As we begin, I want to ask a question.  “What’s your story?”  We’re looking at the significance of story today as we consider the story of Stephen, which is really more about the story of God.  That’s my short answer, by the way.  My story is the story of God, and I’m going to tell you about it.

A few years ago, Nicole and I went to an event put on by a couple of organizations called “Facing History and Ourselves Canada” and the “Azrieli Foundation.”  Facing History is an organization whose goal is to help high-school students engage with the past in order to combat racism and bigotry, while the Azrieli Foundation seeks to give Holocaust survivors opportunities to make their stories known.  The evening basically provided a forum for two men to tell their stories.  One was Nate Leipciger, a Jewish survivor of several Nazi concentration camps.  Born in Poland, as a child, he was taken to Auschwitz with his father after they were separated from his mother and sister, whom they never saw again.  The second man was a residential school survivor.  Theodore Fontaine.  He was taken from the only home he had ever known at the age of 6 in 1948.   They have both written books.  Ahead of the event we attended, their had been read by over 100 high school students from around the province, who all had a chance to make some art to reflect the stories of these two men, to meet them, and to get to know them.

The whole thing was very moving and spoke very much of the power of story, particularly when it comes to trauma.  The power of sharing stories.  Mr. Fontaine spoke of starting to write his own story down years ago, submitting a piece anonymously to a paper out west.  He spoke of a friend contacting him and asking if he were the one who wrote the story.  His friend told him, “I thought I was the only one.”  The power of a story.  As one of the speakers from the Azrieli Foundation said that night, “A story can change the world.”

A story can change the world.  A story can save the world. The power of story.

Stephen applied his life to the story of Jesus.  I hope this if helpful to us as we seek to come to an ever greater understanding/to take seriously what it means to follow Jesus.  To follow Jesus does not simply mean I have made a decision for Jesus at some point in my life which may or not have any meaning in my life today.  This does not mean that responses we make to Jesus at points in our life are not important.  To follow Jesus does not simply mean that I agree with a set of propositions about Jesus, although there are articles of faith about Jesus which all followers of him share.  To follow Jesus is not simply to read stories in the Bible and choose ways to apply them to my life.  In Christ you see, it’s not even my life anymore.  To follow Jesus is to apply my life (all I am, all I have) to the story of Jesus. 

It means a total reorientation of my life.  It means being formed in the very image of Jesus as we go along together.  I’m talking fundamentally about the great truth with which the US Presbyterian Church began their 1991 Brief Statement of Faith – “In life and in death we belong to God.”  That, dear friends, is my story.  I live for it and I would die for it and I will die in it.

I know I may fail from time to time when it comes to practicality, and you may be saying, “What does it mean to apply my life to God’s story?”  It means to trust it/listen to it/hear people talk about it/sing about it/share it/live it out each and every day.  This is what Stephen did right to the end.  Stephen was faithful right to the end just like the one he called Lord.  In the power of the Holy Spirit Stephen performed signs and wonders.  He was full of grace Luke tells us, right in line with Jesus who is the only other person in the NT who is so described (John 1:14).  Falsely accused just like his Lord, murdered and praying for himself and those who were killing him just like his Lord.

The first martyr for our faith.  The man who is remembered on the day after Christmas.  We heard last week about seven men who were chosen to wait on tables or to keep accounts.  Philip, Prochorus, Nicanor, Timon, Parmenas, Nicolaus, and Stephen – a man full of faith and the Holy Spirit.  Oftentimes in church, particularly a smaller church, our roles are not simply restricted to one thing.  Such was the case for Stephen.  We are told by Luke that Stephen did great wonders and signs among the people.  We are seeing the life and work of Jesus continuing in his followers.  False charges being brought against Stephen.  “He’s saying Jesus will destroy this place and will change the customs that Moses handed down to us!”  Stephen being brought before the council (the Sanhedrin).  There is a widening of opposition in our story.  Where formerly it had been temple leaders opposing the apostles, we see here that the people are stirred up along with the elders and the scribes.  All who sat in the council looked intently on him.  They looked intently at him and his face was like the face of an angel.  Living in the story of Jesus changes us you see. It might even affect our outward appearance.

Stephen begins to speak.  He doesn’t mount what one might think would be a typical courtroom defense, seeking to put doubt in people’s minds about his accusers, or prove their falseness, or try to explain what it was he’d been talking about.  He tells a story. I like to call it God’s Great Redemption Plan.  God’s Great Salvation Plan.  Love’s redeeming work is how one hymn puts it.  The plainest way I can put it is that God’s Great Salvation Plan is God’s plan to make everything right.  The story of how God set about, is setting about, will set about putting it right. Whether we live and tell the story in the face of opposition or in the face of anything from mild curiosity to deep interest, we should be able to tell the story too. The Holy Spirit will help us tell the  story. People have an interest in talking about the transcendent.  They have an in interest in talking about matters of faith.  We all of us hold a faith position you see.  All of us have a story to which we are applying your lives.  People have in interest in hearing a story. 

