On the comic pages of the Caller-Times, you can find a cartoon called Non-Sequitur. Recently the artist has been featuring a series based on the differences between what one person says and another person hears—specifically men and women. Friday the strip featured a couple dining in a fine restaurant with wine and candlelight. Each of the two panels captured the same moment—the same words spoken. What did she hear? The woman heard the man say: "You can stop dieting and eat like a normal person."

What had the man actually said? He had said, "Will you marry me?"

One could easily take offense at the cartoon’s stereotyping. I understand that. But there is a bit of reality here of which we would want to be aware. That reality is this: The woman’s diet, her getting into shape, so to speak, had a purpose. It was not simply to do it. It had some larger intent, even if that intent was only to present herself well before her boyfriend.

Isn’t that always the case? Exercising and watching our diet are not ends in themselves. They are means. They have the purpose of making us feel better or look better or live longer. We don’t get into shape to get in shape; we get in shape for a larger reason.

Last week, I suggested that we may need to get into spiritual shape. I identified a regimen for becoming healthy Christians and a healthy church. That regimen includes devotion to the authority of Scripture, particularly the New Testament; to an intimate fellowship where we are real and honest with one another; to faithfulness in worship and in attendance to the tradition that we have received. I believe it is vital that we practice such a regimen for our spiritual health.

Yet it needs to be said that these practices are not ends in themselves. We don’t do them just to do them. We don’t do them to make us feel better about ourselves or look better before God or even to live eternally with God. They have a greater purpose—they prepare us to witness to our faith in Christ. They make it possible for us to live in such a way as to make Jesus know.

Today, as we contemplate the story of Stephen, I want us to see the purpose toward which spiritual health is intended.

One purpose of getting spiritually healthy is so that we can serve others.

You might remember from last week that the earliest Christians shared all things in common and met together for meals. At first the apostles were responsible for making sure that everyone was taken care of, particularly the widows and orphans. But they were also responsible for teaching the faith to all those new converts. Apparently the two tasks were overwhelming and a complaint arose. Some of those who were Greek-speaking Jews complained that their widows and orphans were getting overlooked when food was being distributed. So the apostles gathered those who were upset and told them to select seven men of good standing, full of the Holy Spirit and of wisdom, and the apostles would appoint them to distribute the food. In effect, they are told to select seven men with healthy spiritual lives so that they could serve others. Of course, one of those was Stephen. In fact he is the first one mentioned, and he is the only one whose faith is noted. Luke says he was a man of great faith and full of the Holy Spirit. It was this spiritual health that prepared him to serve.

Too often we overlook the importance of spiritual health when we talk about serving. Many of you have served on a Nominating Committee. It is always an interesting experience. But often what happens is that we start looking for a body, any body, to fill out the list of available spots. Sometimes those who end up called to service lack the spiritual health to do so. Some use the position to meet their own ego needs. Others become overwhelmed by the realities of such service and fail to do what needs to be done.

But the spiritually healthy manage. In fact, spiritually healthy people rejoice in serving others. We see that in the fact that those who are active members of churches tend to give more and do more for others. In fact, the more active they are, the more likely they are to be giving and serving others, even outside the church. The correlation is a simple one. Because they are spiritually healthy, because their needs are met in the love and grace of God, they can meet the needs of others.

We seek spiritual health so that we can serve in the order of Stephen and Jesus Christ.

But preparing for service is only one reason for getting spiritually healthy. Another is so that we can boldly speak of God’s love for us in Jesus Christ.

Here again Stephen is a model. Luke tells us that Stephen didn’t just serve folks within the early church. He also began to share his faith in Jesus Christ. He would go to the Temple and tell them how God had come in Jesus, how he was the long-awaited Messiah, how he offered love and grace, how he called all people to come and follow him. So boldly and effectively did he speak that those who argued with him were stymied. So they plotted against him. They had people accuse him of blasphemy, had him arrested and brought before the Jewish council.

Yet even there—standing in front of people who could order him punished or even killed—he spoke boldly, recounting the history of Israel and its rebellion against God. He even equated those to whom he was speaking—those who were complicit in the death of Jesus—with those who had in the past stoned the prophets of God. Because he was spiritually healthy, Stephen could boldly speak of the faith in Jesus Christ.

Years ago, when I was a copy editor for a newspaper, I was hired to serve a small, floundering church. Part of my job description included going door-to-door, asking folks if they had a church and, if they didn’t, inviting them to that little congregation. As I look back now, I wonder, "What in the world was I thinking?" Oh, I had been a Sunday School teacher and a deacon at King’s Highway Christian Church, but I was only 25 years old and had been a Christian less than seven years. Quite frankly, I don’t think that I had the spiritual maturity, the spiritual health, to boldly share the Good News as I should have.

