Setting Your Hand to the Plow

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If you’re like me, you’ve had enough of the Christmas season by the time Dec. 26 rolls around. After all, Christmas decorations have been up for at least a month and a half. Personally, I’m ready to put the holiday stuff away until next year.

So, instead of writing about Christmas, I want to write about a biblical character that I believe gets short shrift, even among us Catholics who are enamored of saints. Today is the Feast of St. Stephen, whose story can be found in Chapters 6 and 7 of the Acts of the Apostles.

He’s not a saint who has been merely declared so by the Catholic Church. He was a hero of the early church, having given his life for his faith just as the church was getting off the ground.

The Easiest Read

If you’re not familiar with the Acts of the Apostles, by the way, I highly recommend reading, or re-reading it. I believe it’s the easiest to read among all the books of the Bible, and among the most interesting. It was written by St. Luke, who also wrote one of the four gospels. In fact, it’s the second of Luke’s two-part New Testament contribution, both addressed to a guy named Theophilus.

(The first few chapters of the Acts are more historical and theological. Don’t let them slow you down. The later chapters read like a fascinating travelogue.)

That name, in Greek, means “loved by God” or “friend of God.” Scholars believe he was an upper-class friend of Luke – perhaps a public official. Luke wrote these two books around 61-63 AD when he accompanied the Apostle Paul, a prisoner in Rome at the time.

During a growth spurt in the church’s earliest days, the 12 apostles decided they needed people to carry out the church’s mission to the poor. They appointed 7 men, who would eventually be called “deacons.” (One of three classes of “clergy” that would develop in the first 100 years of Christianity, the other two being bishops and priests.)

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Stephen, said to be “full of grace and power,” was among the seven, but he did much more than attend to the needs of “widows and orphans.” He was evidently an educated and well-practiced preacher, and that’s what got him into trouble with the Jewish authorities.

Charged with blasphemy for claiming that Jesus was the son of God, he was hauled before the Sanhedrin - a Jewish legislative and judicial assembly – and gave a long speech, probably lasting at least an hour. The Sanhedrin was not amused. In fact, according to Acts, “they were infuriated, and they ground their teeth at him. 

“They threw him out of the city and began to stone him. The witnesses laid down their cloaks at the feet of a young man named Saul. As they were stoning Stephen, he called out, ‘Lord Jesus, receive my spirit,’” echoing Jesus’ dying words on the cross.

(This “Saul,” who kept on eye on the executioners’ cloaks, would become “Paul,” the missionary to non-Jews in much of the ancient world and writer of letters that are an important part of the New Testament. But that’s another story, partly told in the Acts of the Apostles.)

What to Learn?

So, what can we learn from Stephen’s story?

One thing, I believe, is the importance of having convictions and acting upon them. That means overcoming our natural inclination toward indifference. Over the course of one’s life, our convictions – especially those regarding faith – may strengthen and weaken, but at some point, we need to make a choice and stick to it.

In Luke’s gospel, in a story of Jesus on the road and encountering people who said they want to follow him, Jesus rebukes one “applicant” who made an excuse for not immediately following him: “No one who puts his hand to the plow and looks back is fit for the kingdom of God.”