They stumble because they disobey the word, as they were destined to do.

Transcription

1 Peter 2: Rid yourselves, therefore, of all malice, and all guile, insincerity, envy, and all slander. 2 Like newborn infants, long for the pure, spiritual milk, so that by it you may grow into salvation 3 if indeed you have tasted that the Lord is good. 4 Come to him, a living stone, though rejected by mortals yet chosen and precious in God s sight, and 5 like living stones, let yourselves be built into a spiritual house, to be a holy priesthood, to offer spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ. 6 For it stands in scripture: See, I am laying in Zion a stone, a cornerstone chosen and precious; and whoever believes in him will not be put to shame. 7 To you then who believe, he is precious; but for those who do not believe, The stone that the builders rejected has become the cornerstone, 8 and A stone that makes them stumble, and a rock that makes them fall. They stumble because they disobey the word, as they were destined to do. 9 But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God s own people, in order that you may proclaim the mighty acts of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light. 10 Once you were not a people, but now you are God s people; once you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy. 1

2 Living Stones Popular culture is always subject to fads things that occupy our attention with great intensity for a short period of time but that we soon lose interest in. There have been dance fads, like the Twist [SLIDE] in the early 1960s and the Macarena [SLIDE] in the mid 1990s. The most recent dance fad is the Dab. It s basically just one move. It looks this. It started last year with an American football player who celebrated with the move whenever he scored a touchdown [VIDEO]. As you can see, not everyone is a fan. The Dab has crossed the ocean and can be seen in K-Pop [SLIDE] and on the soccer pitch [SLIDE]. In a sure-fire sign that the popularity of the Dab has peaked, some of the presidential candidates were somehow persuaded to demonstrate the move [VIDEO]. Another recent fad from a few years back was planking. Planking was the opposite of a dance move. The object of planking [SLIDE] was to lie on your stomach, flat and motionless, like a plank of wood, preferably in a public space. How long one held the position was up to the planker. Planking actually began as an abdominal exercise [SLIDE] but morphed into a cultural phenomenon with people finding ever more creative public spaces in which to plank [SLIDES]. A fad from my childhood in the early 1980s was the Rubik s Cube [SLIDE]. I had one, but I was never able to solve more than one side. So frustrating! Going back a few more years, another fad that briefly swept through America in the mid 1970s was the pet rock. You heard correctly. The pet rock. The pet rock was the idea of a freelance advertising copywriter from California named Gary Dahl. Dahl was sitting in a bar one night listening to his friends complain about the amount of time they spent caring for their pet dogs feeding them, walking them, cleaning up after them, grooming them, etc. 2

3 Listening to his friends complain about their pets, Dahl was struck with a jolt of inspiration, and the idea of the pet rock was born. A pet rock was the perfect pet for the self-absorbed Me Generation of the 1970s. It didn t need to be fed, or walked, or groomed. It didn t bark at the neighbors. It didn t eat the couch cushions. Dahl found two investors who shared his enthusiasm for the idea of the pet rock and who gave him the capital he needed to begin. With that capital he went to a building supply store and purchased thousands of smooth Mexican beach stones for about a penny a piece. The genius of the pet rock, however, lay in the packaging [SLIDE]. Dahl created a cardboard carrying case for the pet rock, complete with air holes for the rock to breathe and a bed of straw to keep the rock comfortable. Taking it one step further [SLIDE], inside each carrying case was a manual with instructions on how to care for and train the rock. The instructions were all part of the joke, and included lines about how quickly the pet rock would learn to sit and stay, and how it would naturally know how to play dead. Dahl had fantastic timing. The pet rock debuted just in time for Christmas 1975 and could be purchased for the low low price of $3.95. Now, you might think, who would spend $4 on a pet rock? A lot of people. In fact, in a matter of months Dahl sold more than 1.5 million rocks, and in the process became a millionaire [SLIDE]. As to be expected, the pet rock fad died as quickly as it began. The country moved on to other fads, like mood rings, roller skating, and disco dancing. The pet rock is now just another chapter in American pop cultural history, and a reminder of how weird the 1970s could be. The idea of a pet rock, was of course, a joke. Rocks are inanimate. They re not alive. A pet rock is a contradiction. And so is a living stone, yet that s how we see 3

