NOTICE TO ON-DEMAND WORSHIPPERS
In order to expedite posting the worship services here on our website, we are reducing the transcript to just the scriptures used and the message. Holy Communion is offered every Sunday. If you are worshipping with us online whether during the live-cast or through on-demand viewing, you are encouraged to have bread and juice or wine available as you watch the service and to participate in communion just as if you are present with us.
SCRIPTURE READINGS
God, open us to hear and receive your scriptures today as you would have us hear them, understand them as you would have us understand them, and to act upon them as you would have us act upon them.
In Jesus’ name, Amen.
*Scriptures this morning are from the NRSV.
1 Peter 2:2-10
Like newborn infants, long for the pure, spiritual milk, so that by it you may grow into salvation – if indeed you have tasted that the Lord is good.
Come to him, a living stone, though rejected by mortals yet chosen and precious in God’s sight, and like living stones, let yourselves be built into a spiritual house, to be a holy priesthood, to offer spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ.
For it stands in scripture: “See, I am laying in Zion a stone, a cornerstone chosen and precious; and whoever believes in him will not be put to shame.”
To you then who believe, he is precious; but for those who do not believe, “The stone that the builders rejected has become the very head of the corner,” and “A stone that makes them stumble, and a rock that makes them fall.” They stumble because they disobey the word, as they were destined to do.
But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God’s own people, in order that you may proclaim the mighty acts of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light.
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.
John 14:1-14
“Do not let your hearts be troubled. Believe in God, believe also in me.
In my Father’s house there are many dwelling places. If it were not so, would I have told you that I go to prepare a place for you?
And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and will take you to myself, so that where I am, there you may be also.
And you know the way to the place where I am going.”
Thomas said to him, “Lord, we do not know where you are going. How can we know the way?”
Jesus said to him, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me. If you know me, you will know my Father also. From now on you do know him and have seen him.”
Philip said to him, “Lord, show us the Father, and we will be satisfied.”
Jesus said to him, “Have I been with you all this time, Philip, and you still do not know me? Whoever has seen me has seen the Father. How can you say, ‘Show us the Father’? Do you not believe that I am in the Father and the Father is in me? The words that I say to you I do not speak on my own; but the Father who dwells in me does his works.
Believe me that I am in the Father and the Father is in me; but if you do not, then believe me because of the works themselves.
Very truly, I tell you, the one who believes in me will also do the works that I do and, in fact, will do greater works than these, because I am going to the Father.
I will do whatever you ask in my name, so that the Father may be glorified in the Son. If in my name you ask me for anything, I will do it.
L: The scriptures of God for the people of God.
A: Thanks be to God.
Message – Love Like a Rock*
Rev. Val
May the words of my mouth and the meditations of my heart be pleasing to you, O Lord, my rock, and my redeemer, and may you see fit to use me as a vessel from which you pour out your Divine Word.
In Jesus’ name, Amen.
No one wants to hear the preacher talk about things that sound political on Sunday mornings, and yet …
You’re all more than likely aware of the mass shooting yesterday in Allen Texas that has taken eight lives so far, with seven more in the hospital.
What you probably are not aware of is that Allen TX was the ninth of nine mass shootings here in the US in the past two days. I wouldn’t have known that either if Ayman Mohyeldin, one of the MSNBC weekend anchors hadn’t mentioned it on his program last night, pointing out most of the other eight never made it to national news.
This is the world we live in now … a world where mass shootings are so frequent, the news can’t report them all … a world where the FBI is producing video trainings so that We the People will hopefully know what to do in the event we find ourselves in the scene of a mass shooting … a world where our elected officials’ only response to such horrific tragedies is “thoughts and prayers,” making the idea of “prayer” both insincere and insignificant. A phrase so overused at this point, I imagine it’s on their office answering machines … “Hello, this is Senator Smith’s office. Thoughts and prayers. Please leave your message after the beep.”
Scrolling through social media – that place where We the People connect with each other daily – that place that allows us to focus on or distract ourselves from everything going on in the world … that place where we plead our cases for what is or is not the solution – I see a world where we all continue to cast stones at one another only instead of actual stones, the stones come in the form of accusations, fear inducing rhetoric, and dangerous, hateful laws that support discrimination, marginalization, oppression, and dehumanization of entire groups of minorities among We the People. And the largest, most deadly of the stones are thrown “in the name of God.”
Come to him, a living stone, though rejected by mortals yet chosen and precious in God’s sight, and like living stones, let yourselves be built into a spiritual house, to be a holy priesthood, to offer spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Chris. (I Peter 2:4-5 NRSV).