But you know what would have been worse? If I would have never gotten spiritually healthy—if today, after two-dozen years as a Christian, after years of church-going, I was still unable to tell people why I believe Jesus Christ is Lord and Savior of the world and why he wants them to come and follow him. It would be worse because I would still not be fulfilling the purpose God has for each of us, and that is to boldly speak of Jesus Christ as Lord. We are called to spiritual health so that we can make that witness.

But there is a third reason for us to strive to get spiritually healthy. It is to help us and others see beyond themselves to the glory of God.

Terry Parsons works in the Office of Stewardship of the Episcopal Church. She and a colleague have spent several years examining the Christian life in light of Abraham Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs. Maslow said that people have seven levels of needs, ranging for basic physiological needs like oxygen, food and drink, up to self-actualization where the needs are things like truth and beauty, goodness and unity. Most folks fall somewhere in between. What this means, Parsons says, is that most of us find it hard to look past ourselves and our needs. For example, if our basic need is food and drink, then we can’t think much past the next few hours or the next few days. On the other hand, if our primary need is to belong, to be a part of a community, we can think only a year or so down the road. But what Parsons has discovered is that the stronger one’s spiritual health, the more we can see beyond ourselves. In fact, she says that the truly spiritually healthy have a vision span of at least through their lifetime and maybe into eternity.

That is the kind of spiritual health Stephen had. When he had finished his defense before the Jewish council—the one in which he accused them of rebellion against God—they were enraged. They were furious. So angry were they that their teeth were clenched in rage. Yet in that moment, when it was clear that they were ready to pounce on him, drag him from the city, and stone him, what did Stephen see? Not his own need for survival, not his own life passing before his eyes, but the glory of God. He looked up to heaven and it opened before him. And there was God with Jesus standing at his right hand. He knew that what mattered was not his life, his accomplishments, his success. What mattered was that God was glorified in all that he did.

It is hard to do that. It is hard to make the day-to-day decisions in the light of the glory of God. It takes spiritual health to do. It takes maturity. But it can be done. And when we do it, people see Christ at work.

There is one final purpose for regaining our spiritual health.

When Stephen shared his vision with the Council, they found it more than they could take. The thought of Jesus, the one who was crucified, standing next to God as the Messiah, as the Judge, as the one means of salvation, was to them unthinkable. So they rushed Stephen and dragged him from the city. Once outside the walls, they pulled off their cloaks and began to stone him. What had been a legal proceeding led by the righteous religious leaders of the community had dissolved into a lynch mob. Any pretense of respectability was cast aside as they unleashed their furor upon Stephen.

But what did he do? Did he return anger for anger? Did he curse them for the injustice being done to him?

No, he forgave them. He looked to heaven and prayed, "Lord, do not hold this sin against them." Just as Jesus his Lord had looked from cross on those who had crucified him and asked God to forgive them, so Stephen prayed for those who stoned him.

Followers of Jesus are called to witness to him by praying for and forgiving their enemies—and that is no small or simple task. In his book The Ragamuffin Gospel,

Brennan Manning said that one morning he had a horrifying experience. He tried to remember how often between 1941 and 1988 he had wept for a German or Japanese, a North Korea or North Vietnamese, a Sandinista or Cuban. And he said he couldn’t remember a single time. And it left it weeping, not for them, but for himself and his failure to witness to God of forgiveness.

If praying for and forgiving a nation’s enemies is so difficult for a man like Manning—a spiritual leader and former priest—how much harder is it for the rest of us to forgive a stranger who attacks us, a co-worker who uses us, a friend who fails us, a spouse who betrays us?

Forgiving is not something one can do without spiritual health. It requires all the love of God, the grace of Jesus, the power of the Spirit to do so. It requires all the resources that come from a deep and growing faith. Those who have those resources witness fully to Jesus Christ. They fulfill their purpose as his followers.

Years ago, Kennon Callahan wrote a book entitled "Twelve Keys to an Effective Church." In the opening paragraph, he states the fundamental premise of his work. "The purpose of planning," he writes, "is action, not planning. The purpose of planning is mission, not meetings."

Today a lot of books and writings about spirituality suggest that people need to get spiritual healthy just to be spiritually healthy. But that is not true for followers of Jesus Christ. We are called to spiritual health for one reason and one reason only, so that we can witness to Jesus Christ. We are called, as a said last week, to a regimen of Scripture, fellowship, worship and tradition all so that we can serve, share, see and forgive in such a way that the whole world will know that Jesus Christ is Lord.