3rd Sunday of Easter
Acts 6:8-15
Stephen, full of grace and power, did great wonders and signs among the people. Then some of those who belonged to the synagogue of the Freedmen (as it was called), Cyrenians, Alexandrians, and others of those from Cilicia and Asia, stood up and argued with Stephen. But, they could not withstand the wisdom and the Spirit with which he spoke.
Then they secretly instigated some men to say, “We have heard him speak blasphemous words against Moses and God.” They stirred up the people as well as the elders and the scribes; then they suddenly confronted him, seized him, and brought him before the council. They set up false witnesses who said, “This man never stops saying things against this holy place and the law, for we have heard him say that this Jesus of Nazareth will destroy this place and will change the customs that Moses handed on to us.”
And, all who sat in the council looked intently at him, and they saw that his face was like the face of an angel.
Acts 7:1-2
Then, the high priest asked him, “Are these things so?” And, Stephen replied:
“Brothers and fathers, listen to me. The God of glory appeared to our ancestor Abraham when he was in Mesopotamia, before he lived in Haran,
Acts 7:44-60
“Our ancestors had the tent of testimony in the wilderness, as God directed when he spoke to Moses, ordering him to make it according to the pattern he had seen. Our ancestors in turn brought it in with Joshua when they dispossessed the peoples whom God drove out before our ancestors. And, it was there until the time of David, who found favor with God and asked that he might find a dwelling place for the house of Jacob. But, it was Solomon who built a house for him. Yet, the Most High does not dwell in houses made with human hands; as the prophet says,
‘Heaven is my throne,
and the earth is my footstool.
What kind of house will you build for me, says our God,
or what is the place of my rest?
Did not my hand make all these things?’
“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.”
When they heard these things, they became enraged and ground their teeth at Stephen. 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.
“Look,” he said, “I see the heavens opened and the Son of Man standing at the right hand of God!”
But, they covered their ears, and with a loud shout all rushed together against him. 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.
While they were stoning Stephen, he prayed, “Lord Jesus, receive my spirit.” Then, he knelt down and cried out in a loud voice, “Lord, do not hold this sin against them.”
When he had said this, he died.
Sacrifice Is not the Point
Hanna Dugan was one of eight children, the daughter of Catholic parents in New Berlin, Wisconsin, part of the Milwaukee metropolitan area. Tom Barrett, a former mayor of Milwaukee, remembers that the Dugan family had an old red fire engine parked by their home. He said, “They were really a very interesting family. Just a very colorful family.”
Hanna graduated from Catholic Memorial High School, and later got her law degrees from the University of Wisconsin. After that, she worked for Legal Action of Wisconsin and the Legal Aid Society of Milwaukee for eighteen years, serving the poor, elderly, and differently abled. She became the head of the Volunteer Lawyers Project, connecting lawyers with clients who couldn’t afford legal representation. Mary E. Triggiano, the director of the Andrew Center for Restorative Justice at Marquette University Law School said, “Dugan’s faith and her devotion to community have always been tightly woven together.”
Dugan taught law as an adjunct professor at Marquette University, and served on the ethics boards of both the city of Milwaukee, and Milwaukee County, the Benedict Center and Dominican Center, as well as the board overseeing the Archdiocese of Milwaukee’s response to clergy sexual abuse. She also served as the Milwaukee Bar Association president.
During her career, she argued for the rights of the unsheltered, immigrants, and for people who wanted to protest at City Hall. She began her private practice in 2010, focusing on disability, Social Security, and veteran’s law.
In 2016, Dugan was elected to a circuit judge seat. She was known for maintaining tight control over her courtroom, and moved through the cases brought before her in a more deliberate manner than a lot of the other judges. She was known for dotting every “I” and crossing every “t”, something that frustrated many attorneys who had to argue their cases before her. Social worker Rachel Richter said, “She is literally the biggest stickler of the law. She is following every single nuance of the law to a T.” Which is why Richter was utterly stunned when Dugan was arrested by FBI agents on suspicion of obstructing law enforcement on April 25, 2025.
