Scripture: Acts of the Apostles 7:48 – “Yet the Most High does not dwell in houses made with human hands…” (NRSV)
There is a great African American spiritual song that says, “Every time I feel the Spirit / moving in my heart I will pray.” I love this idea because it puts the Holy Spirit at the center of our prayer life and our faith life in general. Theologians consider grace to be a free gift from God, but that to even receive this gift requires grace from the Holy Spirit to open our hearts to receive it. Without the Holy Spirit, so much of what we want to do with and for God can be fruitless.
This is a point made by the deacon Stephen in the early days of the church. Stephen was one of the first of those outside of the leading disciples to go and preach the name of Jesus into the world. He was bold and got into trouble with Jewish leaders for denying the absolute sanctity and importance of the Jewish Temple and its traditions above all things. In a confrontation with these leaders, Stephen walked through their history and noted that when patriarchs like Abraham or Jacob listened to God, they were successful, but when Moses and the prophets spoke the word of the Lord to the people, the people were stubborn and generally unwilling to listen. Even when they received the Word of God, it was always frozen in ritual and not allowed to grow and flourish through the Holy Spirit.
Stephen saw the Temple as the primary example of building which no longer had the Spirit inside it. He said that “the Most High does not dwell in houses made with human hands.” By essentially imprisoning God within the walls of the Temple, they were denying everything that God wanted them to do, to feel grace and to do kindness and justice in the world. But the traditions of the Temple were more important to those leaders than faith in the God who had called them and led them out of danger in ages past. And in anger, they stoned Stephen to death as a heretic, making him the first martyr in the church.
I think this story is important because it can be a cautionary tale about where the Spirit is when we get angry. Does the Spirit fire a passion within us to combat injustice and complacency where we find it? Or do we ignore the Spirit and get angry when we feel threatened by challenges to our traditions? The Temple was built as a symbol of God’s presence among the people, but over time, it became seen as the only place where God could be known, and those in power insisted that access to God could come only through them. They were threatened when they felt their control was being lost. But Stephen, and Jesus for that matter, taught that one must let go of power and control and even life itself in order to follow the Spirit wherever it leads us. So, when you think about where your ultimate faith lies, make sure it is in a Spirit which is living and moving and growing your heart, and not in walls that try to calcify God into something that can never really touch your heart. Pray for a faith that extends beyond whatever walls we find in our lives.
Prayer: Holy Spirit, enter our hearts and move us to pray for truth and justice every day. Amen.
Comments