1 Peter 2:2-10
April 24, 2005
Sermon preached by Rev. Donald Ng at the First Chinese Baptist Church in San Francisco.
When I was in Boston last week seeing our new grandson, Gavin for the first time and help with the babysitting, one of the largest single-day sporting events in the world happened. The Boston Marathon. When the starting gun went off on Monday (We call it Patriots Day), 20,000 runners traveled from Hopkinton to the city of Boston, over the course of 26.2 miles, and they were cheered by about 500,000 spectators along the route. Every single runner, from the fastest to the slowest, received a tremendous boost from the fans along the way.
Did you know that there’s an understanding in the marathon world that you only have to run 20 miles in a practice run in order to run 26.2 miles in the marathon itself? This may be a surprise to some of us who are not marathon runners but the extra 6.2 miles are given to the runner as a gift from the crowds. The cheers and support of the spectators are enough to push the marathoners beyond any distance they have ever run before.
For the serious runners here, this is actually called the “Bislett Effect,” named after the Bislett Stadium in Oslo, Norway, a place where track and field event records have been broken over the years. The secret of Bislett is that the track is narrow with only six lanes, and the grandstand is so steep that the fans are practically on top of the runners. The sound of 21,000 screaming fans forces you to keep rhythm for one more stretch, one more turn until to get to the finish line. In other words, it’s the crowd that helps the runners to break records and pushes us toward achievement.
The Living Stone
Unlike his colleague, the apostle Paul who used the race-track, race-running metaphor, Peter instead used a construction metaphor to encourage his Christian readers who were scattered across the five provinces in Asia Minor. It’s about 60 years after the resurrection and these early Christians were living in a society that did not share the believers’ convictions regarding the Christ’s promise of a new day. Peter’s purpose was to articulate and emphasize the distinctive character of the Christian community.
What sets Christians apart from everyone else is the belief in Jesus Christ as the Living Stone that has been rejected by the world yet chosen and precious in God’s sight. Christ was rejected as the Messiah by many in his days but became the central stone on which the church is built. A cornerstone as we know lines up all of the other foundational stones to build up the rest of the building to be straight and firm.
Talking about foundational stones and cornerstones is maybe a bit anachronistic today when most of our contemporary skyscrapers are built with steel and glass. I read recently that there was a global competition to build the tallest skyscraper with these new composite materials. But I think that when it comes to constructing important buildings in our world, we seem to return to using stones as a symbol of our faith and commitments. All the great cathedrals are built with stones. Our church is made of stones and bricks. War memorials of black granite are testaments to our remembrance of sacrifices for freedom. When we reverently remember departed loved ones, we mark their earthly remains with grave stones.
Living Stones
Since Christ is the cornerstone, Peter tells us that we are therefore the “living stones.” Having just a cornerstone is not enough to complete the entire building. There is a need for many other stones lay on the cornerstone for the building to fulfill its intended purpose.
As living stones making up the church’s structure, we must reflect on how we contribute to the making of the whole church. Are we useful and supportive stones or are we weak and inferior out of neglect and misuse? No two stones are exactly the same. Our individual faith adds to creating the wide variety of stones in the building. Do not see yourself as any less important than the person sitting next to you?
Christ as both the cornerstone that sets all of our stones to be straight and stable, is also the cement that holds the whole church together. Without him, we would become loosen and far apart. Peter encourages these early scattered Christians to not be ashamed of their faith in Christ, but like living stones, be built into a spiritual house, a holy priesthood, and offer spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ.
We live in such an individualistic society that we often apply these same principles on our religious convictions. We may think that as long as I have a saving relationship with Christ, I’m okay. Jesus loves me and that’s all that counts. We like to be a living stone all by our lonely selves. When people are in a search for faith, frequently they end up with an individualistic religion of only a vertical dimension with God and little sense of the horizontal dimension of God in the world.
We end up once again thinking that we have some kind of special privilege that entitles us to have a personal relationship with God all by ourselves. We may have that but in most likelihood, our relationship to Christ comes when we become many living stones cemented together in the love of Christ with Christ as the only central cornerstone. And these many living stones are not all placed on the front of the building for everyone to see but some are in the back of the building, some are so high up that you can’t really see them, some may be buried underneath the building but all living stones are important in the making up of the church. The strength of the church is not so much the fragmented individuals but in the community of believers.
More Than
The two words that have killed more God-inspired dreams than any others are: “Be realistic!” Has God not said—has Jesus not promised—that all that is asked in his name and for his purpose can be accomplished?
Peter reminds us that against all threats and misunderstandings that people had about us as Christians, we who were once not a people are now God’s people; once we had not received mercy, now have mercy.
God is calling us to stop being realistic according to the world’s understanding of what’s possible and to begin to proclaim and claim our place in God’s plan to fulfill our purpose in life and the mission through this church. You have heard me marvel at the idea that we are an amazingly unique church in the world. We value and affirm our bilingual and bicultural gifts believing that both are the two sides of the same coin. We faithfully decided to remain in Chinatown not because of any modern conveniences but the mission of the church remains uncompleted. We call and unashamedly invite persons to declare themselves disciples of Jesus Christ in public witness of faith in Baptism when there are so many other loyalties that we can easily commit too.
