Sermon from 29th April 2007
Today one of our Lay Readers, Adrian Parkhouse, preaches, based on the reading from 1 Peter 2:1 -10
1. It’s that time of year. The time of year when one’s colleagues come into work on a Monday morning with traces of white emulsion in their hair – or evidence of sand and concrete under their finger nails; when, at my office at least, the soft, lily-white fingers and hands of grown men who do nothing for most of the year but read papers and use office equipment, begin to take on the gnarled, weather-beaten appearance of sons of the soil. It is spring. It is the season for DIY.
I have done DIY. I have been there: I have painted and sawn and stuck and dug and laid and hung with the best of them. But I begin to sense those days are behind me: it is all quite hard work; now, I accept that room could be painted, but I rather like it how it is; anyway, the professionals do it so much better; and – actually - I like having hands like a girl!
2. Last week we started our study of the first letter of Peter. Cameron led us through the early part of the first chapter and we learned that the letter had been written most probably by the same Peter as was Jesus’ disciple; from Rome in the period 25 or 30 years after Jesus’ death; and written to new communities of people who had come to believe in Jesus as the Son of God, people and communities that were scattered through what we now know as Turkey; and people who faced real persecution solely as a result of their new faith. [In that it is written to new members of the faith, then it is apt that the letter provides our study on the day of Benedict’s baptism. While, as we will explore, the circumstances of the church now is apparently very different from then, and while Benedict is too small to understand or remember what is said today, I am confident that Peter’s words apply as much to him as to the scattered believers in first-century Asia.]
In that first chapter we saw Peter reminding the believers of what Jesus meant to each one of them: that they had been chosen, made holy; been given new life by the raising of Jesus; given a living hope, able to look forward (beyond the present persecutions) to a rich blessing, kept in Heaven. They had been given something which the ancient prophets had foreseen and which even the angels would like to understand! Had we read on last week, we would have found that, against this background, Peter went on to appeal to his readers to live holy lives – to be obedient to God, to love one another and – as we come into chapter 2 to rid themselves of the characteristics that would prevent them growing and maturing as Christians.
So in that first chunk, Peter has explained what God has done in Jesus for each believer – and then has pushed them to the conclusion that in response to that they are bound to live in a way which reflects God’s love. A balance between what is done for us – and what we should do ourselves. And as we continue our studies we will find that much more of Peter’s message relate to this DIY-aspect of our faith – to how we live out our faith in the world, how we relate to people, how we face unfairness, how we face suffering. How we get our hands dirty and paint in our hair.
3. But the challenge to DIY is set firmly in the context of that reminder of what God has done and is doing in our lives. Last week the emphasis was on the individual; this week it is on the community, on the church. This week we are told what “being Church” involves from God’s side – what He has done for us that enables us to respond by obedience.
So what do we learn?
4. First, we learn about Jesus. It is Jesus who is first mentioned as “the living Stone”; it is He who is “chosen” by God, who is “precious”; it is He who is the cornerstone (or capstone).
We should not be surprised that Simon, renamed by Jesus Peter, Cephas, the Rock, takes up the imagery of stones when explaining Jesus’ role in the community of the Church; Peter, the one who first expressed the insight into the messiah-ship of Jesus and drew from Jesus the promise to build the Church on this rock. But Peter claims no such role here: it is Jesus that is the living stone, Jesus the cornerstone.
I now understand cornerstones. When next you come to see us, take a look up the garden at “DIY-error number 63”: a lesson in the use of cornerstones. DIY-error 63 involved the laying of a small patio to take an equally small pergola at the end of the garden; it used redundant left-over materials and took less than a day to complete. Another couple of hours constructed the pergola. Standing back from it I recall the feeling of satisfaction at a job well done. Until I got inside when I proudly directed the family’s attention to the new garden ornament. Strangely, though left by me standing parallel both to the fence behind it and to the front of its new patio, from the house it seemed to have shifted itself around and to be standing at a 45° angle to the house – which was odd since the back fence was, I assumed, parallel to the house? Wrong assumption! The fence actually runs at a fair old angle. And my error was in placing my cornerstone to be parallel with the fence and not the house: the point about cornerstones being that once it is in place it provides the direction and run for the rest of building. The next brick is tapped into place to follow the cornerstone’s line in every direction an so on as the building grows. In my case, at least two wrong directions!
