Reading for 5/18/14, Easter 5(A)

• Acts 7:55-60  
• Psalm 31:1-5, 15-16  
• 1 Peter 2:2-10  
• John 14:1-14

Costly Cornerstone, by Pastor Fred
On Wednesday, President Barack Obama appeared at the foot of the Tappan Zee Bridge outside of New York City to call on Congress to pass a $302 billion transportation bill that could support hundreds of thousands of jobs while repairing the nation's roads and bridges.  While the Tappan Zee Bridge is safe, thanks to rigorous inspection and maintenance, the structural needs of the bridge are what need to be addressed.  Unlike other major bridges in metro New York, the Tappan Zee was designed to last only 50 years, and carry about 40,000 vehicles per day.  Now, 60 years later, it averages almost 140,000 a day! 

The structural needs of a bridge can only be addressed by laying a new cornerstone, for a whole new bridge.  Bridges and roads all across the country are aging – and, at this time for report cards, graduation time, the report card just out from The American Society of Civil Engineers for our nations’ infrastructure is a D+!  The report estimates that the U.S. needs to invest $3.6 trillion in the next 6 years (by 2020), just to get our nation’s infrastructure up to a B grade.

The Tappan Zee Bridge may be one of the biggest projects in the country, but everyone knows, it’s the same story from one city to another – one road, one bridge, one water tower, one sewer system – one cornerstone, at a time.  What are we willing to invest?  Can we afford the price-tag?

Laying strong cornerstones is essential to a safe and well running infrastructure.  The I-35 bridge collapse in Minneapolis in 2007 is a tragic memorial of the problem.  A flaw in the design holding the beams together under the roadway was never discovered in its 40 year history, until afterward.  And hundreds more were made the same way, with the same defective building blocks.

In our 2nd Reading today, Peter says that Jesus is “the stone that the builders rejected,” but, “has become the very head of the corner,” our cornerstone.  Our lives would collapse, if it wasn’t for this rejected stone.  Jesus builds a new house, a new structure, and he asks us to make an investment in this renewed infrastructure for the good of, not only ourselves, individually, but for the good of a new world, as a shared project. 

Can we reform our spiritual homes on this new design, this shared project?  We wouldn’t build individual bridges to cross the same river!  We build one common bridge for all to travel.  And the new building project is God’s design, because, as Peter says, we are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God’s own people.  Just as God found Abraham and Sarah, and later selects the rejected Moses and Miriam, God first chooses us.  Jesus, the anointed one of God, is “a living stone,” says Peter, so we too, are called to be “living stones,” and “let ourselves be built into a spiritual house.” 

But what is this spiritual house, this shared project that we have been called to work on together?  If we have been called to invest in it, what will it cost?  And, can we afford it? 

St. Stephen, martyr, paid the ultimate price for being part of the spiritual project of the early church.  It was a story that, not coincidentally, paralleled the death and resurrection of Jesus on the cross.  Stephen was a deacon at Holy Communion in the early church, he serves the bread and wine at their common meal, but he’s also a very gifted preacher, unafraid to speak truth to power.  But, it’s the crowds that stoned him that draw my attention and fascinate me!  They act just like children wanting to tune out the truth, or whatever they don’t want to acknowledge.  We adults sometimes do it in jest – we cover [our] ears, and make a loud humming noise!  Then, says Peter, the mob “all rushed together against him.” And Stephen, again, just like Jesus who forgave those who crucified him, kneels down and cries out, “Lord, do not hold this sin against them.” 

This rather horrible story, thank goodness, is not usually how we have to stand up for our faith, 21 centuries later.  The truth revealed in the cross, and in the stoning of Stephen, and its unique power for compassion, justice and peace, is one amazing gift of the new spiritual house, Jesus the Son, offers.  The false notion that, expelling the one can save the many, which Jesus and Stephen unveiled to the world by their courage, is exposed as only a temporary solution to our problems of holding together our house, and our society, because we will have to do it again – have to commit similar ‘sacred violence’ to right our wrongs, over and over again.  Like children covering their ears and humming loudly, it only masks the origins of our own sin and dysfunction.  What we reject, God reveals, and lifts up, as holy.  The rejected stone has become the cornerstone, of our new and renewed life.  Once we were not a people, but now we are God’s people, as Peter says!

