Living Stones, I Presume
“Living Stones, I Presume” by Pastor Rosanna McFadden
Good morning! It is good to be together as god’s people this day. And though my strongly held belief is that ministry is what we do going forward from this moment, sometimes it can be helpful to remember what we have done before — not for the sake of nostalgia, but for reference, inspiration, or perhaps a cautionary tale of what we hope not to repeat in the future. So this morning I’m going to be doing some reflecting back to the recent past, a little while before that, a while ago and a long time ago. And this text from a long time ago is perhaps the most relevant piece of what we’ll consider.
Many of you know that rocks are an interest of mine — I’m not geologist and do not aspire to put in the time for scientific study to be one, but I love the colors and variety of rocks. Several days ago I got to be part of a conversation about putting a concrete border around landscaped beds here at Creekside so we can put rocks as the base of those beds. The week before, I met a Creekside member at Knepp Sand and Stone in New Paris to pick out a large stone to be carved and added to the Creekside property. You are probably aware that we have a number of carved stones at Creekside: in the Prayer Garden, in the Resurrection Plot scattering garden, by the apple trees and out by the parking lot on the east side of the building. None of these are living stones — none of them are alive as far as I know — but they are intended to keep alive in our memory people who have been part of this congregation, or to help us remember the words and teaching of Jesus.
Some of you were part of this congregation when this building was being constructed, and the Prayer Garden was designed and installed in 2007. All of that installation was done by volunteers with planning and supervision of volunteer Judy De Pue. I remember having this epiphany as I was selecting and moving rocks to form the streambed which leads from the upper pond to the lower one: there is no such thing as an useable rock. Some are better in a certain place or for a certain function–not every rock makes a good stepping stone — but the beauty of rocks is that they are not all the same. If you want a building material which is all the same, get a load of bricks, and select the ones which are all the same dimensions with all the same corners, and are all the same color. If we had built the Prayer Garden stream with bricks instead of rocks, it would have a very different feel. The way God’s creation is expressed in the natural world is about interconnectedness and unity, but it is not uniform. People are part of that creation, and I believe our uniqueness — even when it’s expressed in quirky ways — is part of our charm. A church full of Pastor Rosannas would not be a very functional place: maintenance would never get done, or be done well, and there’d be no one to work in the Media Center. Variety of gifts and abilities is what makes any organization function.
When we started the campaign to raise money to construct this church in 2005, we called that campaign “Building for Christ” and we referenced this text from 1 Peter, about being living stones, built together with Christ as our cornerstone. The building committee called themselves the Cornerstone Committee.
On November 10, 1871, well before Elkhart City Church was established, and when this property was first being used as farmland, there was a Welsh-American journalist, Henry Morgan Stanley who coined a now-famous phrase. Stanley had been sent in search of Scottish explorer David Livingstone, who had been looking for the origin if the Nile River in Tanzania, Africa, and had been missing for years. Livingstone was one of the first Europeans in that part of the continent, and when Stanley encountered him, Stanley is purported to have said, “Dr. Livingstone, I presume?” which is ironic, of course, because who else would that other European man be in Ujiji, Tanzania.
But it did make me wonder, if we are to be living stones, building for Christ, our Cornerstone, what will people presume about us, and how will they know if we are the people we are purporting to be? And that brings me to the oldest part of this remembering exercise, which is this text from 1 Peter. There are two letters from the apostle Peter to the gentile Christians scattered throughout Asia Minor. They were circular letters — meant to be passed around to various churches, rather than addressed to a singular individual or congregation. They were written about 60AD, which would mean that either the former fisherman turned disciple was very old when he wrote them, or that someone else wrote them in his name. And that name, Peter, is not even the disciple’s real name. His name was Simon, until Jesus gave him the nickname Peter, which means Rock. Peter is writing to folks who are living in an environment which is not friendly to Christians, and who are experiencing persecution. He is urging them to stay true to their faith and to suffer only for behavior which imitates that of Christ, in anticipation of his imminent return.
Being a Christian may mean that we don’t fit with society’s expectations; after all, the cornerstone of our spiritual house is a stone that was rejected: it didn’t fit the Pharisee’s interpretation of the law as being more important than mercy or grace, and it certainly didn’t fit the Roman Empire’s reliance on military force, invasion, intimidation, and executing political enemies. Dr. Martin Luther King was accused of being maladjusted, and I’d like to quote some of his memorable response to that charge:
There are some things in our nation and the world to which I am proud to be maladjusted and wish all men of goodwill would be maladjusted until the good society is realized. I never intend to adjust myself to segregation and discrimination. I never intend to become adjusted to a religious bigotry. . . I never intend to adjust myself to the madness of militarism and the self-defeating effects of physical violence…
..we need maladjusted men and women where these problems are concerned. . . As maladjusted as Jesus Christ, who could say to the men and women around the Galilean hills, “Love your enemies. Bless them that curse you. Pray for them that despitefully use you.”Being living stones which don’t fit into structures of injustice and hatred is only a part of who we are. Verse 10 says, 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. If people are going to presume that we are living stones, they should see not only the absence of hatred, but the presence of love. In 1994 Elkhart City Church adopted a mission statement to Seek, Celebrate, and Share God’s love; that is the way we committed to as a congregation to be known as God’s people — because of God’s love for us, we commit to receiving and sharing that love. That remains our charge and our mission today. We are called to be living stones — chosen and precious, unique, distinctive and maybe a little maladjusted, made into a spiritual structure around our chief cornerstone, Jesus Christ, building the church for the kingdom of God. People of God, rock on! Amen.