1 Peter 2:2-10 June 22, 2014

Transcription

1 Living Stones Janet Chisom 1 Peter 2:2-10 June 22, 2014 Scripture: Acts 7:55-60 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. 1 Peter 2:2-10 Like newborn infants, long for the pure, spiritual milk, so that by it you may grow into salvation if indeed you have tasted that the Lord is good. Come to him, a living stone, though rejected by mortals yet chosen and precious in God s sight, and 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. 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. To you then who believe, he is precious; but for those who do not believe, The stone that the builders rejected has become the very head of the corner, 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. 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. 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. Prayer for Illumination: O Lord our God, You word is a lamp to our feet and a light to our path. Give us grace to receive your truth in faith and love, That we may be obedient to your will and live always for your glory. Amen. 1

2 Sermon: You have just heard two different stories that have stones: the stoning death of Stephen, and the charge that we are living stones, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God s own people. The two passages, which are quite different in content, were paired together in the lectionary. The biggest reason I can figure for that is that they are both about stones. The death of Stephen, who is called the first Christian martyr, was by stoning. The First Peter passage proclaims that we are living stones... not inert clumps of rock... but living, chosen, and holy. The stones in today s scripture passages highlight two different types of stones. I took these two passages with me to Ireland. I was in Ireland with my husband, Brian, and my dad, for 10 days of hiking on the Wicklow Way and exploring Dublin. It was a fabulous vacation. Personally, I loved having some solitary hiking time in the country to balance out the hectic rush of city life in Dublin. Ireland is very lush and green. We ve all heard that Ireland is rainy and cloudy, but we didn t experience that. In our time there, we had two days where it rained some, but the rest of the time it was sunny or slightly overcast. In the countryside, there are crops growing in the fields. There are lots of sheep and some cows grazing. And there are rocks. It s almost as if Ireland is planting and harvesting crops of rocks. There are rock walls, stone houses, rocks sticking up at the edge of the fields, stones in the path, and gravel roads. Ireland is doing a lot of logging and the people who developed the Wicklow Way hiking trails took advantage of the roads that had already been built for logging. Some of the time we walked along gravel roads that were made by the logging industry. Stones and rocks were part of this vacation, and I thought about stones in a variety of settings. As we hiked, we passed through a beautiful stretch of forest that had a moss covered wall on our right. From the top of the wall grew huge trees. Their roots also helped to keep the wall upright. The trees and the rock wall marked a property boundary. We also walked down a long, steep trail through the woods. Large stones had been placed like steps to help us navigate the terrain. I was amazed to learn that bogs don t have to be at the bottom of hills. The bogs of Ireland are on the tops of mountains and are spongy when you walk on them. I was grateful for the stepping stones through the wettest parts of the bog that helped me not to get muddy and sink into the muckiness. 2

3 On our second day of hiking we had two camel humps to walk up, over, and down. There was a tall and straight rock wall that ran down the one camel hump and up the other. We ate our lunch near the bottom between the humps of mountains and rested our backs against the wall. It was windy and cool (about 50 degrees) and we appreciated the buffer from the wind that the rock wall provided. We spent parts of several days in Glendalough, which is an 8 th century monastic village. The monastic village grew up around St. Kevin. In the late 6 th Century, St. Kevin felt the call to a secluded monastic life, and moved by himself to Glendalough. Soon, others found him and a community of people lived in that monastic community. So much for living the religious life alone! The entrance to the community is a double arched stone gateway. Built in the 8 th century with no mortar, the keystone keeps the arch set. Inside the gate is a large stone with a cross carved on it. Tradition said that if you were touching the stone, you were in a place of sanctuary, and even the Vikings could not get you. There are many Celtic cross grave markers in the monastic community of Glendalough. And, there are lots of stone buildings: a tower and several churches. The Glendalough community was attacked a number of times, and the houses were burned. The stone buildings, though, have withstood the test of time. From Dublin, one day, we took an excursion to Newgrange and Knowth passage tombs. The tombs were 5000 years old and had been constructed over several generations. One of the tour guides objected to them being called tombs. Although people were buried in them, they seemed to have a larger purpose. Newgrange has an opening that lets in a shaft of light only on the winter solstice. The precision of building such a large mound with only one chamber in it leads experts to believe that it might have served a religious purpose. Along the outside were 100 huge rocks (small car sized) with spirals and art. The rocks were transported from a different area 10 kilometers away. Other rocks on the tomb were white quartz from the Wicklow Mountains 50 km away. Some were worn or carved smooth and round, perhaps having something to do with symbolizing fertility. In St. Patrick s Cathedral in Dublin, all of the tombs and memorial monuments in the cathedral are termed living stones because they help to remember the past and connect the past and the accomplishments and memories of those who lived hundreds of years ago to the present and into the future. We saw the tombs of Jonathan Swift, military leaders, political leaders, and 3

