The context of our story from Acts, the eighth chapter, is the persecution of the young church in Jerusalem. These days are perilous for those who had followed Jesus. The conflict becomes so violent that many leave Jerusalem and flee for safety to the regions of Judea and Samaria.
Stephen, one of the first seven deacons appointed to serve the community, becomes the first Christian martyr for his preaching. Opponents stone him to death for proclaiming that in Jesus the Righteous One has come.
Saul, who becomes Paul, approves of Stephen’s stoning In fact, he “was ravaging the church by entering house after house; dragging off both men and women, committing them to prison” (Acts 8:3). What an irony! The person whose influence in shaping the early church is absolutely central, is initially a religious zealot.
The persecutions do not frighten everyone into silence. Philip, another disciple among the first appointed deacons in the Jerusalem community, goes to Samaria, where he preaches and performs miracles of healing and exorcism. Philip baptizes many. His mission greatly encourages the faithful in Jerusalem, who send Peter and John to join him.
The newly baptized in Samaria have not received the Holy Spirit until Peter and John lay their hands on them, channeling the current of God’s presence into those gathered. With the coming of the Spirit, the new community in Samaria has all it needs to continue.
Philip preaches in Samaria.
Philip went down to the city of Samaria and proclaimed the Messiah to them. The crowds with one accord listened eagerly to what was said by Philip, hearing and seeing the signs that he did. Unclean spirits, crying with loud shrieks, came out of many who were possessed; and many others who were paralyzed or lame were cured. There was great joy in that city.
Now when the apostles at Jerusalem heard that Samaria had accepted the word of God, they sent Peter and John to them. The two went down and prayed for them that they might receive the Holy Spirit (for as yet the Spirit had not come upon any of them; they had only been baptized in the name of the Lord Jesus). Then Peter and John laid hands on them, and they received the Holy Spirit.
Acts 8.5-8, 14-17
Fast forward 2,000 years to our time, when many also utter threats in the name of God against other people. Religion continues to be both a tremendous force for good and a tremendous force for evil.
Nothing makes us kinder, more compassionate, or more willing to sacrifice our self interest for the sake of another than religion. Yet nothing makes us more dangerous than blind obedience, whether to a creed or a teacher. Nothing is more fraught with peril than being wedded to ends that justify violent means, often wrapped in religious language.
In our contemporary focus on religious extremists, particularly those within Islam, we may forget that both Judaism and Christianity have violence in their beginnings. Moses, the prophet and early leader of the Jews, murdered an Egyptian, when he saw the Egyptian oppressing one of his Hebrew relatives. The dynamic, expansive missionary Paul was initially the rampaging, religious zealot Saul.
Thankfully Paul’s conversion leads him to the mind-blowing insight that the human family is interconnected and that in Christ there is neither male nor female, Greek nor Jew; we are all one (Galatians 3.28). We Christians name the power that makes us aware of this truth as the Holy Spirit, yet other religions have language for the unity of all things as well.
Buddhism identifies this oneness in its concept of nonduality or interbeing. In Hinduism there is a belief that the divine resides in every human soul: Brahman (the ground of all being) and Atman, (the individual) are one. “Atman is Brahman. Brahman is Atman.”
Science brings its own language to the conversation about the indisputable truth that all is one. In one of the hopeful aspects of our time, scientists are in conversation with theologians, biblical scholars, ecologists, cosmologists, and others, proclaiming what religious traditions have celebrated for thousands of years: all life is one.
Whether we are talking particles or waves, neutrons or protons, or whales, humans, and hummingbirds, all are part of One Holy Web, one holy symphony. We in the West are so enamored of the individual self that we have to keep working to remember that God ordained connectivity. This brings us back where this reflection began—with Jesus’ reassurance that he and his disciples and their Creator are bound in an intricate communion that cannot be broken.
- What examples can you name of the violent use of religion?
- What can quell such violent impulses in human beings?
- How have you experienced the oneness of all things?
- Who do you know whose life has changed dramatically as Saul’s did?