<html><body><div>Here's part 1 of the sermon for Sunday!</div><div><br></div><div>Peace!</div><div><br></div><div>Bob</div><div><br></div><div><p style="margin: 0px; line-height: normal;"><span style='margin: 0px; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;'>THE EPISCOPAL CHURCH OF ST. ALBAN, ALBANY <span style="margin: 0px;"> </span><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>5 EASTER a</span></p><p style="margin: 0px; line-height: normal;"><span style='margin: 0px; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;'>ACTS 7:55-60 <span style="margin: 0px;"> </span><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>14<sup>th</sup> MAY, 2017</span></p><p style="margin: 0px; line-height: normal;"><span style='margin: 0px; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;'>1 PETER 2:2-10<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>PSALM 31:1-5, 15-16</span></p><p style="margin: 0px; line-height: normal;"><span style='margin: 0px; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;'>JOHN 14:1-14</span></p><p style="margin: 0px; line-height: normal;"><span style='margin: 0px; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;'> </span></p><p style="margin: 0px; line-height: normal;"><span style='margin: 0px; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;'><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>Knowing Jesus can get us into all sorts of scrapes. <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight:normal"><u>SEEING</u></b> Jesus – well, we might as well have our Advanced Directives written and our wills made out and notarised.</span></p><p style="margin: 0px; line-height: normal;"><span style='margin: 0px; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;'><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>Poor Stephen. We know so little about him. He’d been a follower of Jesus, but for how long just isn’t clear. What all he’d seen and heard isn’t apparent either. But he <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight:
normal"><u>WAS</u></b> a deacon. He was chosen by Jesus’ apostles to take care of widows, orphans, the apostles’ families and the impoverished in the community, and he’d really flung himself into it, heart and soul. The model deacon, he did everything asked of him and more. One thing fascinated him and guided his life, though. He was intensely spiritual and he wasn’t afraid to share this.</span></p><p style="margin: 0px; line-height: normal;"><span style='margin: 0px; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;'><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>Stephen must have talked endlessly with the apostles and all those who’d known Jesus, to fill in the gaps of what he hadn’t witnessed personally. He must have soaked up all their stories and the experiences they shared. He must have become such a part of their scene and become so comfortable with both the people and the message that, as he waited tables, as he grocery shopped at the village markets, as he took care of the needs of children and their mothers – as he did all that and more, he must have bubbled over, describing what Jesus had done and what He meant to that deacon.</span></p><p style="margin: 0px; line-height: normal;"><span style='margin: 0px; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;'><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>Stephen himself must have started sounding just like an apostle in the local situation. He worked away bringing Jesus’ love, compassion and understanding to everyone he met, yet he never made a big deal of it. He didn’t say, “Hey! Look at me! Listen to me! I’ve got all sorts of things I can tell you and do for you if only you’ll pay attention to <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight:normal"><u>ME</u></b>.” That’s simply <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight:normal"><u>NOT</u></b> what a deacon does, especially one like Stephen.</span></p><p style="margin: 0px; line-height: normal;"><span style='margin: 0px; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;'><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>However, if someone <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight:normal"><u>DID</u></b> ask him questions; if someone looked to him for help; if someone couldn’t get health care or medications, and appealed to him, he was Stephen-on-the-spot. So much so that he must have started aggravating whoever controlled, or thought they controlled, things about that area. Somehow, <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight:normal"><u>HE</u></b> was doing the right things that were needed at that time, things that either made the leaders look bad, or were horning in on what they thought was none of his business.</span></p><p style="margin: 0px; line-height: normal;"><span style='margin: 0px; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;'><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight:normal"><u>THEY</u></b> wanted to run the town, and if some of them looked like the less-than-reputable leaders and land-owners in the West of an hundred and fifty years ago, then Stephen may have appeared a little like the local doctor who tended to all without care for safety.</span></p><p style="margin: 0px; line-height: normal;"><span style='margin: 0px; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;'><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>He <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight:
