March 17 Sermon

Here's the sermon for March 17.

The Cornerstone

More and more, we are becoming a visual society.  There has been a lot of research done over the years that has proven what I think we have really kind of known all along.  Sure, we can process something when we hear it, but it seems to have more impact when we see something along with hearing it.  And as we read through the Bible, we see this visual orientation at work.  There were quite a few times where the prophets were told to do something that went along with the words they spoke.  Jeremiah was sent to tell God’s people that He was about to give them the yoke of exile, and he showed up wearing a great big wooden oak.  And then, after the false prophet Hananiah broke the wooden yoke, Jeremiah showed up with a metal one to indicate that God was unyielding and unbroken in what He was about to bring upon the country.  A great, powerful visual sign to go along with the words.

I also think that Jesus probably used visual things as He taught and spoke to the people.  It doesn’t tell us in the Bible, but I would imagine that He was speaking about the parable of the sower throwing out the seed that landed in the different kinds of soil, and there was probably a guy out there sowing his seed that Jesus may have been pointing to as He spoke.  Again, we’re not told that, but if nothing else, the people would have easily been able to picture the things that Jesus was talking about in their minds.

So this week, as I read through the words of Jesus that we heard today, I set out in search of something visual for our reflection today.  Now, going out and prying out the cornerstone of our building seemed a little bit excessive, so I found myself down in the nursery on the other end of the building.  And that’s when I found them.  Building blocks!  Not only are they fun to play with for kids and adults alike, but in some ways, they serve to illustrate some of the things we’re going to reflect on today.

We have all sorts of different shapes and sizes of blocks here.  We’ve got square ones, round ones, and triangle shaped ones.  We’ve even got half moon ones, and taller ones and shorter ones.  Wider ones and narrower ones.  All different shapes and sizes for our building excitement.

So let’s say we were going to build something from the blocks.  You’ve got to put the first layer down.  Everything else is going to be built upon that first layer.  It seems really obvious to say that some of these would be better for that purpose than others.  We have this nice rectangular piece that we could lay down.  It’s nice and stable.  It isn’t going to shift around.  Plus, the top is nice and flat and stable.  If we put another one on top of it, we don’t have to worry about it sliding around too much.

But what if you put this triangular piece down on the first layer?  Can you still build on it?  Sure, but you’re probably going to have to take extra precautions.  You might need to make sure that you have some good solid supports on the side to hold the next piece in place.  And as the structure gets a little taller, you’ll probably have to have a few other extra supports to make sure that it won’t collapse.  

What about the half moon?  Hmm, now this one is a bit of a challenge.  I suppose we could put a couple of pieces on either side and build around it, but then, you’re not really building on the half moon.  Plus, it leaves some rather large holes that you would have to fill in somehow.  Sure, we could build with it, but it probably doesn’t make a good foundation or cornerstone for what we’re trying to do.

The foundation you build upon is vitally important for everything that arises from it.  And the foundation all begins with that first piece you lay down, the cornerstone.  Everything lines up from it.  And that’s not only true for the buildings that we build.  You could say the same thing about the foundation and the cornerstones of our lives.  We have foundations in what we think and believe that our lives then get built upon.  Some of them are a lot more stable than others.  Some take a lot more propping up than others, and require more energy and effort to keep things together.  

What are some of these cornerstone beliefs and thoughts that we build out lives on?  How about a few examples?  Here’s a good one that we’re all pretty familiar with.  I want my rights.  If it says that I can do it, then I can do it, and it doesn’t matter what anyone else thinks or says.  This is the cornerstone of most people who live in this nation.  We are raised to know that we have certain rights that are ours, and no one can take them away from us.  We have a right to vote, and that’s not only in our national scene.  We even carry that over into how we operate as God’s people.  What do we do at a Voters’ meeting, or on our different boards when we need to decide something?  We have our right to vote, for those people who have that right.  And how often do we want to give that up?

How stable is that foundation in our lives?  A life built on the cornerstone of “my rights” may have some degree of stability to it.  But what happens when someone else wants their rights, and they seem to cross over into our territory?  What usually happens in that case?  A pretty big fight, right?  If I have my rights, and you infringe on my rights, buddy, you better be ready to fight it out to figure out who is actually right.  And as you think about that, this is a kind of self-centered cornerstone.  If you’re fighting for your rights, how often are you going to want to willingly give up your rights in looking to the good and service of your neighbors?  This cornerstone may be fairly stable, but it tends not to play well with others, or to look to their good.  It tends to be more inward focused.

How about this one?  It belongs to me.  It’s mine and you can’t take it away from me.  Or another way that I’ve heard it said.  Possession is 9/10ths of the law.  Again, the idea of ownership isn’t all that unstable of a foundation.  Someone needs to oversee and manage the things of this world.  But if our cornerstone of life is built upon this, how does that affect how we see the different things of this world?

Let’s take, for example, your car.  It’s your car.  You can get in it and drive it where you want to go.  You can take care of it however you want.  But as in the first cornerstone we looked at, this one is pretty oriented on our own selves.  It’s mine, which means that it’s not yours.  And if it’s not yours, you can’t have it or play with it.  And here’s where I’m going to challenge us a little on this thought.

If it’s yours, then what does that say about what we believe about God?  If we believe that God is the one who created everything, and who gives everything to us as a gift, can we really make the claim that it really is ours?  Does our life reflect that it belongs to me, or that it belongs to God and has been entrusted to me for a time?  Think of your car in that way.  If your car belongs to God, and He has entrusted it to you for a while, how does the way you make use of your car demonstrate that cornerstone?  Do you use your car for the good of your neighbor and in service to God, or for your good, and in service to you?