In Psalm 31:1-5, 15-16, the psalmist writes,
In you, O LORD, I seek refuge; do not let me ever be put to shame; in your righteousness deliver me.
Incline your ear to me; rescue me speedily. Be a rock of refuge for me, a strong fortress to save me.
You are indeed my rock and my fortress; for your name’s sake lead me and guide me, take me out of the net that is hidden for me, for you are my refuge.
Into your hand I commit my spirit; you have redeemed me, O LORD, faithful God.
My times are in your hand; deliver me from the hand of my enemies and persecutors.
Let your face shine upon your servant; save me in your steadfast love.
And it’s the stones that dominate the thinking in these verses. Come to the stone, and be a stone, and live inside those stones. Peter gets a little carried away, it seems. Stones on the brain, I guess. Rocks. Rocky, that’s what they called him. Jesus changed his name from Simon to Peter (Petros – Rock). Maybe he’s trying to return the favor. Come to the living stone. Come and let him build you into the house he’s trying to build. Be a stone, like him. A living stone. Part of the foundation. Part of the structure. Be a stone, a temple made of stone. Be a stone sanctuary; let worship take place in you. Make worship take place in you. We’re both the structure and the activity that takes place inside that structure. We’re the building and the worship that inhabits that building. It makes your head spin a little bit. Which is it? What is it? What are we; who is he; and what in the world is a living stone? If living water is water that moves, water that bubbles and rushes and flows, what is a living stone?
The psalmist wants to talk about stones too—maybe living, but more importantly, strong, and constant. And protective. A refuge. “You are my rock,” the psalmist sings, “and my fortress.” There is a commitment here: “Into your hand I commit my spirit.” I’m putting everything I have in this rocky refuge. My times are in your hand.” My past and my future, not to mention my present, which sounds a bit shaky right now. Why else would the singer want to hide, want to run, want to be covered up?
It seems those casting the deadliest stones have missed Peter’s point. Or maybe they make it. It seems they’ve rejected that Living Stone and all he taught us before and after his death and resurrection. I don’t know why it hadn’t occurred to me before that the resurrection wasn’t the end of his teaching because he came back and taught his disciples for another fifty days. Perhaps it was due to my own religious upbringing and experience of Jesus is born, skip the lessons during life middle, now jump to his death and resurrection so I can receive divine forgiveness and that very special assurance of eternal salvation and afterlife.
Perhaps that’s why those who throw those deadliest stones in the name of a god they’ve designed to fear and hate all the same people they fear and hate, to make idols of the same things they worship – power, control, wealth, guns, flags, and earthly false messiahs who encourage them never cast their stones in the name of the Living Stone. Because the Living Stone would tell them to drop the stones.
And yes, a living stone, because there is a desire for action. This isn’t just a hiding place; this isn’t just a mountain cave to hide in, a rocky fortress to duck into. No, “rescue me,” the psalmist says, “take me out of the net that is hidden for me.” I’ve fallen into a trap and need saving. Was it my fault? Was it the fault of the enemies? Well, that’s not important now, is it? Just get me out! “Deliver me from the hand of my enemies and my persecutors.”
Save me. While I sit back and watch you work. Is that the approach, the attitude we express when calling on the rock and refuge? Well, Peter says no. Peter says that this is not a “get out of the way and let God work” kind of thing. He wants to talk more about a partnership. Not of equals, to be sure. A partnership of consent, however. We need to want it; we need to allow it; we need to seek it out. Our task, Peter argues, is to invite the Spirit to use us. The potential is within us – “we are a royal priesthood, a holy nation.” But the Spirit waits for our consent. The Spirit waits for us to be willing participants in the building of the kin-dom, the construction of the community of faith. “Let yourself be built into a spiritual house.”
“Let yourself be built,” Peter pleads with us. Let yourself—not decide for yourself. I’m going here; I’m gonna hold up this wall; I’m going to frame that window; I’m going to lie on this path. No, let yourself be built. Go where God wants you, where the Spirit can use you. You’re not in charge; you’re a stone, for heaven’s sake! You’re not the architect; you’re building material. Be built into something greater than yourself, something you may not even see right now. Who knows what you will be? He’s not done with you yet.
Not done. There was a finality to that day in the sun at Wittenberg University. A door closing, a chapter ending. It felt done. But I must tell you a secret and a contentious one, at that. Maddie defied her parents (again), and she and a few girlfriends went to celebrate finishing their schoolwork by getting a tattoo. We didn’t want her to get the tattoo. We told her not to. That’s a door that closed, I suppose. What are you going to do? Let it be the end?