4 Jesus described in today s passage from 1 Peter [SLIDE]: Come to him, a living stone, Peter urges. He then extends the metaphor beyond Jesus to the church: like living stones, let yourselves be built into a spiritual house (1 Pet. 2:4-5). What on earth is a living stone? Peter helps his audience understand what he means by filling the passage with references to the Jewish Scriptures, i.e., what we would call the Old Testament. There are at least eight references to passages from the Old Testament. He spells it out for them in verse 6, noting that the Scripture says [SLIDE]: See, I am laying in Zion a stone, a cornerstone chosen and precious; and whoever believes in him will not be put to shame (1 Pet. 2:6). Peter is quoting Isaiah 28:16. There God speaks through Isaiah to promise the construction of a new temple, which is odd because at the time Isaiah 28 was written, the temple in Jerusalem was still standing. What s even more odd is that the temple Isaiah speaks of is not a building made of stone but a person who will be a cornerstone chosen and precious...whoever believes in him will not be put to shame. This is not the only time in the Bible in which the stone of the temple is used as a metaphor for the servant of God. In the Gospel of John, when Jesus clears the temple of the money changers, they ask him for a sign to prove his authority. He says to them [SLIDE]: Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up. 20 The Jewish authorities then said, This temple has been under construction for fortysix years, and will you raise it up in three days? 21 But he was speaking of the temple of his body (Jn. 2:19-21). 4

5 Jesus is a living stone whose resurrection from the dead makes him the cornerstone of God s new creation. In Jesus Christ, God has laid the foundation for a new way of being and a new way of belonging. Let s look at the second of these first. Belonging. To whom did Jesus belong? Peter notes that Jesus was rejected by mortals, which would include Peter himself, as well as all the disciples (1 Pet. 2:4). They all rejected him. They abandoned him. They denied him. Yet although Jesus was rejected by mortals, he was chosen and precious in God s sight (1 Pet. 2:4). He was chosen by God to be the cornerstone of God s new temple not a temple of brick and stone but of flesh and blood. That Jesus was chosen for this was a sign that he belonged to God. The same is true of Israel. Scripture tells us that God chose Israel from among all the nations of the earth not for any logical, rational reason. It was not because Israel was rich or powerful and therefore deserving of, or qualified to receive, God s favor. No, as Deuteronomy 7:8 famously says, it was because the Lord loved Israel that God chose her. And in being chosen, Israel belonged to God. To have a sense of belonging is a fundamental human need. We all need to belong to something greater than ourselves. To whom do you belong? That may sound like a strange question, but I ask you to think of that for a moment. There are lots of ways of answering the question. If you re married, your first response might be that you belong to your spouse. That s a good answer, especially if they can hear you say it! Or you might say in a more general sense that you belong to your family. For many of us, the family bond is our strongest. If you re extremely patriotic, you might say that you belong to your country. Or perhaps your employer. Korea has a strong corporate culture that encourages employees to bond over mandatory meals and drinks and singing at a noraebang. If you re still in school, your sense of belonging may come from there. Or 5

