Recently we baptized a young infant girl, welcomed several new people as members of our community and recognized the confirmands as members into the church.Now if we are playing a numbers game we would be celebrating that once again our church is growing even as many churches are dying. We would celebrate that indeed we are a welcoming church and that we have many vital ministries that are attracting people to our church. But numbers games can be tricky and they don’t always tell the truth.
So perhaps another way of looking at that Sunday and the baptisms, and the confirmands and the new members, is to see these wonderful happenings as a sign that the risen Jesus Christ is our living Lord and Savior, reigning personally in our hearts and drawing us corporately into His living body to worship, praise and serve Him. In other words Christ is alive and well in our midst.
There is a sense of obligation, and a sense of entry into something big and living.
It means not only following Jesus, but being nurtured, molded and shaped into the image of Christ. In other words there is an understanding that when we enter into the church community through baptism, confirmation or membership, we are entering into a living relationship with Christ which builds us up into something bigger than the sum of us individually.
And this sum is Christ uniting our past, present and futures into the body of Christ which is a living household that gives us an identity that is unlike any other; a household that shapes and molds us and grafts us into the actual structure itself.
Peter helps us to understand what it means to be the church this way:
1 Peter 2:4-5 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.
Peter is telling us that Christ, the living stone, calls us to Him to build a spiritual house, to be a holy priesthood and to offer spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ.
There are all kinds of households that we can construct There is a reality show called Big Brother, where CBS calls and invites 12 people to live in a house for 3 months. The house is built on a set and these people are isolated from the outside world. Through a series of competitions and alliances and backstabbing, they vote each other out until only one person is left and they win a lot of money. And during this season, an interesting thing has happened. Three of the male housemates are so bored that they pick up a Bible and they begin to read it! And they become engrossed with all the stories in the scriptures, especially the stories that include war or violence and action.
And I am not sure what to do with this. Should I be excited that they are reading the Bible? Or should I be incensed that they are reading it for entertainment? And I think that in the end, I feel sorry for them, because these are people in need of an identity and they are so close, they have that which could shape and mold them into a new and transformed identity as people of God. But they see Christ and Christ’s word as little more than fleeting entertainment and so being offered faith, in the Word, they will fail to ask it to transform them and their lives.
We can be like those in the Big Brother household. We can reject Christ as mere entertainment or irrelevant faith. I have been guilty in the past at times of picking up my Bible only when I am bored or for entertainment. I have been guilty of picking up Scripture and not asking Christ through the Holy Spirit to transform me.
But I want to argue that when we do this we build a household that is not built on a sure and steady foundation. It is a temporary house, a house built of straw, that will be subject to the elements of time and will not endure. But like the house of straw in the three little pigs, it will fall down when faced with adversity or challenge.
So that is one kind of household. But Peter tells us that as Christians, we are a part of a different kind of household. We are a part of a household where Jesus Christ is our cornerstone. What that means is that Jesus Christ is not our entertainment. He is not given to us to amuse us, or make us feel good about ourselves. Rather Jesus Christ is our living Lord and Savior who is, as Peter tells us our living stone. Peter tells us this living stone has an offer for us, Come to Him, he says, come to Jesus, the living stone and let yourselves be built upon him.
The greek for the word stone in this passage does not mean rock. Peter uses a word for stone that implies that it has been hewn and formed, ready to be used in the construction of a building. Jesus, this same stone hewn and formed wants to form and mold us and incorporate us into God’s household.
When we submit and allow Christ to mold us, not only individually but corporately as well we are truly alive. If we do not, then we are in danger of remaining mere stones and rocks. What is the danger in that you wonder? After all a rock has no life and thus no inherent violence or evil. But a rock, not hewn by Christ, is left to be used by other forces.
In the Christian calendar, this Scripture from 1 Peter is read alongside the Acts story of the stoning of Stephen. I don’t think this was no mere coincidence. A stone not formed into the image of Christ, is left to be used by the forces of evil to destroy and bring death. When we are used and formed by the living Christ, we share Christ’s life giving force with others. We build up and not break down. When we are apart from Christ, we are left to our own devices and are subject to the random and violent efforts of the world, to stone and bring death to hope, love and peace. We can easily become weapons left to the disposal of evil or our own sinful desires and natures.
But is it enough to call Christ our cornerstone or does our house have to be built on something more?
I am from a small historical seaside town outside of Boston Massachussetts whose claim to fame is that it is the birthplace of the American Navy. You know the picture of Washington being rowed across the Delaware? The men rowing him were from my town, Marblehead. Of course, the boat was built in another nearby town, Gloucester, so they too claim to be the birthplace of the American Navy as well, but I digress.
