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Sermon 03/27/2005
The Stone That the Builder
Rejected ~ by Tom Kinder
March 27, 2005 , Easter Sunday
First Congregational Church in Thetford, Vermont,
UCC
Psalm 118; John 20: 1 -18
Things are not as they seem. We have to keep reminding
ourselves of that. Death seems to rule this world.
The global powers of greed and violence seem to
triumph over the poor, the nonviolent and those
who seek to protect the earth. The problems in
our lives seem inescapable and all-consuming and
unsolvable sometimes.
Yet things are not as they seem. Peel away the
tough husk of death or our worst problems, and
you will find they are buds with something surprisingly
beautiful and soft and green within them. They
may look more like bombshells than buds right
now, they may threaten to explode in your hand
if you touch them but do not fear. Even if they
explode, they may still turn out to be like touch-me-nots,
the seed pods of jewelweed that explode when you
touch them, but launch seeds of new life toward
the hope of fertile ground.
Things are not as they seem. “The stone that
the builder rejected has become the chief cornerstone.
This is the Lord’s doing. It is marvelous
in our eyes.”
Things had certainly exploded for the disciples.
Their beloved and powerful leader had been arrested,
tortured and publicly executed in the most painful
and humiliating way imaginable. Things seemed
hopeless. If they continued Jesus’ work,
they could expect crucifixion themselves. If they
did not, then everything Jesus stood for and did
would be lost. The situation looked nothing like
a bud. It looked like a tomb.
But the tomb exploded and a seed launched out
of it and landed in fertile ground. It landed
first in the heart of Mary Magdalene, an unmarried
woman, at the bottom of society, and an impure
woman, at that. But the stone that the builders
rejected became the first in the new foundation.
Mary turned around from the empty tomb and saw
a man she thought was a gardener. He wasn’t
a gardener, he was a seed, but she could not see
it yet. She asked him where he had put Jesus’
body. She was looking right at the risen Christ
but she had to peel back layers of grief and disbelief
before she could see the beautiful, tender, green
thing, before she could see the green blade rising
from the seed she had though dead.
It is possible to train ourselves to see in a
new way. We can look at the woods and see nothing
but stark gray bark and barrenness. But we can
learn to look with the eyes of faith and see the
buds swelling with potential. We can see with
our mind’s eye that light and water and soil
and air are working to renew life. We can see
that the death of old leaves and trees and the
decay of last year’s jewelweed are even now
serving the life that is coming. We can see with
our heart the light that comes to people at death,
and know that what they tell us is true—there
is a life of love and peace beyond the grave.
We can see that death is not an end.
And neither is rejection or failure or betrayal
or despair. Jesus called the disciple Peter the
rock on which the church would be built. On Easter
morning that rock was in sorry shape. He had denied
Jesus three times. He had deserted him even though
he had sworn he would never do so. Imagine how
he felt. Imagine the guilt and shame and humiliation.
Imagine how all the disciples felt as they hid
in fear, confusion and grief. Peter was a rock,
but a broken one, tossed aside on the scrap heap,
not good for anything, especially not for a chief
cornerstone in the foundation of a new church.
He had hit bottom.
At the Maundy Thursday service Nancy Devor talked
about how we find our story in Jesus’ story.
Think about your own life. Can you identify with
Peter or with those despairing disciples? What
has made you feel broken? What grief or failing,
denial or attack? What self-concern or self-indulgence
has overpowered you and made you do things your
best self didn’t want to do?
Think about your town. What hard words have been
said? What divisions seem to be forming? What
well-intentioned people have been put in a box
with a label and shoved aside?
Think about your nation. What divisions seem impossible
to heal? What qualities seem irretrievably lost?
What changes seem hopeless?
Can you look at these things that seem like tombs
and train yourself to see them as buds? Can you
look at the hopes and dreams that lie on the scrap
heap, broken and rejected, and see a future that
is built on their foundation? Can you believe
that even now what looks like death is a seed
full of potent life, a green blade that is preparing
to break through the hard ground?
Mary Magdalene is freed of her demons, restored
to community and given a place of honor. Peter
becomes the chief cornerstone of the church. The
disciples who deserted and despaired receive the
power of the Spirit. Jesus rises from the dead
and is alive again. “This is the Lord’s
doing. It is marvelous in our eyes.”
