Extraordinary Effort
Commentary
God is willing to go to any lengths to create us as a people, sustain us in life and death, and bring us together into an eternal home. This is demonstrated in these three very different texts. Stephen, the first martyr of the church, is sustained during his execution by a revelation of the risen Jesus. We share an identity as one people though we come from many different backgrounds, an identity which God created. And the relationship we share in Jesus is for eternity. We’ll all have a room in the Household of God, an abiding place as Jesus abides in us. He is the Way, the Truth, and the Life. Stephen demonstrates that Jesus is the Way when he asks God to forgive his murderers, following in the footsteps of the Master. God is making an extraordinary effort to create this new people in Christ.
Acts 7:55-60
One of the elements of a martyr’s story is the victim’s ability to see beyond the suffering to the vindication which will take place. Whether it’s the story of the mother and her seven sons in 2 Maccabees 7, the story of Polycarp’s martyrdom that is part of the Apostolic Fathers, or the hundreds of examples in the voluminous Martyr’s Mirror, these individuals who testified to their faith by being willing to surrender their lives see something greater than themselves, and emulate Jesus in their non-resistant response to hatred. Stephen is only the first of many who will ask God to forgive the sins of their persecutors.
Saul is evidently too cool-headed to actually take part in the lynching, and perhaps he had obligations at temple or synagogue for which he could not take the risk of becoming unclean by contact with a dead body -- but he demonstrates that even if he is not one of the perpetrators, he approves of what they’re doing.
The Jerusalemites who are about to murder Stephen take care to cover their ears rather than hear a testimony that might convince them. Roman society elevated the importance of rhetoric because they believed that people’s minds could be changed by the power of superior reasoning. Yet in our society it seems as if people are not interested in the facts of a case, nor are they convinced by a factual argument.
1 Peter 2:2-10
The Roman world was obsessed with status. Typically a person of the nobility had three names, designed to differentiate one from the rabble, defining family and clan. Slaves might only have one name, a name that wasn’t even a name, such as Lucky or Useful. There was a tremendous gap between the extraordinarily rich and the great mass of folks who were slaves or near-slaves. There were only a few people in between these extremes. In this passage the apostle states that it is God, not humans, who create caste and clan and status -- once we were no people, but now we are God’s people. He continues by using the image of a building (a common one in early Christian writings such as the Shepherd of Hermas). As stones we fit together. Just as Jesus embodied the suffering servant found in Isaiah, an unlikely messiah whose sufferings are what save us not his military triumphs, so the stone rejected by the builder is the cornerstone of the body of Christ, and our sufferings, our irrregularities are fitted together by God to create this building, which is also the new people.
John 14:1-14
Willard Swartley, author of the Believer’s Church Bible Commentary volume on the gospel of John, makes the case that there are two scriptural passages familiar to folks outside the church who may not recognize any other scriptures -- Psalm 23 and this passage. This portion of the Farewell Speech of Jesus follows the pivotal example of Jesus washing the feet of his disciples and proclaiming a new commandment -- that we love one another. This chapter begins with an attractive proposition -- that we will live with Jesus. The word monai means “rooms” or “apartments,” taken from the model of the Roman household. New Christians often had to leave the family business because the craft or product made was dedicated in worship to one of the Greco-Roman gods. The household of faith is dedicated to serve in the name of Jesus. Jesus is our protector, who prepares a place for us and will come and receive us as his own.
In the dialogue with Thomas, Jesus tells the apostle that he knows the way, which elicits the response from Thomas that he doesn’t know the way. This in turn results in an answer that is instantly recognizable -- “I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father, except through me.” Just as Jesus invited his disciples to follow his example in taking on slave’s work, the washing of feet, to demonstrate that there is nothing we won’t do for each other, so we are willing to walk in the way of Jesus no matter where it takes us, or how much we suffer.
Acts 7:55-60
One of the elements of a martyr’s story is the victim’s ability to see beyond the suffering to the vindication which will take place. Whether it’s the story of the mother and her seven sons in 2 Maccabees 7, the story of Polycarp’s martyrdom that is part of the Apostolic Fathers, or the hundreds of examples in the voluminous Martyr’s Mirror, these individuals who testified to their faith by being willing to surrender their lives see something greater than themselves, and emulate Jesus in their non-resistant response to hatred. Stephen is only the first of many who will ask God to forgive the sins of their persecutors.
Saul is evidently too cool-headed to actually take part in the lynching, and perhaps he had obligations at temple or synagogue for which he could not take the risk of becoming unclean by contact with a dead body -- but he demonstrates that even if he is not one of the perpetrators, he approves of what they’re doing.
The Jerusalemites who are about to murder Stephen take care to cover their ears rather than hear a testimony that might convince them. Roman society elevated the importance of rhetoric because they believed that people’s minds could be changed by the power of superior reasoning. Yet in our society it seems as if people are not interested in the facts of a case, nor are they convinced by a factual argument.
1 Peter 2:2-10
The Roman world was obsessed with status. Typically a person of the nobility had three names, designed to differentiate one from the rabble, defining family and clan. Slaves might only have one name, a name that wasn’t even a name, such as Lucky or Useful. There was a tremendous gap between the extraordinarily rich and the great mass of folks who were slaves or near-slaves. There were only a few people in between these extremes. In this passage the apostle states that it is God, not humans, who create caste and clan and status -- once we were no people, but now we are God’s people. He continues by using the image of a building (a common one in early Christian writings such as the Shepherd of Hermas). As stones we fit together. Just as Jesus embodied the suffering servant found in Isaiah, an unlikely messiah whose sufferings are what save us not his military triumphs, so the stone rejected by the builder is the cornerstone of the body of Christ, and our sufferings, our irrregularities are fitted together by God to create this building, which is also the new people.
John 14:1-14
Willard Swartley, author of the Believer’s Church Bible Commentary volume on the gospel of John, makes the case that there are two scriptural passages familiar to folks outside the church who may not recognize any other scriptures -- Psalm 23 and this passage. This portion of the Farewell Speech of Jesus follows the pivotal example of Jesus washing the feet of his disciples and proclaiming a new commandment -- that we love one another. This chapter begins with an attractive proposition -- that we will live with Jesus. The word monai means “rooms” or “apartments,” taken from the model of the Roman household. New Christians often had to leave the family business because the craft or product made was dedicated in worship to one of the Greco-Roman gods. The household of faith is dedicated to serve in the name of Jesus. Jesus is our protector, who prepares a place for us and will come and receive us as his own.
In the dialogue with Thomas, Jesus tells the apostle that he knows the way, which elicits the response from Thomas that he doesn’t know the way. This in turn results in an answer that is instantly recognizable -- “I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father, except through me.” Just as Jesus invited his disciples to follow his example in taking on slave’s work, the washing of feet, to demonstrate that there is nothing we won’t do for each other, so we are willing to walk in the way of Jesus no matter where it takes us, or how much we suffer.
