A few years ago the chapel of
Virginia Theological Seminary suffered a catastrophic fire. Much of the building was wooden and it burned
in less than an hour. Since it was in
the middle of the day, many of the students witnessed their beloved and
historic chapel burn. A reporter asked a
student what it felt like to see her church burn to the ground. She replied, “That is not the church” and
then indicating the people around her she said, “this is the church.” I assume that the statement was not meant to
dismiss the importance of the building, but to indicate that the Church of
Christ was the people of Christ, not the structure that housed the people of
Christ.
In our reading from 2nd
Peter, we hear about living stones. Jesus is compared to a living stone as are the
people who Peter is writing to. It’s an
odd phrase because we don’t usually associate a stone with life, which is one
of the reasons why we can’t read this too literally. Peter makes that clear
when he writes, “…and like living stones, let yourselves be built into a
spiritual house.”
In the very early church (when 1st
Peter was written), there were no physical structures dedicated to the
Christian faith. Most Christians were
worshipping in homes either because they feared persecution or because there
was nowhere else to worship. There were
no community centers or schools and they were no longer welcome in the temples. They did not have a house dedicated to God
(like the Jews were used to having at this time period and we are accustomed to
now). So Peter was urging them to create
a spiritual house with themselves as the building blocks and Jesus as the
cornerstone. Thus wherever they went, as
long as they were together, they could be in a sacred place.
I suspect these words were a great
comfort to the recipients of this letter.
In the beginning Peter writes “To God’s elect, strangers in the world,
scattered throughout Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia and Bithynia…” Because of this greeting, and other
indicators in the letter, it is believed that the recipients of this letter
were people who were displaced from their homes. Not only did they not have a place to
worship, but they might not even have a place to live. It’s possible that some of these people were
separated from their families and in many ways their heritage. So the idea that they could create a
spiritual home wherever they were and with all different kinds of people gave
them the promise of belonging, the promise of a home.
At the same time, it was a
challenge. Jesus, this stone that had
become the cornerstone, was a stone that others had rejected, rather
dramatically and violently. It was a
stone that caused some people to stumble. And the people who they were building
this new spiritual home with were not necessarily the people they were used to worshipping
with. They were people from various
ethnicities, religious backgrounds, and social status. These living stones did not all look alike,
nor did they necessarily fit together well…which is why that corner stone, that
foundation of Jesus Christ was so critical.
They were not meant to be a community of like-minded people. They were meant to be a spiritual house, a
sacred space created to worship and honor God.
Many people believe that Christians worshipped
only in homes before Christianity became the official religion of the Roman Empire
in 380. This is not entirely accurate. As the communities grew, in the 200’s and
300’s, special spaces were converted for the specific purpose of hosting a
Christian community. If we were to see
these places now, we might not recognize them as a church; but they were in the
sense that they were buildings designed specifically for a community of
Christians to gather and worship Jesus. They had created that space because they
needed the space for more people to gather.
A lot of people today are questioning
why we have church buildings now. Some
people would recommend that we go back to house churches like the early church
communities. Then we would not have
worry as much about budgets and things like that. And I thought about that when I was
discerning a call to St. John’s. What
would it mean to be a pastor of community that was especially connected to the
building where they worshipped? Why not
start a bunch of house churches if that is what the church of the future looks
like?
In ancient times, things that were
considered rooted in the ground (like Stonehenge for instance or other huge
stone structures) were considered to be living because they “seemed to possess
some inherent integrity; their vitality was a function of their being rooted in
place.”[1] So in a sense, these monolithic structures
were living stones because they were connected to the past. That is an intriguing idea when you consider
that in the context of old church buildings like St. John’s. It
makes me wonder what it is that makes a building a sacred space. I suppose there would be a different answer
for each church and for each person. But
what makes St. John’s especially sacred to me is it’s connection to all those
who worshipped before. When I celebrate
the Eucharist with the communion silver from 1618, it’s almost like I can feel
the pulse of those who held those vessels in years past. It’s a profoundly holy experience. I have heard other people express that same
connection; so I am fairly certain it’s not just me.
While I value that connection, that
rootedness in the past, I fear that sometimes the roots keep us from growing in
different directions, in seeing ourselves as living stones that have come
together to create something sacredly new.
The roots might be our rich history, but the cornerstone is always Jesus
Christ. That is the one thing that
brings us together—that keeps us together.
That is who defines us. And together as living stones, we are called
as Christians to build a spiritual house.
That spiritual house is unlike any actual building because it is a
building that is never complete. It is a
building that we work on our whole lives.
We work on it as individuals and we work on it as a community. In terms of our physical space- we know what
our building looks like (and soon we will know what our renovated tower looks
like), but what does our spiritual house look like? There are limits to what this beautiful
building can do, but there are no limits to what our spiritual house can do—only
those limits we inflict upon ourselves. So
let us maintain this building and honor the connection to Christians and to
God—but let us burn those limits we put on our spiritual house. Let’s never
stop building and stretching.
No comments:
Post a Comment