May 7, 2023
Rev. Mary Erickson
Hope Lutheran Church
1 Peter 2:2-10; John 14:1-14
Our Cornerstone
Friends, may grace and peace be yours in abundance in the knowledge of God and Christ Jesus our Lord.
When the United States Capitol building was in its initial phases of construction, President Washington presided over a ceremony for the laying of the Capitol’s cornerstone. In the morning of September 18, 1793, he crossed the Potomac River. From there he joined members from various Masonic lodges and the Alexandria Volunteer Artillery. They processed the one and a half miles to the building site.
Washington entered the foundation trench and placed a ceremonial plaque on the ground. The cornerstone was then lowered on top of it. Following Masonic tradition, Washington struck the stone three times with a gavel. After he had exited the trench, the volunteer artillery made a 15-gun salute, one gun for each of the states at that time. Finally, a 500-pound ox was slaughtered and roasted, according to Masonic tradition.
I was good with the whole thing until they got to the ox. They lost me at the ox!
The laying of the cornerstone for our U.S. capitol building was a momentous event. That cornerstone is symbolic. It represents everything that our U.S. constitution and the nation stand for.
Historically, the laying of a cornerstone was critical for the successful construction of the entire building. That cornerstone established the layout for the building. The sides of the building followed the lines of the cornerstone. The stone was carefully laid plane so that the future building was perfectly level.
Nowadays we don’t build structures around a cornerstone. But the same careful attention is given to laying the foundation. The foundation needs to be laid level and in proper alignment.
Our two Bible readings for today both use the imagery of building. In 1 Peter we liken the church on earth as a building, a holy temple. Each one of us is built into this holy structure. We are built in alignment to Jesus Christ, who is our cornerstone.
In our reading from John, Jesus speaks of the heavenly abode being prepared for us. Jesus goes to prepare a place for us. Here, he’s not the cornerstone; he’s the builder. The son of the carpenter becomes the builder of the church on earth and in the world to come.
So let’s spend a little time reflecting on each of these passages.
Peter calls us living stones. In nature, stones are inert objects. The Jewish temple in Jerusalem had been constructed entirely of stone. Massive stones were quarried and chiseled and then laid in place. By itself, a building is inert. It isn’t alive.
We often refer to our “church” as this building which stands on the corner of Starr and Eddy. But this is just a building. WE are the church, a church in flesh and blood – a church of living stones. Hope Lutheran Church isn’t this building. It’s we who gather here for word and sacrament. And it’s still us when we depart this place and enter the world as ambassadors of Christ.
It’s fitting that Peter would use this metaphor of living stones. Jesus changed his name from Simon to Peter. Peter means Rock. And now he calls the followers of Jesus “living stones.”
As living stones, we’ve been quarried out of this broad, diverse world. We’re not all the same, we’re not uniform. We’re not a building made only of one type of stone and chiseled into identical shapes. And Christ has fitted each of us into his living house, the Church. He’s laid every one of us in the place where we are best suited to serve in his name.
A house of living stones is dynamic. It’s responsive to the needs of the souls around us. It’s not inert; it’s alert and open to change. It listens and responds. It sees and acts.
Within this house of living stones, we’ve been fitted into alignment with our cornerstone, Jesus Christ. As the cornerstone, Christ determines the positioning and the footprint of what we as the church are to be. We follow the direction he has laid, his longitude and latitude. This church is built upon the setting he has established for us. We follow his lead. We are built to align with his bottomless compassion, his servant’s heart.
Getting back to the cornerstone of the U. S. Capitol: the exact location of that cornerstone was lost for over a century. During the war of 1812, the capitol was burned by the British. Later, the capitol underwent multiple redesigns and expansions. Through all of that activity, the cornerstone was lost and forgotten. Its location was finally rediscovered in 1993 with the help of ground penetrating radar.
In a similar way, we as the church can lose our alignment with our cornerstone. We can begin to align ourselves with things other than our rightful cornerstone, things like holiness or right living. They sound good, but they’re not Christ. We shift our focus onto righteous judgment of one another, and we miss the center of grace. We become wrapped up in strict interpretations of who is worthy of communion, but we cannot see the face of Christ in our neighbor. We hold fast to dogmas, but we overlook Christ’s law of love.
In these instances, we have misplaced our cornerstone. But the structure of the church must always build around Jesus Christ and him crucified. So we need to continually check our alignment through self-examination. The example of Christ is our plumb line and level. As living stones, we are joined together and built up through him and him alone.
Jesus, the cornerstone of the church on earth has also promised to build us a home in heaven.
Our passage from John’s gospel occurs on the eve of Jesus’ arrest. As he meets with his disciples in the upper room, Jesus prepares them for what is about to unfold. Their time together is nearly over. But he tells them not to be troubled. All that is about to occur is all for their good. “I am going to prepare a place for you,” he says.
Jesus describes the scene of his heavenly Father’s home. Houses in first century Palestine were built to accommodate multiple generations. Extended families lived together. As sons grew up and became married, the family home was enlarged to accommodate married sons and their families.
Jesus tells his disciples he’s going to prepare a place for them. The home of his heavenly father will be enlarged to accommodate them.
And how is he preparing this place? He’s about to do it through his death on the cross and his resurrection from the grave. In his dying on the cross, he took with him all the brokenness of humanity, all our lonely, rebellious wandering, all our selfish desires, all our hostile anger and vengeance. He took it all upon himself, and it went with him to the grave. And then, in his resurrection he overcame everything that has separated us from the love of God.
I end this sermon with the remarkable story of the Frauenkirche in Dresden, Germany.
The Frauenkirche was completed in 1743. It was a Lutheran Protestant church in a city where the prince was Roman Catholic. He supported the construction of the church because he believed that his faith should not determine the faith of everyone under his rule.
With its incredible dome, the Frauenkirche shaped the unmistakable skyline of the city of Dresden.
But all that changed with the Allied bombing of Dresden during World War II. The church was utterly destroyed. For 50 years, under Communist rule, the ruins of the church laid in a pile of rubble.
And then, after the reunification of Germany, a small movement began in 1989 to sift through the pile of rubble and reconstruct the church. That small beginning gained worldwide inertia.
Piece by piece, the pile of rubble was carefully examined. Experts could determine where a piece had originally come from by its placement in the debris pile.
It seems herculean, but gradually, all the broken stones were labeled, organized and stored. Computer technology also helped in determining the exact location of every salvageable piece. Using the original plans from the church’s first builder, the Frauenkirche was reconstructed.
The reconstructed church was completed in 2005. The older stones are very visible, contrasting with the newer stones intermixed in the construction. The church stands as a monument to hope and reconciliation.
“I go to prepare a place for you.” Crushed under the effects of sin, we are like cast off stones, lying in a field of rubble. But Christ has lovingly sifted through and picked up each one of us. We are each known by him – not lost, but found and claimed. And in him, we have all been made new. We’ve been placed within the structure of this beautiful house of living stones, laid into alignment with our Cornerstone, Jesus Christ our Lord.
