Our readings this week are Acts 7.55–end and John 14.1–14.

This week's Acts reading is not an easy one.  We are witness again to the death of Stephen, the first Christian martyr, as he's stoned by an angry mob.  It's tempting to soften the edges, to focus on the vision Stephen has of the risen Christ standing at the right hand of the Father, welcoming him towards heaven; to echo Jesus' words from the gospel of being the way to the Father.  That would let us reassure ourselves that we're okay - that no matter what life throws at us (never anything, let us pray, like being stoned to death), God is with us, and has prepared a place for us.

That is, of course, true - and if you want to stop reading here, and just take that reassurance afresh then please do.  If that's what you need right now, seriously, stop reading.

If we want to challenge ourselves, though, we may want to ask what happens if we associate our presence in this text not with the hero, Stephen, but with another group.  A group that really chills me.  In verse 58 we meet them, 'the witnesses': 'Then they dragged him out of the city and began to stone him; and the witnesses laid their coats at the feet of a young man named Saul.' 

Under the law of Deuteronomy 17:7, it is 'The hands of the witnesses [that] shall be the first raised against the person to execute the death penalty, and afterwards the hands of all the people.'

These are the people who testified against Stephen, and, as such, are required to cast the first stones; to carry through their accusations into action.  And they do it so calmly - so deliberately - first taking off their coats and laying them down to free up their throwing arms.  Not prepared to miss, not prepared to lose power to soft fabrics, but preparing to put their all into ending a life.  Chilling.

The first question it raises for me is where is my silent witness doing this same work of murder in the world today?  We know we live in a world that suffers from deliberate acts of violence, oppression, and destruction.  Knowing that could be said to make us witnesses;  and - as Deuteronomy reminds us - witnesses are not always without culpability.  We may think we can stand passively by, but the reality is that our witness-without-action to those acts of violence, oppression, and destruction in the world can be a way of sharing in them.  And perhaps there are even times when that sharing is not just passive, but active, and even, maybe, deliberate?

I'm not trying to lay the entire responsibility of everything that's wrong in the world on us - of course I'm not.  Clearly there are limits to our capacity, and therefore our culpability. We can't import the tangible responsibility of Deuteronomy's legal process into our response to every news article we read! Thinking about it in this way, though ('Where may I share some responsibility for this?') - might lead us to ask if there is any particular wrong, injustice, or evil we see that once we've noticed we can do something about.

And having noticed it, and called it out, can we then find the courage and the strength to act?  To calmly and deliberately put down whatever may hamper us (however comforting or comfortable it might be), and pick up the hard, rough tools necessary, and put our energy and effort into making it - just that one thing - a bit better?

Change to the good, after all, is also signposted in this passage.  Saul - who witnesses and approves this evil - goes on to become Paul - the most ardent of witnesses to truth and love. Even from here, grace begins its work.  After all, no matter what life throws at us God is with us, and is preparing us for our place with Him.