Prosecutors claim that Dugan tried to help an undocumented immigrant avoid arrest after he had appeared in her courtroom. They said that she led Eduardo Flores-Ruiz into a non-public hallway after discovering that ICE agents had come to arrest him without a judicial warrant. He was subsequently arrested shortly thereafter, outside of the courtroom, and Dugan was charged with two felony counts of obstruction and concealing an individual.
Like the martyr Stephen in our readings today, Dugan was only trying to do the right thing. She is now being punished for not complying with the demands of the ICE agents, an act that she believed as a judge was within her rights and was not breaking any laws. From her background, we can tell, like Stephen, that she is a good and just person; her life is a reflection of her faith. She never tried to be partisan, and she never wanted to be in the spotlight. But, she refused to go along with what ICE was doing in her courtroom. She is someone with authority who stood up and said, “No! This is wrong!” And now, that authority has been taken away from her. So, we have to ask, does a person really have any authority if they have no choice in how they use it?
The people who disagreed with Stephen could not find fault with what he was saying; “they could not withstand the wisdom and the Spirit with which he spoke.” So, instead, they had to make up lies. They told people that they had heard him “speak blasphemous words against Moses and God.” They brought false witnesses who accused him of speaking against the temple and saying that Jesus was going to change the customs that Moses had handed down to them. But, even as all of that was happening, “they saw that his face was like the face of an angel.” Even as they were throwing their false accusations against him, they knew that he was telling the truth, that he was a good and just person.
And, Stephen lays out for them exactly what they’re doing, so that there can be no confusion about what they’re doing. He calls them stiff-necked and uncircumcised in heart and ears, meaning they are spiritually blind and deaf, unable to feel God’s presence among them. He tells them that they are in opposition to the Holy Spirit, just like their ancestors who persecuted and killed the prophets. He tells them that they have betrayed and murdered the Righteous One, that they have received the law from the angels, but that they have not kept it. So, they drag him outside of the city to kill him.
And, while all of this is happening, Stephen is filled with the Holy Spirit. The heavens open up to him, and he sees God! He sees Jesus, and he proclaims with joy to the people around him, the people who are dragging him outside of the city to stone him to death, because he wants them to see God, too. And, just like when Jesus was dying on the cross, Stephen says, “Lord, do not hold this sin against them.”
We are living in extremely trying times, right now. It can be hard to know what the right thing to do is, and even when we think we know the right thing to do, actually doing might be another matter, completely. Are we willing to risk alienating ourselves from our friends and neighbors? Are we willing to become estranged from our families? Would we be able to risk our careers, our livelihoods, or even jail time, like Judge Dugan? What would have to happen for us to think that we would have to give up our lives for a cause, like Stephen?
There are no easy answers here, and I can’t tell you where to draw that line in the sand for yourself. But, I think it’s important to spend some time thinking about these questions, so that we aren’t blindsided by a difficult choice, should the situation arise. The things that Jesus asked us to do are often not the easy or popular choice. These decisions often involve sacrifice, physical toil and emotional labor, and no small amount of courage. Do not doubt that God is asking this of us. God is asking us to be the bastion that holds back death and destruction.
Like Stephen in his final moments, we are not alone in this work. We have been empowered by the Holy Spirit to do this work. Jesus walks with us, hand-in-hand, as we do this work. And, God is always there, working right alongside us, as we do this work.
It is our job to protect the weak, to feed the hungry, to heal the sick, and bring hope to the hopeless. We are the shelter in the storm and the light in the shadows. It is our job to bring comfort, justice, peace, and joy to all of the people of the world. And, even though this work will always require some kind of sacrifice, know that the sacrifice itself is not the goal. God does not want us to suffer. Suffering is not the point. Pain and loss are not the point. Martyrdom is not the point. Love is the point. Relationship is the point. Peace and joy are the point. That is what God wants for us; that is all that God ever wants for us.
But, right now, there are so many people in the world who do not know peace, and do not know joy. What are you willing to give up for them? What are you willing to give up for God?
Amen.
~ Rev. Charles Wei
