What does it feel like to hear the words of this text?  A seminary professor once told me that it is important to consider what a text feels like.  There is emotion wrapped up in feelings.  How does it feel to think about someone you love the most?  What does it feel like to be free of responsibility, to close your eyes and feel a cool breeze on your face?  What does it feel like to consider the atrocities of the world?  What does it feel like to envision war?  Starving children? Environmental distress?  What does it feel like to stand up against the majority opinion?  What does it feel like to witness world changing moments?

One such moment in time we consider today is found in this passage of scripture.  Stephen, considered by many to be the first martyr of the church, loses his life for his faith.  Luke, the author of Acts, tells us that Stephen is chosen as the first team leader for the first appointed deacons of the church.  He is a servant, he is a teacher, he is “full of faith”… and he is stoned to death because of those things.  We handle church conflicts differently today.  I can almost hear that collective sigh of relief from all of our deacons in the house today.  We haven’t had a stoning in the church for a long while.  Can you imagine?  Join us for the Pig Roast at 4 pm and stay after for a stoning of deacon team leader number seven.  How does this feel to you? 

It feels strange to us but it was the way of the faith movement in those days.  And it feels to me like a very impressionable moment for the church community to witness and participate in.  The church remains in the Easter season… a time of figuring out who they are (and who we are) on this side of the resurrection of Jesus.  How does the church live out its mission and become the envisioned kingdom of God on earth?  Will the church be changed by the world or will she be a life-giving world changer?  This moment in scripture changes the world.  It is a powerful story about Stephen but it is much more than that.  Maybe you caught it as it was being read, it is a fraction of a sentence at most.  “And the witnesses laid their coats at the feet of a young man named Saul.”  Another version says, “The ringleaders took off their coats and asked a young man named Saul to hold them.”  Put yourselves in this young man’s sandals for a moment… how does it feel to you?  The leaders of the Stoning Committee take off their coats and hand them to him so that they can be fully ready for this stoning.  The young Saul has his hands full of coats… it feels helpless when your hands are full, when you are too busy, when you are juggling too many things, when you are holding the coats.  He watches these men stretch; loosen up, and then hurl murdering rocks at this man called Stephen to the point of death. 

Young people learn about what is important by holding the coats.  I learned how to change a tire by holding my father’s coat.  I wasn’t old enough to do the dirty work but I could hold his coat while he did and by watching him, learn how to do it.  Saul is holding the coats… he is learning how to handle church conflict.  He is learning how to settle arguments.  He is learning how to demonstrate the love of Christ.  How does that feel?  It doesn’t feel too good to me.  I do not want to be a part of that kind of church.  I hope I am not asking our young people to hold my coat while I live out that kind of faith. And though we may not be stoning one another, waging a physical battle to death, the truth is that others are looking at us to see how we live out the faith… how we become the church. 

Do we still express hatred and anger against others?  Do we still stand in the crowd and watch as we witness injustice before our eyes?  This past week, Major League Baseball recognized the 60^th anniversary of Jackie Robinson’s debut into the game.  Jackie was the first African American to play at the major league level and in 1997 his jersey number 42 was retired for life from every team in the league as a tribute to his barrier breaking path into the game.  Today we celebrate this slow closing of the gap of racial tension but it hasn’t come easily.  In Jackie’s first major league contract, it was stated that he could “not complain if someone spit on him.”  How many teammates, players, fans, kids, stood by and held coats of those who would spit on this man simply because of the color of his skin?  How does that feel?  What kind of impact does that have on impressionable eyes?

The headlines this week read this way, “ Jackie Robinson was remembered at Dodger Stadium on the 60th anniversary of the day he changed the world.”  I’m not sure the world fully knew it was changing that day.  And I’m not sure the little congregation gathered for a stoning of this Jesus follower felt that world changing moment either.  We toss that idea around too much in today’s society… it has lost some of its potency.  Marketers have grabbed onto the phrase “world changing” and we in the church have relinquished it to them. 

“Book reviewer Jonathan Yardley recently plugged the words "Changed the World" into Amazon.com, and his search produced 309 items. Among them: the color mauve, the codfish, the Fender bass, radar, clocks, the U.S. women's soccer team, photographs, the Model T Ford, canned food, coast-to-coast auto races of the early 1900s, Christopher Columbus, glass, flowers, banana pie, Max Factor, Scotland, Princess Diana, pop music and, of course, Amazon.com.”[1]

The idea has run too far perhaps.  Celebrity Apprentice fans will remember Gene Simmons’ tagline for Kodak as they were to market a new printer they had come out with; “It’s a Kodak world… we just live in it.”  We find ourselves in a society who is more ready to live in a Kodak Kingdom than the Kingdom of God.  We have abandoned the enthusiasm of changing the world with the love of Christ to holding the coats of those who are willing to declare a kingdom for themselves.  And thus we are influenced by the kingdoms we live in… the ones we have accepted as normal, maybe dysfunctional, but nothing that can really be changed.  In the words of my seminary professor and therapists everywhere, “How does that make you feel?” 

