Living Stones

Sermon: Living Stones, I Peter 2:4-10 March 14, 2021 Here we are in Lent a time of preparation. A time of getting ready for Easter. There is a part of us that want to say, "Now we just want Easter. We just want the celebration the fun, the rejoicing over what the Lord has done. But Lent is a season meant to prepare us. With that we are in a season of preparation we've been working through I Peter. With that we are now in the second chapter of I Peter. We are going to begin with the first verse. We are going to begin with 6 or 7 verses and then we are going to come back and unpack that a little. Please read I Peter 4-10. So Peter is playing with the idea of a stone, here. And he begins with a reference in his own mind that he begins to works off of. That reference is found more in the middle of our reading. The reference is "Behold, I'm laying, in Zion a stone, a corner stone, chosen and precious and who ever believers in him will not be put to shame." That reference comes out of Isaiah, the prophet Isaiah, and is spoken to a people in a time where they were depending on a whole host of other things other than God. They were depending on other things, other groups, other peoples, other gods. There dependencies were on others. That's still true for us today. We'd like to think not but really we're dependent on so much for life to go as we want it to go. We are dependent on the rhythms we've created, and the rhythms we have created. We depend on others to follow their rhythms that together everything works together as it should. When someone steps out of their rhythm we get upset. They're breaking what we depend upon. How much harder it's been going through this past year. We just marked the anniversary of a full year. This date, tomorrow, a year ago, I was delivering my message from my kitchen for the first time. Our dependencies were taken out from underneath us. And we have had to shift in this ever changing sand. It's not been easy. The Israelites were dependent on God, oh yes, they worshiped God and they went regularly to the temple. They did all their actions but in the end they were really dependent on the other systems around them. They incorporated other gods, other religions. We could easily check off that, "But we're not doing that." Oh, they did that to find happiness in life. They were dependent on larger powers than their own. They found themselves aligning with the greater military powers. At one point it was with those in the north, Assyria. And another point it was those down in Egypt and later it was with those over in Babylon. Yes, at times they aligned themselves with these powers and used them to fight against the others so they could have some level of what they wanted. We are still today dependent on so much! I don't know about you, my anxiety was just rising as worship was not starting. I'm the elephant in the room. That wasn't easy for me. I know I'll hear about that. I also know there are people on line who are waiting. It's not easy. But you know there are a whole bunch of us come running in ready to do what we need to do. We are ready for things to work as it's always worked. We turn the car keys and nothing. We flip on a computer and it doesn't do what it's supposed to do. We are dependent on so much. And God in Isaiah spoke to his people and speaks to us and says I am laying in Zion (Jerusalem, the holy city) a stone, a corner stone, a cap stone, a head stone, chosen and precious and whoever believes in him will not be put to shame. God is telling them, you are depending on all the wrong things and though your words say you depend on me you're not. You are dependent on so much else. But I'm going to give you one upon whom you can depend. This passage is familiar to Peter because it became a passage one of the many passages as a rallying cry for the one God would send. Most believed there would be another descendent in the line of David another king that would come. This passage began wrapped up and became part of the whole idea of God's anointed one, God's Messiah, God would send that one to us. And so they looked for that one. But Peter recognizes that when he came so many missed what God had sent. The one whom God had sent. So Peter realizes that the many missed, not understood and have rejected the Messiah, he realizes that it's incumbent upon the believers now in Christ incumbent upon us to make sure we have it straight so that others may come to know and believe. As you come to him, he says, and then he calls him a living stone. He references that whole stone, that corner stone, that head stone, that cap stone and he calls him a living stone. I want to just break off for a moment. Who are you? If he is going to reference Jesus as a living stone, who are you? If someone asked you who you are. You know who you are. But your answer may very well depend on the situation in which you find yourself. You may be encountering one of your grandchildren's friends and they innocently say, "Who are you?" and you would say, "Well, I'm so and so grandma or so and so grandpa." You would define yourself in relationship to someone else. When people know who Suzanne and I get introduced to them I explain I'm the lesser half. You have defined yourself in relationship. If a friend takes you to a new activity that you don't know any of the people but they are all friends of your friend and you begin to talk or discuss with them and someone says to you, who are you. Well, you would say I'm a friend of so and so. We define ourselves in relationships. And with this relationship there and that relationship here and this relationship over there all those relationships, even all put together, don't fully define who we are. There's still who we are. Independent of those relations, there's who we are deep down inside. But when we are talking to