Many of the homes in Marblehead were built way back in the 1600s and 1700’s. In high school one of my friends lived in one of these old houses. I remember the first time I visited her and walked into her living room, located on the second floor. I immediately experienced vertigo. I could not get my balance and it seemed like I was continuously trying to catch myself from falling. When I commented to her about this she laughed and told me many people felt this way in her house. It appears after time, that the house had settled and that now the house was crooked. The strangest this was that my friend did not even recognize that things were out of skew. She had adapted and was comfortable in her crooked environement.
Perhaps that is what happens with us. We settle, whether because we are worn down with age, or worries, or perhaps because we are comfortable in our surroundings, or maybe we even like or are reaping benefits from our situation. But when we settle, we often can loose our balance. And we can stumble and fall. And if we are not careful, as Christians, we can loose our identity and our purpose. We can stop asking Christ to shape and form us, we can stop asking to be a part of His living household. We can take our identity from something else or someone else. We can move.
When a house settles, it takes a lot of money and effort to raise it and bring it back into equilibrium. For us, when we settle the cost can be high as well.
Settling in our faith can take two forms. We can build our spiritual house without the cornerstone. We can build it with other cornerstones, like money, or status or other illusory items, but that is not the kind of settling I am speaking of.
Another form of settling is when we take Christ the cornerstone for granted. In other words when we say we that Jesus Christ is our Lord and Savior, but we live another way. In this form of settling, we rely on the cornerstone of our faith and identity to be Christ, but we really don’t see the cornerstone as something that forms and shapes us. We do not ask to be molded by the cornerstone.
But what this gets us is a shaky house. A house that is not connected by the living stone of Christ, but just a loose conglomeration of rocks that leaves us with a sense of vertigo and lostness, continuously reaching out for anything or anybody that will give us even a temporary sense of groundedness or stability. Often we settle for a false sense of security EVEN when the true security is right there if we will only ask for Christ to steady us.
You see, Christ offers us a house that is solid and sure. But that does not mean that this house is static. The house metaphor can only go so far. For our understanding of a household with Christ as the Cornerstone is that it is a living and breathing house. The house is continuously in movement, stones are being shaped, altered, moved and added. It is the same house, God’s house, but it cannot look the same as it did yesterday and it will not look the same tomorrow, but it is still God’s house.
God is calling each of us to be a part of his household. To join him in building the body of Christ in wonderous and new ways. Peter tells us that when we join the household we become spiritual sacrifices to God. I like how we ask God in our communion prayer, we vow to offer ourselves in praise and thanksgiving as a holy and living sacrifice, in union with Christ’s offering for us.
Here we get a sense that the household is one that is living and breathing, each of us as living stones lifting up to God our praises and sacrifices in a way that brings glory to the cornerstone even as the cornerstone is shaping us.
The beaches in my hometown are not like the sandy beaches of Florida. The coastline is wild and rough, with huge rock outcroppings that jut out into the untamed ocean. There is a continuous interaction between the rocks and the waves as the ocean careens against the rock and sea spray shoots into the air, leaving the air damp with the smell of salt. Every several miles, there is a break in the rocks and a beach appears. The beach itself is not made up of sand, but of smooth fist size and bigger rocks.
Each rock is unique in shape and color. I know these rocks have come from the bigger rock outcroppings. That over the centuries the living water of the ocean has worked to smooth the jagged edges away and to eventually break them free from their bondage from the outcropping itself. At first glance these smooth rocks look set in their ways, unmoveable, left to their own to occupy the shore. But even in the individuality of each rock, there is a sense that rocks belong to together. And no time is this more evident than when the living waters of the waves rush over the rocks and then recede. As the water trickles through the rocks on its way out back to the ocean, if you listen carefully enough, you can hear the rocks sing as the water continues to shape and shift them.
Each individual rock as it moves against the other rocks, has its own sound, and that sound is joined together with the other rocks by the living water into a harmonious sound that lifts into the air. And when I hear this sound, I know that this grouping of rocks has been singing for thousands of years and will continue to do so for thousands of years to come. Different sounds, granted, for the rocks are changing over time, as more are added others are lost and all are shaped by the living water, but still singing.
I like to think that these rocks are like us here worshipping today. We lift up our voices as spiritual sacrifices to God and we are joined by the living waters of Christ flowing through us and uniting us in song and praise. And our song is joined by all those before us and after us by the living cornerstone of Christ, who is continuously washing over us so that we may be formed in his image and be empowered to build a living household of God here on earth.
So let us take Peter’s words to heart, and let us give ourselves to God in Christ freely and let Christ the living cornerstone mold us and join us not just today but for always. Christ died for us that we may partake of his glory and that we may have the hope and promise that He will form us into His image, both personally and as the body of Christ.
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