May 7, 2023

Acts 7:55-60; John 14:1-7

Then they dragged him out of the city and began to stone him; and the witnesses laid their coats at the feet of a young man named Saul.

I have had a few people ask about our post-Easter roster of scripture readings. In general, the comments are about why we are spending so much time reading strange and dreary passages from the Book of Acts? It is a worthwhile question. This book considers the events after Jesus’ death and how the disciples sought to continue his mission in the world. And it can seem unusual, even grim. As we heard today, some disciples will die for their beliefs. And some will experience a change of heart.

Stephen is thought to be the first Christian martyr. He was accused of blasphemy. At his trial before the Temple leaders, he attacked their authority and stated that they had persecuted all the prophets before him. This led to his death by stoning. Like Jesus before Pontius Pilate, it was possible that Stephen could have survived his brush with the authorities, but he spoke from his faith and convictions rather than with concern for his own life.

While he was being stoned, another scene was unfolding. People were laying their cloaks at the feet of someone named Saul. It is a curious act. Was it out of respect for Saul? Was it because these men were taking off their cloaks so they could join in the stoning? Saul was in part responsible for instigating the arrest and execution of Stephen, so he was involved, whether as a man of respect or the guy guarding everyone’s coats.

Saul would be known by another name in time. Saul of Tarsus, a tentmaker, who eventually would be known as Paul. Paul, the great writer of the New Testament. Paul, the man who would arguably shape the course of Christianity. Paul was many things. And this includes being the killer of Stephen, even without throwing a single stone.

We have an unusual pairing of men. Stephen the first martyr and Paul the great apostle. Stephen who died for his faith and Saul who killed for his faith. And let’s not dance about what Saul did. He killed Stephen. Killed, not murdered if we are to pay attention to legal niceties. He brought about another man’s death through lawful actions. Lawful, because blasphemy was a capital crime punishable by death.

The men placing their cloaks on the ground were killers. The men passing judgement were killers. And Saul, the one who orchestrated Stephen’s arrest, was a killer. This killing was legal. Of course, that does not mean that this killing was moral.

A few years ago, I went to Geneva, Switzerland. Geneva was one of the great centers of the Protestant Reformation. It was in that city that John Calvin helped found the Reformed branch of Protestantism. This tradition evolves over time to include the Pilgrims, the Puritans, the Congregationalists, and the Unitarians. In the years of John Calvin’s life, he worked to purify the faith, to move it away from its Catholic roots, and to focus strictly on core beliefs. Beliefs like salvation through faith alone, the absolute centrality of the Bible, and the utterly depraved nature of human beings. Fun guy, Calvin.

Calvin was also a political figure, working to organize the City of Geneva as a religious center and a community of citizens. However, when he was first invited to the city, he made some enemies among powerful families. They drove him out for a time, but he would return as more refugees from Protestant persecution fled to places like Geneva. And now let more persecution begin.

One person who also traveled to Geneva was a man named Michael Servetus. He was a Spaniard who wrote and published radical theological texts. He was branded a heretic and he began to travel around trying to avoid the religious authorities. While on the run, he “dabbled” in medicine, writing treatises on pharmacology and anatomy. He for example was the first European to describe the circulation of blood between the heart and lungs, which is how our blood becomes oxygenated. It was a major discovery.

But Servetus continued to write his troublesome religious texts and eventually he struck up some correspondence with John Calvin. However, Calvin grew to dislike Servetus and hated the man’s theories. While Calvin was a heretic to the Catholic Church, he agreed with the church that Servetus’ brand of theology was dangerously misguided.

For example, Servetus was not keen on the doctrine of original sin, that we are all tainted by the sins of Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden, which doctrine is the cornerstone of Calvinist notions of salvation. He was also against infant baptism, which would in time become a mainstay teaching within the Baptist tradition.

Servetus for some reason could not take a hint that Calvin did not like him. Servetus decided to travel to Geneva, even though he had been denounced as a heretic within the city. He attended a sermon offered by Calvin and was soon afterwards arrested. Servetus decided to defend his writings, in the hope of winning others to his side. He was tried and convicted of heresy and was burned at the stake on a pyre made up of his books.

