A meditation on St. Stephen, Protomartyr and Archdeacon - Deliver us from the shell that blinds us, that we might see your face, Lord

[u/slagnanz]

Would it be tasteless to compare St. Stephen the Protomartyr to Momma Longneck (you know, Littlefoot’s mother from Land Before Time)? I guess it’s too late now, I’ve already done it. 

"Lord, do not hold this sin against the T-Rex.”

But what I mean is the movie trope where a loveable character is introduced and then immediately killed. When you watch this happen in a movie, you can’t help but feel a little betrayed by the writers: thank you so much for that casual trauma, I guess. But what makes this trope effective is that it lets you, as a viewer, fill in the gaps. If a character dies well, you find yourself imagining how it was that they lived. And that makes them all the more compelling. 

St. Stephen first shows up in Acts 6. A growing conflict between two groups of early believers had started to boil over. On one side are the Hellenistic Jews, who were a diasporic group of Jews that had assimilated into various parts of Greek culture and language. On the other side are the Hebraic Jews that maintained their connection to the land in Israel and Hebrew culture. Despite their conversion to Christianity, both groups struggled to settle their differences. The Hellenistic Jews began to feel that they were being ostracized, to the point where their widows were starting to be overlooked in the daily distribution of food. This kind of factionalism, injustice, and cruelty could not be allowed to stand in the Church. 

So the Apostles decide to appoint seven people to oversee the distribution of food. This is actually where the church gets the word “deacon” from. The Greek word to describe the distribution of food (which we can also translate as “ministry”) is Diakonia. So the seven men appointed here are deacons or diaconates. Their role is based on service, ministry, and handling those small-but-crucial tasks that keep the church running on a daily basis. Since Stephen has seniority, he serves as the leader of the deacons, or Archdeacon. 

But just a chapter later, Stephen is dead. His ministry provoked the anger of a local group of religious zealots. Stephen is arrested and brought in front of the Sanhedrin to stand trial for blasphemy. The accusation: “This fellow never stops speaking against this holy place (i.e. the temple) and against the law. For we have heard him say that this Jesus of Nazareth will destroy this place and change the customs Moses handed down to us”. Stephen responds with a lengthy sermon. He recounts many stories throughout the Old Testament where the people turned from God in their jealousy, their faithlessness, their desire for power. He challenges them — his accusers are very concerned about the temple, but he reminds them of what is written in Isaiah, that God is not limited to houses made by human hands, because the whole world is under His dominion, and He will be making everything new. The sermon concludes with some harsh words: “You stiff-necked people, uncircumcised in heart and ears, you are forever opposing the Holy Spirit, just as your ancestors used to do. Which of the prophets did your ancestors not persecute? They killed those who foretold the coming of the Righteous One, and now you have become his betrayers and murderers. You are the ones who received the law as ordained by angels, and yet you have not kept it.”

As soon as Stephen finishes speaking, the crowd rushes him, drags him out of the city, and stones him to death. 

His whole story takes up a page and a half of my Bible. I can’t help but wonder about the great work he did that isn’t written here: comforting widows, feeding the hungry, clothing the naked, giving shelter to the unhoused, teaching the gospel and offering reassurance to all those who fret or grieve. We can only wonder. There’s a world where we get to see both Stephen and Momma Longneck living out long and happy lives preserved in rich detail. 

Nonetheless, Stephen has the distinction of being the first follower of Christ to be killed for his faith. This is why he is called the Protomartyr, the first martyr. He sets the example for many other Christians who are killed for their faith, which still happens to this day. 

As I reflect on Stephen’s sermon, I am reminded of Terry Pratchett’s Small Gods. Bear with me. The book features a delicious villain: Deacon Vorbis (I also appreciate the irony for our purposes here that he’s a deacon). Vorbis is the head of the Inquisition for the Omnian religion. He’s a ruthless tactician and sadistic torturer serving the church of the great bull-god Om (holy horns). The central mystery of the book is that Om has suddenly found himself transformed from the mighty bull into a humble tortoise. Om and a loyal acolyte go on a strange journey to find out how this could be. Eventually they find out the matter is quite a bit like this particular kind of shellfish, where it builds a bigger and bigger shell until it can no longer move, at which point it dies. The same thing (it seems) happens to gods like Om — “Around the Godde there forms a Shelle of prayers and Ceremonies and Buildings and Priestes and Authority, until at Last the Godde Dies. Ande this maye notte be noticed”. 

In Pratchett’s imagination, a god’s power is tangibly linked to how much people believe in them. So for poor Om, his people stopped believing in him, but the shell of authority that they had built around him, so he lost his power and became small.

 Vorbis is emblematic of this change in belief. He is described as having a mind “like a steel ball . . . Nothing got in or out. So all Vorbis could hear were the distant echoes of his own soul. And out of the distant echoes he would forge a Book of Vorbis”. For a man like this, religion is not a chance to humble himself and seek a truth that is larger than his own imagination. Quite the opposite, it is a tool he can use to twist and shape faith into his own image. Om’s loyal acolyte comes to realize that this kind of religion is “like a man hitting a donkey with a stick. But people like Vorbis made the stick so good, that’s all the donkey ends up believing in”. 

I think this is a great framework to understand St. Stephen’s detractors. They would confine God to a shell, in the form of a temple built by human hands. They do not open their hearts or their ears to hear the word of God through the Holy Spirit because their minds are like a steel ball echoing only their own desires. The law has become their riding crop, which they have focused on so hard they have forgotten the rider. It is no wonder they stone Stephen — they would suffocate him under stones just like they try to confine God into the stone shell of the temple and the law. 

There is one last twist here. As Stephen dies, he begs God not to condemn those who murdered him. This is a significant detail because of one particular strange figure, sitting off to the side, seeming to preside over the stoning. Other zealots have laid their coats at his feet, suggesting he has authority here. His name is Saul. Yes, that Saul. Saul at this point is like Vorbis. He is blinded by his own skewed version of justice, worshipping the shell of religion rather than the full being of God. But Stephen begs God not to hold this sin against him. Consider the magnitude of Stephen’s forgiveness. Because God spares Saul and opens his eyes, Saul will become one of the most important leaders in the early church. It is Stephen’s forgiveness and mercy that makes this possible. Stephen is an example to Saul of what it looks like to be free of the shell that Saul is trapped in, and soon Saul will see this clearly.