6 it may come from your social circle, i.e., your friends [SLIDE]. Did you ever notice how friends often dress alike? It s their way of saying to each other, and to the people around them, that they share a sense of belonging. Whatever it is, we all gravitate toward some larger group that gives us a sense of belonging and identity. Peter is making the case that we as Christians belong first and foremost to God. Before spouse, before family, before nation, before employer, before school, before friends we belong to God [SLIDE]: But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God s own people, he writes (1 Pet. 2:9). All of these phrases chosen race, royal priesthood, holy nation, and God s own people can be found in the Old Testament. Peter is drawing upon them to say to his original audience and to us that just as Israel belonged to God, so too do we. Just as Israel was chosen from among all the nations on earth, so we are a chosen race. Let me just add, by race Peter doesn t mean skin color. He s referring to all who profess faith in Jesus Christ, regardless of skin color, or nationality, or gender, or any other descriptor. Just as Israel was a nation of priests, so we are a royal priesthood. Just as Israel was called by God to be holy, so we are a holy nation. Just as Israel is God s people, so too are we God s own people. Peter is stressing the idea of belonging for a particular reason. The audience he was writing to needed to hear that message [SLIDE]. Peter was writing to Christians in five Roman provinces of Asia Minor, or what is now the nation of Turkey. Many were likely converts from Roman pagan religion. To convert from paganism to Christianity in the Roman Empire of the first century was to invite hardship, and even persecution. Your family might disown you. Your friends might think better of being friends with you. You could reasonably expect to be persecuted in some way, perhaps even violently. 6

7 Yesterday in our Tea-ology meeting we watched part 5 of a documentary on the early church. We learned how the early Christians were often scorned by Roman society. Strangely, the Romans regarded Christians as atheists because they wouldn t acknowledge the Roman gods. Christians were threatened with death unless they would sacrifice to the gods. If they refused, they were immediately killed. It is a similar situation that Peter is addressing in this letter. Much of 1 Peter, outside of what we read today, is written to a persecuted community, urging them to endure unjust suffering. It includes advice such as [SLIDE]: 20 If you endure when you are beaten for doing wrong, what credit is that? But if you endure when you do right and suffer for it, you have God s approval. 21 For to this you have been called, because Christ also suffered for you, leaving you an example, so that you should follow in his steps (1 Pet. 2:20-21). Peter understood that to proclaim Christ as Lord would put the believer in conflict with the world. They might lose their family. They might lose their friends. They might lose their standing in society. That s why he stresses that although they may be rejected by the world, they are chosen by God. And in that regard they are in good company, for Jesus too, was rejected by mortals and yet was chosen and precious in God s sight. Peter turns again to the Hebrew Scriptures [SLIDE]: The stone that the builders rejected has become the cornerstone (1 Pet. 2:7). It is upon that cornerstone the cornerstone of Jesus Christ that we are being built into a spiritual house. The church building in which we now worship is made of stone, but that stone is lifeless. We, on the other hand, are living stones, and we the church are not the building in which we worship. The church is not a building. The 7

8 church is us, the holy people of God. We, this church, this English Ministry, are living stones because our life is grounded in the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ, the cornerstone of God s new creation. We belong to him. In one of my seminary classes we studied the confessions of faith that Reformed churches have proclaimed over the years. My favorite was the Heidelberg Catechism. Heidelberg is a city in Germany, which is where the catechism was written. A catechism is simply a curriculum in question-and-answer format. The Heidelberg Catechism is a series of 129 questions and answers. It was meant to be memorized. The first question asks [SLIDE]: What is your only comfort in life and death? The answer: That I am not my own, but belong body and soul, in life and in death, to my faithful Savior, Jesus Christ. Because I belong to him, Christ, by his Holy Spirit, assures me of eternal life and makes me wholeheartedly willing and ready from now on to live for him. It is our sense of belonging that not only tells us who we are, it also tells us what we are to do, how we are to live. Because we belong to Christ, we reflect Christ into the world his grace, his mercy, his forgiveness, his hope, his love. We gather here because he has called us in his love. He has called us into community. Here in this community we are formed here by his love. He strengthens us and feeds us with his pure, spiritual milk, not only for our sakes, but for the sake of the world that he then sends us into. He sends us into the world as his own people, so that we may proclaim the mighty acts of him who called us out of darkness into his marvelous light (1 Pet. 2:9). 8

9 By the grace and love of Jesus Christ, we are gathered, formed, and sent into the world to reflect his marvelous light. That is who we are. That is what we do. To echo Peter, who echoes the Hebrew Scriptures: Once we were not a people, but now we are God s people. Once we had not received mercy, but now we have received mercy. Let us then show that we belong to Jesus Christ by bearing his mercy into the world. 9