people, when we are working with people, we work with them in relationship to who we are to others. What if, what if there was a relationship that fully defined who we are. Even more, what if there was a relationship that not only defines who we are but actually changes who we are. All those other relations we can respond to and maybe change a little bit. There is a chameleon spirit within each of us but none of them at the chore make us who we are. What if there was a relationship that could change you fully, forever. You see, all those other ways in which we explain who we are, all those other relations can fall away. They can all become a thing of the past. Don't miss understand me, but do understand me at the same time. I have the privilege to be with people at the start of life and at the end of life and I've been there enough times to be the only witness to who a person is. And then in the nursing home, in the hospital. I've been the one to say to the nurse, the caretaker, this is so and so. "I know I take care of them." No, this is who they are. They had 5 kids, they use to work at the same place, and they use to take care of 100s. Did you know this person was not employee of the month put employee of the year multiple times? I've been there to have to define and share with someone who this person is because all other relations have fallen away and there is no one around to say who they are. The reality of our life is that relationship will fall away. Those upon whom we can depend will fall away. We get angry, we get frustrated, we struggle but that is the truth. But what if there was a relationship that will never fall away that could fully define us and that could change who we are forever? That's what Peter was excited about! That's why Peter had rolling in the back of his mind. "Behold I am laying in Zion a cornerstone chose and precious and whoever believes in him will not be put to shame." Upon this rock I will build my church. And Peter says, Jesus is a living stone. (Pastor picks up a paver stone he had on the podium.) Herb already picked up my prop. The stone, whether it be a cornerstone or a cap stone or a head stone, Herb gave you that image that everything else depended on that stone. That's the image used in Ephesians for this same passage. Peter takes this stone and puts it down more as a foundational stone. This image is of a foundational stone that people will actually trip over, that they will stumble over. But still upon which all everything else built and depend. Then Peter turns around and says, it's a living stone. Fortunately for us, one of my children is presently taking biology. A living organism. We know what's alive and what's dead. We can point to something and say that's alive and that's dead. We could debate about a few things. Some of you might wonder about if one of your neighbor's is really living, whether they are all there. But here is what you need. All of these things to be living. I see some of the signs some are already shaking their heads. They have to have cells, they have to have a basis of structure. (Pastor Looking at the stone, "Nah, not so much.") They have to have the ability to grow and develop. Rocks don't grow and develop. They can break and become smaller, well actually, if you talked to a farmer they might argue that when they clear the field and next year all those stones are back again. They (living organism) need energy. Energy is required. The stone doesn't need energy. They have to have homeostasis. That's a fancy word for they have to maintain a stable environment. Well, we can give that to the stone. That is the definition of homeostasis (speaking of the stone). A, living organism has the ability to sense and respond to stimuli around them. No one is hearing this rock say, "Wow, your hands are warm." Living organisms have DNA and reproduction ability. (Looking at the stone) It's not there. Maybe checks off one box if you are talking in terms of a farmer two boxes because they continue to replicate themselves in the field. But otherwise this (stone) is dead. And yet Peter calls Jesus a "Living Stone." A living stone, alive! And yet it's dead. What a powerful image Peter gives us. Peter says that Jesus, this one who was with us, who was crucified on a cross and died. Literally no longer alive. No longer has the ability of life in any of those circumstances is now dead. This is the central piece right here. This is the reason why we all continue to gather Sunday after Sunday. This is the reason why we have relationships with one another. Because this Jesus who was dead was made alive again through God's grace. God raised Jesus from the dead. What was dead is now alive. And not just alive for another go around another turnover of the odometer. Another life or a second life or a third life but alive forever. Jesus is alive today as much as he was live when he was risen from the dead then. There is no change. In other words, death has no longer any hold on him whatsoever. There is no claim of death on our Lord Jesus Christ. Can I have an "AMEN?" Good because your masks don't prevent you from doing that and quite frankly that is grease for the wheel. Jesus is alive! And because he is alive. Because he is not dead! He is the epitome, in Peter's mind of this passage, a chosen corner stone, a chosen head stone, a chosen cap stone. He is a living stone that is the foundation of everything else of who we are. Everything! Because he has overcome death, we too have now been given that same promise. If we but make him Lord and Savior of our life, if we ask him into our hearts. If we say, "Jesus, if you are indeed God's son, you indeed died on the cross for me I ask for your forgiveness, come into my heart." There is nothing that can separate us from the love of God through Jesus Christ. We now too are living stones. We are