God has placed Jesus as the Church’s cornerstone. All we do and are is governed by the lines He has set.
5. Second, we learn about the believers, about us. We too are “living stones” (those who remember the authorised version may recall this as “lively stone”?) which reminds me of Jesus’ reply to the priests when they ordered him to quiet the crowd on Palm Sunday: “…if they keep quiet, the stones themselves will start to shout!” (Lk 19:40).
And we are being built into a “spiritual temple”/ “spiritual house” to serve as priests and “to offer spiritual and acceptable sacrifices to God through Jesus Christ”/offering spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ”. I understand “spiritual” in this passage to be a contrast with “physical”: Peter is using images – the essence of the Church is not its physical building, but its God-given unity and strength, the love that exists between its members; the sacrifices that we offer are not those of doves or pigeons but spiritual ones like prayer like teaching, most of all lives lived obediently to God.
And Peter does not stop there in his description of what God has done, is doing for the believers: not just chosen, not just a holy priesthood but also
“…the holy nation, God’s own people…called out of darkness into His own marvellous light. At one time you were not His people but now you are His people; at one time you did not know God’s mercy, but now you have received His mercy.” (GNB)
A marvellous passage. Many of those hearing Peter’s letter first time around were Jews who has responded to the gospel. Peter’s words will have resonated with them: not just the imagery of the Temple – so important in Jewish belief – but now the repetition of the promise of God to Abraham and the patriarchs: the essential formula – “I will be your God and you will be my people”; and the echo of the exodus salvation – “called out of darkness”.
6. That then is the basis of belief about the Christian community, from which (in addition to what God has done for us as individuals) Peter feels able to challenge his hearers – isolated, unfairly accused, persecuted believers, whose new faith could not have been held for any length of time – to challenge them to obedience – to undertake the DIY-aspect of the Christian life. In the weeks to come we will look at what form that call takes (how as Christians we should be getting our hands dirty): for now though let’s end by noting one immediate response that is in our passage. As a spiritual temple, with Christ marking the lines we follow, our cornerstone, as people belonging to God, once not a people, but now a people, once without mercy, now having received mercy, “it is [to pinch JB Phillips translation of v.9] for you now to demonstrate the goodness of him who has called you out of darkness and into His amazing light”.
1. It’s that time of year. The time of year when one’s colleagues come into work on a Monday morning with traces of white emulsion in their hair – or evidence of sand and concrete under their finger nails; when, at my office at least, the soft, lily-white fingers and hands of grown men who do nothing for most of the year but read papers and use office equipment, begin to take on the gnarled, weather-beaten appearance of sons of the soil. It is spring. It is the season for DIY.
I have done DIY. I have been there: I have painted and sawn and stuck and dug and laid and hung with the best of them. But I begin to sense those days are behind me: it is all quite hard work; now, I accept that room could be painted, but I rather like it how it is; anyway, the professionals do it so much better; and – actually - I like having hands like a girl!
2. Last week we started our study of the first letter of Peter. Cameron led us through the early part of the first chapter and we learned that the letter had been written most probably by the same Peter as was Jesus’ disciple; from Rome in the period 25 or 30 years after Jesus’ death; and written to new communities of people who had come to believe in Jesus as the Son of God, people and communities that were scattered through what we now know as Turkey; and people who faced real persecution solely as a result of their new faith. [In that it is written to new members of the faith, then it is apt that the letter provides our study on the day of Benedict’s baptism. While, as we will explore, the circumstances of the church now is apparently very different from then, and while Benedict is too small to understand or remember what is said today, I am confident that Peter’s words apply as much to him as to the scattered believers in first-century Asia.]
In that first chapter we saw Peter reminding the believers of what Jesus meant to each one of them: that they had been chosen, made holy; been given new life by the raising of Jesus; given a living hope, able to look forward (beyond the present persecutions) to a rich blessing, kept in Heaven. They had been given something which the ancient prophets had foreseen and which even the angels would like to understand! Had we read on last week, we would have found that, against this background, Peter went on to appeal to his readers to live holy lives – to be obedient to God, to love one another and – as we come into chapter 2 to rid themselves of the characteristics that would prevent them growing and maturing as Christians.
