EASTER 5-A, April 20, 2008

In today’s Gospel reading Jesus tells us that he is the Way and that we are to follow his way if we want to live this life the way God wants us to live it. In today’s second lesson from First Peter, the writer uses three images, three analogies, to help us understand what it means for us to be a Christian, to follow Jesus' s way.

First of all, says Peter, we are to be like living stones built into a spiritual house. Houses are built one stone at a time. Just as there is no thing as an instantly-built house, so there is no such thing as an instant adult or even an instant Christian. We become who we are to become one step at a time, one stone at a time, one moment at a time. The reality is that we are always a building under construction. There is never a time, will never be a time, when all the stones are in place.

Nevertheless, the longer we take it setting those stones in place, the longer it will take to get the house built. But that is the wrong vision, isn’t it? We are not the ones who are setting the stones in place; God is. We are to let ourselves be built into a spiritual house. We are to allow God to use us to do God’s will. We can refuse, of course. And we often do. And when we do, God’s work of building is delayed. God will not do with us what we do not want God to do.

Thus, if we allow God to use us to build up the church, and if we continue to grow one step at a time, one day at a time, imagine what can be built! For that to happen, of course, we have to work with God, cooperate with God. If we do our part, we can be certain that God will do God’s part. We are to be that living stone God uses to build the church. That is really all that God asks of us and all we can ask of ourselves. Our security blanket, if you will, as Peter tells us, is that Jesus is our cornerstone, the sure foundation of our life.

Not only are we to be living stones, we are also to be cornerstones. For just as Jesus is the cornerstone of our life, so must we be the cornerstone for others in their lives. We must be that sure and certain foundation for them. On the other hand, unfortunately, we can also be, we may also be, a stumbling block, to others as they try to live out their faith.

Not all stumbling blocks are bad, however. Sometimes in our own lives we have to stumble and fall just so that we get the message. We can so easily go merrily along in our lives, never really thinking about how our words and actions affect others or affect us. Then something happens that forces us to stop and take a good look at the way we are living our lives. We, in effect, stumble over some something that finally gets our attention and forces us to consider or reconsider what we are doing.

When that happens, we can either ignore the wake up call or wake up. The choice is ours. We are where we are in our lives of faith today because we have stumbled at least once or twice over Jesus’ words or the words of our teachers. Just as others have been that spiritual alarm clock for us by the way they lived their lives, so we are to be that wake up call for others by the way we live ours.

My suspicion is that we live our lives being both stumbling blocks to others and stumbling over those rocks and blocks that others, either deliberately or accidentally, lay across our paths. And as living stones and even cornerstones we are reminders to others of what it means to live a life of faith in Jesus. Growth, unfortunately, is not a straight-line process. It has its ups and downs. We stumble and fall to rise up to fall down again. The hope is that the falls become fewer and the bruises less painful. That is the hope. Whether it is the reality or not is another matter.

In his third image or analogy Peter ups the ante of the image of a living stone and a cornerstone by using the Old Testament image of priesthood. In those days it was only the priest who was allowed to approach God directly. If someone wanted to make atonement for sins or to offer a pleasing sacrifice to God for blessings bestowed, one had to go to and through the priest. And it was only the High Priest who could enter the inner sanctuary of the temple, and that only once a year.

Now in the New Covenant everything had changed. Every person, Peter says, is, in a very real way, a priest. In the Old Covenant there was a priesthood of some believers. In the New Covenant we now have the priesthood of all believers. We are all priests. Each one of us can go directly to God and ask forgiveness, make atonement, offer prayers of praise and thanks to God for blessings received. We do not have to do any of this through an ordained intermediary.

 

This New Covenant privilege comes in and through our baptism. For it is in baptism that we are ordained to a ministry of service to and for our God. Yet our worth, when we live out and fulfill this privilege, does not come because of who we are or what we do, no matter how much or how great the good we do, but because of what God does in and through us.

 

Not only is it a privilege to be called to be a priest of the New Covenant, it is also a tremendous responsibility. That almost goes without saying, which, of course, is why Peter had to say it. It is so easy to forget the responsibilities placed upon us because we have been baptized into this New Covenant priesthood. Sometimes, if we are honest, we would also like to forget them.

 

When we begin to take this calling as seriously as we should, it should make us tremble in our boots to be reminded that we are, as Peter says, "a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God’s own people." And why have we been so called to this priesthood? We have been called so that we might proclaim the mighty acts of him who called us out of darkness into his marvelous light by being living stones, cornerstones even.

 

The saving grace, always the saving grace, is God’s grace. We cannot fulfill our calling all on our own. We need the grace of God. We also need the love and support of our fellow priests. The truth is that as a church we are a community of priests working together to proclaim by our words and deeds the mighty acts of God.

 

We are living stones, cornerstones, sometimes stumbling blocks, and always a royal priesthood. All analogies limp, of course: they can take us only so far and then we must get on to reality.

The reality is that no matter what words, what analogies, what descriptions we use to describe our responsibilities as Christians, what is important is that we live out those responsibilities. We can always make excuses by demanding more information, asserting that we need a clearer picture in our minds of what is being asked of us. Delaying tactics are always tempting, especially when we truly know what we are supposed to be doing but would prefer not to do it, at least not right at the moment. We are all good, sometimes very, very good, at such tactics.

At the end of today’s Gospel reading Jesus tells us that if we ask anything in his name, it will be granted. If we take the reading from Peter seriously and to heart, perhaps what we should all pray for is that we fulfill our baptismal priesthood this day and every day by being that living stone, that cornerstone who leads others to Jesus by the way we live our lives.