sermonboy.com

Fifth Sunday of Easter

1 Peter 2
2 Like newborn babies, crave pure spiritual milk, so that by it you may grow up in your salvation, 3 now that you have tasted that the Lord is good.
4 As you come to him, the living Stone—rejected by humans but chosen by God and precious to him— 5 you also, like living stones, are being built into a spiritual house[a] to be a holy priesthood, offering spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ. 6 For in Scripture it says:
“See, I lay a stone in Zion,
a chosen and precious cornerstone,
and the one who trusts in him
will never be put to shame.”[b]
7 Now to you who believe, this stone is precious.
But to those who do not believe,
“The stone the builders rejected
has become the cornerstone,”[c]
8 and, “A stone that causes people to stumble
and a rock that makes them fall.”[d]
They stumble because they disobey the message—which is also what they were destined for.
9 But you are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God’s special possession, that you may declare the praises of him who called you out of darkness into his wonderful light. 10 Once you were not a people, but now you are the people of God; once you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy.


Sometimes you regret the words even as they leave your mouth.

Some years ago, I was visiting with my dear friends Ted and Caroline and I was busy trying to illustrate some point in conversation when I said something like: “Just last week, I was saying to someone at the National—the yacht club where I belong...”

“Wait a minute,” Caroline said, with the pleasure reserved for watching someone make a foolish verbal misstep, “you belong there?”

“Yes, the National...” I said, and then I realized what I did.

Ted chimed in: “Yes, Michael, tell us more about this yacht club where you belong.”

They had me. As a matter of fact, I don’t think a year goes by without some reminder, a kind of perpetual homage to the power of saying something foolish in a pretentious kind of way. I also learned that even passing reference to yacht clubs, yacht racing, even saying the word “yacht” is considered pretentious by some. Makes no sense to me, but there it is.

Of course, the concept of the club has taken a bit of a hit in recent years, with the spirit of the age leaning heavily away from this idea of membership and belonging, insiders and outsiders, membership requirements and the rest. There has been a steady stream of people leaving clubs and similar organizations, something that we also see in the church.

Robert Putnam—not our Robert Putnam, the other Robert Putnam, the author of the book Bowling Alone—has detailed the decline of the culture that created clubs and civic organizations, looking at all the various factors that may have led to this trend.

Oddly, it falls under the category of “misery loves company” as he describes the wide range of civic organizations that have declined in recent decades: fraternal organizations like Lions and Masons, labour unions, scouting groups, benevolent organizations like Shriners or Knights of Columbus, parent-teacher organizations, bowling leagues (hence the title) and, of course, religious groups. Even what we once called the “family restaurant” is disappearing, replaced by chains.

And along with these disappearing clubs and groups comes a corresponding decrease in “social capital,” the good that comes when people gather they enhance their community in some way. Even the outward marks of civic engagement—such as voting—have decreased, with sometimes disastrous results (I’m looking at you, the 95 million Americans who neglected to vote in November).

Now some in the church—appropriately—have made the argument that we shouldn’t be lumped in with these other civic organizations. Yes, we have experienced the same decline since the high-water mark of the 1960’s, but a religion is not a club, or even an institution in the traditional sense. We’re a movement, something the author of 1 Peter tries to convey in a number of ways:

9 But you are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God’s special possession, that you may declare the praises of him who called you out of darkness into his wonderful light. 10 Once you were not a people, but now you are the people of God; once you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy.

No where in this litany do we find articles of incorporation, or club rules, or an org chart. There is no committee structure or congregational constitution. There is only an impulse—God’s impulse—to create a new people. And while we see the tension between institution and movement down through the ages—beginning even in the Bible—the intention was a gathered community with a distinct identity and a common purpose, a movement.

Now, when someone leaves their dissertation laying around the house, one is sometimes tempted to pick it up, and today I did. In the first chapter of “Converts at Qumran: The Ger in the Dead Sea Scrolls as an Indicator of Mutable Ethnicity,” Palmer—I think that’s how you’re supposed to refer to the author—argues that the Greeks and Greek thought are at the root of the idea of conversion and religious identity. Beginning in the second century (BCE) the idea took hold that you could somehow become Greek by acting in a Greek manner. In other words, by adhering to the idea of the rule of law, or generally not being a barbarian, you could become Greek.

Applied to a religious context, people began to consider this idea of conversion for the first time. As religious movements spread in and between these newly mobile societies, the idea that you could choose your religion took hold. And once choosing your religion took hold, the issue of a criteria soon followed. How do you join a religion that was previously closed to people not born into it? Or how do you join a new religion, one without an established tradition like the older religions?

The author of 1 Peter has some answers, found in the reading Taye shared with us today. The first response to these questions of membership begins with the idea of newness. “Like newborn babies,” the author says, “crave pure spiritual milk, so that by it you may grow up in your salvation, now that you have tasted that the Lord is good.”

There is never an sense that you come to this fully-formed, or with all the answers at the beginning of a faith journey. We begin as spiritual sucklings, craving the mother’s milk of the Holy Spirit, the Spirit that guides us and forms us as we continue together. The idea that you come to this with answers or insight is false, as we are reminded that we always begin at the beginning.

So we have a beginning, in the most humble sense, and then we build: It says “you also, like living stones, are being built into a spiritual house.” A couple of things to note here. First, we are still becoming—being built—as stone is set upon stone toward the spiritual house of faith. A foundation is being laid, and that foundation times time.

The secondary lesson here is living stones belong together. You cannot build this spiritual house with a single stone—that can never be a dwelling place. It takes a vast collection of stones together to make a spiritual house, each adding strength to the structure and each playing a unique role in the overall plan.

And this, of course, leads to the most important stone in the structure, as the author of 1 Peter reaches back to Isaiah to understand the foundation of our faith:

“See, I lay a stone in Zion,
a chosen and precious cornerstone,
and the one who trusts in him
will never be put to shame.”

This is the stone that the builders rejected just a few short weeks ago, but is now the head of the corner, the stone that allows us to transform from no people to God’s people, a holy nation, and God’s special possession.

***

When I was a lad of just two or three my parents discovered boating, and appropriate to the times, joined the Canadian Power Squadron, a rather pretentious name for a boating club. It brought them community, and rules, and some cool flags, and it was important to them for a time.

When I was still a boy, after my father had a stroke, the doctors cautioned about the risk of being on the water and taking ill again, so we became campers, and joined a camping club—long lines of RV’s annoying other motorists as we travelled the province. Once again, it was rules and organization, camper politics and teenagers behaving badly.

Later still, losing the allure of the open road, my parents discovered the church, a different kind of place, a place that was based more on forgiveness than fraternity, more on giving than ground rules, more on the needs of a specific community than the community of the club. And it was based on a common commitment to Jesus. The church became the vessel and the journey, not a club, but a movement.

The movement continues, even with the challenges of the present age, because living stones like Olivia, Emma and Madelyn continue to form this structure, this movement that never ends. We are formed with them today, more complete, better built because they are here and made promises to seek God and follow Jesus and speak through the Spirit. Amen.

posted by michael jacob kooiman @ 7:33 AM