Stephen begins to tell this story of faith.  “Listen to me,” he says.  Listen.  I love that.  I can’t imagine Stephen was not excited by the story of the God of glory.  “The God of glory appeared to our ancestor Abraham when he was in Mesopotamia…”  He takes it all the way back.  We didn’t even have time to read it all this morning but do look it over. 

He tells the story of a man who stepped out in faith.  Abraham.  A man to whom a promise was given.  God’s story is about promises made and promises fulfilled.   It’s a story of people waiting faithfully.  Abraham was promised that he would become the father of a nation that would blessed by God to be a blessing to all nations.  A man who became the father of Isaac who became the father of Jacob who had twelve sons.  One of these sons (Joseph) was chosen by God to effect deliverance for his people.  The saving of lives.  This son was rejected by his brothers, sold into slavery.  Years later the actions of Joseph would result in the saving of his family  their people.  Forgiving them, he would tell his brothers, “You intended to harm me, but God intended it for good, to accomplish what is now being done, the saving of many lives.”  This is what God does.

Years go by, and an Egyptian Pharaoh who does not remember Joseph enslaves the Israelites.   God will bring deliverance about through an Egyptian-educated man from Pharoah’s court.  Moses is chosen by God to lead his people to freedom.  Moses is rejected with the words “Who made you a ruler and judge over us?” This speaks to a long history of humanity rejecting God’s chosen ones.  The people wanting to worship something made with their own hands – a golden calf.  God’s saving plan goes on in the face of this rejection.  The promise if God will later come through Moses, that “God will raise up a prophet for you from your own people…”

God’s story is one of promise and presence.  Progressive presence.  God’s presence being manifested in the wilderness, travelling along with the people in a tent.  Later a temple is built by Solomon as the location of God’s presence in Jerusalem  Later the Word becomes flesh and makes his dwelling among us, full of grace and truth.  The Righteous One as Stephen calls Jesus, who was killed, who was raised to life.  Who brings life.  Who sits at the right hand of the Father.  The One whose return we await.  The Righteous One who is with us in the person of the Holy Spirit of God.

This was Stephen’s story. This is our story my friends.  The story is ongoing.  We’re invited to become a part of the story.  How has the story of redemption worked itself out in your life?  How is it working itself out in your life?  How do you express it?

We need to be able to express it.  We need to ask for the help of the Holy Spirit in expressing it.  We have a good place to express it within our faith family here don’t we?  Do we take the opportunity to share our faith stories with one another?   Do we need to create more opportunities?  What might that look like?  We’re pretty open to things.   One of the advantages of being a small church is that we can be pretty nimble when it comes to trying new things.

This story that Stephen tells invites us to consider ourselves.  The story calls us to (or back to) a single-hearted devotion to God and God’s great delivering story.  There are other stories that would call us away from it.  There are other stories that vie for our devotion.  We talked last week about having rebellious streaks in the kingdom of God.  We’ve talked about Jesus’ words “Not so with you.”  This salvation story, this story of Jesus, is something different.  In applying our lives and deaths to the story of Jesus, we are rejecting all other stories that would attempt to make a claim on human lives and deaths.  Such as…  Life is about pursuing the Canadian dream.  What is that exactly and for whom might it be nightmare?  Stories like You get what you deserve in this life.  Life’s hard and then you die and life is what you make it (It is what it is!).  Stories like “You’re the star of your own show” (Main character syndrome).  Look out for yourself at all costs (and your family and friends if you’re a really good person).  Win this and your dreams will be realized beyond your ability to imagine (to the point where you’ll need a dream coach).  Is that the story?  The most significant power is economic and military power, and powerful nations determine the course of world history.  If “lesser” nations suffer, then that’s just the way it is. 

Not so with us, dear Christian!

We’re talking matters of life and death here.  Stephen applied his life to the story of Jesus faithfully right to the end.  Stephen is joined to Jesus in life and in death.  Stephen gets a glimpse of the truth and he tells about it.  His witness is faithful right to the end.  “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!’”  No stone is going to separate him from God’s love, you see.

Death does not have the last word in the story of God.  We lament the loss of course.  We don’t paper over tragedy and loss or normalize persecution or say that it’s necessary or might even be welcome.  We read that “Devout men buried Stephen and made loud lamentation over him.”  We mourn knowing that in life and in death, we belong to God.  The story goes on.  “That day a severe persecution began against the church in Jerusalem, and all except the apostles were scattered throughout the countryside of Jerusalem and Samaria.”  One of the scattered is Philip, whom we’ll hear about next week.  The story goes on.

“You intended to harm but, but God intended it for God,” said Joseph, “But God intended it for good, to accomplish what is now being done, the saving of many lives.”  This is the story of God.  May God give us the strength and wisdom to keep on telling it, to keep on living it, to keep on inviting others into it.  May this be true for us all.  Amen