normal"><u>DID</u></b> speak out for justice. He <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight:
normal"><u>DID</u></b> speak up for morality. He <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight:
normal"><u>DID</u></b> speak out for equitable and compassionate treatment. But that’s where the Western analogy ends. He didn’t even think of defending himself against the manipulators and self-labelled righteous characters, although he tried to argue his case. He’d heard about Jesus. He’d heard about the way Jesus had cared for people in place after place like his. He’d heard about Jesus’ death <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight:normal"><u>AND</u></b> His resurrection. He’d heard about the encouragement and commands Jesus had given to His friends after the resurrection. Stephen knew that nothing could stop him, and so he kept on working; he kept on talking; he kept on identifying with Jesus and drawing close to him as he saw his Saviour in everyone around him. Stephen was a wonderful vessel who was being used by Jesus to continue to bring peace and the excitement of healing and renewal to the community.</span></p><p style="margin: 0px; line-height: normal;"><span style='margin: 0px; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;'><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>And, boy, did that tick off the leaders. They must have felt that their jobs, their status, their entitlement, was free and clear now that that fool Jesus was out of the way.</span></p><p style="margin: 0px; line-height: normal;"><span style='margin: 0px; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;'><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>Then this upstart started everything all over again. They <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight:normal"><u>HAD </u></b>to shut him up. They couldn’t let him get a toe-hold on touching the emotions and needs of the poor.</span></p><p style="margin: 0px; line-height: normal;"><span style='margin: 0px; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;'><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>Isn’t this nearly always how things work? You invest your time and energy in all sorts of efforts and tricks to bring someone into line – Jesus, if you will – and finally manage to silence the person who’s been getting all the attention and diverting people from talking to you – the village council members, the gatekeeper to all sorts of care. You breathe a sigh of relief when you see Jesus crucified and go back to getting new business cards printed up, proclaiming <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight:
normal"><u>YOU</u></b> as the “go-to” person, when up jumps this, this, this – well, who <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight:normal"><u>WAS</u></b> Stephen anyway? We don’t know anything beyond the fact that he was selected to take some of the day-to-day practicalities off the shoulders of the apostles. They called him a Deacon – a servant, a waiter, a minister, a messenger – think of what Peggy does and you’ll get the picture. And Stephen was terrific! He talked, he comforted, he made sure that there was food on the table, and he demonstrated what Jesus’ life had been all about. He interacted out of a pure love and compassion for everyone without regard for where each person fitted into the life of the community, or on which side of the goat track they lived.</span></p><p style="margin: 0px; line-height: normal;"><span style='margin: 0px; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;'><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>Spoiler alert! You may have noticed that I’ve been using the past tense. Stephen was killed; very dead; incredibly dead; painfully dead; smooshed under every rock and boulder the leaders could haul out and dump on the deacon.</span></p><p style="margin: 0px; line-height: normal;"><span style='margin: 0px; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;'><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>But Stephen, ultimately, wasn’t phased. Oh, I’m sure he didn’t enjoy the grilling meted out to him by the know-it-alls. If he had a family, I’m sure that they were rattled so much that they lived in fear of officials banging on their door in the middle of the night and “rendering” them, so that they’d simply disappear from the village records. And as the treatment grew worse, as the stoning drew near, Stephen became incredibly aware of the Presence of Jesus. No matter that the temptation to panic, to wince, to whine and give up, Stephen remained assured of the love and blessing of God, so much so that he focussed on that and didn’t allow the shouting of the crowd, the pressing in of the people, the unbridled hostility of the leaders to phase him.</span></p><p style="margin: 0px; line-height: normal;"><span style='margin: 0px; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;'><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span></span></p><p style="margin: 0px; line-height: normal;"><span style='margin: 0px; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;'><span style="margin: 0px;"><br></span></span></p><p style="margin: 0px; line-height: normal;"><span style='margin: 0px; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;'><br></span></p></div></body></html>