If you go to a nondescript hillside in Geneva, next to the local hospital, you will find a plaque memorializing the medical accomplishments of Servetus and his death in Geneva centuries before. The plaque is remarkably bland about the circumstances of his death and mildly suggests that he had something of a disagreement with Calvin.

However, it seems clear that Calvin was at the heart of the decision to arrest, trial, and execute Servetus. He may not have been the judge. He may not have been the executioner. But he may have been the man holding the coats, akin to the role of Saul as the instigator behind the stoning of Stephen. Calvin quietly arranged for the death of another human being. And of course, it was entirely legal, just like the execution of Stephen. Just like the execution of Jesus.

Over my years here at the church, I have on more than a few Sundays had to speak about some violent event in our country or in our world. Sometimes it was about a war, like in Ukraine. And sometimes it was about a senseless death, like George Floyd in Minneapolis or Eric Garner in New York City. In both of these broad situations, someone brought about the death of another human being. And in both situations, they did so under the impression that what they did was right. That it was legal. That it was for the greater good of society.

That does not mean we necessarily accept the moral justification. The war in Ukraine is being challenged by our own country by supporting the Ukrainians in various ways. In the case of George Floyd, several police officer involved in his death were tried and convicted of murder and various other crimes. Conversely, the police officer who killed Eric Garner was not charged by a grand jury for his actions.

I imagine some of you might be thinking, declaring that killing is bad is not the most challenging moral claim for a sermon to make. And I do not think I am staking out any bold new territory with my remarks so far. But there is another aspect to these stories about martyrdom that we might consider.

Dying for what you believe is occasionally a dumb idea.

Not every example, mind you. Sometimes there is no choice but to make a moral stand against tyranny or oppression. Sometimes the alternative is worse than death, like allowing harm to fall upon others. Indeed, there are reasons for someone to hold fast to their beliefs even under the threat of danger. But then again, there are times when it does not make any sense to die in this way.

Think of Michael Servetus. He went to Geneva, knowing he was going into enemy territory. Knowing Calvin had no interest in listening. Knowing that the authorities would likely try to arrest him. The death of Michael Servetus became a symbol for freedom of religious conscience. But that is not the same as saying it was necessary. Servetus was a remarkable physician and could have saved many lives. He could have kept writing somewhere out of harm’s way. Instead, he brought about his own avoidable death. And I have a hard time thinking of that as anything but misguided.

And then there was Stephen. Stephen who decided to pick a fight with the religious authorities. He was accused of saying blasphemous things against Moses and God. Which does not appear to be true. Stephen gave an extended monologue on the history of the Hebrew scriptures, but those lessons did not seem terribly heretical, at least to me. But Stephen did not leave it there. He said:

You stiff-necked people…you are for ever opposing the Holy Spirit, just as your ancestors used to do. Which of the prophets did your ancestors not persecute? They killed those who foretold the coming of the Righteous One, and now you have become his betrayers and murderers. You are the ones that received the law as ordained by angels, and yet you have not kept it.’

Immediately after this accusation, Stephen is stoned by an enraged crowd. It would be unfair to blame Stephen for the angry actions of others. But it seems to me that Stephen was looking to cause offense. He wanted to stand up for Jesus, even if it meant dying to make a point. And I have a problem with that rejection of life, the rejection of God’s gift to each of us.

Stephen’s example would over the centuries be used by early Christians as the symbol of martyrdom. People would go out of their way to challenge the authorities for the purpose of becoming martyrs and thereby, according to church doctrine, going to heaven. It became such a problem that the very same church had to discourage people from proverbially throwing themselves to the lions. Again, life is not something to throw away carelessly.

Why is this discussion of Christian martyrdom relevant to our lives in the here and now? I think this passage is relevant to us in several respects. For example, it is relevant to an age-old question: what is the purpose of this life?

And I would offer to you this morning that the purpose of life is to live it. We are here to live. No surprise there. We are here to live. To be born, to grow and prosper, to build families, to find friends. We are here to love, to learn, and to laugh.