4 intellectuals influential in Ireland. The walls of the cathedral itself seem to tell the story of its history from the early 1200s. On our trip we were surrounded by history and by stones of various sizes. Each day as my feet wandered over and around the stones on my path, my mind wandered to the stories in the Bible about stones. What ones can you remember? Jacob s pillow the night he had the dream about angels ascending and descending on the ladder and heard God s reassurance that God would keep him and bless him was a stone. (Genesis 28) Moses delivered the Ten Commandments to the people on two stone tablets. (Exodus 24) When the people of Israel were in the wilderness without any water and were raging at Moses and Aaron, the Lord appeared to Moses and instructed him to strike a rock with his staff and water would pour out of the rock. (Numbers 20) Joshua, after leading the Israelite people safely across the Jordan River, was told by the Lord to instruct 12 people to each take a stone out of the river to memorialize that place and that God had been with them giving them safe passage. (Joshua 4) The walls of Jericho came tumbling down after the Israelite people had marched around the city for six days. On the seventh day they walked around seven times and blew their trumpets and shouted, and the walls came tumbling down. (Joshua 6) David killed the giant Goliath by using his slingshot to hurl a well-placed, smooth stone in the middle of Goliath s forehead. (1 Samuel 17) Jesus told the people who wanted to throw stones at the woman caught in adultery, Let anyone among you who is without sin be the first one to throw a stone at her. (John 8) When Jesus was in the wilderness fasting for forty days and nights, the devil tempted him, taunting, If you are the Son of God, command these stones to become loaves of bread. Jesus responded that he would not because One does not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of God. (Mathew 4) After Jesus asked the disciples who people were saying he was, Peter answered You are the Messiah, the Son of the living God. Jesus responded, Blessed are you. You are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church. The name Peter, Petros, even means rock. (Matthew 16) There is the story of the foolish man who built his house on the sand. When the rains and floods came, his house fell. We are to be like the wise man who built his house on the rock. Even though the rain and the floods beat on that house, it did not fall because it had been built on a sturdy foundation. (Matthew 7) 4

5 Jesus warned the people that whoever put a stumbling block in front of a child who is growing in faith would be better off if a great millstone were hung around their neck and they were thrown into the sea. Death by drowning would be a better end than to corrupt a child. (Mark 9) After his crucifixion, Jesus was buried in a tomb and a large stone was rolled in front of the tomb so that nobody could steal his body. When the women went to the tomb the next day to anoint his body, the stone had been rolled away and the tomb was empty. (Mark 16) These Biblical stories and incidents involving stones reflect that some stones play a positive role in our lives; others are negative and causes for stumbling. And so we come to look at our two stories for today. The stoning of Stephen is not the most popular story in the Bible. We don t want to think about the violent things that people do to one another. Stephen was one of the early Christians to whom the Word of God had spread. Some of those who belonged to the synagogue were threatened by what Stephen was saying and preaching and persuaded people to bring charges of blasphemy on Stephen. When he was called before the high priest and before the council and courts, instead of defending himself, Stephen gave a summary lecture on biblical history, beginning with Abraham, then Joseph, then Moses. He ended his lecture with insults that accused the people of murdering Jesus and of not keeping the Hebrew laws. Although it is no surprise that the people turned on Stephen with anger, dragged him out the gates of the city, and picked up their stones to stone him to death, the story of Stephen does not end there. Stephen had a vision of Jesus standing on the right hand of God and shared that vision with the crowd that was gathered. This angered them all the more. But, as they began throwing their stones, Stephen prayed (using similar words to what Jesus said in his last hours of torture and death): Lord Jesus, receive my spirit, and Lord, do not hold this sin against them. Although Stephen was being killed, his words of petition and hope, and his words of forgiveness echoed those of Jesus. Stephen s last words bore witness to his belief in Jesus. And Stephen s life and death had farther reaching consequences as well. Just after what we heard today, we learn that Stephen s murder spawned a severe persecution against the church in Jerusalem and that the Christians scattered, for their safety, throughout the countryside of Judea and Samaria. The scattering of the people only served to spread the word of Jesus and the gospel to more places. In effect, the church expanded its reach because of the stoning of Stephen. Where would the church be today without Stephen? Would Christianity and the 5

6 church have expanded if he had not been stoned to death? Was the stone that killed Stephen a good stone, or a bad stone? And then there s the story in First Peter about living stones. Usually I think of a stone like the one that stuck up in the trail and stubbed my toe, or the ones that were decorated at Newgrange, or the one that David used to kill Goliath. The word living does not usually precede stone. However, in this passage, it makes sense. How many times have you needed reassurance that you weren t just a useless lump, a stone in the path, rejected and forgotten? We can all have those times in our lives when we just feel like we are sitting on the path with no real purpose. When those feelings come up, this passage in First Peter is the one to turn to. Here we receive the reassurance that although we can at times feel rejected, in fact we are chosen and precious in God s sight. We are asked to let ourselves be built into a spiritual house. Notice that it is not the command to build a spiritual house. We are not being asked to embark on a capital campaign, or to construct a huge, Gothic cathedral like St. Patrick s in Dublin. What we are being asked to do is to be ourselves and to allow ourselves to be molded and formed and built into a spiritual house. This is something that Jesus Christ will do within us. As living stones, our gifts and our talents will be used by the presence of Christ to impact others. Some of us may accomplish something grand and front-page worthy. However, most of us will be smaller stones each different and unique educated to various levels, employed in different jobs, more or less well-traveled, comfortable praying aloud, uncomfortable holding a newborn baby, able to connect with teenagers, an excellent chef, knowledgeable about the location of every fast-food restaurant. But all these living stones, all of us, are assured that we are God s people, a holy priesthood, a holy nation. So the question becomes... what kind of stone are you? You are a living stone, chosen by God, holy and precious. It may vary by the day as to whether you are one of the big stones that surround Newgrange and Knowth, or one of the small stones that provides non-squishy passage over the bog. It may vary by the day as to whether you are someone like Joshua who leads the people to the Promised Land and then marks the place so the acts of God will be remembered, or someone who wants to cast the first stone toward the woman caught in adultery. As living stones, does it matter if we are hurled against Stephen or used as cornerstone? If it matters, then we may want to focus more on the choice of what kind of stone we are. As a living stone, how are you going to live your life? 6