Easter is here to teach us not only that things
are not as they seem, but that we can learn a
different way of seeing, and we can choose a different
way of living—different from the way our
society teaches us to see and live. We can choose
the way of God, the realm of God that is here
around and within us now, a reality more real
than what we call reality. It is a matter of our
deciding to live in it. It is a matter of not
settling for less, not settling for the way things
seem, but seeing the way things are in God’s
realm and loving that more and choosing to live
in and serve that way.
A woman named Louise did just that. She and her
husband Nathan lived in Mason, Tennessee. One
morning Nathan got up, opened the door to let
the cat out, and found himself looking down the
barrel of a shotgun. Louise heard Nathan shout,
“Lord Honey, open the door he’s got
a gun.” Before she could open it the man
had shoved Nathan inside. The man was screaming,
“Don’t make me kill you.”
They knew who this man was. They had heard about
four armed and dangerous convicts who had escaped
from the state prison a few days before. They
knew he could kill them. What they could not know
was that later that day a couple would be killed.
But Louise did not panic. She was unarmed, a 73-year
old grandmother, but she stood her ground. She
said firmly, “Young man, I am a Christian
lady. I don’t believe in no violence. Put
that gun down and you sit down. I don’t allow
no violence here.”
The man looked at her a moment, and then he did
what she told him to do. He laid the gun on her
couch. He said, “Lady, I’m so hungry.
I haven’t had nothing to eat for three days.”
So Louise sat him down at the table and fixed
him a good breakfast and told Nathan to go and
get him some dry socks.
After breakfast she sat with him and told him
how much God loved him. The man began to cry and
told Louise she sounded just like his grandmother,
who had died. They talked a while quietly.
Then they heard the police cars coming. The man
said, “They’re gonna kill me.”
And Louise said, “No, young man. Let me do
the talking.” She and Nathan helped him up
and out onto the porch.
She shouted to the police, “Y’all put
those guns away. I don’t allow no violence
here. Put them away. This young man wants to go
back.”
The police put down their guns. Louise and Nathan
walked him to the police car. The police put the
handcuffs on him and they drove away.
Another couple was killed that afternoon. They
had pulled a gun on another escaping convict.
Later Louise said that she had not been afraid.
Nathan was, but she was not. She said, “I
knew God was with me….I knew God would lead
me in the right direction.”
Nathan and Louise were both lifetime members of
their local Baptist church. The difference between
them was that Louise could see past her self-concern,
past the news bulletins labeling the convict a
killer, past all that fear might have her do.
Louise could see how things stood in the realm
of God. She could see God’s love surrounding
not just Nathan and her, but the prisoner as well.
She could see with her inner vision the way of
Christ and what it would have her do. She could
see all that, and she loved it so dearly that
she was willing to put her life on the line and
live as if it was true. By doing so, she made
it come true in her home. She made the realm of
God visible to that young man and those police.
The realm of God is present now in your life and
in this town and even in this tortured world.
It is present under and around and over governments
that lie and armies that invade and corporations
that pollute and economies that impoverish. It
is present in towns that are in conflict. It is
present in homes suffering loss or abuse or illness.
The realm of God is always present as a possibility
in every situation, but sometimes it is hard to
see. It takes our faith and actions to make it
visible.
Easter reminds us that things are not as they
seem. It reminds us to see with our inner vision
the reality of God’s light that the deathly
surface of things only obscures. The risen Christ
calls us to love that other reality and to settle
for nothing less and to choose to live in it even
now, and to serve it with our entire life.
Like Louise, we can say, we are Christian people.
We don’t allow no violence here. We don’t
allow hatred. We don’t allow putting labels
on people. We don’t allow divisions people
create to keep us apart from those God asks us
to love. We don’t allow darkness to overcome
light.
We are Christian people. We see life differently.
We see that this is no tomb. This is the empty
husk of a seed. This is a death that leads to
new life. Now the green blade rises. The stone
that the builder rejected has become the chief
cornerstone. This is the Lord’s doing; it
is marvelous in our eyes.
Let us pray in silence
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