About 25 years ago I had the privilege of having a sabbatical in Jerusalem. I took a six-week course at St. George’s College on the Bible and worship in the setting of the Holy Land. We would visit many ancient buildings and sites with histories from centuries ago to today.
At the beginning of the course, one of the instructors advised us to regard what we would see not just as interesting archaeological or architectural sites but as “living stones”, that is, places where men and women and children of faith had prayed, lived, loved and died; that the sites were soaked with humanity and faithfulness, past and present; Jewish, Christian and Muslim; Orthodox, Catholic and Protestant; places of peace and places of conflict. Indeed, that is what makes places like Jerusalem sites of pilgrimage: the sense that the stones of the place are soaked in the faithfulness and witness of all those who have been there before.
Even the stones of our church, including its windows and fabric, are living witness to those who have gone before; perhaps that is one reason we find it hard to throw things away or envision changes. As long as we are able, it is our responsibility to look after this place well for future generations.
Today’s epistle from 1 Peter, also speaks of a living stone and of living stones: the central living stone of our faith, Jesus Christ, and ourselves, as his disciples, also living stones. And we are called to let ourselves as “living stones” be built into “a spiritual house” and become “a holy priesthood”.
The metaphor of Christ and ourselves as “living stones” is striking for it juxtaposes two concepts that usually do not go together. We all know that stones are not alive; they may have had life before, for example, coal or fossils, but now they are dead. They may have life growing on them, lichen or moss, but underneath we know they are dead stone. They may be the result of violent trauma, for example, lava coming out of a volcano, but we do not really count that as life. Stones are related to the desert, with stoning people, with stone-heartedness, with headstones in cemeteries.
But stones are also the source of fresh springs; some are beautiful and produce gold, silver, jewels and many useful materials; stones can be used to build houses and churches. The walls of the New Jerusalem in the book of Revelation are made of many precious stones. Today’s psalm speaks of God as our foundation stone. And the Epistle quotes an Old Testament promise of a cornerstone, “chosen and precious”, understood by Peter as Jesus Christ.
In his description of Christ as “the living stone”, Peter combines these positive elements of stone with life given by God in creation and, more particularly, with the new life given to the world in Jesus Christ and his resurrection. The stone is rolled away, the resurrected Christ emerges, and the stones that were broken in the earthquake at his crucifixion now sing out with living joy. The resurrected Christ becomes “the living stone”, bringing new life to all of creation and especially to those who follow him. Christ the foundation, pours out life and spirit to all.
As disciples of Christ, we are called to be “living stones”. What might that mean? Perhaps one way to explain the metaphor is to turn every dead and negative image of stone into a living and life-giving one to describe this new life in Christ. Not “stone-hearted”, but a heart that is strong as stone from which love pours. Not “stone-headed” but a mind as strong as stone out of which creative thoughts flow; not “stone-walling” but telling the truth; not hot like flowing lava from a volcano, but alive with the Spirit of love flowing from us. Not “stone-fisted” but hands open, both to give and to receive. Not “stony silence” but silence that is friendly and welcoming. Not “stoned” on one drug or another, but alert and ready to do God’s work of love.
Today is Mother’s Day and perhaps one quality of a good mother (or parent or friend, for that matter) is this quality of being a living stone: strong as a diamond (a stone) but with life and encouragement always flowing out to her offspring and beyond. That was certainly a quality of my mother.
The Epistle makes it clear that our task as “living stones” of “the living stone” Jesus Christ is to build a house, “a spiritual home”, together. We are “living stones” in loving relationship with one another, building a community of love and self-giving, becoming together, “a holy priesthood, to offer spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God though Jesus Christ”.
Notice the focus on corporate worship, that is, offering prayers, our ministries, our acts of kindness and love, our generosity, our support of one another, our repentance, offering all to God through Jesus Christ. And, in doing so, we share in Christ’s high priesthood of self-offering on the Cross and, indeed, resurrection. We build that “spiritual home” from ourselves as “living stones”.
As such, we become, in Peter’s words, “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 marvellous light”.
