1 Peter 2:1-9, 19-25, Living Stones

Living Stones

1 Peter 2:1-9, 19-25

Monday–Living Stones

“Rid yourselves, therefore, of all malice, and all guile, insincerity, envy, and all slander” (1 Peter 2:1).

We make excuses for ourselves. “We have a short fuse,” we explain, “Our anger is like a volcano. Once it blows we can’t do anything until it stops. It’s beyond our control.”

“We sometimes get anxious or depressed. Shopping therapy helps even though it places a strain on our finances and negatively affects our relationship with our spouses or significant others.”

“We don’t like those people. We don’t like how they look, how they dress, or their different customs, and there’s nothing we can do about it.”

The writer to First Peter takes issue with us. He will have nothing to do with neither our helplessness nor our victimization. “Rid yourselves!” he commands. “Don’t placate yourselves with, “I can’t help it,” or worse, “I don’t want to change.” A seismic change has taken place in our lives through the life, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. It is important that we demonstrate and show evidence of that change.

Our internal housecleaning may need more than good intentions and will power. We do have the ability and the tools, though, to clean out the old in order to make way for the new. Most importantly, we have God’s Spirit within us—the same Spirit that healed the sick and raised the dead.

Shine your light in our lives, O Lord, and show us what is not pleasing to you and what needs to change. Give us then both the will and ability to obediently make the needed changes. Amen.

Tuesday–Living Stones

“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” (1 Peter 2:2-3).

I wonder if the writer of First Peter was a father of an infant son or daughter. The analogy that he uses is strange, but appropriate. There is a certain singlemindedness to an infant who craves his or her mother’s milk. Pacifiers are spit out and thrown to the floor. Attempts to satisfy with formula cocktails are met with pressed lips and shaken heads. Cuddling, bouncing, or playing Piggy on the infant’s toes do not distract nor dissuade the infant from his or her goal. Only the real thing will satisfy, and the infant’s quest will not end until the source of the milk is found.

So it is with us in our relationship with Yahweh. At one time, we may have been satisfied with a religion of does and don’ts—we knew no better. We might have lived in fear of Yahweh’s judgment, or content in the knowledge that we believed in the correct doctrines. Something happened, though. We encountered the living Lord and experienced God’s love. From that time on, nothing else but God’s love satisfies.

It is God’s love that comforts and soothes us. God’s love is what motivates us and empowers us. We crave that love and we cannot live without it. Like newborn infants we long for the pure spiritual milk of God’s love.

We give you thanks and praise for your love, O Lord, and we pray that it will always be center most in our lives. Amen.

Wednesday–Living Stones

“Come to him, a living stone, though rejected by mortals yet chosen and precious in God’s sight….” (1 Peter 2:4).

Michelangelo, creator of the statues, “David,” “Moses,” and “The Pieta,” once shared that as a sculptor he uncovered the life that was already in the stone. Two artists had attempted to carve the block of marble that eventually became David. They had rejected it. The marble was brittle and the shape of the block made it difficult to carve any subject. Undeterred by the failures of others, Michelangelo took on the project and “discovered,” the magnificent figure of David. It has become one of the most recognizable pieces of sculpture, in the world.

Many people tripped over Jesus, the living stone. They didn’t like his theology nor his politics. The fact that he included women, touched lepers and associated with those possessed by evil spirits upset many more good, religious people. Still, Jesus was God’s chosen. Jesus’ life, death and resurrection changed the world and the world’s understanding of God.

That living stone has become the foundation of our lives and of the community of the faithful. Like the “keystone” in a Roman arch, Jesus is the stone that holds everything together. God’s Spirit has taken the stones of our lives and constructed us into something greater than ourselves—the whole is greater than the sum of its parts. Together we do God’s work.

O Living Stone, enable us to discover the life that is in you, and to allow you to live that life through us. Amen.

Thursday–Living Stones

“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” (1 Peter 2:5).

What spiritual sacrifices are acceptable to God? Through the history of the church, this question has been hotly debated. Many people in the church would understand the spiritual sacrifices to be the spiritual disciplines of prayer, study, worship, tithing and service. Others would lift up the doctrines of the church, which allow a correct understanding of who God is and pave the way to salvation. Still others might highlight the church’s role of law giver, who guides people in leading good lives that are pleasing to God.

