Now you are God's people

1st Peter 2: 2-10, page 233
Like newborn infants, long for the pure, spiritual milk, so that by it you may grow into salvation – if indeed you have tasted that the Lord is good.
Come to him, a living stone, though rejected by mortals yet chosen and precious in God’s sight, and like living stones, let yourselves be built into a spiritual house, to be a holy priesthood, to offer spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ.
For it stands in scripture:
“See, I am laying in Zion a stone, a cornerstone chosen and precious; and whoever believes in him will not be put to shame.”
To you then who believe, he is precious; but for those who do not believe,
“The stone the builders rejected has become the very head of the corner,”
And
“A stone that makes them stumble, and a rock that makes them fall.”
They stumble because they disobey the word, as they were destined to do.
But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God’s own people, in order that you may proclaim the mighty acts of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light.
Once you were not a people, but now you are God’s people;
Once you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy.
Sermon
The Civil War is on a lot of minds this year, Time magazine recently issued a cover with President Lincoln’s profile, a solitary tear trickling down his cheek; the issue concerned itself with questions of why there continues to be resentment, why this war still matters.
This year the 150th Anniversary arrives, and it’s appropriate that our minds will also be on President Polk’s war, the Mexican American War, thanks to Tom Price and others at the Polk House, but the Civil War will get more attention, especially here in the South.
I think that’s because, in so many ways, the Civil War destroyed what the South was. The Civil War literally burnt down homes and up in smoke went the old way of doing things – up went the privilege, livelihood, and power of some and from the ashes came freedom for others.
The South came back of course; being from Atlanta I know well the Phoenix that rose from the ashes, but I know that while some vestiges of the Old South deserved to be burned to the ground, 150 years later, still there is resentment – a worthy cautionary that I wish could better inform our foreign policy.
At least Southern resentment does inspire high brow humor – in a skit on Hee Haw Grandpa announces that he’ll be moving up North. The family asks why, and grandpa replies, “I’m getting up in years and I figure it’s better to lose one of them than to lose one of us.”
I suppose this resentment is natural, as when your home is destroyed it can feel like everything is gone.
Though the earth has quit shaking, without a home you can’t imagine what to do next.
During the Haitian earthquakes many Haitians believed Haiti itself were dying, and when you consider the death-toll you have to wonder if they were right.
Something did rise up from the ashes here in the South however – a new house was built on the wreckage of the old, but often not all of what comes up out of the ashes is better than what was there before.
Our scripture lesson from 1st Peter calls Christ the cornerstone for the people of God, but to use a new cornerstone you have to start your structure over from nothing. Everything in a building is based around the cornerstone – it comes first and it must be perfectly square or the integrity of everything is threatened. So not all that is new is guaranteed to be better than the old. Built around a cornerstone that isn’t Christ – just using a different cornerstone than before doesn’t make things better necessarily, just different, or just bad in a new way.
Not long after our nation’s war for independence, the nation of Haiti fought and gained independence herself. This independence gained was largely thanks to the organization of slaves on the massive plantations there – the slave owning upper class of Haiti who managed Haitian affairs spewed into the United States, and while they appreciated the hospitality, what they brought their slave owning hosts was the idea that the same thing could happen in the slave owning South where slaves outnumbered their owners, sometimes more than 10 to 1.
President Washington worried over the possibility of such a slave revolt, and being a slave owner himself may have ensured that the new nation of Haiti did fail as a warning to any American slaves thinking along the same lines of their compatriots in Haiti. Many such conspiracy theories float around today, but just as likely is that without the slave owning bourgeois, there was no culture left to unify the country – there was a constitution, but no one could read it as not only were most Haitian kept illiterate, the new constitution was written in French, a language few slaves who came from regions throughout the continent of Africa, could even understand.
Those slaves then, able to organize enough to topple a slave owning minority, lacked the cohesion to organize a nation. They tore down the old but they couldn’t build up anything new. Slaves of various cultures brought from vast regions of Africa had no unifying culture to bring them together once their common enemy was gone.
And here we are today – the new South – made up of new inhabitants, not only auto-workers from up north but Spanish speaking immigrants from Mexico, Central and South America; our new south is made up of brothers and sisters from around the country and around the globe who speak different languages and eat different foods – and what will bring us together – what will make us one so that we can build up a new house together?
We can strive for a common language – and we follow common laws. Furthermore, there are restaurants here that are familiar to anyone from anywhere – Cracker Barrel has expanded so far west that someone coming to Columbia from Kansas may feel at home behind a Cracker Barrel menu.
I love that about it. When I’m traveling I can go in there and get good food that tastes familiar – but it just isn’t ours the way Stan’s is.
Your waitress doesn’t know who’s in that old photo on the wall because it isn’t of anyone who she has ever met – that thing probably came from a nick-knack warehouse in Taiwan.
And they don’t know who you are either… besides that you’re a customer.
That’s what you lose when the old house is torn down. If Kathy’s is replaced by a McDonalds some things might get better, but I wouldn’t trade anything for Kathy who calls me by name every time I go in.
Change is a part of life – change and constant change.
The old is torn down and up comes the new.
Up from the cane breaks came this city.
Up from the ashes of the Old South came the New.
And up from what was once farmland comes enough subdivisions to change the face of Maury County.
New homes are being built around new cornerstones – new restaurants have come as the old are torn down – and they may be cleaner, more convenient, and faster, but will anyone there call you by name?
In the newness of the New South this house will always be different.
As here you are more than the money in your pocket.
Here you are more than the job that you hold.
Here you are more than a body filling a pew.
As the cornerstone of this house is Jesus Christ, and to Christ you are something more – but not just more – to Christ you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God’s own people.
Not every house in this city, even those that have replaced the old, can say the same.
You know that many in our community and our world don’t know the truth of who they are, especially who they are to God. They see their value and their worth according to the standards of this present evil age – go believing that they are only as good as the brand names on their back and the cars that they drive because television has told them so. So many feel lost and alone, dying for community, dying for someone to call them by name, but they don’t know where to find it so they settle for cheap substitutes on the internet. And some are hungry, not just for real, home cooked food, but for something with substance, food that can fill the emptiness they feel in the pit of their soul.
So remember that you have been called out of darkness into his marvelous light, “in order that you may proclaim the mighty acts of him who called you.”
Because he called you by name, go out and call the lost by name.
Because he made you a people, make the stranger your brother, your sister.
Because you received mercy, go and give mercy to those who have given up on themselves and have forgotten their worth in the eyes of the God who values them enough to give his very life that they might live. Amen.