So in that first chunk, Peter has explained what God has done in Jesus for each believer – and then has pushed them to the conclusion that in response to that they are bound to live in a way which reflects God’s love. A balance between what is done for us – and what we should do ourselves. And as we continue our studies we will find that much more of Peter’s message relate to this DIY-aspect of our faith – to how we live out our faith in the world, how we relate to people, how we face unfairness, how we face suffering. How we get our hands dirty and paint in our hair.
3. But the challenge to DIY is set firmly in the context of that reminder of what God has done and is doing in our lives. Last week the emphasis was on the individual; this week it is on the community, on the church. This week we are told what “being Church” involves from God’s side – what He has done for us that enables us to respond by obedience.
So what do we learn?
4. First, we learn about Jesus. It is Jesus who is first mentioned as “the living Stone”; it is He who is “chosen” by God, who is “precious”; it is He who is the cornerstone (or capstone).
We should not be surprised that Simon, renamed by Jesus Peter, Cephas, the Rock, takes up the imagery of stones when explaining Jesus’ role in the community of the Church; Peter, the one who first expressed the insight into the messiah-ship of Jesus and drew from Jesus the promise to build the Church on this rock. But Peter claims no such role here: it is Jesus that is the living stone, Jesus the cornerstone.
I now understand cornerstones. When next you come to see us, take a look up the garden at “DIY-error number 63”: a lesson in the use of cornerstones. DIY-error 63 involved the laying of a small patio to take an equally small pergola at the end of the garden; it used redundant left-over materials and took less than a day to complete. Another couple of hours constructed the pergola. Standing back from it I recall the feeling of satisfaction at a job well done. Until I got inside when I proudly directed the family’s attention to the new garden ornament. Strangely, though left by me standing parallel both to the fence behind it and to the front of its new patio, from the house it seemed to have shifted itself around and to be standing at a 45° angle to the house – which was odd since the back fence was, I assumed, parallel to the house? Wrong assumption! The fence actually runs at a fair old angle. And my error was in placing my cornerstone to be parallel with the fence and not the house: the point about cornerstones being that once it is in place it provides the direction and run for the rest of building. The next brick is tapped into place to follow the cornerstone’s line in every direction an so on as the building grows. In my case, at least two wrong directions!
God has placed Jesus as the Church’s cornerstone. All we do and are is governed by the lines He has set.
5. Second, we learn about the believers, about us. We too are “living stones” (those who remember the authorised version may recall this as “lively stone”?) which reminds me of Jesus’ reply to the priests when they ordered him to quiet the crowd on Palm Sunday: “…if they keep quiet, the stones themselves will start to shout!” (Lk 19:40).
And we are being built into a “spiritual temple”/ “spiritual house” to serve as priests and “to offer spiritual and acceptable sacrifices to God through Jesus Christ”/offering spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ”. I understand “spiritual” in this passage to be a contrast with “physical”: Peter is using images – the essence of the Church is not its physical building, but its God-given unity and strength, the love that exists between its members; the sacrifices that we offer are not those of doves or pigeons but spiritual ones like prayer like teaching, most of all lives lived obediently to God.
And Peter does not stop there in his description of what God has done, is doing for the believers: not just chosen, not just a holy priesthood but also
“…the holy nation, God’s own people…called out of darkness into His own marvellous light. At one time you were not His people but now you are His people; at one time you did not know God’s mercy, but now you have received His mercy.” (GNB)
A marvellous passage. Many of those hearing Peter’s letter first time around were Jews who has responded to the gospel. Peter’s words will have resonated with them: not just the imagery of the Temple – so important in Jewish belief – but now the repetition of the promise of God to Abraham and the patriarchs: the essential formula – “I will be your God and you will be my people”; and the echo of the exodus salvation – “called out of darkness”.
6. That then is the basis of belief about the Christian community, from which (in addition to what God has done for us as individuals) Peter feels able to challenge his hearers – isolated, unfairly accused, persecuted believers, whose new faith could not have been held for any length of time – to challenge them to obedience – to undertake the DIY-aspect of the Christian life. In the weeks to come we will look at what form that call takes (how as Christians we should be getting our hands dirty): for now though let’s end by noting one immediate response that is in our passage. As a spiritual temple, with Christ marking the lines we follow, our cornerstone, as people belonging to God, once not a people, but now a people, once without mercy, now having received mercy, “it is [to pinch JB Phillips translation of v.9] for you now to demonstrate the goodness of him who has called you out of darkness and into His amazing light”.
posted by Parish Administrator at 1:21 pm
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