Sometimes, sometimes it is no easy task to be a preacher. Sometimes the texts just don’t speak to me. Sometimes I struggle to find a connection between the scripture and the lives of the people and the community I’m serving. I struggle to know what to say. I find myself at a loss for words.
This week though the texts are so ripe, so full that the opposite situation has occurred: there is so much richness in God’s word for St. Hilary’s. Where to begin? Let’s begin with what is scattered here in front of the altar—coats and stones. You will recognize these stones from our Lenten practice. During Lent, we are invited to take the stones as part of our meditation and to lay them at the foot of the cross as we lay our burdens down and as we remember that Jesus has taken all of our sin and all of our burdens upon him.
Today I invite you to consider these stones and the ones you have in your hand and consider them in a different way. We cannot help but notice the notion of the ways the scriptures talk about stones. Stones were used by an angry crowd to kill Stephen, the first martyr to die for speaking out about Jesus.
The psalmist talks about God as a rock and a fortress—a large, secure steady stone. And Peter. Peter whose very name could be translated as Rocky! (What irony there!) Peter talks about Jesus as a living stone, the cornerstone that the builders rejected and as a rock that some stumble over. He then goes onto encourage this early Christian community to see itself as a living stone, just like their living Lord.
Take a moment to look at your stone. Feel it in your hand-- its weight, feel its temperature. Think about what it would be like to throw a rock at a human being. Think about the last time that you stumbled over a rock.
Now think about the last time you went to a groundbreaking ceremony. Maybe even the groundbreaking for this church. What words were said? What ceremonies did you participate in? Did you insert a time capsule in the foundation?
Now I invite you to think about what it might mean when Peter called Jesus a “living stone.” What does that mean? Take a look at the stone in your hand. Is there anything you could do to bring life to something that seems so lifeless?
Which is the point. Nothing we can do can bring life to the lifeless. But it is within God’s power and what is more Jesus showed how God can bring life to what was once dead. Dead as a stone. For Jesus truly was dead. Dead as the stones we hold in our hands.
And so were his followers’ hopes. That Friday night and the next day, the Sabbath, their hopes were dead as the stones you hold in your hands. But God did a new thing and brought new life to the whole world when Jesus rose victorious from that dead tomb. Buried in the earth, he rose. And as he rose so did the hopes of his community. And a new people were formed—the people of the Way (as the early Christians called themselves).
“Who are we now?” is a question the community of St. Hilary’s has been asking itself since your rector left. It is a question you will be asking yourselves in a more formal way as we begin the discernment process to discover who God is calling to lead this community. We will be asking those questions through a survey, through parish meetings and through story-telling.
“Who are we now?” is the very question the community Peter was addressing in his letter. Exiled Gentile converts to “The Way,” we might expect they were uncertain and anxious about their future—they’d probably experienced prosecution and were excluded from their old lives. If they followed The Way, not only who they worshipped with but who they ate with and dealt with would be changed. And Peter gives them words of encouragement.
Listen to how he describes them. Listen and realize that that word is describing this community of St. Hilary’s as well. Who are we?
• a spiritual house
• a holy priesthood
• a chosen race
• a royal priesthood
• a holy nation
All of which lead to the conclusion, "You are... God's own people..."
Whew! “Now wait just a moment!” you may say. “I don’t feel very spiritual, I don’t feel very holy or chosen and certainly I’m not ‘royal.’ And no one ordained me a priest! I just try to do what I can do—in the church and in the world. And what I do doesn’t seem very big or important.”
But I say—and I think the writers of 1Peter and John’s gospel were saying the same thing—don’t shortchange God on this. For you are mightily anointed, you are mightily commissioned just as surely as any priest or deacon or bishop. For the anointing of God’s people takes place first at our baptism. It is our being brought into this family of God’s that makes us followers of the Way.
And what is more, because God has equipped us just as Jesus has promised, we are capable of doing even greater works than Jesus did. “Whoa! Whoa!” You may say.
“I’ve never raised the dead, never cured someone suffering from leprosy and the only crowds I’ve fed are my marauding family at the holidays.”
