Being a TRUE deacon

Acts 7:54-60

The Stoning of Stephen

⁵⁴ When the members of the Sanhedrin heard this, they were furious and gnashed their teeth at him. ⁵⁵ But Stephen, full of the Holy Spirit, looked up to heaven and saw the glory of God, and Jesus standing at the right hand of God. ⁵⁶ “Look,” he said, “I see heaven open and the Son of Man standing at the right hand of God.”

⁵⁷ At this they covered their ears and, yelling at the top of their voices, they all rushed at him, ⁵⁸ dragged him out of the city and began to stone him. Meanwhile, the witnesses laid their coats at the feet of a young man named Saul.

⁵⁹ While they were stoning him, Stephen prayed, “Lord Jesus, receive my spirit.” ⁶⁰ Then he fell on his knees and cried out, “Lord, do not hold this sin against them.” When he had said this, he fell asleep.

I think that it is tempting in the reading from the book of Acts set for today to focus on verse 58 alone.

In this Stephen is stoned for the message he gave and a young man named Saul stands looking on and keeping an eye on the coats of those doing the stoning. It is quite an ominous image of the young man who would go on to persecute the early church, standing and watching a man be executed. Apparently not wanting to get his hands dirty so he looks after the coats of the mob.

We can treat this passage as something of an origin story for Saul who goes on to persecute the church and yet gives his life to Christ and becomes one of the church’s most prominent leaders.

When we do this, Stephen becomes a footnote not a hero, an afterthought rather than an example and to do such is a travesty.

Stephen was one of the first disciples appointed to Diakonia or service within the Church.

They were appointed with a specific task. The apostles were trying to focus on getting around and teaching the early Church but as the church was growing so rapidly they were getting snowed under with needy people. Some of the new Greek disciples started getting a bit upset that their widows were apparently losing out to the Hebrew ones during the food distribution.

The apostles said that “It is not right that we should neglect the word of God in order to wait on tables. Therefore, friends, select from among yourselves seven men of good standing, full of the Spirit and of wisdom, whom we may appoint to this task,  while we, for our part, will devote ourselves to prayer and to serving the word.”

They found these seven essential workers and ordained them with the laying on of hands. The role of these seven men was to do Diakonia, to do service, to minister. Their role was clearly defined that they were to keep the house in order while the apostles got on with the important role of teaching.

But we read in this chapter of Acts that Stephen would not confine his ministry to this task alone, he knew that God was calling him to share the message of the risen Christ even though it meant putting his life in danger.  

The apostles appoint and anoint seven men to look after the work of feeding the hungry and caring for those in need.

Luke, the writer of Acts points out these men very quickly step outside the bounds of their defined ministry and start addressing the needs of mission as God directs them. Stephen starts preaching on street corners and winding up the officials and Philip shares the gospel message with a Ethiopian Eunuch, an important political figure which leads to his conversion and leads to the establishing of the Christian Church in Ethiopia! 

The history of the Methodist Diaconal order begins with the Wesley Deaconesses who were called to work out in the community, serving the poor but who went on to starting up new churches, sharing the Gospel in word and deed and making the unknown known! 

Happy Deacon Sunday, where the church remembers the work of Deacons who get themselves into trouble by going beyond what the Church thought that they should do and do what God was calling them to.

We remember those key workers, those essential workers who are going far beyond what they were appointed to do, doing far more, putting themselves in harms way to do what they are called to do. These are the true deacons in our communities, the ones serving at personal cost to themselves, the ones ministering on the front lines, the ones who were called to wait tables, service boilers or collect rubbish but have gone on to deliver food to those who can’t get out, to trim the hedges of neighbours who are self-isolating or return to a key worker role that they had retired from.

These are the deacons which make me feel guilty to call myself a deacon. People giving everything that they can in service and then going beyond what they were called to, doing more than they were asked to do because they knew it was important even if it meant the possibility of trouble.

I wonder if this is what Stephen became for that young man named Saul who later became known as the apostle Paul. Did Paul, after his conversion experience of meeting the risen Jesus on the road, learn about Stephen? Did he find himself in those quiet early days after his conversion marvelling at the faith of the young man he witnessed brutally murdered why he held the murderers coats? Did Paul see the life of Stephen and understand that the call to follow Jesus, to do God’s will in the world means being prepared to do more than we were asked to do, to grow and change, to say “just because I started out as this, it does not mean I should stay that way?”

Was Stephen for Paul an example to be followed, the constant push to do better and be better?

I feel as if the answer is “Yes”, I think that when Paul in his later writings talks of the thorn in his side which God seemingly refuses to take away he is talking about Stephen. The stabbing sense that Stephen had done what he Paul should have done.

For me, hearing about the work of so many brave and brilliant people at this time could drive me to despair, I could sit praying for God to take away this thorn of guilt from my side that I am not doing the same. I think that the better thing to do though is to see them as an example as Paul would have seen Stephen. An example to remember our own calling and to do our very best in that calling even when it takes us outside the boundaries of where anyone thought we could or should go.

I cannot look on the nurse doing 12 hour shifts in the ICU and think that I should be doing that, it’s not my gift, it is not my calling, I would get in the way, I would not know what to do.

God has called and equipped you to be the very best the YOU that you can be.

This is who we are. We are the offspring of God. People of a living God, not a God of wood and stone. If you lift a stone, God is there, split a piece of wood and you will find God. Knock down this building, God still stands. Stop the preaching, and God still speaks. Silence the singing and the melody of God still rings out. 

Christ calls us to make him known in washing the feet of the other. We are all called to act out that same ministry of service which he himself exemplified for us. 

The service that is to love, to love outrageously, to love unashamedly, to love beyond all barriers and borders, to love beyond creeds and kinds, to love beyond job titles and contracts. To paraphrase John Welsey.

“Love all you can,
By all the means you can,
In all the ways you can,
In all the places you can,
At all the times you can,
To all the people you can,
As long as ever you can.”