1 Pe 2

I want to begin by saying that today is my mom’s birthday. This one is number 68 for her. Aside from the fact that today is her birthday, I mention her because she’s probably the person most directly responsible for my being a Christian.

If I had to pick a scripture text that I think is most directly responsible for my being a Christian (at least, a New Testament text), it would be today’s gospel reading (Jn 14:1-14). Especially, it would be verse 6, in which Jesus responds to Thomas’ concern that the disciples don’t know where he is going. “I am the way, and the truth, and the life,” he tells Thomas. “No one comes to the Father except through me.”

My reason for beginning with these words of self-disclosure is due to my sermon text, which is today’s epistle reading in 1 Peter 2. In a section in which the audience is called to spiritual growth, several images are used. First, like infants who only drink milk, they’re encouraged to seek the pure, nourishing stuff. Then later on, the apostle draws from imagery in Hosea when he tells his hearers that they “are a chosen race…Once you were not a people, but now you are God’s people” (vv. 9-10).

But it’s the main section in between those two that I want to focus on. Peter uses the illustration of the stone to describe both Jesus and the church. He digs up material by quoting Isaiah and Psalm 118. Verse 5 proclaims us “living stones…to be built into a spiritual house.” So, I figure that, if I’m like a stone, then two examples of builders who’ve helped put me in place are my mother and the scripture text in John 14.

As I was thinking about our epistle reading, and especially that image of stone, I remembered a poem by a man who’s possibly the best-known American poet of the twentieth century, Robert Frost. I’m thinking of one of his better-known works, entitled “Mending Wall.”[1] In it, the poet describes an annual spring ritual that he and his neighbor undertake. They walk along the stone wall that follows the property line, and they replace the rocks that the harsh winter weather has displaced.

He begins: “Something there is that doesn’t love a wall, / That sends the frozen-ground-swell under it / And spills the upper boulders in the sun, / And makes gaps even two can pass abreast.”

The poet describes their mode of operation: “We keep the wall between us as we go. / To each the boulders that have fallen to each. / And some are loaves and some so nearly balls / We have to use a spell to make them balance: / ‘Stay where you are until our backs are turned!’ / We wear our fingers rough with handling them.”

Our narrator goes on, wondering if the wall is even necessary. His neighbor simply says, “Good fences make good neighbors.” The poet wonders why is that true—it’s not like we have any livestock that we have to keep separate. He seems to find his neighbor a mystery.

Frost finishes the poem: “He moves in darkness as it seems to me, / Not of woods only and the shade of trees. / He will not go behind his father’s saying, / And he likes having thought of it so well / He says again, ‘Good fences make good neighbors.’”

Robert Frost’s primary image isn’t the stone, but it does figure prominently in “Mending Wall.” I find it interesting how he helps his neighbor rebuild the wall every year by replacing the stones that have fallen away. He helps place the stones, but it’s clear that he and his neighbor aren’t on the same page. He questions the wisdom of doing what they do.

Now, go back to 1 Peter’s image of stone. If we understand stones as the building blocks of the church, especially what’s often called the “institutional” church, we can see some parallels with Frost’s poem. Just as he has discomfort with the wall, there are plenty of people who have discomfort with the institutional church, so-called “organized religion.”

There are plenty of us who have discomfort with organized religion. Church growth gurus have long observed that the steep decline of the mainline church would have been lessened, if not avoided altogether, by something as simple as keeping our children in the church. But that’s all part of the bigger picture of our society.

One of my heroes, Jürgen Moltmann, has said about organized religion that it “relieves men and women of the question about the meaning of life.” It’s “only by chance and incidentally that it has anything to do with Christ…The more open and general the offer of organized religion is, the less commitment it demands.” He goes on to say this: “The product of organized religion is an institutionalized absence of commitment.” It “demands nothing; so it ceases to console anyone either.”[2] In this case, the saying is appropriate: nothing ventured, nothing gained.

Fortunately, the image in our scripture reading is not one of bricks in the wall of some dead, faceless institution. It’s not a question of just simply “stones,” but of “living stones.” The Lord is “a living stone”; we are to be like the Lord, “like living stones” (vv. 4-5). And like living stones, as I indicated earlier, we’re to “let [ourselves] be built into a spiritual house.” Here’s a scripture that perfectly captures the idea of the church as the people, not as the building.

It’s been noted that this image of living stone “defines the church not as the building in which we meet but as the building we have become. Our role is to be a space where people engage holiness and sense the presence of God.”[3] Think about that: to provide and to become a space where people…celebrate God.

So, not only is the church other than a building, but a building can actually hinder the church. It can become an anti-church! Think of this building, in which the Westminster Presbyterian Church has been meeting. (Remember, we are the church!) What does it say to people in wheelchairs? What does it say to some of our own members?

I’ll tell you what it says. It says, “You are not welcome.” You know, not all of our members that we have classified as shut-ins really are shut-ins. Some of them do have access to other places; they just can’t come here. I know it’s true, because they’ve told me so.

Moltmann has said, “Congregations without handicapped people are handicapped congregations.” (Although…the guy currently preaching could draw up a long list of his own handicaps!) “The fault is not merely a lack of willingness for service in the congregation. The deficiency is due to the fact that we have not yet discovered the Christian community as a community of mutual service, because we have not yet experienced it as a [Spirit-filled] community.

But the gifts of the Holy Spirit are all to be found there. They are merely dormant. If they are roused, every congregation discovers a superabundant wealth of initiatives, powers, money and time to be put” into service.[4]

My comments about the building are but one small part of the picture. As a Presbyterian Church, we stand within the Reformed tradition, which speaks to the need for continual reformation. The phrase in Latin was ecclesia reformata, semper reformanda—the church reformed, always reforming.

We can dream into reality new ways of being the church. Verses 7 and 8 say that to you who believe, Jesus the cornerstone is a precious gem. For those who do not believe, he is a stumbling block.

There is a vision emerging within the session of what we can be. I could sense the energy this past Tuesday night. There’s a vision emerging that we can be transformed from yet another declining mainline church into a community of disciples. We can be what we’ve always been meant to be—what we’ve always longed for, in our heart of hearts—to be truly alive in God. The Lord is faithful, picking us up when we fall and being the rock that supports us.

I can say that because of the message given us in verses 9 and 10, which I change into the first person plural:

“But we are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God's own people, in order that we may proclaim the mighty acts of him who called us out of darkness into his marvelous light.

[1] The Poetry of Robert Frost, ed. Edward Connery Lathem (New York: Holt, Rinehart, and Winston, 1969), 33-34.

[2] Jürgen Moltmann, The Power of the Powerless (San Francisco: Harper and Row, 1983), 159.

[3] wwwstaff.murdoch.edu.au/~loader/AEpEaster5.htm

[4] Moltmann, 153.