Narrative Lectionary Key Verse for Today
“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.”
NL Daily Devotion for Thursday, April 25, 2024
by R. M. Fergus, Clergy Stuff
Stephen has a valid point. Scripture is full of stories of God sending prophets to let God’s people know they were way off the beam. And since no one likes to be told they’re doing something wrong, often this resulted in those prophets having their lives threatened. I think it’s interesting, actually, that this is what the biblical writers focused on. Why keep a record of all the ways your people have royally screwed up? Why not concentrate on the good stuff? It’s terribly self-aware. Which is why it’s maybe surprising that there continued to be so much resistance to Jesus’ ministry and message. Haven’t they figured it out yet? They fail again and again to live as God wanted. The law and the prophets were pretty darn clear. So why was it so hard to hear the same message yet again but by a different prophet?
And what of us as Christians? The Way of Jesus survived every attempt at extinction in the beginning only to be transformed by empires into its own empire, which has visited trauma upon anyone out of step with the powers that be for centuries. We have “received the law” and gospel “by angels, and yet [we] have not kept it.” We find all sorts of ways to reinterpret scripture to support our own ideas, to the detriment of the powerless and marginalized. Do we need a Stephen standing in our midst, upbraiding us for our failure to recognize what Jesus was all about? Maybe. I’ve seen, heard, and read plenty of Stephens in my life, and I am grateful for it, even when, at the moment, I’m threatened by what is being said. We would do well to listen to the Stephens in our midst, and even better, perhaps, to become one.
When have I heard an uncomfortable truth about my faith? How did I respond? When have I shared an uncomfortable observation about the church with others? How did they respond?
