A woman that (I think) I do not know awakes and wonders, prays, cries, and yet still gives thanks perhaps for another day of life given her and her family. Where will the nourishment come from today? Will a donation of plasma be enough to get through this week or not? “Give me a sign that will give me hope, one that will pick me up and place me in a stance of determination and confidence,” she tells herself. Another day begins.

“The crowd said to Jesus:
‘What sign can you do, that we may see and believe in you?
What can you do?
Our ancestors ate manna in the desert, as it is written:
‘He gave them bread from heaven to eat’” (JN 6: 30-35)

Outside in the street, shots are heard, children have been killed. Violence waits for us in back alleys, lurking in the darkness of doubt, fear, ignorance and desperation. It lives in our minds and creeps into our hearts, and then we see it – the blood in our hearts, spilled in fury on the television screen! We pray, “show me something that will cleave my heart so that my soul can truly feel the divine humanity that Stephen saw in the skies before falling ‘asleep’!”

“…and Stephen said, “Behold, I see the heavens opened
and the Son of Man standing at the right hand of God.”
But they cried out in a loud voice,
covered their ears, and rushed upon him together.
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.”
Then he fell to his knees and cried out in a loud voice,
“Lord, do not hold this sin against them”;
and when he said this, he fell asleep
Now Saul was consenting to his execution.” . (ACTS 7: 51-8: 1A)

The image of a great pile of cloaks gathering at the foot of a young man in a tragic scene of violence is powerfully unsettling for me. I wonder what these “witnesses” were thinking as they cast down their cloaks and succumbed to the violence born from their fears! What are these “cloaks?” Did they cast them off to avoid soiling their garments by the deed that they were to perform? And how paradoxical that the pile of cloaks were accumulating at the feet of this young man, himself also a fanatical youth trying to maintain the status quo in a world that seemed understandable to him, but who would later become the dynamo force responsible for sharing the gospel of transformation across the Mediterranean world!

Some of us (and perhaps many who have grown up Catholic) are quite familiar with the sometimes debilitating experience of guilt. But beyond the sense of guilt as self-recrimination, I believe that awareness in responsibility can move us over and above the pointing of fingers. In this way, the negative connotations that accompany feelings of guilt can give way to a positive consciousness of how we may “consent” to the issues in our world, by indifference or inactivity, and then within this growing awareness become radically “mobilized” in love, characterized by humility and compassion. I like to think I am slowly learning to consent to the love, the compassion, the caring, the growing awareness of solidarity that is in the world! Yes, I am many times Saul consenting to the execution of Stephen, but I am also Paul attempting to allow the great news of compassion and care to transform me and the world!

I have been wondering much these days about how much I consent to that which goes on in our world – the poverty, the violence, the ignorance, the betrayal – a consenting blindness that can shut down the periphery and spiral into myopic vision. This is the casting off of my” cloak” as I pick up a “stone!” But, as I (sometimes deliberately, sometimes accidentally) grow in the awareness of my participation in this world, it moves beyond the negative towards hope and mercy. The consciousness of my consent to the “killing of Stephen,” becomes transfigured into….STEPHEN…which translates into CHRIST!

In other words, the stones that I throw are not only hitting others, but they are hitting me! The stones we blindly throw at each other are always hitting ourselves as well. Could this be what Stephen meant when he said, “do not hold this sin against them?” I think he meant “do not hold this against me…do not hold this against us!” This is not passive resignation and apathetic avoidance, but it is the difficult but imperative move toward true solidarity. I believe Stephen saw in the skies above his death that the Son of Man was… all of us – the body of Christ. And this ultimately means taking responsibility for all the beauty and goodness of Christ that we have in each other and drawing it out, calling it out, naming it and allowing it to RISE! It is here right before our eyes! Accountability means that we name our deaths when we name our Lives!

What kind of sign must we see or experience in order to move from the pile of cloaks to the table of sharing? How can the stones become manna, i.e., the “bread of life?” Why couldn’t’ the bread from heaven given by Jesus be the same bread that we can find in and give to each other? Can a piece of bread, shared in life, name and heal the poverty and violence in our world? Yes it can!

“For the bread of God is that which comes down from heaven and gives life to the world.”

Peace

Thomas