killing prophets.
Boxing Day is Political.
Today is Boxing Day. Usually known around here as the day after Christmas. It is also the Feast of Stephen.
Tradition for this day, going back many centuries is to box up food, often the Christmas dinner leftovers, and provide meals for the hungry. It was a day of service to follow a day of celebration.
This is an overtly political act. To stand with the marginalized and provide them what the world would strip from them. Tangible things like food and clothing. And less tangible, but equally important things like dignity and grace.
I know a few of us like the words attributed to St. Francis: “Preach the Gospel at all times. Use words if necessary.” This is quite clever. But we should also make it even clearer than that.
Acting is a form of preaching and preaching is our work.
And what we’re preaching is a message of hope in the midst of anxiety, love in the midst of hate, generosity in the midst of selfishness, collaboration in the midst of isolation, abundance in the midst of scarcity, death and resurrection in the midst of self-preservation.
There is nothing about the gospel that isn’t political. The gospel itself is a challenge to the status quo.
Which means…
Christmas is political.
It is hard to read about the first martyr today. Or to hear Jesus thoroughly scold the Pharisees and Scribes, calling them a brood of vipers destined for Gehenna on this second day of Christmas. We expect joy, shepherds, and angels.
This is also why the shepherds flock to the Lamb of God that night. Because his message is good news to the world.
And sometimes the world would rather not hear any of it. That doesn’t make the news any less good.
Stephen was called to share the good news of the risen Christ with people who were blocked from hearing it.
And we too get to share this good news of hope, love, joy, and peace. To serve and preach, offering ourselves and our works, making peace possible in this community. Which is an ongoing Christmas miracle.