In today’s preaching notes from Dr. Derek Weber, he tells about his thoughts as his daughter Maddie graduates from college – the struggles and the joys they had getting her to that day … how, in a moment it was finished, and then he closes his notes with another story … a story about something Maddie did. He writes:
It’s a tiny thing, tucked behind her ear. It’s a semicolon and a plus sign. It says there’s more; more to her. More for her. There’s more. That’s why we’re living stones, I suspect, and why he is a living stone too. Just when you think you’ve nailed him down, he pops up again. Just when you think you’ve buried him deep, rolled the dead stone over him, he lives. Again. There is more. More to him. More to you. More to me. More to her.
There is more to all of us. More than black ink on white pages that can be manipulated to serve evil or serve good, more than getting surviving life without messing up too bad so we can cash in on that golden ticket, more than isolating ourselves within echo chambers and bubbles of safety by using our digital stones to build digital walls. Far more.
Perhaps we all need to go get a tattoo like Maddie … a tattoo that reminds us to pause and remember we are more. A tattoo to remind us that individually we are living stones and collectively we can build a wall of living stones between those casting all those hateful stones and their intended victims.
Faith without works is dead. The Bible read without the lens of the love and mercy of God who created us, God who walked among us, and God who dwells with us as Spirit is a myth, a fairytale, a manual for confusion and chaos.
I never thought I’d live to say this, but I agree with one thing the fear mongers are saying … yes, we are in a spiritual war. An army of evil has descended on us nationally and globally. Our brothers and sisters are out there in the streets and homeless camps and immigrant camps and undergrounds trying to fight it back.
It’s time for all we living stones to get out there and build them the fortresses they need to protect them.
Dr. Weber’s last line after he told the story of Maddie’s tattoo was, “I want to see what’s next.”
Rise up church. We are that next. We know The Way he gave us. It’s time to follow The Way, the truth, and the life that He is. We have a church out there to join and build, and no time to waste. It is the soul of the church that we’re saving.
Let’s pray:
God of grace and light,
Found within and out with the structures of humanity,
You cannot be contained,
But on occasion choose to dwell in hearts and homes.
Glance lightly upon the hearts and homes dear to us,
The people and places where we seek blessing.
Build up our homes:
Where the happy may find peace;
The sad may find comfort;
The hungry may find food;
The weary may find rest.
Build up the places where we work:
Where the honest may find reward;
The dedicated may find delight;
The imaginative may find new horizons.
Build up our community:
Where the isolated may find friendship;
The marginalised may find welcome;
The unloved may find acceptance.
Build up our nation, loving Lord,
And bless those entrusted with the care of our society’s fabric.
May they use their skills, their calling, their hard graft
To fashion communities of grace and understanding,
Where generosity of heart and mind and soul
May be not only the gilding of our daily life
But its very core.
Build up the Church, redeeming Lord,
So that all Your children may find their place,
Unique and special,
Chosen and essential to the living edifice of grace,
Where by Your grace
Each one might know their value in Your economy,
And their significance in Your eyes.
Help us all, this day, to be living stones, and not dead weights,
Dreaming dreams, and living gloriously the joy and kindliness
Of a faith that edifies everything that life should be.
In the Name of our Saviour, our cornerstone, we pray.
Amen.
In the act of confession, we acknowledge how we have missed the mark, and we call upon God to save us from the destruction of sin and turn us back toward life. Let us now confess our sin before God and one another.
We confess that we have not loved you as you command us to love.
We have not relied on you as our refuge, choosing instead to seek comfort in busyness and distractions.
We have not trusted that only when we put ourselves in your hands can we find peace the peace we crave.
Let your face shine upon your servant; save me in your steadfast love.
We confess that we have not loved our neighbors as you command us to love.
We buy into the myth that it’s every person for themselves.
We ignore the pain of those around us.
We refuse your call to care for the poor and the marginalized.
Let your face shine upon your servant; save me in your steadfast love.
We confess that we do not answer your call to steward creation.
We look upon the earth as something to consume instead of tend.
We point fingers at others instead of doing what is ours to do.
We choose comfort over responsibility.
Let your face shine upon your servant; save me in your steadfast love.
Hear these words:
When we call, God inclines an ear to us
and comes quickly to help us.
God’s love is steadfast to rescue us and redeem us.
In the name of Jesus Christ, you are forgiven!
In the name of Jesus Christ, you are forgiven!
Glory to God! Amen.
Credits:
- Unless listed below, all works cited within the text above.
- *Adapted in full or part from Preaching Notes, Discipleship Ministries Worship Planning Series, May 7, 2023.
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