As early as St. Paul, this truth began to shine through.  Saul, his name originally, was actually there at the stoning of Stephen, and probably led the attack, which is the meaning of the mob laying their coats at his feet.  But this event completely changed and transformed Saul’s life.  Soon, Saul would be visited personally by the spirit of Jesus, and he would become Paul, one of the greatest defenders and followers of Jesus, and writer of the most books of the New Testament.  

The “cost of discipleship,” in the words of Dietrich Bonhoeffer, the cost of following Jesus, is never cheap.  We are called to a high calling, beginning with our baptismal renewal, and, as Peter says, are renamed, “a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God’s own people, in order that you may proclaim the mighty acts of [the One] who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light.”  

Peter spoke these words to the believers of Asia Minor, a forgotten, less-than, persecuted people, of little social standing.  You’d think they might have been more appropriate for the Roman or Corinthian churches, but Peter knew they were equally suited to the least of these, of all times.  The cost of our discipleship today, is costly in its own ways, for all who speak truth to power, for all who follow through on their call to be a holy and royal caste of faith-filled believers.  We may not look or feel the part, most days, but together, we are living into the promise and realm of God that has been revealed to us, into a love that conquers death.  We are part of a deeper truth, a reality that is still being born and is growing among us.  “Like newborn infants,” Peter said, “long for the pure, spiritual milk, so that by it you may grow into salvation.” 

It is not just words, this deeper truth, this royal priesthood and holy nation.  But by our encounter with the cross, and the stoning, which touches some event in our own lives, we are transformed, and made ready for God’s radical acceptance of us, and we are changed forever.  On that cornerstone, we build our new spiritual home. 

The stones that we once reflexively, without thinking, so easily picked up – the stones that we used as we closed our ears humming, trying to wipe away the problem in front of us, that we thought would make all things right – even if it cost someone else – this is the stone that now transforms us.  Our eyes, and our ears, are opened.  Jesus has turned us around.  The very ones society says to reject and step-on, to get ahead, are the building blocks to a full and grace-filled life. 

What is the price we are willing to pay, for our lives of faith?  What is the cost of our discipleship, as followers of the one who has become the cornerstone of our society and world? 

“Once we were not a people, but now we are God’s people,” said Peter.  That’s a bit of good news, that’s hard to put a price tag on!  

Readings for 5/11/14

Readings for May 4, 2014, Easter 3A

• Acts 2:14a, 36-41 
• Psalm 116:1-4, 12-19 
• 1 Peter 1:17-23 
• Luke 24:13-35

Jesus was an Alien, by Pastor Fred
We marched all the way to the White House for immigration reform.  And – just like Cleopas and the unnamed disciple walking to Emmaus with Jesus – we wondered aloud if there was “anyone in town who doesn’t know about the deportations that have taken place?”  I was there just last weekend. 

It was a pensive, no-nonsense crowd.  There were speeches, detailing the record number of deportations during the Obama administration, and how that not only hurts families by separating them needlessly from one another, but goes against the administration’s own policy to only deport criminals, and, ultimately hurts our economy, too. 

During these very raw and heartfelt testimonies, there was a deliberate single drum-beat, hauntingly counting the 1,100 people that are deported – every day.  The beat of the drum reminded me of the Native American Pow-Wow’s I used to attend in Michigan.  The drum-beat, tribal leaders say, is the heartbeat of Mother Earth.  And the 1,100 or more, of us, clapped along to its rhythm, as we stood witness to our sisters and brothers, who have been labeled, aliens and strangers.  

Then the 12 brave volunteers who had planned to be arrested ahead of time, walked onto the sidewalk by the fence which surrounds the White House.  That wrought-iron fence looks just like it does on the evening news, but in person, the White House looks much closer, even.  The 12 sat down together and locked arms, and began chanting in English, and Spanish, “not one more!” and other chants, that all 1,100 of us joined in too, as we stood with them and bore witness.

It brought tears to many eyes, knowing that because of their status, at least half of them would probably be deported, after their arrest.  But this was that important to them!  Others, most recently Methodist Bishop Sally Dyck, have been arrested in solidarity with their parishioners being deported.  But these six resident aliens – hard working, tax-paying, members of the National Domestic Workers Alliance, sitting arm in arm in front of the White House, who were not strangers to us – were making the ultimate sacrifice, and that was moving beyond words. 