But see, since Jesus has gone to the Father, he still equips us as his saints and perhaps the miracles, the great works that we can do in his name are more diffuse. But they are miracles, nonetheless. Don’t believe me? Let me tell you about a miracle I participated in—a miracle that Jesus couldn’t have performed without some folks right here in the Chicago area.
Some of you know that I used to be the director of an interfaith group home for adults with developmental disabilities. One of the women who came to live at L’Arche lived nearly her entire life—from the time she was abandoned by her alcoholic mother when she was 6 until she turned 37—in an institution for people with developmental disabilities. When Jean came to live with us she was full of anger. Jean has the mental capacity of a seven year old. She could be charming one moment and throw a fit the next—particularly when she didn’t get her way. Jean had never known the love of a family, never known what it was to be loved unconditionally and she lashed out.
When she first came to L’Arche, although it clearly was a Christian community, Jean wanted nothing to do with prayer, or Jesus, or the cross. She claimed she was a vampire and had some dark fantasies. But the people living and working at L’Arche embraced her for who she was—a child of God. She was gently but firmly encouraged to come to evening prayer every night with the other residents, to sit while grace was being said at every meal and to join in Sunday worship.
One day, standing outside of church after Mass, she turned to an older woman with bright red hair and said to her, “I want you to be my godmother in the Holy Spirit.” The astonished woman, a retired special ed teacher had been observing Jean for several weeks but had not met her. Jean, of course, had no way of knowing Mary’s background nor do I think she would have cared. The two were put together by some higher power, that was clear.
Mary and the former director of L’Arche contacted the catechesis instructor who agreed to individual sessions. For months, every Wednesday, Jean was picked up by one of our volunteers and she was taken to catechesis instructions. When asked why she wanted to be baptized. “So that I won’t be so sad and so that Jesus will help me with my anger,” was Jean’s reply. And so, after months of catechesis instruction, on the feast of the Ascension, Jean was baptized, was brought in to “The Way.”
The Holy Spirit acted in this woman of limited mental capacity and acted by enlivening the whole community that made her baptism possible: There was Frank who picked her up from work, Chris, her baptism instructor, David, Megan and Vicky who work at L’Arche and helped plan the meal, Maria and Mary who saw to it that Jean got her baptismal instruction. I contributed in a small way by holding the community together, encouraging the staff, writing grants to make sure our bills were paid and that everyone had a roof over their heads.
The dead stone that was Jean’s soul and the dead stone that was her life in an institution came alive through a community gathered around our cornerstone—Jesus. See a cornerstone sets the pattern for the entire building—in this case, not a physical building but a community gathered in the name of the One who calls us and who empowers us.
A miracle that was. A miracle that the historic Jesus could not have effected—he didn’t live long enough to do that, so we, the followers of his Way needed to do it. Now when we were doing it, none of us considered ourselves miracle workers. We were all just trying in our own clumsy ways to follow the Way that had been set before us. Together with Jean we were learning what it meant to follow Christ.
Jean, like all of us who remain open to the workings of the Spirit, was being transformed. She used to lash out in frustration and in anger. The incidences of uncontrolled anger dramatically decreased since she came to live at L’Arche and since she began learning about Jesus. “I want Jesus to come into my heart,” Jean would say. And Jesus most certainly did enter her heart. And through our living, working and praying together, he entered the hearts of each of us who walked with Jean on the Way. And turned hearts of stone into living, joyful heart, hearts more deeply on fire with love and gratitude for God revealing God’s self in a two-flat on the west side of Chicago.
I don’t know all your stories: in the coming weeks, we will have a chance to talk about how this community has walked with Jesus on the Way. We will work together to dream about the ways that God might be calling this community to do even greater things in Jesus name. So let us take his words to heart, “Do not let your hearts be troubled.” He has gone ahead of us. He is good to his promise. He has prepared a place for him. A new place for St. Hilary’s to be ‘along the Way.’ And wherever we go, he is with us. Because he is the Way. In him is found the truth of what St. Hilary’s is to become. And with him we share an abundant life.
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