In the Protestant Reformation, this description of “royal priesthood” was sometimes called “the priesthood of all believers” and sometimes used to denigrate the ordained priesthood of the Roman Catholic church. In some places, this conflict continues and Anglican priesthood is similarly denigrated. Perhaps a better term is “the priesthood of the church” for Peter is writing about the completed “spiritual house” now built and shared by the whole community of the faithful. Peter’s language is corporate not individual.
The whole thrust of the Epistle is a movement from individuals (some Jews, some Gentiles, from a great variety of backgrounds, including different pagan religious backgrounds) who experience Jesus Christ and then become one people in one “spiritual home”; and it is that redeemed community that is blessed by God, “a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation”, and sent out to the whole world “to proclaim the mighty acts” of the one who called us “out of darkness into his marvellous light”. We are sent to proclaim as a community.
We live in a society that is very individualistic. Yesterday, I was at a celebration of a friend’s 60th anniversary of ordination to the priesthood in Toronto. At the reception, an old friend and I were talking about moving and leaving friends. She mentioned how hard it would be to leave Winnipeg upon her retirement to return to Toronto and commented, “it must have been very hard to leave the South Pacific”. And, of course, I said yes.
I have often reflected on why it has been sometimes difficult even though I have come home to friends here and been very well treated, including by yourselves. I think the answer is in that word “individualistic”. Peter, living in a less individualistic culture than ours, assumes that new Christians can move from their individual histories to a common life in Christ in which all the failures and wrong beliefs of the past are simply forgotten in the move from “darkness” to “light”. The new Christians emerge as a single body, the church, blessed by God, ready to proclaim the Good News.
If we have been raised in an Anglo-European society such as much of Canada, inevitably we have a very strong sense of our own individuality, our own autonomy, our own space, our own gifts, our own rights, our own bodies, our own duties, -- the list goes on – and inevitably we compare how we function in all these areas with how others (other individuals) function in these same areas; this culture of individualism brings us into potential (and sometimes very real) competition, comparison, criticism and conflict. One result of this individualism may be isolation and alienation.
In less individualistic cultures, as some of our Filipino and Caribbean members may be able to tell us, where people more easily put the concerns of the community or society or church over their individual needs, there is often a much greater ease about doing things together, a greater acceptance that we are one whether we like it or not and we have to love one another, and a greater ease in coming together after conflict. People don’t seem to be in such a sense of chronic upset, anxiety and distrust, even if their situations are sometimes quite dire. There is a lot more laughter and dance. Of course, such cultures also have their weaknesses and gifted individuals are sometimes put down as a threat or the become object of jealousy. But generally, because people have been socialized into the full village or extended family from birth, there is greater comfort with being part of the community, at least the local community. “Enemies” may be another story.
So, coming back from the South Pacific with a lot of my individualism worn off, now taking community for granted, after 16 years of usually harmonious church life where every Sunday is a joy, perhaps the biggest challenge for me in Canada is why people get upset so easily and often have a hard time getting along with one another. (I am not particularly referring to our parish here but to all sorts of organizations from parishes to theological colleges to condo boards. We seem to like to argue.) To answer, I can only come back to our strongly ingrained sense of individualism which includes always differentiating ourselves as an individual from the other, and at worse, a sense of individual privilege and the need to judge others critically all the time. Building the kind of community Peter envisions in today’s Epistle is sometimes not so easy in such a context.
But for me, it is the only hope, whether for excessively corporate cultures where individuals are sometimes unfairly suppressed or for individualistic western societies: the pattern put forward in this passage: through faith in Christ, becoming living stones (stones that bring life rather than harm), building a spiritual house together (in our case, a loving parish community), moving from the darkness of the past to light, and letting God make us (with many other loving communities) “a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God’s own people”. Only then will we effectively proclaim the Good News to the world in example and word. That is, I believe, what we are trying to do.
I believe this process is already working amongst us, for example, in our various ministries of hospitality. Indeed, our benchmark and goal is expressed in the final sentence of the Epistle: “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.”
Let those words be our benchmark, end and goal as we strive to be living stones, building here and now a “spiritual home” of God’s love in Jesus Christ, to be offered to God though our royal priesthood, and shared in deep joy with a broken world that needs it so badly. May God strengthen us all, God’s “spiritual house” in this place in this sacred ministry. Amen.
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