The feast of St Stephen (transferred from August 3rd)
A sermon preached at St Stephen’s, Tamahere on the occasion of the Confirmation of Alix, Ella and Rowan.
Sunday, August 7, 2016

Rt. Rev’d Dr Helen-Ann Hartley,
Bishop of Waikato.

Acts 7.51-60
Matt. 10.17-22

You may have heard the joke:

How does Good King Wenceslas prefer his pizzas:

Deep pan, crisp and even!

Most of us will be familiar with the Christmas Carol that tells the story of the Good King, and which references the feast of Stephen as the day when Wenceslas looked out and saw a poor man, and then set out to help him, along with his page, travelling through the deep snow.

We don’t have deep snow here, but we have had rather a lot of rain recently; but the invitation remains for us to mark the footsteps of Jesus and follow them in our daily lives.

Which is exactly what Rowan, Ella and Alix are seeking to do today.  Confirmation is a moment in our Christian journeys when we commit to marking the footsteps of Jesus and try to follow them in our lives, to wherever that may lead us.  

I worked out that, if I was to have walked from England to New Zealand it would have taken me 24,273,480 steps!  That’s quite a long way.  But it is helpful to me in thinking about where following Jesus has taken me in my life.

Which is all a way of helping us to think our way into our readings for today, because they don’t make for an easy read.  The passage in Acts describes the martyrdom of Stephen, the first Christian martyr, your patron saint; 
our Gospel speaks of trials to come in quite a dramatic fashion: ‘brother will betray brother to death, and a father his child, and children will rise against parents and have them put to death; and you will be hated by all because of my name.  But the one who endures to the end will be saved.’

The steps we take will have consequences (I have Darcy [Waikato Bishopric Youth Ministry Coordinator] to thank for giving me that word: it’s all about the consequences!).  Thanks Darcy ☺

Let’s reframe this in another way.  I wonder if anyone here saw the Olympic Games opening ceremony yesterday?  While there has been a lot in the media about the amount of money spent on the Games, all set against the backdrop of the inequality and poverty in Rio, and indeed the photographs of raw sewage in water in which the athletes will compete?  

Seeing that as a given, I nonetheless was struck watching the ceremony how much there was about consequences.  The indigenous history of Brazil was very briefly referenced, as was the consequence of colonization.  The rise of urbanization overstepping green lush rainforest was portrayed in such a way as to send a message to the world about the consequences of climate abuse.  At several points, reference was made to the years of hard work of the athletes competing in the Games: the consequence of which was an opportunity to compete for a gold medal.  The Olympic flame that had made its way over 95 days from Greece to Brazil was lit into a cauldron, the consequence of which was the illumination of an amazing and eco-friendly kinetic sculpture by the artist Anthony Howe, designed to represent the sun – that life-giving star that enables us to live and breathe.  

Right at the end of the ceremony, the camera showed a beautiful view of the Maracana stadium lit up with fireworks, and the equally illuminated famous statue of Christ the Redeemer which overlooks the city of Rio de Janero.  The consequence of God’s love for the world was the giving of Godself in Christ, who gave his life for all of us in the hope that we too might give life to others through the power of the Holy Spirit – that same Spirit that we envoke today in confirming Rowan, Ella and Alix.

There is a remarkable and profound beauty in all of that, as much as there is a shadow side – fear, mistrust, poverty, all those things that make for the very worst of human nature.  

By that I mean, that we cannot ignore these things, for to be a disciple of Christ, to be a follower of Jesus means that we both hold all that makes us in the image of God as well as all that mars that image in us and in others around us.

The consequence of Stephen’s faith in Christ was death, our readings make that very clear.  But we cannot be captured by the fear that lies behind that, rather I think reminded that we participate in that great cloud of witnesses that are all God’s people past, present and future.  In whatever paths we take, whether they be good or not-so-good at times, expected, and unexpected, we are charged with bearing the Christ-light, we are literally vessels of hope.  And we must hold on to that.

We are fortunate that here we are free to celebrate our faith in God without fear or persecution.  But we have sisters and brothers in faith who do face that on a daily basis.  Yesterday during the Olympic Opening Ceremony, there was a huge cheer and a standing ovation for the small team of athletes who make up Team Refugees.  A reminder in the midst of that most magnificent of sporting events, of lives bound up in fleeing from war, terror and persecution, overcoming great odds to compete as equals in the Games.  However cynical you might be about all of this, surely they send out a powerful message to us all.  As the President of the IOC declared in his speech of welcome to the refugees’ team ‘we welcome you as an enrichment to our unity in diversity.’

Confirmation is about recognising the consequences of our faith, and this is for each one of us too.  Think about our gestures, our language, our thoughts, think the consequence of a smile over a frown.  Think about what it could be for a church community to be so consumed by love of Jesus that a consequence is a radical outpouring of inclusive love to all people, no questions asked, no presumptions made, no list of attributes to be reached before acceptance.  For we are all one in Christ Jesus.

The priest-poet Malcolm Guite writes a sonnet for St Stephen, and I close with his words:

Witness for Jesus, man of fruitful blood,
Your martyrdom begins and stands for all.
They saw the stones, you saw the face of God,
And sowed a seed that blossomed in St Paul.
When Saul departed breathing threats and slaughter,
He had to pass through that Damascus gate
Where he had held the coats and heard the laughter
As Christ, alive in you, forgave his hate,
And showed him the same light you saw from heaven
And taught him, through his blindness, how to see;
Christ did not ask, ‘Why were you stoning Stephen?’
But, ‘Saul, why are you persecuting me?’
Each martyr after you adds to his story,
As clouds of witness shine through clouds of glory.

Amen.