Being a preacher is an honor and a privilege. It's a humbling thing to have a group of people trust you enough to dive deep into God's word and with the help of the Holy Spirit, find something worth sharing each and every Sunday. It's a sacred task, but can also lead to some pretty sticky moments every once in a while. Like for instance, sometimes you're in the middle of a sermon series looking at the fruit of the Spirit, and that week's fruity flavor is patience. And wouldn't you know it, the same lady who always forgets to silence her cell phone, you know who she is? Well, she forgets to do it again, and it rings right in the middle of your sermon, twice. I'm trying to teach about patience here, right? It's a sacred task. It's a holy task, but it's a tricky task, week in and week out, to find something new worth bringing to your congregation.

One of the things that helps with this freshness for me, one of the things that I really enjoy more than I thought I would, is guest preaching, being invited into a new congregation, a new space to share some of that good news. But even this, this too can get a little bit prickly. I always try to check in before I go to a new congregation to guest preach now, like, is there anything I should know about within the community? Is there anything that I should have a heads up on before I come? I went to a church a couple years ago, and I preached on Zechariah eight. And the beautiful image that I kept going back to was from verse five, and the streets of the city shall be full of boys and girls playing in its streets. And I said something cheesy, like I can almost hear them giggling now, playing tag out in the parking lot, can't you? Well, no one told me that they decided to close their preschool at the last month, and that would have been useful information. They got very angry with me. Yeah, guest preaching can be fun, but guest preaching can also be very tricky.

And while we're on the topic, next time you welcome someone to be a guest preacher in your congregation, will you please assign someone kind just to sit next to them in worship and let them know when they're supposed to stand up and when they're supposed to sit back down. I can't tell you how much of a leg exercise I've gotten in certain congregations, sitting and standing when I'm not supposed to. Now, I'm a good Presbyterian boy, and I come from a good Presbyterian congregation, and we do things decently and in order where I come from. So if you're expected to stand at any point in our worship service, do you know what we do? Yeah, we put that little asterisk next to it in the bulletin. So it doesn't just say call to worship. It says asterisks call to worship, which means, please rise as you are able for our call to worship. Then you stand, the asterisk means stand. And we make that plain as day. We put it in italicized font, in six point lettering, and page seven, you know, clear as day, but that way, everyone knows when to stand and when to sit.

I was invited to preach in an Episcopalian service a few years back, and not only did they not have asterisks, but they also had kneelers. As you can imagine, I was completely lost the entire service, stand, sit, kneel, sit, stand, sit, kneel. Sometimes I was standing and I was head and shoulders above everyone else, and other times I was trying to catch up, bumping my knees and toes, knees and toes, and people were just staring at me, like, Why is he here preaching? He doesn't even know how to stand good. Is he trying to sit on the pulpit now? What's happening? The worst part was when the other worship leader walked down to the middle of the center aisle and he said, “A reading from the Gospel of Matthew” and everyone instantaneously stood now, I had just taken a sip of water, and I was scrambling to set it back down and to grab my bulletin, but before I could stand up and join them, the choir director looked at me and said, “We stand for the gospel around here”. And I was like, I'm trying, use asterisks, help me out.

Only other time that I got that frustrated, when the situation came to a complete standstill for me, was when my wife, my Meg, and I took our teenage daughters to an Ed Sheeran concert a couple months back. It was a Christmas present. It was a really fun night. And for those of you who don't know who Ed Sheeran is, he's like James Taylor, if he grew up with Spotify and decided to experiment with some of those sick hip hop beats. You know, that says it pretty well. He sold out the entire AT&T Stadium in Arlington, Texas. It's a huge stadium. It's the home of Dallas Cowboys football. Go cowboys. But that night, Ed Sheeran was our guest preacher slash quarterback, and he put on one heck of a concert. I remember when he started playing the song Galway girl, because my girls got so excited, they stood up and they started screaming and jumping, and that's when the group behind them said, “Hey, sit down. We can't see”.

