When I was in college, a brief fad concerned “pet rocks.” It seems silly now but people actually paid for rocks with painted eyes, clothing, and little boxes in which to live. The inventor called them perfect pets that didn’t need to be fed or walked and the six month fad made him a millionaire. While people were starving in other countries, people in ours were spending money on dead rocks.
Why would he encourage Christians who were being persecuted, chased out of their homes, and often beaten to death by Nero’s minions with talk of living stones? It makes sense to think of gathering stones and building something out of them, but they are still empty of life. And yet, aquariums attach plastic tubing to utilize porous stones so air that is pumped through them will be diffused with tiny bubbles that add oxygen for the fish without pushing stones and plants all to the side. Lifeless iron, copper, sand, and similar stones are heated to create steel, jewelry, or computer chips. We mine coal for heat precious minerals to be cut and polished for expensive jewelry. Domesticating lifeless stones creates life and value where there is no life.
Out of lifeless stones come concrete and cinder blocks for highways and buildings. Stones have a way of coming to life, in many different ways. Stones can also bring danger, injury, and death. Slingshots and catapults carried stones to destroy structures and damage lives of enemies. Iron and slate were used as spears and arrowheads to secure food or keep enemies at bay. Rockslides can destroy a village while quarries of rock create marble statues and massive cathedrals. Like living stones!
Peter wrote about living stones, not in anticipation of pet rocks, cathedrals, or jewelry but his imagery was to capture his audience with the confusion about something dead being alive, valuable, and worthy of connecting to. They were all as good as dead as Nero and his minions were killing every Christian they could find. Peter wrote to people who fear of death was more imminent than imagined. They felt useless, hopeless, helpless, like piles of rock scattered at the foot of a mountain. And Peter said, you are right, that is who you are. But he got their attention to remind them that God’s love was breathing into them and would bring animation out of fear and life out of death. And those words are so helpful for each of us today.
We understand, all too well, how tenuous are situations are and all will one day face the lifelessness of death. Like a rock we cannot change who we are or much of what surrounds us, but there is hope because of God’s breath of life that fills us with a life that can never be erased or ended. That breath filled the lungs of a baby in a manger who would grow up to show God’s love, guidance, and power in the flesh. And when those lungs breathed their last on a cross and a lifeless body was buried in a stone cold tomb he faced the same emptiness that life brings to all. But the same breath that created a universe and all that is in it breathed life into the breathless body, which looked like a dead stone, and on Easter Jesus emerged with the spirit of God animating every movement, action, word, and love just as it had at the manger.
It can be difficult to hear read scripture without being colored by our own culture. The words from 1 Peter about God making us a “chosen people” can be terribly misunderstood, depending on one’s experience with those two words. The Greek word [genos] has been has been translated as nation, generation, people, and even race. What it literally means is a group of people with something uniquely common. And what makes us unique is God’s breath that brings life to death and usefulness to each lump of clay that we call our body.
People are the ultimate gift of creation. Genesis reminds us that all are created in the image of God. There is closeness to God’s heart for ALL people, different than for any other part of creation. The diversity of people, just as there is in the world granite, sandstone, minerals, and coal is part of God’s creative plan. One would think such diversity would be a PLUS! Yet we live in a world that thinks it alone can bring life and value and purpose into being, and daily gets in the way of living up to the image of God which all are called to be. +++
God’s choosing is different than ours. We live with the reality that beggars can’t be choosers and only the strongest and wealthiest can bring hopeful living. We are led to believe some stones in the quarry are more valuable than others while God has a different view on the gifts he has created. The earthly tension that values some parts of creation, whether people or rocks, more than others develops a tension that results in hatred and envy, exclusion and persecution, wars and undeserved suffering. The brokenness of this world wrings the life out of God’s goodness and leaves piles of rubble, like useless rocks, in its wake.
In this beautiful letter, Peter speaks of what Christ has done to change our perspective and renew our God given potential. In this Easter season we celebrate what lengths of love God has undertaken to bring us back to the garden; to recreate what has been lost. He has breathed life into death and love into the coldness of the earth’s quarry. When Jesus knelt to wash feet, he breathed on his disciples so they would understand the love that would change the emptiness Satan had brought into daily living. Christ entered into a world that missed the mark, and stumbled in its purpose. He offers forgiveness, undeserved grace, and a call to become what He means us to be.
How special this good news is! We are chosen not to be superior but to respond to our servant call. Not to be uplifted but to relish our opportunity to wash feet and serve others as Christ Jesus has done for me. We are CHOSEN not because of who we are, what we have done, or how we look, but because Christ loves us. It is no different than the gift of family – we can’t choose our parents, but their choice brings us to be. In a more perfect way our relationship with Christ is based not on deservedness or good deeds, but God’s choice in creating and loving me.
With this good news as our gift, what next? Listen again: You are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, that you may proclaim the might acts of Him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light. Once you were NO PEOPLE now you are God’s people; once you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy.
Sin tempts people to feel superior or complain about being oppressed. The Gospel calls those who understand the grace of being chosen to use our diversity of gifts to proclaim to the entire world that this is God’s gift to all! We cannot bring life to a rock but God has a purpose and plan for each of us and fills us with his holy breath that will keep us alive even after this world beats life out of us. How wonderful to be more than a fad like a pet rock, but a creature called to imitate God’s love in all we touch!
How painful it would be for someone in your family never to know they are loved! How tragic for any human to not know the good news of Jesus’ saving love. Because WE know who we are, we understand what our call is to become. With chosen-ness comes responsibility and purpose. With salvation comes the call to serve, that others will know that same love.
Whether a mother had carried her child in her womb, or adopted that child from another, that child is “chosen” and the relationship with Mother and Father makes a difference in terms of one’s identity, nature, and purpose. As children of God, our “chosen-ness” is determined not by background but by Christ! Your CALL is to use every opportunity, and the unique gifts that are “you” to share this Good News that others will know the gift that has been given for them.