In a way, this is the cornerstone of the people in the parable that Jesus told.  Possession is 9/10ths of the law.  And if you think that they weren’t thinking that way, look at the way the people react when Jesus finishes His telling of the parable.  The owner had gone away, but had sent his servants.  They sure didn’t treat the servants as though the vineyard belonged to the owner.  It was theirs.  When he sent his son, they showed their possessiveness even more, killing him to make it their own.  And then Jesus says that the owner will throw them out and destroy them and give it to new people, and look at how the people react to that statement.  No way!  It belongs to them!  How could the owner do such a thing?  Even though we look at the story and may wonder how they could even think that, let’s reframe it a bit to make it personal today.  What if God showed up somehow and decided to take His car that He had entrusted to you, and was going to give it to someone else?  The cornerstone of “it’s mine” at work.

“The stone the builders rejected has become the cornerstone.”  What are the cornerstones of your life?  And what is the cornerstone that God makes use of to build in His way?  “I have my rights.”  But who did the rights come from in the first place?  “It’s mine to use how I want.”  But where did all this stuff come from in the first place?  We’ll fight and defend those cornerstones of our lives more often than we might want to admit.  And as we do that, we see ourselves rejecting God’s cornerstone.

Jesus doesn’t come right out and say it, but He rather strongly points to Himself as the cornerstone that God builds on.  Jesus’ life, death, and resurrection is the cornerstone on which God builds His new, everlasting kingdom of perfection, grace, and hope.  Jesus is God’s cornerstone, and we don’t have time to look at all the different ways that we see that lived out in His life.  Jesus is the cornerstone, and as people of God’s promise, that means that we are built upon that chief cornerstone.

It’s a cornerstone that impacts our lives in a lot of different ways.  It’s a cornerstone of forgiveness.  Jesus is the cornerstone of a kingdom that God is building that looks to forgiveness as a way of life.  You are built on that cornerstone because Jesus has lived, died, and risen in order to bring you God’s forgiveness.  You are completely forgiven because of what God has done in Jesus Christ.  Your cornerstone is secure.  You have God’s promise of forgiveness.

The cornerstone of Jesus is one of compassion.  One of the great New Testament Greek words is wrapped up in this word compassion.  It’s kind of like the guts, the whole inner stuff inside us that hurts or aches when we see something moving.  It’s also a really fun word to say.  Splanchna.  You aren’t saying it right if you don’t  actually spit a little when you say it.  I’d encourage you to look to your neighbor and say it, but I’d recommend waiting until you have a paper towel or napkin handy.  It’s that working of our inner gut when something really hits us.  That’s the compassion of God.  In a way, Jesus is God spilling His guts in compassion and care for His people.

The cornerstone of Jesus is also humility.  This cornerstone is a great corrective to the cornerstones of “It’s mine,” and “My rights.”  Jesus lived to look to the good of others, even when it came to giving up things in His life.  He gave up a time to rest because people would keep coming to Him with their hurting and sick and injured.  Jesus didn’t worry about a good reputation, but would say what needed to be said.  Jesus willingly gave up even His life for the good of others, people like you, and me, so that we would be people of God’s promise of forgiveness and new life.

That’s the cornerstone that God builds on.  As a Christian, that’s your cornerstone.  You are built upon the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus.  You are built upon the cornerstone of forgiveness, compassion, and humility.  God builds you up on that cornerstone that He gave so willingly and so lovingly.  And truthfully, you won’t find a more firm foundation anywhere else.

That’s the good news for you.  God gave His own cornerstone, and God now builds on that cornerstone as He builds His church.  That’s good news for us.  And that good news of our cornerstone also has an impact on our lives as Christians.  Now, this morning, we’ve talked about a number of different cornerstones in addition to the cornerstone of Jesus.  “My rights.”  “It’s mine.”  And it has hopefully started to become clear that cornerstones such as these have a hard time fitting together with the cornerstone that Jesus is for us.

Because of who and what we are, sinful human beings who need God’s forgiveness, we’re always going to be stumbling over the cornerstone of Jesus.  Undoubtedly, we’ll have times in our lives where we really want to not only have Jesus as the cornerstone of our faith, but as the cornerstone for how we live our lives.  And that’s when we find a challenge.  How easy is it to get in there and change a cornerstone?  If we build up even something simple like a wall, to change the cornerstone means we have to tear down a significant part of the wall, and then rebuild it.  That’s not easy to do.

Think about how that looks when we discover other cornerstones in our lives.  A new foundation is not easy.  In fact, it’s something that only God can truly bring to pass into our lives.  Sure, we may need to look at how we think, or the words we speak, or the way we act, and those may need some radical changes if we build on a different cornerstone, but what we also find is that only God can truly change our cornerstone.  We might recognize it, and then find that there is a lot in our life that needs to change along with that cornerstone, but only God can change the cornerstone.

That calls for patience on our part.  You don’t rebuild a building overnight when you’ve had to change the cornerstone, and the same goes for a life.  In fact, it isn’t ever completed in this life.  It’s only after the sinful nature has died and Jesus has raised you to new life that you fully and completely are built on Him as your cornerstone.  It doesn’t mean that you don’t continually work in this life to be aligned with Him as your cornerstone.  But even as we engage in that struggle, we rest assured that we have a cornerstone that never needs changing.  That cornerstone is Jesus, our Lord.  Thanks be to God that He builds us on the most stable of cornerstones.  Amen.