When we are not realistic, we are like the marathon runners who only train to run 20 miles and the extra 6.2 miles is a gift from the crowds. We are then able to do mighty acts like Christ did for us because we have each other to cheer us on, to lean up against one another like living stones held together by Christ.
But we must keep our eyes on Jesus Christ, the pioneer and perfecter of our faith. If we don’t follow Jesus as the lead runner pacing the marathon, we would fall flat on our faces. Peter tells us that for those who do not believe, Jesus becomes a “stone that makes them stumble, and a rock that makes them fall.” That’s an awful position to be in when we’re trying to “run with perseverance the race that is set before us.” (Heb. 12:1) So we need to be focused on Jesus.
Yet as the crowd and fans are crucial for us to complete the race, we all need to cheer each other on, helping, assisting, empowering, running along side with those who are on a particular track of life that are facing a particular challenge, obstacle, trial or test. And having been on the course, run the track, flown over those hurtles ourselves, we’re in a position to yell and scream and cheer and urge our sisters and brothers to go on.
On Saturday, we’ll be having our first “Church Family Retreat Day.” You might say, “I have too many things to do or it’s the only time I have to run errands or its $5 to cross the bridge!” But the main purpose of our retreat day is to become the church that is more than we can see by ourselves. As living stones at our four different worship services or at our many SS classes or Bible study groups or serving in our various church leadership capacities is not enough. But when all of the living stones are gathered together in one place and we affirm that Christ is our cornerstone central to the life and mission of our church, we are then cemented together in a way that being realistic is not our goal.
Let’s be unrealistic for a change and to imagine what God has planned for us. Let’s be unrealistic and give up a Saturday to strengthen the cement of Christ’s love for each living stone of this church. Let’s be unrealistic for a change and forget for a moment how expensive gasoline is and the $5 to cross the Golden Gate Bridge!
We have to stay close to one another. If we are going to have a chance to proclaiming the mighty acts of God to a hurting and hope-starved world, then we’re going to have to hang out together as “a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God’s own people.”
Exclusive Community
This sounds like we are a pretty exclusive community. Not exclusive because we shut people out, but exclusive because we welcome everybody in. We are exclusive because contrary to everyone else’s rules, we are eager to unconditionally love, to generously accept, and lovingly tolerate and encourage everyone to come to this distinctive exclusive community built on Christ as the cornerstone.
A church recently had their retreat day where they played a wonderful game of softball. But this game was truly different. The softball was almost as big as a volleyball and there were an odd assortment of bats. The youngest player was five, the oldest player was about sixty-five, and there was a wide spread of ages in between. Everyone was welcomed and wanted on the team—fat or skinny, slow or fast, “successful” or not. Everybody got as many pitches as they wanted in order to hit the ball. One little boy hit the ball about two feet, and could easily have been thrown out at first base, except that the catcher “accidentally” fumbled the ball and didn’t throw it in time.
Then it was Sarah’s turn. Because of a genetic disorder, Sarah’s brain doesn’t always connect with the action that is needed. When it was her turn to bat, her father helped her swing, and when the hit came she started to run—but in the wrong direction. What happened next was amazing! As a single team, every person on the field swung into action. They called to her, they helped her, they all did what they could to lead her to first base. When she went straight from second base to home plate—nobody corrected her. Instead, they all cheered for the run she had just scored.
Not only does it take a village to raise a child, it takes separated and strayed living stones to come together, held together in Christ’s love to become more than it sees in itself. This church family on the ball field became at that moment the body of Christ, an alternative community with distinctive values and beliefs from the world in which we live. I hope and pray that this Saturday will be the same for us.
Clinker Bricks
We often think that stones and rocks are dead and just stones and rocks. But Einstein told us that mass is energy. “Living stones” is not an oxymoron but in fact, stones are energy. As living stones, we have energy to be used for the building up of the community.
You have heard me spoken proudly about our clinker brick church building. Tour guides daily stand across the street from our church and point out how these clinker bricks salvaged from the 1906 earthquake and fire have been reused to rebuild our church building. They come up close to examine these deformed and misshapen bricks normally thrown away as rejects.
But when our forefathers and foremothers of the faith decided to use these rejected clinker bricks, they have left an enduring message to us present-day members and friends to think about. I’m glad that our church is not made out of composite materials because then I wouldn’t have a sermon today.
Just as Christ was rejected as the Messiah, we are like those clinker bricks rejected and set apart from the world because of our distinctive faith in Jesus Christ. None of us are perfectly shaped bricks for only Jesus is the pioneer and perfecter of our faith. As the “clinker brick church,” we are bearing witness of our faith in Christ, the cornerstone of our faith and life.
When we are tested and challenged like the early Christians to whom Peter wrote, we will not become discouraged because we know that we were once not a people but now we are God’s people; once we had not received mercy, but now we have received mercy. Let us as living stones join together as the body of Christ to become unrealistic about what to expect and to cheer each other on to become more than we can ever humanly imagine.
Let us pray.
Thank you, Lord God for the power of the Living Stone, Jesus Christ in our lives and especially in the life and ministry of this church. Lead us to become the faithful disciples of this new day in a new way. Bless our church family retreat day this Saturday as we grow together in witness and fellowship. All these things we pray in the name of Christ. Amen.