Easter 5 A 2005

Acts 7:55-60

Psalm 31:1-5,15-16

1 Peter 2:2-10

John 14:1-14

I’ve been thinking about stones all week. That image from 1 Peter has been walking with me as I’ve gone through the days. Perhaps the fact that my Timothy is into stones helped, or that we went to a playground with small stones under the equipment. And what is more fun or noisy than hauling handfuls of these stones up the ladder and sending them down the metal slide!

Kids can found a lot to do with a few stones. We have a colony of pet stones on the back patio, they have names and magic marker faces. We have our favorite stones that we lift up and look under to find bugs. When you are with kids and stones you can’t help but notice how different and beautiful and diverse stones are!

Why, on the farm they were just something to haul out of the field, labor intensive work that never ended. In the wrong place, stones chip the mower blades. In great quantities they create road blocks or avalanches: have you driven down roads with “watch for falling stones” signs?

But in the eyes of children, stones are endlessly fascinating and have infinite possibilities…

In the first lesson today, the Stoning of Stephen. Stones are dangerous. Being hit by one just causes a bruise. But if everyone around picks up a stone and throws it at the same person, it is a painful death. There are many countries around the world that still use stoning as a form of capital punishment. Everyone in the community gets a chance for revenge at the criminal (or scapegoat, as in Shirley Jackson’s short story “The Lottery” remember that from high school English?). And no one knows just whose stone strikes the last fatal blow.

But, like water which can cause so much disaster, stones can also be useful.

I loved my mother’s rock garden. We would pick up a large stone from here and there and soon we had a beautiful mound with plants growing around the stones.

Call large stones rocks and you can build a wall that lasts forever, like the walls of New England. Or you can have a stone fireplace. My folks have river rock imbedded in their cement walled house.

Stones can mark boundary lines. Stones can add beauty to a path. Small stones even add a cushion to that playground we went to this week.

I love the image of the living stone that 1 Peter uses. A living stone, rejected by mortals yet chosen and precious in God’s sight.

Just an old useless stone, tossed aside. Until God sees it, picks it up and polishes it on God’s sleeve. And then added to the other reclaimed stones. One after another until a house takes shape.

And the stone holding it all together? The cornerstone? The ultimate in rejected ones, Jesus.

Jesus the stone, chipped and scarred, yet the most precious stone of all.

The stone at the center of the rest of us. Holding us together in what we call the church.

And I’m not talking about this particular stone structure we worship in. For you were the church before moving into this building. I’m not talking about the building you moved from.

But the living church made of living stones. The gathering of God’s people. It’s a “we” thing. One stone doesn’t make much impact, but together we form a house. A house that has plenty of room to grow…

There is always room for one more stone. One more person who has ever felt rejected, one more person who knows what pain it, who has felt like an outsider, who feels alone in this town, who can’t find a place to fit it…

This is the place, the way goes through here, the truth is seen in bits and pieces here, we are given life here.

Dead stones welcome! Join this community and live!! For God is always looking for new stones to pick up, polish, and add to the collection.

“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.”

In the eyes of God, we are endlessly fascinating and have infinite possibilities.

Together, we create a space for celebrating God. We create room for compassion. We create time for justice.

The situation in Palestine, as you know, is dire. There used to be many Christians in the area, they were among the wealthier, more educated folk. But instead of facing the violence, many Christians have left for other countries.

To the ones that remain, Palestinian Lutheran Bishop Mounib Younan, is calling them to become living stones. “Stones do not move. Stones are strong. And while stones can become ruins, calling on Christians to be living stones is a challenge for Christians to become alive in their faith and to be built up into strong witnesses to this faith (Clergy Journal, internet article).”

Living stones. Strong witnesses to the faith. A community committed to living out the compassion of God.

Who knew there was this much in stones?

Today, you will each be given a stone to take with you. Put it by the kitchen sink, keep it in your pocket. Set it by your toothpaste or on your dashboard.

Let it remind you that we continue to be the church even on Monday. Even when we are apart we are together in Christ, a spiritual house.

Let it encourage you to be life to someone else everyday. So that those who think they are “not a people” may here that they are now “God’s people”. Let others know that even thought they feel rejected, God desires them.

Let your stone remind you of Christians around the world, so far apart in miles yet held together in the heart of God.

Living stones. The community of God. So simple yet so profound.

Centered in Christ we go forth, taking the light with us. Carrying Christ in our hearts. Collecting new stones to add to the church. It’s a beautiful thing!

Christ the corner stone is risen. He is risen indeed!