Now my daughters love that song, and they love dancing to that song. They're both dancers, and they wanted to jump and dance and sing, but they're also very thoughtful and considerate humans, you know? And so they looked at me wondering what to do next, and I looked at them wondering what they were going to do next. And then my Meg nudged me gently, implying that I needed to handle this situation. And so I said something to the group of boomers behind them about this being their favorite song, and how they just love to dance to it, “but we can't see, we need them to sit down”. And I said, “Well, they've been sitting for like, a half an hour, and this is their favorite song, and honestly, there are no asterisks on the tickets, and so it's really unclear about the rules here, and they really want to dance”. “But we can't see” they snap back again. “They need to sit”. I wasn't exactly sure what to do here. I looked at my Meg. I looked at our girls. I ended up switching them seats so that they could stand and dance. And then I was directly in front of the grumpys, and I sat down. But then I just kind of sat there for a bit, completely distracted in my head, you know, thinking about how hard it is to know sometimes when to sit and when to stand.

And that's when I got curious. And so I looked up to see the ratio in the stadium. How many sit standers are there in AT&T Stadium right now, in that moment, and it seemed split. It was like, 50/50. Maybe I wasn't the only one struggling with this, you know. But then I got over it pretty quick.

I started to notice all the cowboy banners that were hanging up in that place. Super Bowl champs, 1971, 1977, champs 1992, 1993, 1995, that was a good streak in the 90s. Yeah, and there were some other banners too, like division titles, conference championships. But then I saw one. They said, 2016 won the NFC East with a record of 13 and three. And I thought, 2016 I know that year. 2016, that was the year that Colin Kaepernick decided to take a knee, and I wondered for a second. I wondered if he was confused about the whole sit stand stuff. But then I thought about it. I thought, no, he seemed pretty sure as to why he was doing what he was doing, protesting racial injustice and police brutality. I don't think he was confused, but he did make everything a little more confusing for everyone else during that time, though, right?

I mean, at all the ball games for the next couple years during the national anthem, not only did we now have a third option like the Episcopalian stand, sit, kneel, but every one of those actions seemed to be loaded. No one really seemed to agree on what people were supposed to do, and so people were staring at you like you're crazy if you stand up, and they were judging you like crazy if you remain seated or took a knee. And I remember it was 2016 when Colin Kaepernick did that. And I don't know if we call what he did taking a stand or taking a knee, but I do remember the entire NFL told him to sit down and be quiet. Because that next year, in 2017 Kaepernick was a free agent, dual threat, strong arm, dangerous and big place quarterback that nobody picked up, apparently because they didn't like his body postures. I remember them saying he just doesn't know when to stand. Standing, sitting, kneeling. Sometimes these actions are costly.

I’m still thinking about all this, that next Sunday in church, I wasn't guest preaching that next Sunday. Thanks be to God. I didn't have all the asterisks anxiety to deal with on that day, but I was still thinking about all this when we got to the part of the service in which we recite the Apostles Creed. You know, I believe in God, the Father Almighty, creator of heaven and earth. And I believe Jesus Christ, his only Son, our Lord, who was conceived, born, suffered, crucified, died, buried, descended on the third day. He rose again, he ascended into heaven. And then it says this, he is seated at the right hand of the Father. And I thought, Wow. I knew Jesus was good. But Jesus even found a way to solve this whole sit, stand, kneel, stuff for good too. He sat, you see, he took his seat. He seated at the right hand of God, and that seems to be where he's staying put, right? And this is all decent in order, too. It's all backed up by the scriptures.

Mark 16, so then the Lord Jesus, after he had spoken to them, was taken up into heaven and sat down at the right hand of God. Ephesians one, God raised Him from the dead and seated Him at His right hand in the heavenly places. Colossians three, seek the things that are above where Christ is seated at the right hand of God. Hebrews says over and over and over again, Jesus endured the cross and took his seat at the right hand of the throne of God. And I thought, well, maybe that solves it. Maybe that's our answer too. We need to sit. We need to stay put. Maybe the grumpy boomers were right. Maybe Colin Kaepernick was wrong. Maybe sitting is not the new smoking. Maybe sitting should be our new positioning standard. But that doesn't seem right, does it?

