Eastertide
May 8, 2017
Scripture Reading: Acts 7:54-60
When they heard these things, they became enraged and ground their teeth at Stephen. But filled with the Holy Spirit, he gazed into heaven and saw the glory of God and Jesus standing at the right hand of God. ‘Look,’ he said, ‘I see the heavens opened and the Son of Man standing at the right hand of God!’ But they covered their ears, and with a loud shout all rushed together against him. –Acts 7:54-57
I am currently reading Will Willimon’s book Who Lynched Willie Earle? In general, it delves into how the church deals with racism in our world today. It specifically develops the story of a local minister in 1947 preaching about the killing of a black man by a mob. Willie Earle was in jail accused of robbery and murder. Before any trial, he was dragged from his cell and killed. All accused of participating in his murder were acquitted.
Reading this book might have impacted the way I reacted to reading the lectionary scripture from Acts this week. It does not include the whole story. If you need a refresher course on the stoning of Stephen, you will want to read all of Acts 7. Most of the chapter is essentially a sermon Stephen preached to his faith brothers and sisters, which they deemed to be blasphemy.
Sometimes it is helpful to look back in history to gives us the fortitude to look at our present and determine what we want to do about it regarding the future. Hindsight is often clearer than what we see right in front of us or perhaps what we do not choose to see. We could critique Stephen’s style. He might have lived a little longer had he not been so in their faces, but would they have even listened to him at all? I could write about his outraged neighbors who so quickly rendered justice through what was legal behavior at the time. The murder of Willie Earle was illegal according to the law books but that did not matter. Culture is often stronger than statute. Therein, lies the problem.
As we in the USA struggle to be a representative democracy, we must own what our government is doing in our name. It is time we struggled with what kind of a people we want to be, what kind of a country we want to have, and engage in the process of making our representatives accountable for both their actions and their inactions. To accomplish that we must account for our own responsibility as citizens charged with providing for the Common Good.
Prayer: Lord, forgive us when we turn away from our responsibilities as citizens. Open our hearts and minds to seeing ways to define the Common Good and then to find the means of providing it. Amen.