One Cornerstone - Many Living Stones (Psalm 122 and 1 Peter 2.4-10)

Introduction

So we have come at last to the end of our building project.

This winter, when it pours with rain, there’ll be no wondering if the occasional leak we have is going to electrocute the band precariously standing just underneath it.

When the temperature drops to 5 degrees or lower, there’ll be no calculating “shall I bring my fur lined coat and duvet and ear muffs to the 9:00am service just in case my blood freezes solid during the sermon?”

When it blows a gale outside no one will be looking anxiously up at the ridge tiles to see if any have flown off and demolished next door’s greenhouse.

We have got a proper, sound, waterproof, insulated roof, all fastened down to new timbers. It looks great and it feels warm and it’s going to last for decades.

The next few generations will be snug in winter, cool in summer, dry all year round and they will not have a legacy from us of annual repair bills.

So I want to thank Neil and his team of men, David our architect, our roof committee and everyone else here who has supported the project from the start. It is a first rate piece of work and, though it took a little longer than originally anticipated because of delays with suppliers, you have not compromised quality to make up for lost time – and it has come in under budget. So well done all of you. You can be rightly proud of your work.

God’s Way

Right at the beginning of this project, we were inspired by a verse from Psalm 127 which says this: “Unless the Lord builds the house, the builders labour in vain.”

That means it is vital for us to aim to do things the right way, God’s way. That has been a constant feature of the roof project and you see the results.

Today we have had read another Psalm that talks about how, 1000 years before Christ, people loved going up to Jerusalem from the small towns and admire the fabulous architecture of the city; especially its mighty walls and its magnificent temple. They were well designed, beautifully proportioned and expertly constructed.

There’s something that honours God in a building for worship that is sound and fit for purpose. It’s not right that we should live in comfortable homes when the place we meet for worshiping Almighty God is cold and dishevelled.

The Church - People, Not Buildings

But no matter how good this building is, no matter how inspiring Durham Cathedral, Westminster Abbey and the Vatican are, Christianity is not about buildings. And it never has been. Let’s be clear about that.

It’s all about people. God loves any one person more than all the buildings ever built put together. Jesus didn’t come so that York Minster would be built. He didn’t die to renovate our roof. He lived and died and rose again to save you and me, because God loves us. He is for us and not against us.

So our New Testament reading today from the first letter of Peter says this: “As you come to [Jesus], the Living Stone – rejected by humans but chosen by God and precious to him – you also, like living stones, are being built into a spiritual house.”

What does that mean? It means basically that this building isn’t the church. No building is the church. We are the church. When somebody stops us in the street and says, “Excuse me, can you tell me the way to the church?” we should say, “Yes, right here, you’re looking at it!”

Look around at this physical building. About 110 years ago, it was nothing but scattered bits. There was a stack of four-by-twos at the timber yard. There was a pile of sand and cement and a pile of nails and screws at the builder’s supplier. There were tiles at the clay quarry. There were sheets of glass in a glazier's warehouse.

But now, due to great planning and a lot of hard work and expertise, all those pieces, and hundreds more, have come together and been assembled into one building.

The same is true of what God is building - the church, by which I mean the people. Many of us who are now Christians were once separated into individual pieces. We come from different social settings, different ethnic backgrounds. We had different interests. We had very little in common.

But Jesus Christ, the great architect and master builder, has taken us and joined us together in what he is building.

There’s a story about a king of Sparta in ancient Greece who was bragging one day to a visiting ruler about the mighty walls of Sparta; how great they were, how solid, how impregnable. Well, his guest looked round and didn’t see any city walls at all. In fact, Sparta was one of the most vulnerable and exposed looking cities he’d ever seen.

So finally he said to the king, “I’d like to see these incredible walls you’re talking about. I can’t see any walls. Show them to me.”

Do you know what the Spartan king did? He led his guest on a review of his best troops. The Spartans were the most disciplined, physically fit, courageous and well-drilled troops anywhere in ancient Greece. If you’ve seen the film ‘300’ – well, they were Spartans. They were at that time the dominant military power and everyone feared them. They were legendary.

The king walked his guest up and down in front of these guys – all toned muscle and imposing stature - and just said “There they are! Here are the walls of Sparta!”

Just as each Spartan warrior was considered by the king as a brick in his indestructible wall, so Christians are called “living stones... built up a spiritual house” by God.

A Never-Ending Project

A few years ago, Kathie and I visited Barcelona. One of the iconic buildings there is the Sagrada Familia. It is a stunning building. The work started on it on 19th March 1882. That’s 131 years ago. What a lot of people don’t realise is that it still isn’t finished.

