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“To Be Living Stones”
All Saints Sunday, November 5, 2006
I Peter 2:4-10When I was a young girl, I loved visiting my Gee Gee and Paw Paw, way back in the hollers of Lee County, Virginia. Their house was tiny, but they had a big wrap-around front porch, where we spent every evening making music together. Paw Paw played the mandolin, Dad played the guitar and Gee Gee taught us lots of old hymns and mountain songs.
Paw Paw was a retired coal miner and I guess that after spending so many years underground, he loved to be outside working in his garden. He even put ME to work – not weeding or hoeing, but picking up rocks. Up there in the mountains, you couldn't walk more than two feet in any direction without bumping your toe on a rock, so you can imagine how hard it was for Paw Paw to sow a straight row of corn. Gee Gee used to tell me I was especially good at hunting rocks because I was so close to the ground.
Hour after hour, my stumpy little legs paced through Paw Paw’s enormous garden, looking for rocks. Paw Paw would dig them up and put them in his wheelbarrow, then he’d push the barrow around to the front of the house and dump the rocks in a big heap.
As we sat and rested in the cool shade, I asked, “Why did God make such useless things as rocks? And if God really needed them, why did He have to make so many? And why did God see fit to put most of the world's rocks in your garden, Paw Paw!?!” As far as I was concerned, rocks were useless and annoying and it was hard work getting rid of them.
Of course, we DO refer to rocks in positive ways. A rock can represent strength, reliability and safety. In times of economic uncertainty we seek a "rock solid" investment. Someone who is dependable is described as being "the Rock of Gibraltar." Advertisers try to convince us their truck is dependable "like a rock." And in scripture, there are numerous references to GOD as our rock. Rocks can make a firm foundation, a solid fortress – and if they’re big enough, they are immovable.
But when we consider the positive attributes of rocks, most likely we do not add "LIVING" to the list. A stone can hardly be called living. It doesn't breath; doesn't have a heart beat. It can't move itself; can’t communicate. Rocks are cold, hard, inanimate objects.
And yet, in today's scripture lesson, we are invited to "come to the LIVING stone – rejected by men but chosen by God and precious to him." Then God’s Word reminds us that WE are "LIVING STONES, being built into a spiritual house to be a holy priesthood. . . "
There appears to dramatic contradiction in language here (called an oxymoron). “Living stones?!?!” And yet, the Bible holds these two concepts in creative tension, to teach us some important truths about who Jesus Christ is, and who he calls us to be.
First, we might ask, “In what ways is Christ Jesus like a ROCK?" Our passage from First Peter is actually referring to a prophecy from Isaiah 28:16 which says, "Behold I lay in Zion a choice stone, a precious cornerstone, and he who believes in Him shall not be disappointed." Here in First Peter – and in a number of other places, the New Testament refers to Christ as the “Chief Cornerstone.” The cornerstone is that first stone to be placed in a building – and it determines the alignment of the whole structure.
I once read an article which explored how the pyramids of Egypt might have been built. A number of archeologists and architects were each given an opportunity to test their theories on a small scale. They had one month to construct a small pyramid using only the tools that would have been available around 2000-4000 BC.
The article described one group’s disappointing efforts. Oh, they started out well – took precise measurements and attempted to calculate all the angles and positions where the stones would go. Then, they chiseled each one and put it in place using pulleys and ramps. They knew that the placement of that first stone was crucial, because all of the other stones would be cut to fit around it.
When they were confident they had cut the cornerstone properly, they began to build their mini pyramid. However, after 25 days or so, with 15 blocks already in place, they discovered their measurements had been off. The cornerstone was cut at the wrong angle, so it threw off the entire project. Too late to start over again – they finished the pyramid. But their structure was terribly flawed.
If the cornerstone is not perfect, the entire building will be out of whack. Likewise, scripture reminds us that Jesus Christ is the perfect cornerstone. Unless he is placed first in our lives – everything else will be out of whack! But if we build our lives upon Christ, we will not be disappointed. He will properly align us with the will and ways of God.
Scripture also refers to Christ as the KEYSTONE. As I understand it, a keystone is the FINAL stone to be placed in a building. It completes the structure, pulls it all together. Without a keystone, the walls will fall in upon themselves and the building is destroyed.
Josephus, a first century historian, illustrates the importance of the keystone. In his work he described how the Jerusalem temple was built. Nearly all of the work had to be prefabricated, so the noise from the workmen wouldn’t defile the temple site. Stones were quarried and shaped in other places, then dragged to the temple site and put together like a jigsaw puzzle.