Though the spiritual disciplines of prayer, study, worship, tithing and service, are important, they are only means to an end. The end—the spiritual sacrifices can be summed up in Jesus’ parting words to his disciples, “I give you a new commandment, that you love one another. Just as I have loved you, you also should love one another. By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another” (John 13:34-35). Our calling as individuals and as a community of faith, is to live sacrificial and sacramental lives of love—to take what we have been given and lovingly to use it for others.

Lord, make [us] an instrument of Your peace; Where there is hatred, let [us] sow love; Where there is injury, pardon; Where there is doubt, faith; Where there is despair, hope; Where there is darkness, light; And where there is sadness, joy. 

O Divine Master, Grant that [we] may not so much seek To be consoled as to console; To be understood, as to understand; To be loved, as to love; For it is in giving that we receive, It is in pardoning that we are pardoned, And itis in dying that we are born to Eternal Life. Amen.

Friday–Living Stones

A stone that makes them stumble, and a rock that makes them fall” (1 Peter 2:8)

A sidewalk ran along the city block. For most of its expanse, it was a smooth piece of cement. Near the middle of the block, however, part of the sidewalk had been raised because of a tree root growing underneath it. People walking along the sidewalk would constantly trip over that raised piece of cement. It took several months before the city finally ground down the offending piece of cement. Before they did so, people continued to trip over the cement—even those who walked on the sidewalk on a regular basis.

People constantly tripped over Jesus. They were offended when Jesus allowed a woman to enter a dining room and didn’t prevent her from pouring expensive oil over him. When Jesus cast out demons from a possessed man, they complained. The religious authorities became upset when Jesus healed a blind man, and when he raised Lazarus from the dead they decided Jesus had to be eliminated. People didn’t like the fact that Jesus loved people, and taught that the essence of godly living was loving others.

Unfortunately, we stumble over Jesus’ command to love others as he has loved us just as much as the disciples did. We find it difficult to obey, when we are led to forgive someone who has hurt us deeply. Or we may struggle to love people who are different from us. Of course, there are always those irritable people who are almost impossible for us to love.

We stumble and sometimes we fall. As followers of Jesus, however, we pick ourselves up and follow Jesus’ command to love.

Lord, give us the will and the ability to love the unlovable. Amen

Saturday–Living Stones

“But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God’s own people” (1 Peter 2:9).

The writer of First Peter confers upon his readers the same titles that God placed upon the nation of Israel. Israel believed that these descriptions separated them from others. They were a chosen race and God’s own people. Other nations were not. Israel was a holy nation and other nations were profane. Israel excluded others. By the time Jesus walked on earth, social interaction was prohibited between Jews and non-Jews (Gentiles).

Christians have often thought themselves special and excluded others. We have often separated “us” from “them.” There are those who are saved, and those who are not. Some have the Spirit and some do not. There are those who believe one set of doctrines and those who believe in another set of doctrines. And like the Jews/Gentiles, there are Christians and non-Christians.

The writer to First Peter did not mean for his readers to use these titles in a manner that excluded others. He wanted to encourage the people to give thanks for how God’s Spirit has worked in their lives. They are to be thankful that God has made them God’s own people.

The real power of these titles comes when we realize that they apply to all people. They are inclusive. Because of Jesus’ life, death and resurrection, everyone is a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation and God’s own people. Rather than telling people who we are, we are given the opportunity to tell people who they are. They are people who are loved by God and whom God calls God’s own.

Lord, help us spread the good news of your love for all people. Amen.

Sunday–Living Stones

“For it is a credit to you if, being aware of God, you endure pain while suffering unjustly.If you endure when you are beaten for doing wrong, what credit is that? But if you endure when you do right and suffer for it, you have God’s approval” (1 Peter 2:19-20).

There are times when we fool ourselves into believing that because we are, “A chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God’s own people,” life should be easy for us. Life eventually catches up with us and we realize how wrong we are. As followers of Jesus we experience the same struggles, fears and failures as everyone else (along with all of the blessings of life, too).

As followers of Jesus, there are times when we might need to bring trouble upon ourselves. Standing with the weak against bullies, might earn us the wrath of the bullies, also. That is, however, what we are called to do. Joining with our brothers and sisters of other faiths to oppose prejudice and persecution may earn us some bruises, also. Being advocates for those who have no voice and calling attention to the neglected and abused may not make us popular. This is our ministry, though. It is what we are called to do. Jesus has shown us an example. As followers of Jesus, we follow his example.

Lord, help us not to shy away from the cost of standing with others in need. Amen.