When Cleopas and the other disciple had lost all hope on the third day after the crucifixion, and were walking away from Jerusalem, giving up on Jesus, they have no idea it is he, who joined them on their hike back home.  And so they ask him, “Are you the only stranger in Jerusalem who does not know the things that have taken place there in these days?”  The word here translated as “stranger,” can also be, ‘alien,’ which might be more accurate, in this case.  Their question assumes Jesus is not just a stranger on the street, but an alien from another land; someone who must have just arrived from some unknown far-away country!  They sound a little angry at Jesus too, not knowing, of course, it’s him! 

And in actuality, Jesus really is an alien, the one who came from above, born of the Spirit, as the angel Gabriel had announced to his mother Mary!  His ancestors, notably Jacob, were called that name too – “a wandering Aramean was my ancestor.” 

But later, when they urged him to stay with them, and their eyes were opened, and they recognized him in the breaking of the bread, he becomes their Messiah in a new way – their hoped for, redeemer of the world, after all. 

A Pastor, who is a Lutheran, and a Hispanic, tells the story of baptizing adults in the river which ran by his church in town.  As the candidates came up out of the water, he gave them all a baptismal certificate.  And then they celebrated with a big fiesta!  Others in town couldn’t help watching this very public, open-air event.  But from a distance, they didn’t know it was a baptism!  What they saw was some fellow Latina’s getting their papers!  And so they thought they’d go to this church too.  So on the next Sunday when they showed up, they were somewhat disappointed to find out the baptismal certificates were not green papers! 

What they thought they had seen was not what they had hoped for; their eyes were kept from seeing.  But it could turn out that such a baptismal certificate would also be a kind of liberation, as it is for any of us, freeing us by forgiveness, though it wouldn’t literally help anyone’s immigration status.  So I guess you could say, There are aliens, and then there are aliens! 

What kept Cleopas and the other disciple from recognizing Jesus initially was their dashed hope that he was the one to redeem, them, their faith community, and their country.  They could only see his death as a sign of his failure at this.  They could not imagine, even if he were to be raised, how that would change anything, for even when the women came back from the empty tomb with the message from the angels that he was alive, it was not enough to keep them from their dejected walk to Emmaus! 

But Jesus tells them, “’Oh, how foolish you are, and how slow of heart to believe all that the prophets have declared!  Was it not necessary that the Messiah should suffer these things and then enter into his glory?’  Then beginning with Moses and all the prophets, he interpreted to them the things about himself in all the scriptures.” 

Resurrection is not just about wonderful, success-at-last, winning, especially winning at the expense of the other – the stranger, and the alien, whoever we designate to play that part – but it’s about conquering the never ending circle of our own self-justification and entitlement, violence and revenge.  Jesus’ death and resurrection, his “suffering and glory,” show this once and for all.  The way forward to new life, redeemed life, is the way of forgiveness.  A way of recognizing that, the alien is really our sister and our brother, and perhaps even our savior. 

In the breaking of the bread, just as Jesus did only days earlier at the Last Supper with all the disciples, Jesus offers his body and blood – his life – as a sacrament of forgiveness.  He washes his own disciples’ feet as a sign of servanthood in the world, a gift and example of how we minister to one another. 

We too lose hope that the world as it is, can be transformed into the world as it is supposed to be – redeemed and made whole.  We hoped it might have been different for those 12 brave people who linked arms in front of the White House.  That they would not be arrested or deported.  But in them, we recognized the face of Jesus.  In their suffering and sacrifice, we saw clearly the way the world is, and we knew, it is not the way God has ordained it to be, and made it for us.  ‘Did not our hearts burn within us,’ while we witnessed their bravery?  1,100 deportations a day!  And yet they remained resolute in the face of their suffering!

Around Christ’s table none of us is an alien or a stranger.  For, we who share in the bread and the wine, are all born from above, by the Spirit, and recognize that in the face of every brother and sister here, is a creature of God.  Here we join in the meal of forgiveness and remember that Jesus celebrated with all people, the rich and the poor, men and women, sinners and saints.  Jesus was one to celebrate the liberation of all, with a foretaste of the feast of the way things should be, in the realm and kingdom of God, the world that the Messiah has already ushered in, and continues to redeem.  Let us join in this joyful Fiesta!