I envision young Saul again.  A bright young man with a brilliant future ahead of him.  He was marked for success.  Picked out by the elders of the church in the Youth Service as one who could be somebody… one who could carry the tradition of the church on to the next generation.  He came from a good family… he was a good student, active on the debate team at school and captain of the lacrosse team.  By all accounts he would be somebody.  He had passion and was ready to step into his future.  But what could he step in to?  The only future he could see was what he saw holding the coats of those who led in that community.  He saw a future of eradicating the movement of Christ-followers that were tainting the church and the world with their heresy.

Immediately after Stephen was deemed dead, Acts 8:1 says, “Saul was right there, congratulating the killers.”  And why wouldn’t he?  That group was made up of his best friend’s dad who was a successful executive in the community, the head of church finance, and of course his sponsoring elder who supported him through his pastor’s class year’s ago.  They were people he trusted.  This was the church he saw so this was the church he would maintain.  The very next text in Acts continues this path of rampage:  “That set off a terrific persecution of the church in Jerusalem.”  Later it says, “Saul went wild”… “devastating the church”.   Saul goes from holding the coats to giving his coat to another as he becomes the vision of what he has witnessed himself. 

We know this experience in our own lives.  Those of us with kids understand the power of influence we have in shaping our children. Youth know the power of peer pressure.  Those in business know the direction a dollar can lead us.  We know this matters in the world but we seem to forget about this sometimes as the church.  We forget our privilege.  We don’t see beyond our own struggles.  We miss the cry of humanity that doesn’t know the life we know.  We don’t own the influence we have on those around us.

I spent five days in Arizona recently with a group of newly ordained Disciples clergy.  We are a group known as the Bethany Fellowship that was created in part due to the staggering statistic suggesting that nearly 40% of ministers leave the ministry within the first five years following their ordination.  These passionate seekers longing to serve give years to study and discern what it means to lead in the church and then they are disillusioned by the church they have found on the other side of their theological education… a church that throws stones, a church that stands still and is satisfied to hold coats.  This is not the case of every church and it is not the case for the Bethany Fellow who stands in this pulpit.  Geist Christian Church is a light of hope to my colleagues who have not found their way out of coat holding churches.  They see the life giving hope of Christ in the stories I can honestly tell about you and I am extremely grateful to be a part of this healthy congregation.  But I realize we do not have all of the answers either and we fall individually and collectively at times when we are not intentional about being the church. 

It can be easy for us to become complacent.  We feel like others can handle the ministry of the church; others can do the work; others can cast vision, and serve meals, and teach my kids, and be concerned about the forgotten children in third world countries.  We become satisfied to simply be in the crowd and hold coats.  We see needs and assume they are covered or that we cannot do anything about it. 

Last summer on the way home from our high school mission trip to New Orleans, we stopped in Memphis, Tennessee to visit the National Civil Rights Museum.  The Museum has received a lot of press recently as it has been created within and around the Lorraine Motel where Martin Luther King, Jr. was shot and killed.  Just weeks ago we remembered that tragic event that happened forty years ago.  I remember standing in the window of the building across the way from the hotel where the single shot was fired, taking the life of this leader.  How did it feel?  It felt bizarre to stand in the shoes of the shooter… to imagine what coats he must have held in his life witnessing hatred and abuse.  It made me question how my life was connected with both the shooter and with the liberator.  I heard King’s words in my mind… “In a real sense, all life is interrelated. All [people] are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny.  Whatever affects one directly affects all indirectly.  I can never be what I ought to be until you are what you ought to be, and you can never be what you ought to be until I am what I ought to be.  This is the interrelated structure of reality.”[2]  

What we do, what we say, who we are affects everyone around us.  This is important for the church to grasp and own again.  To own our shortcomings, our failings, our coat holding idle moments and turn them in for a world changing vision that we can reclaim once again.  It is a challenge for each of us… for you cannot be who you are called to be unless I am who I am called to be and vice versa.  We are the church together and the church cannot be what it needs to be unless we are willing to be that vision together.  

