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The reading from Acts reminds me that even today we continue to
kill the messenger instead of listening to the message. Stephen chastises
the elders for “opposing the Holy Spirit”; in other words for not listening
with their hearts instead of being stiff-necked and acting from what is in
their heads. The elders received the gift of enlightenment from the
Spirit, but they failed to heed the message. Over the centuries they
continued to put to death those who repeated and reinforced and made real
the message from the Spirit. Stephen’s message was one of admonishment,
of frustration with the blindness he saw in the church hierarchy, with their
unwillingness to seek the meaning of the true message they were receiving.
He paid for his honesty with his life.
What of us? Do we oppose the Holy Spirit? Do we truly listen
to the Spirit when we pray, or do we shut out the message of the Spirit with
our own version of the scribes’ indifference? Have we circumcised our
hearts so we can honestly hear the Spirit, or do we continue to hold onto
the unhealthiness of the past, the slights, the wrongs, the transgressions
of others that block our acceptance of the message of hope? Do we understand
our unique message from the Spirit in the context of who we are, or do we
close our hearts to our personal call by listening with our heads? Do
we have the courage to listen to the Spirit, and then to act on what we hear,
as did Stephen, or do we act like the elders, who received the message but
did not observe it? Do we acknowledge the messengers of the Spirit in
our own lives, both private and public, or do we spurn their witness because
it doesn’t mesh neatly with our preconceptions and challenges us to think
and feel in new ways? Are we listening to our messengers, or are we
killing them?
My prayer today is to scrape the unhealthiness off my heart with the circumcising
scalpel of the Spirit, to recognize the messengers in my own life, to listen
to their witness, and to understand how the Spirit is moving through them
to call me.
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