Who's a stone?

Fifth Sunday of Easter – May 22nd, 2011

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


First off, it’s lovely to see everyone here. Being scheduled to
preach the day after the rapture is predicted to happen isn’t exactly
the prime slot.

When I was preparing for today, I found I was trying to unify a lot of
different things, in a likely misguided attempt to make sense of
scripture. There’s quite a lot going on in today’s lection. Ways,
truth, life, houses, stones, milk.

In some ways, in trying to make sense of all that, I was attempting to
do the exact same thing as Harold Camping has been trying to do –
understand scripture, and understand what we, as Christians, are
supposed to do.

And that’s hard work. For 500 years now, we, as individual believers,
have had the opportunity and the responsibility to try to understand
the scriptures. For another 1200 years before that, the learned
clerics of our faith tried to understand them on our behalf. And
we’re connected to another couple of millennia of disputation and
argument of the rabbis and sages of the Jewish tradition.

So perhaps it not surprising that we haven’t figured it out yet, at
least not to the point of exact dates.

Part of the problem, of course, is that scripture speaks of things
that aren’t so easy to understand. Scripture’s natural language is
symbolism, metaphor, parable. And I was wondering why that is. It
seems like it would be a lot easier if scripture was clearer. If it
just said things straight.

And, I think that’s what some folks really, really want. They want it
so much that they make these texts into something that at least seems
straightforward. Simple. Direct.

I sympathize with them, I really do. That would make things a lot easier.

But I have to think that perhaps the authors of the scriptures could
have been a bit clearer if they had wanted to. And apparently, they
did not want to be. And usually, when that sort of choice is made,
it’s because there isn’t any other way to say it.

Which means, I think, that it’s not the words that we should be so
concerned with. It’s what the words point to.

Stones can be a lot of things. Today, we find them at least 4 ways.
They can be a rock, a shield, a wall for defense. They can be weapons,
instruments of murder. They can be something to trip over, an
obstacle.

And they can be something that is chosen to build with, a component of
a whole.

And in that later sense, Jesus is described as a living stone, the
first of many, and we are told we should be stones too.

I don’t know about you, but I’m getting a bit confused. I’m supposed
to be a stone?

I think that the Gospel message maybe sheds some light on this.
Jesus’ disciples are confused too. “How can we know where you’re
going?” asks Thomas. Jesus responds not with a path, or with
directions, but by saying “you have to know ME, and if you know ME,
you’ll know the Father”

Philip says “OK great! Show us the father!”

Somehow I’m imagining Jesus shaking his head. Could it be any harder
to explain? Could these disciples be any more blind?

So, we’re left with his response: “Believe in me. And if you can’t
do that, believe in what I’ve done.”

And I think that’s the trick. Scripture alone, is difficult to
understand. Understanding requires not only study, but living.
Understanding requires not only words, but action.

And ultimately, we don’t believe in scripture. We believe in a man.
We believe in each other, and in the actions we take. By doing so,
and I believe ONLY by doing so, can we find the way, together. It
will be hard. We're going to get it wrong, a lot. But it's the
process, the taking of one stone, and placing it on another, that will
eventually get us where the words are pointing.

by Malcolm Heath