I mean, as Christians, we should take a seat sometimes, and sometimes, maybe even we should take a back seat. We should make sure that we're listening to everyone else. We should make sure that we're not the only ones talking. But as Christians, we're also called to take a stand sometimes, to stand against injustice impression. To stand against racism and violence and hatred and falsehood, lies, exploitation of the vulnerable, anything that diminishes the image of God and others. We're supposed to stand against these things and stand for things like justice and truth, love, peace. Stand for the dignity of all people, for reconciliation, stand for the gospel. And so sometimes we are called to sit, sometimes we are called to stand, and maybe even as Christians, sometimes we kneel. Kneel in prayer and humility and repentance, surrender, worship, gratitude, to show our total dependence on God. Kneel in response to others with respect and compassion and service and solidarity with those who suffer, bend the need to a higher purpose, to a higher calling, to our higher power.

And back to Jesus, Jesus did all these things too. Jesus stood against injustice and hypocrisy. Jesus stood to overturn those tables in the temple. Jesus stood for the truth before Pilate. Jesus stood with authority as he taught and called. Jesus stood up to read in the synagogues. Jesus stood in defense of others. Jesus stood to say, let anyone among you who is without sin cast the first stone. Jesus stood, but Jesus also knelt in Gethsemane in prayer, and the upper room in service, washing feet, humble obedience. Jesus also knelt. But even with all this, I still find myself thinking maybe that was just earthly Jesus. Maybe that was just Jesus while he was here, standing and kneeling, and the varying the postures like that. Maybe now Jesus just sits at the right hand of God. Maybe post resurrection, Jesus is tired. Maybe the ascension really took it out of Him. Maybe now Jesus just watches. Maybe now Jesus just observes and stares at the banners that we collect.

But then this text, our text for today from Acts seven the stoning of Stephen. Stephen was known for being full of faith and the Holy Spirit. He was wise and respected. He was helpful, serving, caring. And Stephen was doing just fine, doing all this, talking about Jesus, sharing the good news. Until he was brought before the Sanhedrin, the High Council, and they asked him, “Why are you doing all this?” And he said, “I do all these things for Jesus”. And they said, “are these things so?” which really meant, take a seat sport, leave these things thus, bend the knee so you don't get in trouble. That's really what they were saying. And even though Stephen knew what they meant, and even though Stephen knew what they’d do, Stephen stood up for Jesus.

Did you know Stephen actually gives the longest speech in the entire Book of Acts. He stood up for 52 verses and essentially said, Jesus meets us wherever we are, and so we don't just sit in faith. We live it. He essentially says, Jesus humbled himself before the Father. So we too must kneel in prayer and surrender and grace. Jesus stood for truth, and so we stand for justice and love as well. He said this for 52 verses. He stood and he said this for 52 verses, and then that's when they stoned him. That's when they stoned Stephen. The first Christian martyr, because of his body posture, because they didn't like his stances.

Sometimes these actions are costly. But interestingly, just before he died, Stephen saw a vision, and the text says, but filled with the Holy Spirit. He gazed into heaven and saw the glory of God, and Jesus standing at the right hand of God. Notice Jesus wasn't seated anymore. Jesus didn't stay seated for this. And then look, Stephen said, I see the heavens open. And the Son of Man standing at the right hand of God. When Stephen stood for Christ on earth, Christ stood for Stephen in heaven.

And you could take this a couple different ways. Maybe Jesus stands to welcome Stephen, embracing another beloved child of God. Or maybe Jesus stands as Stephen's advocate, like a defense witness from up in heaven. Or maybe even Jesus stands in solidarity, showing that God is not passive in suffering, but present with the persecuted at the ready still. You could take this couple different ways, or you could take it in all those ways, really. But the point is this, Jesus didn't remain seated. Jesus is still paying attention. So should we.

And last thing I'll say is this, I wish that I could say that there are going to be helpful asterisks in this life. I wish I could say that anytime you're supposed to move or kneel or sit or stand, I wish I could say that it will be made asterisks clear to you every time, always, but it probably won't. Yet, we can't just sit and watch, so kneel, go to God in prayer and discernment. And remember, not only do we stand for Christ that Christ stands with us. We stand for the gospel here. In the name of the Father and of the Son and the Holy Spirit, all God's people say, Amen.