Fifth Sunday of Easter
I Peter 2:2-10
April 20, 2008Who? Us?
On the face of it, you’d think that people in a congregation like this one would have little in common with the folks addressed in this letter called I Peter. By all accounts, those Christians lived on the margins of their society. Mostly Gentiles, they had declared their allegiance to a Jew named Jesus, a Palestinian rabbi who had been executed by the Roman authorities for insurrection and rejected by Jewish authorities for blasphemy. The Jesus they called "Lord" and "Christ" had died a shameful death reserved for the lowest of criminals.
And that’s not the worst of it. By claiming Jesus as their Kurios, "Lord," they rejected the divinity and lordship of Caesar. This made them appear both religiously intolerant and politically subversive.
This letter is addressed "to the exiles of the Dispersion . . . who have been chosen and destined by God and sanctified by the Spirit . . . " It might was well have been addressed "to the geeks and losers of Asia Minor." How could a letter addressed to them have anything to say to us?
Thirty or so years ago the comparison would have seemed outlandish. Recently, however, the gap between those "exiles of the Dispersion" and us has shrunk. Christians in America used to enjoy a certain status, a kind of de facto establishment, especially in the South. Those days are fading fast, even in what used to be the Bible Belt.
In his day, my father could walk down Main Street in his clerical collar and men would doff their hats. When I walk down Adams Street today in similar attire, I have to be careful that somebody doesn’t run me over (especially as I get close to the Capitol).
Of course I exaggerate, but only slightly. Christians can no longer presume to have a place reserved for us at the table of political power or social influence. We have moved from the mainline to the oldline to the sideline. So far as the culture is concerned, we’re almost out of the picture except, of course, when we’re needed to get out the vote to "defend marriage" or require pregnant women to have unneeded ultrasounds.
As the culture moves away from the Church, the Church is tempted to rush to catch up. Examples abound of congregations doing market studies to find out how to tailor their "product" to be more appealing to consumers. For the sake of cultural relevance many Christians are more than happy to allow the world to squeeze them into its mold.
Better to send this letter back to the apostle marked "Address Unknown" than to admit that the gospel, by its very nature, makes us exiles in our own land.
Once the church adopts the values of the culture, of course, it begins to function like any other culturally-driven organization. Differences of opinion, unexpressed, are nursed into full-scale grudges. Motives are questioned. Power plays are made. Loyalties are challenged. Hurtful words are spoken. Relationships are strained.
This kind of behavior can be found in all human organizations (which is a nice way of saying "organizations composed of sinners"): PTA’s, Rotary Clubs, social services boards, state legislatures. We know how they behave. The Church is just the same.
Or is it? Surely the composition is the same – sinners every one. In the Church you’ll find the same mixed motives, the same desire to win, the same proclivity to associate with like-minded people, the same flawed leadership.
But the Church, beloved, is not the same as any other human organization. Here’s the difference: Those other organizations are of human origin. The Church is of divine origin. Human beings established those groups. God established the Church.
The New Testament images for the Church are many and rich, but not one of them speaks of human instigation: The Body of Christ. The Household of God. The Company of Saints. The Redeemed of the Lord. Those Bought with a Price. We could go on and on.
But no understanding of who we are by the mercy of God speaks more powerfully than the images in today’s Epistle reading: A spiritual house of living stones whose cornerstone is Christ. A chosen race. A royal priesthood. A holy nation. God’s own people.
The Church is all of these, but for a purpose: ". . . in order that you may declare the mighty acts of him who brought you out of darkness into his marvelous light."
The grace of God in Jesus Christ is the foundation of the Church. Grace is its reason for being. Grace is its mission. Grace is its message. Grace is its life, or it has no life at all. If you and I, in our life together, live not by grace, we are not the living Church.
It’s grace that formed that motley group of aliens and misfits in Asia Minor into a spiritual house whose cornerstone had already been rejected by the culture. It’s grace that empowered them to turn the world upside down. It’s grace that saved them and called them into service. It’s grace that preserves and empowers the Church today for the sake of the world. A chosen race. A royal priesthood. A holy nation. God’s own people.
In other words, the Church is God’s sacrament to the world. We have been called to be a company of priests who mediate God’s presence. The world looks at us to see God’s face. We ourselves are not holy -- far from it -- but our vocation is. It’s grace that makes our calling holy, just as it’s grace that makes us one.
It follows from this text that we cannot be the Church as individuals. Individualism is the cornerstone of our culture, but it’s not the cornerstone of the Church. The cornerstone of the Church is Christ, whose risen life we share as we are being built into a living house of living stones.
You might not know it, but this congregation is a good example of what this text is talking about. I don’t want you to get a swelled head about it, but there’s just no other explanation for the way you behave when you’re at your best. It must be that you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God’s own people.
You have shown in the years I have been privileged to be your pastor an astounding capacity to embrace people very unlike the most of you in background and education. You have shown courage in the cause of social justice, compassion for the least of your neighbors, hospitality for strangers, empathy for fellow sufferers, and a love for one another that is nothing short of miraculous.
Perhaps most amazing of all, in the middle of the twin cultures of academia and politics, where back-stabbing and party strife are positive virtues, you have shown that you can manage conflict without ceasing to be God’s sacrament to the world.
The first time I saw the evidence of this gift, I couldn’t believe it. It was in a Session meeting early in my pastorate. I’ve forgotten the issue now, but the elders had been at it hammer and tongs for a good long time. Finally we decided to put the disputed matter to a vote, and, as I recall, the result was a close one. I offered the closing prayer out loud while praying inwardly that there would be no bloodshed in the parking lot after the meeting.
As the elders filed out, the elder whose cause had lost by a narrow margin walked up to the leader of the victorious side and threw his arms around him. They walked out of the room arm in arm like long-lost friends who’d just been re-united.
"Brant," I told myself, "You’ve been called to a strange church. Presbyterians don’t behave this way back in Virginia."
The sad fact is, not many Presbyterians behave that way. I’m a commissioner to this summer’s General Assembly. Can you guess what will be the hot topic, yet again? You’re right. Sex. We tried to put that one on the back burner for a while, but it’s coming up again. I just wish I could send this congregation to San Jose and show other Presbyterians how to disagree without obscuring the grace that makes us God’s people.
It was Paula Bailey who taught me the sign for church. You make the sign for "C" with your right hand and the sign for "rock" with your left. And you put the "C" upon the rock. That makes the Church.
"Built on the Rock the Church doth stand . . ." says the old hymn. On the rock of Christ, the stone which has been rejected by the culture, but has become the head of the corner.
You all know I value the sacraments. But you have taught me, time and again, that the Church is not called merely to celebrate sacraments. The Church is called to be a sacrament by our life, by our actions, by our love for one other and the world.
Sacraments don’t make the Church. God makes the Church into a sacrament. How? By grace.
Who are you? The evidence is all around you. You are the proof of the Gospel pudding. You are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God’s own people, that you might declare the mighty deeds of him who brought you out of darkness into his marvelous light. Once you were no people. Now you are God’s people. Once you had not received mercy. Now you have received mercy.
You are a house built of living stones nourished by grace and grace alone.
That is our calling and that is who we are. May we never, never, settle for anything less.
If you would like to receive these sermons by e-mail, send a note to brant@oldfirstchurch.org.