You Are a Stone

Ephesians 2:11-22
Here we are at week 3 in our journey through God's grace as Paul writes about it in Ephesians. Last week we talked about God's grace that comes before us and is turning the world outside in. Prevenient grace is that grace that calls us back to God when we turn away. This week, we are talking about God's justifying grace, the grace that repairs our relationship with God and each other. Justifying grace is the grace that brings forgiveness, that pardons us from the guilt of our sin and gives us the power to overcome our slavery to sin. It moves us from being outside a relationship with God in Christ Jesus to being inside. Let us pray. God of mercy, look upon us with mercy and fill us with grace that the word spoken and heard will carry the gospel of truth, the word of our salvation. In Jesus we pray, amen. 

(This part is a dramatic interpretation) Me? You want me to preach? You don't know me, the life I've lived, the things I've done. Hmm. Paul thinks he was the chief of sinners, but he didn't know me. Oh sure, I was raised a Christian, baptized, all that stuff. My mom died when I was 11, and my dad took me out to sea. I learned to be a sailor, both the shipboard skills and the free-wheeling lifestyle. Then, just when things seemed to start going my way, I met a nice girl named Polly and thought about going straight and settling down, I was pressed into the British Navy. I tried to desert, I wanted nothing to do with discipline and war, but they dragged me back in disgrace. Finally, I got off that Navy ship onto a merchant ship, but my life of debauchery increased even more. "I not only sinned with a high hand myself, but made it my study to tempt and seduce others upon every occasion." I got into the slave trade. So much money to be made, shoving people into the dark hold of the ship, stacking them like cord-wood, only a few inches apart. You only needed about 2/3rds of them to survive the trip to make a profit, so what was the use of giving them decent food or water or medical care? Then one trip, way out at sea, a huge storm struck our ship and I cried out to God for help, even though I was sure God delighted in the death of a sinner such as me. But something crazy happened. I survived, and God awakened my heart that day, March 10, 1748. God let me know that I, even I had a place as a stone in God's temple on earth. Once I knew the assurance of grace, that God forgave me, even me, a slaver and sinner, my faith grew until I became a preacher. Now don't get me wrong, it took years for me to repent and turn back from all my sin, the slaving, the lust. But God kept working on my heart, saving me by his grace. God's grace really is amazing, isn’t it? Hmm, that's kinda catchy… (Petersen, Randy, Be Still My Soul, 2014)

It is only by the grace of God that I stand up here every week and dare to preach the gospel to you. When I get afraid that I am not worthy, that the things that I have done are inadequate, that my sins are too great, God assures me with justifying grace that by the blood of Christ, I have been forgiven. On the cross, God revealed God's self-giving, gracious love for me that broke down the division between God and me. God broke down the division between us when God became human, when God came to us and lived the perfect life of love. How many different metaphors can I use to describe justifying grace? spacial: justifying grace brings us in from the outside; legal: Justifying grace pardons our sin; military: justifying grace defeats sin and death in our lives; laundry: justifying grace washes away our sin; political: justifying grace makes us citizens of the kingdom of heaven; familial: justifying grace makes us children of God; covenential: justifying grace brings us into God's covenant with Israel; John Wesley's favorite, personal relationship: justifying grace God comes to us and forgives us for our sins that separate us from God; there are dozens more, but I'm going to focus on this one from Ephesians, construction: justifying grace makes us stones to be used in God's holy temple.

You are a stone. God's justifying grace makes you a new human, a stone useful for building up God's temple. It doesn't matter what you have done, the person you were, the things you did five years ago or five minutes ago. W.E.B. Dubois writes about the African American experience, yet it is equally applicable to all people, that you "cannot escape the sense of always looking at one's self through the eyes of others, of measuring one's soul by the tape of a world that looks on in amused contempt and pity" (Blount, ed., True to Our Native Land, "Ephesians," 2007). We look at our own sin and say, "We are not worthy to come to church, to receive communion, to teach Sunday school, to pray in front of others." They will see right through us, see the bad things we have done, see our sin. To that I say, hear the good news of God's justifying grace. God knows who you are and what you have done, and God loves you anyway and forgives you. You have confessed your sin and heard the glorious good news of God's justifying grace, your sins are forgiven. This is a free gift of God's grace that we receive in baptism and receive again every time we repent of our sin. You are a sinner, but God makes you a saint by his justifying grace.

You are a stone built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets. Look at them. Moses, the great prophet and law giver, was a murderer and told God to his face I am no good and not worthy, please send someone else. But God made him a deliverer. David was a man of blood and adulterer, but God made him a uniter of Israel. Peter rebuked Jesus, acted jealous and petty, denied Jesus, and went back to fishing even after the resurrection. God made him the rock on which the church is built. Paul proclaimed himself the chief of sinners, persecuting the church. God made him an apostle to the Gentiles. Look at our Gospel lesson. Jesus has come to save sinners, to call them and transform them from cast off rubble into stones. The power of the cross, forgiveness in the blood of Jesus, proclaims peace and brings we who are far off in our sin near, in prevenient grace, and reconciles us with God and each other in justifying grace, putting to death our hostility and building us together.

You are a stone. We are now stones, being built together into a dwelling place for God. Justifying grace turns us from individual sinners into a community of saved people. Not separately, not individuals clinging to our private spiritual lives, our individual walk with Jesus. Individual stones lying around on the ground do not make for much of a temple, no matter how much they are perfectly shaped and worn by God's grace. God has made you a part of the church, the temple of God, the one body, the kingdom in which we are citizens with the saints, the family of God. As Randy Maddox, a John Wesley big head from Duke, explains, you have been pardoned of your sin to participate in the building of God's temple (Maddox, Responsible Grace, 1994). Justifying grace pardons our sin, giving us access to the Father in the One Spirit, so that we have the power to participate in the kingdom. We have the power to be stones. It may be that you came here today holding sin in your heart, sin for which you do not think you can be forgiven. Hear the assurance of God's justifying grace, you are forgiven. You are invited to respond in faith by coming forward with a song of praise. You may have come here alone and lonely, feeling far away from God and others. Hear the assurance of God's justifying grace, God has made peace in the cross so that you may be reconciled to God and one another. You are invited to respond in faith by coming forward with a song of praise. It may be that God's grace has convinced you of your sin and called you to repentance and new life in Jesus Christ by justifying grace. You are invited to respond in faith by coming forward with a song of praise. After the song, all are invited to come forward to be built in our communion as we are fed by Christ, the cornerstone. God is always making us stones to be built together, built on the foundation of those who came before, those like John Newton, the slave ship captain and great sinner who was saved by God's grace, became a preacher, and wrote a hymn about the grace that saved him. God's pardoning grace. God's powerful grace. God's reconciling grace. God's amazing grace.