As it happened, one stone did not fit into any of the rising walls, so the builders rejected it, placed it aside and forgot about it. In the following months, the building project continued and weeds grew up over that odd stone. But as the walls began to rise, it became apparent to the builders that a crucial piece was missing. One stone – of a unique shape – would be required to join the walls together. And the only stone that would fit the bill was the one they had first rejected and cast aside. They retrieved the stone and put it in its' proper place. That keystone unified one section of the building with the other.
Just as the rejected stone became the key to completing the building, Jesus is the key to building our lives. He is both the cornerstone – the foundation upon which we can build – AND He is the keystone – the one who holds our lives together and makes us strong. If you follow Jesus, you can't lose. If, on the other hand, you refuse to trust and follow Him, you can't win.
Why is Jesus so important? Because He is the Rock that LIVES! That is the central claim of the Christian faith! Powers and principalities discredited and plotted against him, arrested him on trumped up charges. They mocked and whipped him, stripped him and thrust a crown of thorns into his flesh. They forced a spike through his hands and feet and fastened him to a crude wooden cross, where they hung him to die. There, they taunted and humiliated him as he gasped and struggled for breath. Then, imagining they had done their worst, they placed his lifeless body in a borrowed tomb and forgot about him.
But Christ Jesus is the rock that LIVES! On Easter Sunday, he appeared alive, to the women in the garden. He showed himself to his disciples as they huddled in fear behind closed doors in the upper room. He walked and talked with two men on the Road to Emmaus. He cooked and ate breakfast with his friends by the Sea of Galilee.
Brothers and sisters, Jesus is not some lifeless old story or a dead set of principles to guide your life: he is the risen, life-giving, resurrected Lord of Creation! Christ is the LIVING stone! And he lives, so that we might have life in him. Amen?
As we come into contact with the Living Stone, we are transformed into living stones ourselves. Just as a radioactive isotope makes you radioactive, just as phosphorus glows when it has been exposed to the sun's radiant light, so contact with the Risen Christ brings life to the lifeless.
When you are in relationship with Christ, you become as he is – a living stone. You have access to the same death defying, life healing, justice seeking, grace flowing, mercy showing, joy filling, love willing power of God that Jesus displayed!
Friends, are you alive in Christ? Do you have a personal relationship with him? Have you allowed him to transform the dying and dead places in your life, to fill you with the hope and joy of new life, to give your life meaning and purpose?
Contact with the Living Stone makes us alive – fits us for our place in God's architectural plan for the new temple – the church. God is not building the church with granite and mortar, plaster and stone: God is building with living stones – saints of the Lord who know and love Jesus Christ – which means that we are not just isolated living stones – we are fashioned and shaped by God to fit together.
There's a story that comes from ancient Greece. A Spartan king was boasting to a visiting monarch about the walls of Sparta. But his guest looked out on the city and noticed no walls. He asked the king, "Where are the walls you are boasting about?" The Spartan king replied by pointing to his magnificent troops. "These are the walls of Sparta, and every man is a brick." Just as every soldier was a living brick that made up the walls to protect Sparta, every Christian is a living stone that serves the Lord and builds up His church.
It follows then, that a stone is of no value to the building if it is off by itself. First Peter says, "Come as living stones, and let yourselves be used in building the spiritual temple. . .” One stone doesn't make a wall. Only when it is joined with other stones, does it become part of something worthwhile. Likewise, God does not intend for the church to be a collection of solitary saints. We need one another, in order to be most useful to God. At our baptism, we are joined together in one family – the family of Christ – where we share a mutual faith, a mutual love and hope, a mutual purpose.
Think about it: are you a faithful living stone? In what ways are you allowing Christ to use your life to build his church? What new thing is God calling you to do or say or become? How are you encouraging others to be faithful?
The church is made up of living stones who follow Jesus best, when they follow him together. Together, we serve, love and care for people; together, we share the good news about Jesus Christ our Lord. We worship together, pray together, learn together, and support God's work together with our time, talents, gifts and service. Not one of us can be the church by ourselves – you and I are living stones – and together with the saints who have gone before us, we are being built up into Christ's church.
A summer or two after our “rock picking” project, our family returned to visit Gee Gee and Paw Paw. From the distance, I saw their tiny house up the holler – and as we drove up the long, rutted road, I caught my breath at a wondrous sight: all those loose stones and rocks we had picked from the garden and left in a big heap, had been carefully matched and stacked to form a lovely white stone fence. Entwined among the cracks and crevices between rocks; spilling over the stones – as if poured from a bucket of color – were wild roses of red and pink and yellow. The once-useless stones had come alive with fragrance and beauty.
Renew our communion with all your saints – those “living stones” who lived and died in Christ’s service and who continue to be part of the spiritual temple that God is building. Especially those whom we name before you:
Rev. Tonya Arnesen
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