Living into vision can be a difficult thing.  In vision there is fear and fear can bring about a reluctant spirit.  We are now months away from opening our second campus… a vision that is more than buildings and space… it is a vision for community, for service, for life giving-love.  It is not the easiest thing we can do.  It will have its challenges but the message of Christ is challenging… just ask Stephen who gave his life for it.  Ask Saul who was challenged in fear of this new gospel that was interrupting the life he had planned on.  But if we are willing to be the church in this expanded manner, we can do our part in letting go of the coats and stepping up to demonstrate to one another true love, honest support, and genuine hospitality to all who come through our doors and to those who are afraid to come through the doors for fear of being stoned.  For us to be the church that we ought to be, it will take all of us.  Can you imagine the possibilities?  The vision of youth coming to know Christ? The vision of grandparents being baptized?  Can you imagine serving our community more fully… embracing the needs that are present and rallying together to meet them?  Can you dream of your own spirit becoming enriched because you stepped out in faith, you joined a small group, you went on a mission trip, and imagine the effect your life could have on those who are looking to you for guidance in life… the same ones who are holding your coat as they learn by your example what it means to claim Christ as your own?  How does that feel? 

I am not putting my head in the sand here.  I know idealism and reality are hard partners to marry at times but we could at least introduce the two couldn’t we?  Who knows what kind of budding relationship they might have. 

Along with my Bethany Fellowship colleagues, I visited with a remarkable Hispanic pastor while we were in Phoenix who is doing tremendous things for God and for our denomination.  His name is Job Cobos.  Job grew up in Mexico as one of sixteen children in a Catholic family.  His dad was a macho man whom he said kept his mother pregnant to ensure that he would not lose her.  Job and his siblings were pulled from school at a young age to work the family farm though Job intentionally performed awfully in the fields so his dad would give up on him and send him to school instead.  He did.  A teacher recognized gifts of intelligence and leadership in Job and worked him hard after school every day to Job’s disappointment.  “Why do you make me do all of this and no one else?” he asked.  “Because you are going to be somebody, Job.”  In his mid-teenage years, Job, who had always been spiritually curious and had received some theological education in a private school close by, stumbled upon a rundown church building (grass up to his waist, shutters falling off the building, for all intents and purposes abandoned).  It had a little sign on the side of the building that read “Disciples of Christ”.  He heard some small voices singing inside and he went in to meet the people who owned the sound.  They were the church, a single digit community that had little to offer and no pastor to lead them.  He became their pastor and by age seventeen, their little church, now over 150 in number were making an impact on the community.  This was not the recognized church of Mexico and so their message was threatening… this was not the way the church was to be and their leader was to be stoned because of it.  His mother, afraid for the life of her son, sent him to the States where this non-English speaking man encountered a number of communities that rejected him and he eventually lost his will and passion for the faith. 

After years of being abused and taken advantage of in this foreign country of ours, he found his way to Lexington, KY where he enrolled in our Disciples seminary in that town.  Job’s classmates were all finding placements as interns in local churches but Job never received such offers… he wanted desperately to be in community with the church and to share his gifts but he could not get placed.  He was told that he wouldn’t be accepted in farmland Kentucky because many of the parishioners in those congregations were farm owners with work crews of Hispanic men and the disconnect of boss/laborer would be too great for him to be seen as their pastor.  This young man was going to be somebody… he had passion to give and a longing to serve God but he was left to hold coats… the church he witnessed didn’t see him as anything more than a coat holder.  But Job persevered, starting two new congregations in that area while he was a student. 

He is now forty-three years old and serving on the regional staff for our denomination in Arizona.  He has started twelve new churches in the last couple of years in the Phoenix area.  He mentors pastors, and he pastors several even still including an Anglo congregation.  He is not holding coats, he is spreading the Gospel.  And it is not easy.  Racial discrimination still abounds… yet he perseveres.   He has found joy and hope in a faith and a church that has the possibility of being what it ought to be.  He has been transformed and now he is transforming others. 

That is the hope for all of us.  That hope is also the story of the young man Saul.  He would be blinded one day by a light so bright that he would drop the coats of hate and persecution, of tradition and exclusion, and he would see something new.  It was the revelatory message of Jesus Christ and he would never be the same.  He would take on the name Paul and become the leader of a dream-filled movement… one that brought together a hope for all people.  He would become a world changer.  Could that be your story?  Could that be mine?  Could that be ours?  Could we change the world?  I know that phrase is copyrighted now.  I know it is not ours to claim.  I know it is just a dream to which we cannot bring meaning.  Or could we?  Job said to me, “nothing has meaning until we give meaning.”  Could it be?  Could we give meaning to hope?  Might we live out a Gospel of good news that doesn’t simply hold coats but instead holds up empty hands ready to serve, to be community, to pass on a faith that has meaning?  We could. We will.  And I think that feels pretty good.