Rather Than Dead Bricks . . .

LIVING STONES

It was something to say to an exiled people in need of identity. In pointing them to Jesus the apostle wrote, “Come to him, to that living stone, rejected by men but in God’s sight chosen and precious” (1 Pet. 1:4). The modern church in its desire to influence the world too easily forgets that Jesus was rejected by men. When the church is truly like Jesus, it is not likely to be accepted by the world that rejected him. The stone which the builders rejected, Peter reminds them, drawing upon Ps. 118, became the head of the corner. This of course was God’s doing, who takes what man rejects and builds His kingdom. We should be careful about what we reject, whether ideas or people, for God may see it as “chosen and precious.”

Not only does Peter refer to Jesus as a “living stone,” but says that all believers are “like living stones built into a spiritual house.” It is common in scripture for the church to be likened to a house, but only here are Christians pictured as stones in that house, living stones in fact, which makes for an interesting metaphor. Peter may have been influenced by what the Lord said to him when he confessed that Jesus was the Christ. “You are Peter,” Jesus said, “and on this rock I will build my church” (Mt. 16:18), which almost certainly refers to the church being built upon Peter as representative of all the apostles (see Eph. 2:20), which is hardly a concession to Roman Catholicism since it in no wise makes Peter the first pope.

But to Peter, whose name meant stone, stone must have been a cherished metaphor, especially in giving it the unique turn of living stone. Despite Aristotle’s claim that stones, directed by an unmoved mover, are busy making their way to the center of the earth, it is difficult to conceive of anything as lifeless as a stone. But what is more boldly animated than a living stone. Since stones are building material, living stones are appropriate for the composition of “a spiritual house.”

Equally characteristic of stones are their diversity, some being flat, some round, some pointed, some jagged, some rectangular, but all “chosen and precious” when brought together to make a house. A notice in a Normal, Il. newspaper, which is not far from Oblong, Il., read “Normal boy marries Oblong girl.” The church made up of living stones is like that. Most of us of course suppose we are “normal,” but we admit to having a lot of oblong brothers and sisters.

The mortar that binds us together into a spiritual house is fervent love, which the apostle says “hides a multitude of sins” (1 Pet. 2:8), which is the secret for a united church. People who love each other like that are not going to fracture into warring sects.

Another principle of unity is seen in the metaphor of living stones in a spiritual house, which points to the diversity of any stone structure. Like stones we too are quarried from nature, which has endowed us all differently. We are no more likely to see everything alike than we are to look alike. Bricks are something else, for they are shaped arbitrarily by a mould that makes them all the same size and shape, conformity being the hallmark rather than diversity. Thank God that he has not made us like bricks with all of us thinking alike, acting alike, talking alike, like parrots in a cage. There is commonality in the spiritual house but not uniformity. Each of us bears the image of Christ in his or her own unique way.

Too, bricks are man-made, contrived to fit man’s ends, while stones are cut from raw nature that necessarily allows for differences. God has formed his church, not from bricks baked in a kiln, but from stones quarried from the mountain of pagan society, often roughly hewed. These he cuts according to his own purposes, polishing some and leaving some in the rough, but each stone is precious in that he makes place for it in the house, joining it to all the other stones by the bond of his love and with Jesus as the chief cornerstone.

The clergy and ecclesiasticism in general are tempted to build an entirely different house, one that conforms to creedal blueprints and party purposes. They build with bricks baked in their own sectarian kiln and thus turn out members that are made to be carbon copies of each other. All this contradicts the very nature of the Body of Christ, as Paul indicates in 1 Cor. 12:27: “You are the body of Christ and individually members of it.” He had already said, “The body does not consist of one member but of many” (verse 14). That is the mystery of unity, that one can individually be a member of the Body. While the individual does not lose her uniqueness, the Body does not lose its wholeness. Surely “members one of another” is one of the great ideas of scripture. It has a way of defying our effort to comprehend.

In my travels over the country I am blessed in seeing churches that are vigorously diverse and yet spiritually one. And is that not the only way we can be one, spiritually one, made one by the presence of the Spirit within? We do not have to worry about the diversity of our fellowship, for that is as natural as eyes, hair, and skin being different. The miracle occurs when the Spirit of God moves among us and within us, conforming us more and more to the image of Christ, each in his own unique, individual way. It is to quench the Spirit to suppose that we must all be thinking and believing alike before the Spirit will do his thing with us. Speaking of the mission of the Spirit to the church, the apostle says: “All these are inspired by one and the same Spirit who apportions to each one individually as he wills” (1 Cor. 12:11). In all these passages note should be taken of the significance of individually.

In the many churches I visit none is quite like any of the rest, and yet the basic oneness is apparent in them all, a unity in Jesus. They seem delighted that they are free to be themselves, free to think, to question, to read, without censure. Sometimes they argue, but they seem to appreciate that as iron sharpens iron, the Spirit can use them to quicken and stimulate each other. Come to think of it, it is rather boring to be around folk all time who never entertain a new idea and never put the status quo to the test. It is far better to be in a rocking boat than in one that never goes anywhere! --- the Editor