And I don’t mean it’s like the 4^th Bridge, meaning you need to start painting it again as soon as you finish it. I mean it literally still isn’t finished. Nowhere near. When you go there, there are cranes and hard hats and no-access areas everywhere you look. 1,570 months after starting that building, it’s still a construction site! How many Spanish suppliers have been taking a siesta instead of delivering their materials? Talk about a slight delay!

The website for the Sagrada Familia says “The building…  could be finished sometime in the first third of the 21st century.” So maybe in the next 20 years… I won’t hold my breath.

But I think that is a bit like what God is building – the church (the people). Jesus has been building it for almost 2,000 years. Every time there is a baptism, every time someone is added, another stone is set into place.

And the magnificent building is never completed. It just grows and grows in grandeur and scale because Christians are continually being added.

Build On or Reject the Cornerstone

But God, the architect and master builder, favours a very particular building design. As we go on in our passage it says this:

“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.”

This is not the only time in the Bible that Jesus is called a cornerstone. What does it mean?

Buildings in the Middle East were and often still are constructed differently to the way they are here so we don’t always fully get what this is about.

They use many, many stones of different shapes and sizes but they begin the building by laying one very large, squared off stone. And they place it at the base of the building, right in the corner. It’s therefore the piece that holds everything else up.

Then they lay another smaller, irregular stone on top of the cornerstone, and then another and so on. They take lots of stones of odd shapes and different sizes and place them up and out from that large, level cornerstone, which is vital to the soundness of the building.

It was invaluable to have a cornerstone that was expertly cut and placed. If the chief cornerstone was not cut straight and well laid then all the rest was sure to be unstable.

About 10 years ago I visited the Pantheon in Rome. It’s incredible. It stands just as it did well over two thousand years ago. That would be impossible had its foundations not been right.

When I was a teenager I walked over the Rialto Bridge that spans the Grand Canal in Venice. It was built in 1588 over sinking islands on a major waterway. The engineering of the bridge was so audacious that experts said it would collapse. But that bridge has stood as it now stands for over four centuries, because it rests on twelve thousand piles, each forty feet in length, driven deeply into the soil. 

If the foundations are right, everything else can endure.

Now, for hundreds of years before Christ, God was saying “I’m going to lay a cornerstone. I’m going to lay a foundation you can build your lives on.”

That’s Jesus. You can build your life on him or you can say “I’m going to reject that and build my life on my own without him.”

And in fact, this is what Peter says in our reading.

To those who do not believe,

‘The stone the builders rejected
has become the cornerstone,’

and, ‘A stone that causes people to stumble
and a rock that makes them fall.’

You see, you can do either. You can either say “My life is going to be built on Christ or I’m going to do it my way.”

Many people choose the latter which is why Frank Sinatra’s “My Way” is the number one most popular song played at humanist funerals.

Either Jesus is the stone you build your life on or he is the stone you fall on your face tripping up over.

Ending - Testimony

So let me end very briefly by telling you my story. In my life I’ve done both. When I was in my teens, I was at a stage in life when I had rejected Jesus, the cornerstone. I wasn’t interested. Going to church was about the worst way to spend an hour or two of my life that I could possibly imagine. I wanted to do my own thing, live my own way and build my own life without God.

But one warm July evening in 1979, all that changed. When I really thought about God and where my life was going, I experienced three things.

Firstly, a sharp sense of the darkness in my heart. I thought I was a good person. But if anyone had asked me if I had ever lied in my life, I would have had to say “yes.” If they asked me how many lies I had told in my, I would have had to admit “too many to count.” And if they had asked me what I call someone who had told countless lies I would have had to admit I was a liar. So I realised how utterly unable I was to live a good life.

Secondly, I grieved over my wasted life. I thought to myself, “What a fool I’ve been.” I stopped living in denial. I turned round from the path I was on and changed direction.

And thirdly, I had a profound revelation of the undeserved love of God. I’ve never had another experience quite like it. Wave after wave of amazing grace poured down into my soul. I knew I was loved by God. What joy! I would never be the same again.

33 years later, I still see that conversion experience as the most significant event in my life. I’m no better than anyone else. But God has made me one of those living stones that are built on the chief cornerstone - Jesus. I hope you are as well.

As we celebrate this roof project today, let’s keep our lives firmly set on the best foundation there is.

Sermon preached at All Saints' Preston on Tees, 29th September 2013