alive right now and we know death is coming but on the other side of death is life eternal with Jesus Christ. A living stone. And Peter says he's a living stone and because of that you too are living stones. You as Christians as followers of the way, believers in Jesus Christ, are living stones. He's not trying to give you some kind of Presbyterian, Reformed treatment. He's not trying to call you in a slick way, the frozen chosen. He's trying to say to you, you are alive! Though you were walking dead in sin you are now alive through Jesus Christ. Not only that, he loves this metaphor, he begins to play with it. He says you are living stones being brought together. You're not independent stones, here there and so forth like that image that was on there (the slide picture) like a wall of all stones. You are being brought together and not just being but are brought together and you now are the very House of God. You know, if we lived in Jesus' day and someone said to us we are going to the house chances are we would not first interrupt that they were going to their home. We would first interrupt they were going to the temple. The house. "Thee" house. If you were living out east anywhere in the vicinity of New York City, if someone said they were going to city, didn't matter if you were right next to Philadelphia, you knew they were going to New York City. Peter is like you have been build up into a spiritual house. You each as believers and followers of Jesus Christ are living stones that now become the new Temple of God. Think about that for a second. Through Jesus Christ you are now God's representation of God's house here on earth. No longer a people to look at the temple. They are to look to you. How you interact with one another. How you play with one another. And how you care for the people around you. Peter writes, you are a spiritual house. A holy priesthood. Not only does he makes us a temple he makes us the priest working within that temple. And what do priests do? They offer spiritual sacrifices that were acceptable to God, and Peter adds, through Jesus Christ. I don't want you to lose track of what he is saying here. We already, a couple of weeks ago, dealt with holy. What it is to be set apart for God's purposes. But he's now saying that we are the house of God we are priesthood and that we are to be offering sacrifices. Do you know what sacrifices were back then? Sacrifices did two things. Two things. They either returned to God what belonged to God. And every first born belonged to God, whether animal or human. Every first born belonged to God and they were to be returned to God. The animals were sacrificed. You might say, what happen to the people? Well they belonged to God too. But you were allowed to redeem your son or daughter. You were allowed to pay a cost to redeem and to get your first born back. That's where they get some of the language, redeemed; to get back, to bring back. God redeemed. The second sacrifice was on some level, there is a whole host of them, but to make ourselves right before God. To restore our relationship with God because we are ever breaking that relationship. Ever running from God. And yet, as I mentioned earlier, this is the one relationship that can change us forever is that we cannot no matter what we do can break that relationship with God. It is set firm through Jesus Christ. Two different sacrifices to different forms. One was to give to God, give back to God and the second one was to make ourselves in some way right with God. Peter says we are still responsible for doing that. We've a job. And our job is to go out and help others discover the good news of Jesus Christ. So that they too who were once God's, belonged to God, can now be restored to God. And in the same way to allow others to be made right with God through the blood of Jesus Christ. How do we do that? How do we go about that? How do we help others know? It says here something amazing. That you may proclaim the excellencies of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light. I'm always amazed by how Jesus did his ministry. He didn't set up systems. He didn't set up a great organizational structure. He called a bunch of broken people. He taught them and then he sent them out to find a bunch more broken people. The good news of Jesus Christ is to be spread in relationship with honesty and integrity. To share our own darkness and how God has brought us out of darkness and into his marvelous light. The church, ever since adopted by the Roman church when it was made the state church continued to wonder, make structures through relationship. Think back to how many times you were taught about the faith but who it really was who helped open your eyes. A Sunday school teacher, a parent, someone back in that time who helped you. They probably did so by being pretty vulnerable. We are a bunch of broken people. We prove that again and again. But he is calling us be the living stones that we are. To live in the grace that we have been given and to extend that grace to one another and to every one we meet. To be honest about our own brokenness, our own darkness. And just as on the first day of creation when God was already hovering with his spirit over this vast emptiness this incredible void. What is the first thing God does? God speaks into the darkness and says let there be light. God has spoken into the darkness of your soul through Jesus Christ and said let there be light. It is for us this holy priesthood this people now that has been set aside. The mantel that has now been passed on to us. The baton that has been given to us it is now ours to carry and pass on to others. To share the light of Christ that together God's house may continue to be built and that others may come to see the incredible love that God has for us through Jesus Christ. Let us pray.