[Sorry, no audio today.]
Sermon – Owning the Narrative
Psalm 31:1-5, 15-16; Acts 7
5/3/26
If you had to tell someone else your story, what would you say?
Many of us would probably go into where our people are from, maybe where we went to school, what kind of work we knew, and family connections. Depending on the context, we might share even more like our church connection or our involvement in community activities. That is all well and good, but would we say even more about who we are? Would we go into the things that we believe or our successes and failures? What’s important to us in particular? Would our story include the valleys and mountaintops or our personal struggles? Would we share those things that have shaped our soul and made us the person that we are today? I am guessing probably not – and that’s OK. A lot of what I described is very personal stuff, some of it hard to express, and they are not things we would just casually share.
Still it is very, very useful to be able to name what in our story is that important. It is actually helpful to know what is most meaningful about who we are and why we are. Plenty of folk do not give much thought as to what has shaped them over the years. They might just live life as it comes, and that’s ok, but there is a richness to being able to see the pieces of our life that are the blocks upon which our lives are built. Actually, seeing those blocks is where we can most clearly note God’s work in our lives. And I am fairly certain we do want to be able to name God’s hand in our lives. I hope so. If we can tell our story and what is important in that story, then we can more easily express how God’s grace has been there for us. It makes us a witness of God’s grace. It makes us a witness of God’s love.
I was always at church when I was little. My family moved many times, and church was one of those places where I had stability. Also, with my mother being the organist, it was a given that we would be there. Church music was always in my life whether I liked it or not (yes, kid choir can be annoying). When we moved to Chesterfield in the middle of my seventh-grade year, it was very traumatic, and church became essential. What I experienced was that when a young person expresses a desire to be in church, the church folk tend to respond very well. I was encouraged that way, and God used that time to really begin shaping my interests and passions. There were struggles, also. My sense of call to ministry was nearly snuffed out in high school, but Hampden-Sydney gave me space to work on important relationships with friends and God. My summers at Camp Hanover were crucial to who I am and gave me my wife. Being a Latin and Greek major did not lay out multitudinous options after college if I wanted to use my degree, and my third year of teaching Latin was down the street, again bringing me to Farmville. There is much more to the story through my seminary days: a ministry trip to India, working in churches, and creating new friendships. Then, there was my first call in Lexington, my time in Blackstone, and my years here in Farmville (third time’s a charm). My family grew throughout it all, and this all just scratches the surface. I find it remarkable that God seems to have connected my story with Farmville over the years – which I never named until now. I have become part of Farmville’s story, too, and grown to appreciate more of Farmville’s story – which has a more complicated story than I realized.
This year will be a time to remember our story as a town as we also take time to remember our nation’s story. Some stories are truly worth cherishing. Of course, we continue to write the story to this very day. We are all part of Farmville’s story. The question is what the story means to us. Some stories are even life and death. So many stories out there in the world are that grave. Today’s story in Acts 7 is absolutely such a story.
We are in the Book of Acts right now in Bible study, and it has been very good to delve into this absolute treasure of a book. So much was happening after Jesus left the disciples: signs and wonders were the rule of the day; the Holy Spirit was showing up here and there; and human, political powers who thought Jesus was gone were struggling with the actions of his followers that were causing a disturbance and rocking the boat. The followers of Jesus themselves were doing things that are shocking to us today, like giving all their property to the group to help feed the poor. Tension was growing, and people were putting their lives on the line, but no one had actually been executed for being faithful. No one since Jesus himself had been killed for following God. There were no martyrs yet.
Stories are very powerful because they do hold our meaning and convey what is important to us. If we get the story wrong, however, it can become a stumbling block. Stephen and several others had just been commissioned to take care of the Jews who spoke Greek. The Jews who spoke Aramaic were being tended to, but the ones who were different, who weren’t from there, were being neglected. When this was recognized, the Apostles identified men to provide the needed care. Stephen was at the top of that list. He did not stop there. In just a few verses he was doing incredible things with the Holy Spirit and making enemies. That’s when he was hauled in to defend himself against accusations that he was denigrating the Temple and the Law of Moses.
He didn’t defend himself, even with his life on the line. He told the story of God’s hand in the life of the people. He spent the entire chapter telling the story so that every person there understood how seriously Stephen took his place among God’s people. They were the ones who were failing to follow God now, just like their ancestors has before. His defense became a prosecution. No likes to be called out, of course, and that did not sit well with the powers. Stephen never went home – at least, not to his earthly home that day.
If Stephen had never told that story, we would not know who he was beyond a name. He gave his life for that story, however. He became the first of many followers of Jesus to lay their lives down for the sake of the gospel. The love of God meant the world to him, and he would let nothing stop the story.
Like Jesus, he left the world with compassion and forgiveness. He had peace when he breathed his last. It is quite a story, but it is not just a story.
For many of us, if we are honest, hearing Stephen does not do much. It feels alien, someone else’s account of someone else’s story. It is difficult story with all of its strange and difficult turns. We were not there in Stephen’s day as the followers of Jesus were placing themselves in God’s hands. All of this is our story, also, however. When Stephen says we were called to be God’s holy people but made an idol, he is also talking to us. When he says we clamored for a house to stick God in, he is also talking to us. God cannot fit in our box by the way. When he says we worked against the prophets, he is also talking to us. When people challenge our beliefs and assumptions, we get angry, also. We have also not followed God’s law, the true law, but have made our own rules that fit us easier. We have all done this, myself included. We have all had a hand in why Jesus died.
We also have a hand in why Jesus is alive today. Luke wants us to hear the story of Stephen and his witness to the Jewish authorities. Not only is this history, it is faith and it is our life. Stephen’s death is a witness to what it means to take our story seriously – not that we will die for our story but that what God has done, what God is doing, and what God will continue to do is worth all that we have, including our lives. There are brothers and sisters in faith out there right now who are pouring their lives into God’s unfolding story with the hope and trust of bringing God’s heart to light. That means loving the people of God, the children of God, all of them, with all that we have. Our story is one of service in humility, faithfulness, and grace.
To God be the glory. Amen.