Come To The Living Stone

Come to the Living Stone

“2 Like newborn babies, crave pure spiritual milk, so that by it you may grow up in your salvation,

3 now that you have tasted that the Lord is good. The Living Stone and a Chosen People

4 As you come to him, the living Stone—rejected by humans but chosen by God and precious to him—

5 you also, like living stones, are being built into a spiritual house[a] to be a holy priesthood, offering spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ. 6 For in Scripture it says:

“See, I lay a stone in Zion,

a chosen and precious cornerstone,

and the one who trusts in him

will never be put to shame.”[b]

7 Now to you who believe, this stone is precious. But to those who do not believe,

“The stone the builders rejected

has become the cornerstone,”[c]

8 and,

“A stone that causes people to stumble

and a rock that makes them fall.”[d]

They stumble because they disobey the message—which is also what they were destined for.

9 But you are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God’s special possession,

that you may declare the praises of him who called you out of darkness into his wonderful light.

10 Once you were not a people, but now you are the people of God;

once you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy.”1 Peter 2:2-10

Intro: A brick and a block were walking down a road

when a piece of concrete jumped up and made a funny face, screamed and ran off.

The brick asked the block, “what’s up with him?”

The block replied, don’t pay him no mind, he is a “cycle path.”

Today's scripture talks a lot about stones: cornerstones, stumbling stones, living stones, precious stones.

Jesus had renamed Simon to Peter—the Rock.

The Rock described Christ as a cornerstone, and the community of faith as living stones.

From that comparison I want to build on our understanding of Christian Community.

We Are All God Children At the Table

That makes us brothers and sisters in Christ.

We belong. We belong to Christ. We belong to one another.

WE BELONG TO GOD THROUGH CHRIST, THE CHIEF CORNERSTONE

The Bible is full of references to God as a rock.

Deuteronomy 32:4 says, “God is the rock, his works are perfect and all his ways are just.”

When Hannah prayed for a child in I Samuel she said, “There is no rock like our God.”

Psalm 28 said, “To you I call, 0 Lord my Rock; do not turn a deaf ear to me.”

Psalm 18 says, “The Lord is my rock, my fortress in whom I take refuge.”

And it is also a common threaded throughout the liturgy and Communion Service,

the phrases that we use in the community of faith—

God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in time of trouble.

He is the Anchor that keeps the soul, steadfast and sure while the billows roll.

The Lord is the Rock of our Salvation. His banner over us is love.

Taking that image,

Peter offers an invitation.

Did you hear it in the opening Scripture reading?

The invitation is this: Come to him, the living Stone, rejected by men but chosen by God and precious to him.

Come to the Living Stone.

You who are broken, come.

God uses broken things.

He uses broken soil to produce a crop,

He uses broken clouds to give rain,

He uses broken grain to give bread,

and He uses broken bread to give salvation and strength.

Peter, of all the disciples, surely understood that.

He knows how strong you can become in the broken places of your life.

When Jesus came to repair his denial and to put him together again following his resurrection,

Peter found his greatest strength at the places where he had his greatest problems.

You, who are broken, come to the Living Stone.

You who are wounded, come to the Lord’s Table.

It is one thing to feel loved by God when our life is all together

and all our support systems are in place.

When life is relatively easy and life is relatively good.

But what happens when life falls through the cracks,

when we sin and fail,

when our dreams are shattered

when our investments crash,

when we are regarded with suspicion,

when illness and grief come stalking into our daily lives?

What happens when we come face to face with the human condition?

And Peter says to these struggling Christians in Asia Minor who are undergoing persecution,

even in times like that, come to the Living Stone; come to the Stone.

You who are wounded, come.

You who are needy, come.

We send mission teams to third world countries and every time they come back with similar stories.