We are...we will be....
Fifth Sunday after Easter - April 20, 2008
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Please note: The following sermon is provided as a resource for the thought, prayer, and meditation of the members and friends of St. Mark's. It is the residue of a verbal event, and thus it does not have academic footnotes and other details that would be expected in a written document. The writer gladly acknowledges the prior thought and work of many Christians before him. |
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Is there anything urgent about what you are doing? A pastor has that on a sign to be seen by all who enter his study . Should it be a sign on every Christian's door? Is there anything urgent about what we are doing?
What drove those first believers from a locked upper room in Jerusalem to the wide bounds of the Roman world? Paul lists the things that got in the way: beatings and imprisonments, shipwrecks and illnesses, arguments and difficulties of all sorts. But in spite of all that, the disciples and evangelists like Paul had a sense of urgency: there were people to be seen, and a message to be shared.
A commentator was reviewing the Pope's visit this week. He said that he expected a sour and severe man, since he remembered what Benedict had said over the years in his earlier difficult positions. Instead our sourness, said the commentator, what he felt as he watched and listened was ... joy! Here is a truly happy man, thought the commentator. He has the best thing in the world to share, and he is doing it.
That does not mean that there are not difficult problems to face and work through. The pope has been speaking directly about the pain and sorrow brought on by the sexual abuse scandals, for example. But the center of his presence and activity is the joy of the Good News of Jesus Christ, and he is determined to let that show. For him it is an urgent matter; the world needs to see and know that this is a real possibility. The air is thick with hate and recriminations at home and around the world. People everywhere need to know that there is something more, something positive, something finally worthwhile.
The central part of this Good News is Jesus Christ himself, who he is and what he offers. Today in the reading from 1 Peter we are hearing about a subsequent part of Good News, about who we are and what we are to be doing. 1 Peter uses a series of descriptive terms. (1) living stones. Perhaps the opposite would be dead stones. We know lots of them, the kind that just pile up and get in the way. Some have visited Boulder Field over in the Poconos. In an opening in the woods, there is a vast expanse of rounded boulders, just lying there baking in the sun. They were pushed along and rounded and then deposited by the retreating glacier at the end of the last ice age. Ever since then they have just been lying there, doing nothing but providing a curiosity for tourists to see.
When I was small,one of my responsibilities was to go out and bring in the cows from pasture. I was at the age when one tried not to put on shoes from one Sunday until the next. The lane out to the pasture was built up with shale....stones just lying there and sharp enough to cause pain on bare feet. Do we know people who function like those dead stones? --the ones who may have been doing something once, but who are merely a curiosity? --or those who cut much more than they help?
The contrast is with living stones, the ones who support each other in accomplishing the intent of the builder. I think of a stone rounded arch. While it is being constructed, it has to be held up by cribbing. But as soon as the keystone, the final stone at the top of the arch is slipped into place, then each stone in the arch does its part in supporting the other stones, and together they do something far greater than any of them could have done alone. We thank God for people like this, living stones, ones who genuinely support and encourage one another, and in doing this, discover that their joy is far more than they could have imagined while sitting alone.
This is what you are, 1 Peter says. You (plural) are living stones. This is the transformation that is at work in each of us. This is part of what resurrection means, not just that we are changed at the end of life, but that the change gets under way right now. Joy to you and me! You and I and a hurting world need to know about this. It is urgently needed!
(2) Then 1 Peter moves on to another word picture, chosen race.
The young church isn't only former Jews, but a high proportion of Gentile believers, too, and often from the lowest social classes. What a mixed body!, But because they are chosen by God through Christ, that makes us a single new race. It is an odd combination: the infinite Creator chooses the finite creature! The all-holy God chooses the ever-stumbling sinner. The God of beauty and order has chosen the the guilt-scarred rebel.
How could we ever deserve to be God's #1 draft picks? The truth is...we can't....but he chooses us anyway. He makes us into what we have not been before, a single chosen race. Hear it with joy! With urgency, let it be known.
(3) You are a royal priesthood, 1 Peter continues. He is addressing the whole congregation, not just a pastor here and there, but the whole people of God are together a priesthood set up by the king himself. A priest is one who has access to God through Christ, who offers sacrifice to God and leads others to God. That is the task of each person here.
The Latin word for priest is pontifex, which means literally bridge-builder. That's your job and mine; to point out a bridge now available between our neighbor and God. Christians use the work of Christ, humanity's great high priest, as their bridge to God. Then they offer the sacrifice of a grateful life spent in helping others to find and use that bridge. And it is a royal priesthood, because it is not of our own manufacture, but a gift of the king himself.
(4) Then also 1 Peter adds: You are a holy nation. Some of his auditors may have been Roman citizens, but many were from one of the subject peoples. It made a big social and political difference. The root of the word for nation has to do with the coming together of people for the working out of the common good. The church is the nation that crosses all of the usual boundaries of politics and space and time. Our citizenship is in heaven, says Paul to the Philippians [3:20] and it is important to recognize that it stands first: we are also citizens of a national state, but that stands second. And the church is a holy nation, that is, set apart for God's special purposes. And it is possible only because the Holy Spirit is moving among us, stirring us to life, worship, and service. What a freeing joy it is to know this; what an urgent thing it is to share this.
(5) And now the climax phrase: You are God's own people, a people for God's own possession. We do not own ourselves. God made us and owns us. He has made clear his determination to win us back from our slavery to death by Jesus' real death and real resurrection. That determination means that there is indeed joy for us in these Easter days. We are God's own people.
It is a wonderful description of who the church is: (1) living stones (2) a chosen race (3) a royal priesthood (4) a holy nation (5) God's own people.
It should make us feel 10 feet tall!
And then we come to understand the purpose of all of these descriptive words; so that you may proclaim the wonderful deeds who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light. Nobody else has that task; it is a job that is proper to God's holy people, the church. And what a joy-filled task it is!
Next Sunday afternoon, The Way concludes its 20 sessions for this season. They have listened to scripture and prayed. They have talked and listened to each other. They have learned and shared that learning. They have been more fully formed in who they are as God's holy people. In this week they are thinking about what they will be doing in the coming year to live out this renewed faith. And that really is the commission that each of us has. What a joy it has been and continues to be! What an urgent thing that others need to hear! And our response begins in song: Church of God, elect and glorious, Citizens of heaven above, Let Christ's love flow out to others, Let them feel the Father's care, That they, too, may know the Father's welcome, And his countless blessings share. Amen.
[HS-98 # 864, Church of God]
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