I realize that we also have to work in various ways—life is not always one big party. But that does not mean work is the purpose of life. I recognize that we have to attend to our various responsibilities. But that does not necessarily make those responsibilities into our reason for being. We are here to love, to learn, and to laugh. All the rest makes those possible.

How did I come up with this outlandish notion of life? As you might have guessed, Jesus. Jesus taught that we are called upon to love God and to love one another. He said that this is the one true commandment.

That does not mean there is nothing more to do, but that we are primarily here on this earth to build and to maintain relationships. We are here to be together. There will be other activities that make that possible, but those must never be placed ahead of the requirement of building loving relationships, maintaining loving friendships, growing loving circles of concern for those around us. If those secondary activities somehow do get in the way, then like anything that stands in our true path, we should place them aside so as not to detract from what is ultimately more important.

I added a couple of other instructions after what Jesus taught. I added to learn and to laugh. Learning and laughing are important and generally they would not get in the way of building and maintaining our relationships. If they do, please note the prior rule, but otherwise full steam ahead.

We need to learn because that process will help with building and maintaining those relationships. Learn about others. Learn about the world around us. Learn about what we need to do to keep on living and loving.

And we need to laugh. We need to seek out joy and happiness in this life when we can. That may not always be easy to do. It may not even be possible at certain times. But joy and happiness are again ways for us to foster a sense of love. Love of each other, but also love of life, love of this world.

So live and love, learn and laugh. That is my handy instruction manual for you all to follow.

A problem I have with organized religion is that it is often solely designed to get us into heaven or some near equivalent like nirvana or paradise. Do these things and do not do those things and you will avoid an eternity of torment. This however is a formula for behavioral control. It is like John Calvin declaring that human beings are ultimately sinful and depraved and that only by the grace of God, and listening to him, can we avoid hell and damnation. And he was so certain of his way of thinking about what God wants of us that he decided that Michael Servetus needed to die. He needed to die rather than lead people away from what Calvin was teaching.

Notice that was the same for Saul and for the religious authorities. Stephen challenged their authority and told them they were wrong. They were so angered by his words, or threatened perhaps, that they chose to kill him. Remember that this was the same reason that Jesus was crucified, to protect the authority of one group of people teaching others how to live their lives.

That leads me to my description of the purposes of life, to live and to love, to learn and to laugh. That does entail a certain amount of behavioral instruction, I will admit. But I leave the details up to you all.

And my simplified instructions for leading a more fulfilling life also lead me to another less obvious conclusion. One that runs directly counter to most traditional forms of organized religion. The purpose of life is not to be saved. The purpose of life is not to go to heaven or to avoid going to hell. Yes, I realize that those might be desirable outcomes for those concerned. But I think that such a life devaluing perspective misses the mark.

The point of being alive is not to die, even if that is inevitable. The purpose is to live. To fill one’s life with good things, like love and joy. Not wealth and hedonism, but happiness and friendship. There will be a lot of work along the way, to be certain, but the work is the process not the purpose. Life is a purpose. Love is a purpose. Learning and finding joy, those are purposes. And they are pretty good ones.

Being right or righteous, like Saul or Calvin, that is not the purpose. Being right or righteous, like Stephen or Michael Servetus, that is not the purpose. If along the way, we are occasionally right on some level, great. If we can generally be on the side of righteousness, that would be fine as well. But those should never be the purpose for living. They should never be the reason for our deaths or, God forbid, the reason for us killing.

We were gifted with the wisdom of Jesus, who made it all truly simple. He taught us to love God and to love one another. Whenever we go astray from that, we need to stop and find our way back. And we need to look beyond the distractions others have built along the roadside. The distractions that make us stop caring about this life we have been given and instead concern ourselves with what might be coming next.

Next is to come, not for now. We are called upon to have faith in the hope and promise of new life, yes. But not to the exclusion of the life we have been granted. Not instead of living fruitful and fulfilling lives worthy of the lessons Jesus offered to us about love.

So, my friends, my advice to you this day is to live a little. To love a lot. To learn a bit here and there. And to laugh out loud when you get the chance. Keep doing all that. Keep doing that and you will not only be truly blessed in the eyes of God, but you will be truly a blessing to all those you meet in this life. Amen.