Stone Upon Stone

A stone… to hurt… to shelter… to throw… to gather…
to wound… to sculpt… a weapon… a blessing… a stone…
A stone… to control… to protect… to divide… to gather…
a barrier… a bridge… a weapon… a foundation… a stone…
A stone… to build a dividing wall… to lay a roadway…
to shape an obstruction… to smooth a connection…
a weapon… a faith… a stone.
(Adapted from Seasons of the Spirit, Year A Easter 5, 22 May 2011.)

Stones… Human beings have done an awful lot with them: an awful lot for good and an awful lot for harm. So today in our readings, we have a mixture of stone imagery… Stephen, the first Christian martyr is stoned to death in the 7th chapter of Acts. In Psalm 31, God is our rock and refuge. In the first letter of Peter, the disciples of Christ are identified as “living stones” to be placed on the great living cornerstone, Jesus Christ, in order to build the people of God. And though the stones are not mentioned in the reading from the Gospel of John, the house of God is—and in that imagery stones are not far away. Stones to build… and stones that kill…

My father’s [house] has many rooms,
with room for all God’s children,
as long as we do share his love,
and see that all are free.
(Words & music by Pete Seeger. © 1966 Stormking Music Inc.)

But we are a menagerie of a people… and we are very human… stones that build up… and stones that tear down…

When I was a child, my image of God’s house was something like one of those cartoon houses with the small front door and entry at the bottom and rooms which kept popping out all over the place on the floors above. It never toppled over although it always looked like it would. And there was always more room for more rooms. They could just pop out anyway, anytime, whenever one was needed for a new member of God’s family. I don’t remember ever believing that God actually lived in a real house just like that, but it seemed a good picture to have in my mind for the type of house God would have if God needed a real house like the one I lived in. God’s house wasn’t made of weatherboard or bricks obviously, but there was always room for all God’s children, whomever, whatever, and however they presented themselves.

God’s house, God’s oikia, God’s household, is made of stones… living stones… very human living stones and we are a ragtag collection of odd-shaped rocks… stones that fit easily… and stones that stick out in odd ways…

Have you ever built a stone wall? Or perhaps you’ve visited one of the great historical stone walls like Hadrian’s Wall in the UK. Stones are not bricks… They are not neatly shaped and ready to put into an orderly pattern. They come in all different shapes and sizes; and, if they need to be put together, the act of fitting them into one another is truly and art… stones that fit… and stones that need a bit of a trim to fit… stones that need a bit of shaping in order to contribute to the stability of the wall… or the house.

My father’s [house] has many rooms,
with room for all God’s children,
as long as we do share his love,
and see that all are free.
(Words & music by Pete Seeger. © 1966 Stormking Music Inc.)

When I was fourteen, three friends and I decided that we would write a musical to be performed for our Sunday School Anniversary. The Anniversary was scheduled for October. We began our enterprise on a day late in the Christmas holidays, sometime in the previous January. It wasn’t long before we had decided that the musical would be about Stephen, the first Christian martyr. That story is contained in just two chapters in the book of Acts; and it is conveniently arranged into several short episodes which made it the perfect storyline for a musical of about 45 minutes. It was at our second meeting that we decided on a theme that began as our working title and eventually became the performance title for the musical: “In His Image”.

This title originally came out of our recognition that the story of Stephen’s death, the passage that is one of our lectionary readings for today, was very much a parallel story to the death of Jesus. In the story of Stephen’s stoning, he cries out in two very similar utterances to those which Luke also records Jesus crying out on the cross. In Luke 23, Jesus says, “Forgive them, Father! They don’t know what they are doing.” In Acts 7, Stephen cries out in a loud voice, “Lord! Do not remember this sin against them!” In Luke 23, Jesus commits his spirit into the hands of God. In Acts 7, Stephen asks Jesus to receive his spirit. Stephen, the first Christian martyr is depicted by Luke as being in Jesus’ image—a living stone in the shape of the great cornerstone. Stephen is well and truly a chip off the old block.

As we read and re-read the Biblical text of the story of Stephen and consulted commentaries and other resources, we came to see just how closely the life of Stephen recorded in Acts did reflect the life of Jesus: even more closely than we had first realised.

In Acts 6, Stephen is described as one “richly blessed by God and full of power” who “performed great miracles and wonders among the people”. