Stumbling Blocks and Stepping Stones

Sermon preached at New Life Presbyterian Church, Omaha, Nebraska, May 18, 2014.   

1 Peter 2:2-10

There’s a story told about the artist Michelangelo.  After he unveiled his sculpture of Moses, someone asked him how he was able to bring forth such a dramatic and evocative portrait from a block of stone.

Michelangelo replied, “You just hack away at it until it looks like Moses.”

Now I am pretty sure that if I got a large block of stone and hacked away at it, well, let’s just say, it would not look like Moses or any other great sculpture.   It would look like a pile of stones.

That’s the way life is, isn't it?  One person’s Moses is another person’s pile of stones.

In our scripture this morning from the letter of Peter, Peter is talking about stones.   

Peter is talking about Jesus and in this passage; he quotes extensively from the Old Testament.    “The stone the builders have rejected has become the chief, the cornerstone.”  Peter uses this passage from Psalm 118 to show us something important about who Jesus is.   Jesus was rejected.  Jesus was not only rejected, but reviled, arrested, tortured and executed.  According to the powers of the world, the corrupt religious leaders in league with the despotic Roman government, Jesus was supposed to disappear, be forgotten, become yesterday’s news. 

But instead, Jesus has become the cornerstone, the stone that Peter, quoting Isaiah, points out, “a cornerstone, chosen and precious.”

But, there’s always a but, isn't there?  But, not for everyone.  For some Jesus is the cornerstone, for some, Jesus is a stumbling block.  There’s an old proverb, “The only difference between stumbling blocks and stepping stones is the way you use them.”

I fear that for too many people these days, Jesus is a stumbling block.   We mainline American Protestants are unfortunately not what many non-Christians think of when they think of church.  We have allowed the face of Christianity to become the flim flam TV preacher or even worse, protesters holding up signs that say who God hates.    Unless someone has experienced it, a small loving, accepting and joyous congregation like this one is not what people think when they think of the word Christian.    They imagine judgment and hell-fire and damnation.  They picture people who worship a God who suffered a violent death, yet cry out for capital punishment, ignore torture and call for more guns on the street. They picture a people who profess to follow Christ, who said, “Love one another as I have loved you,” yet hoard their wealth and resources and dismiss those less fortunate as lazy, undeserving of the better things in life. 

This is not a new problem.   Someone once asked Mahatma Gandhi “Mr. Gandhi, though you quote the words of Christ often, why is that you appear to so adamantly reject becoming his follower?”

Gandhi replied: “Oh, I don't reject Christ. I love Christ. It's just that so many of you Christians are so unlike Christ.”

That is the problem that we as Christians have.   That is how we make Jesus a stumbling block, by being unlike Christ.   Jesus is how we see what God is like. 

Instead of being stumbling blocks, you and I are called to be stepping stones and building stones.   We are to be the bricks and mortar that builds the church, not just a building, but a people.   And we are called to build not just a building, not just a people, but a bridge, a stepping stone, an open gate for others to enter the people of God because they see the love and acceptance that should be there!

There’s another old proverb that says, “Rocks and mud-bricks and wood and tiles thrown without any structure do not make a house.”    Of course they don’t! Rocks and bricks thrown together is one big pile of stumbling blocks!  But when you build on Jesus the cornerstone, you build something that lasts.  Something that looks like God.

Peter writes, “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.”   A royal priesthood has responsibilities, responsibilities to proclaim, not just with our words, but with our actions, with our very lives.

This passage today closes with Peter quoting the prophet Hosea:

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.

In gratitude for this gift, we are to lead our lives as God’s people, Jesus’ people: people who receive mercy and act like they have received it.

Thanks be to God!

Amen.