Polishing Your Stones
When I was a kid, like many of my friends, I was the proud owner of a rock tumbler. A rock tumbler allowed us to take a variety of rocks we found in the neighborhood and polish them to the point that the rocks were like gems. As a kid, all we needed were a few rocks from the neighbor’s driveway, some polishing grit, and a little bit of patience. This recipe for success allowed us to (at least in our minds) print money. We would load up our rock tumblers and let them run for a few days and after we washed away the polishing grit, we believed we had diamonds and rubies in our hands.
If our parents had only seen the potential in our childhood get rich quick scheme, maybe they could have retired early and today I would be the founder and CEO of Polished Rocks Inc., you’re one-stop-shop for fine polished driveway stones.
There are few passages in the New Testament that pull us in with rich metaphorical language like our reading today. God’s grace and our election through the faithfulness of Jesus Christ grab our attention, revealing that not only are we freed from the bonds of sin and Death through Christ’s Easter victory but now we are included, because of Christ’s faithfulness, in the household of God. Those who have felt as though they were not welcomed or told they were not accepted before God now breathe a sigh of relief and then step forward and into a new home, a new grounding, with Christ as the cornerstone of the new Temple. The grounding we rely on for our faith is found in the sureness of Christ as our cornerstone.
All other stones in this new structure will be shaped and set by the Cornerstone, the ultimate reference point determining the position of the entire structure. God chose Jesus Christ as our Cornerstone, a living stone – a living hope for all of creation and the living Word of God.
Christ, the living Cornerstone would be rejected, the Psalmist and the prophet Isaiah foretold of these events. The Psalmist wrote, “The stone rejected by the builders is now the main foundation stone!”[1] Throughout his ministry Jesus was despised by the religious elite of the day and then Jesus was ultimately rejected on Good Friday as the crowds in Jerusalem – the home of the Temple, the place where it was believed God resided – shouted: “Crucify!”
Yet, rejection was not enough and Jesus Christ, then and today is the Living Cornerstone of the Church. The Living Cornerstone is not only drawing us closer to God, Christ is building us, refining us into a spiritual temple. We are brought into new life in Christ as we are joined with other imperfect stones into “God’s household.”[2]
We all have had too much time on and temptation on our hands over the past nine weeks to consider a new hobby to make our COVID time a “success.” Many of us are achievers and see time at home as an opportunity to organize, clean, rearrange, or remodel. Some have taken up sewing to help make masks for those of us who either do not own a sewing machine or possess the skill set necessary for the task. We have challenged ourselves to read more or learn to play a musical instrument – to the band, don’t worry, I’ve been practicing.
Even before COVID turned our world upside down, the stillness was not applauded, and busyness was considered a sign of determination and grit. The same is true in the church. We fill our calendar with programming in hopes that we, all by ourselves, can build up Christ’s body for the transformation of the world. We do and we go, believing that if we just go and do enough rather than residing in stillness, our faith will grow, we will become closer to God and more sanctified in the process.
One of the things I learned using a rock tumbler is that it did not matter what I did after I put the rocks and polishing grit into the tumbler. When I plugged the black power cable into the outlet and switched the machine on, I had to rely on and trust that the tumbler would do what the box said it would do, trusting that the little work I did was enough for the outcome I desired.
Our Living Hope, the Living Word of God, Jesus Christ is building us up. Jesus Christ has built you up and will continue building. The Cornerstone that was rejected is now placing each of us, building His Church so that we can bear His amazing Light into the dark corners of our community and world.
It can feel as though we have to go, go, go, and do, do, do and because of where many of us live, just a stone throw from the Nation’s Capital this has been our normal for as long as we can remember. It can feel like we have to go, and we have to do, but the honing, shaping, and building is not our work to do. The Resurrection of Jesus Christ made nobodies into a royal priesthood, taking those who had and continue to be cast aside or told they need to go and do before God will respond, making them and us, everyone into living stones.
We have been out of the physical church building for nine weeks, a building with a physical cornerstone and our hub for ministry in our corner of the world. Because we have been out of the physical church building for so long it can seem as though our stillness, as the world continues to move (at a slower pace) is a lack of faithfulness to the One who calls, shapes, and sends us. On the contrary, Christ is still honing, shaping, and building up the Church, even while we are not physically together.
The power of Christ’s Resurrection ensures that we are all, all of creation is held together, we are grounded in His Grace through the love of our Creator and the power of God’s Spirit.
All of this is God’s doing.
The salvation we receive by Grace comes to us from Jesus Christ, the Cornerstone, who is calling and building each us so that we might bear this Good News to all of the world, that all may know of God’s mercy.
[1] Psalm 118:22, CEB
[2] 1 Peter 4:17, NIV
