On the Colliding Point of Conscience
May 3, 2026
Rev. Traceymay Kalvaitis
Acts 7:55-60
[The disciple, Stephen,] filled with the Holy Spirit, 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.
Psalm 31:1-5
In you, O LORD, I seek refuge; do not let me ever be put to shame; in your righteousness deliver me. Incline your ear to me; rescue me speedily. Be a rock of refuge for me, a strong fortress to save me. You are indeed my rock and my fortress; for your name’s sake lead me and guide me; take me out of the net that is hidden for me, for you are my refuge. Into your hand I commit my spirit.
John 14:1-6
“Do not let your hearts be troubled. Believe in God; believe also in me. In my Father’s house there are many dwelling places. If it were not so, would I have told you that I go to prepare a place for you? And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and will take you to myself, so that where I am, there you may be also. And you know the way to the place where I am going.” Thomas said to him, “Lord, we do not know where you are going. How can we know the way?” Jesus said to him, “I am the way and the truth and the life.”
***
Today’s sermon is titled On the Colliding Point of Conscience.
The online encyclopedia, Brittancia, recently updated their entry about Alexi Navalny. The update was prompted in late February of this year when five western powers (the UK, France, Germany, the Netherlands and Sweden) issued the lab results that confirmed Alexi Navalny was fatally poisoned while held in a Russian prison camp.* This was the second time Navalny had been poisoned. The first time, he was successfully evacuated to Germany where he was treated
for nerve-toxin poisoning. That was the Russian KGB’s first attempt to silence Vladimir Putin’s nemesis. Navlany was extremely popular with the people, he successfully exposed vast corruption networks within the Russian government, calling out the Russian elite as “crooks and thieves” and Nalvalny had gathered a groundswell of political support among the Russian population at large. Navalny placed himself on a collision course with Vladimir Putin in 2021 when Navalny returned to Russia from Germany, after his recovery from the first poisoning, to confront the authoritarian leader and expose the KGB’s draconian tactics. This was Navalny’s final colliding point of conscience and he will, I hope, forever be remembered for his conscientious objection.
Navalny was influenced at an early age with a colliding point of conscience. He spent summers with his grandmother near Chernobyl, Ukraine. After the nuclear disaster, it was blatantly
evident to the residents there that the Russian authorities were trying to cover up the extent of the radiation exposure by forcing local farmers to plant potatoes in soil that the farmers knew was already irradiated.* Nevalny’s family spoken openly about the Russian government’s attempt to cover up the effects of the Chernobyl leak. Nevalny was ten years old when faced what may have been his first colliding point of conscience; it would not be his last.
I titled this semon On the Colliding Point of Conscience and I had to look up the definition of the word conscience just to make sure I had it correctly in mind. Conscience is defined as “a sensitive regard for fairness or justice.” Alexi Navalny came to my mind this past week as I was studying about the disciple Stephen. Stephen was the first of an estimated tens of thousands of early Christians who were publicly executed by the hands of empire. We can learn more about Stephen from the sixth chapter of the book of Acts.
It is written, “In those days when the number of disciples was increasing, the Hellenistic Jews among them complained against the Hebraic Jews because their widows were being overlooked in the daily distribution of food. So the Twelve gathered all the disciples together and said,
‘Brothers and sisters, choose seven men from among you who are known to be full of the Spirit
and wisdom. We will turn the responsibility to them for fairly distributing food.’ This proposal pleased the whole group. They chose Stephen, a man full of faith and of the Holy Spirit.”
And from the seventh chapter of Acts, we read more, “Now Stephen, a man full of God’s grace and power, performed great wonders and signs among the people. Opposition arose, however, from members of the Synagogue of the Freedmen (as it was called) who began to argue with Stephen. But they could not stand up against the wisdom the Spirit gave him as he spoke. Then they secretly persuaded some men to say, ‘We have heard Stephen speak blasphemous words against Moses and against God.’ So they stirred up the people and the elders and the teachers of the law. They seized Stephen and brought him before the Sanhedrin. All who were sitting in the Sanhedrin looked intently at Stephen, and they saw that his face was like the face of an angel.”
What follows is a lengthy indictment against the religious elite that ended in the public stoning of the first of Jesus’s followers. We should note, in the account we read today, that we are introduced to Saul in the following line that says, “the witnesses laid their coats at the feet of a young man named Saul.” Saul experienced a colluding point of conscience, too. Saul was a major player in the early persecution of Jesus’s followers. Saul would go out and round up followers of Jesus and bring them back to the temple for questioning. Then, one day, as he was in hot pursuit, he was blinded by a bright light. For three days he could not see until he was subsequently healed by one of the members of the community he was terrorizing. After his sight was restored, Saul joined the community and was renamed Paul. Seven of letters in our Second Testament are attributed to him; we know these letters by the names First and Second Corinthians, Romans, Galatians, Philippians, Philemon and First Thessalonians. Paul is credited with spreading the liberating message of Christ far and wide throughout the Roman Empire. Over his 35 year ministry, he was arrested seven times and at his final colliding point of conscience, he was beheaded under orders of the Roman Emperor, Nero, in 67 A.D. Had Paul not been a Roman citizen, he, like Jesus, would have been crucified.
Jesus tells his disciples, in our reading from John for today, that he is “the way, the truth, and the life.” In following Jesus’s teachings, we should expect to have many points where our conscience, our sensitive regard for fairness and justice, collide with the ways of the world. Many who have spoken up for fairness and justice, down through the ages, have lost their livelihoods and sometimes their lives. Jesus, Stephen, Paul, and Alexi Nevalny are just a few of the many that we remember today. Empire sought to silence them, sought to disappear them, and yet we remember them today as we continue the struggle for fairness and justice in our society. May our colliding points of conscience be our guide as we follow the way, the truth and the life that is Christ.
In closing, I offer you words from the late Alexi Nevalny, “If they decide to kill me then it means we are incredibly strong and we need to use that power and not give up. We don’t realise how strong we actually are.”**
*https://www.britannica.com/biography/Aleksey-Navalny
**https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/who-was-alexei-navalny-what-did-he-say-russia-putin-
death-2024-02-16/
Pastoral Prayer
God of grace and mercy, we lift our prayers with full hearts this morning. There are so many who are suffering in various ways. There are unprecedented numbers of people without shelter, there are communities in mourning in the wake of gun violence, there are nations at war, and on
the surface of things it can appear that we, as a society are on the verge of collapse. But beneath the surface and in the midst of much strife we are still caring for one another in ways small and large. We are grateful for the impulse within us to give of ourselves. May we remember what we are truly capable of. And may we never, ever, give up our yearning for a better, safer, world. So be it. Amen.
Benediction
I leave you with the following words from the book of First Thessalonians 5:23
“May the God of Peace sanctify you completely, and may your spirit and soul and body be sound.”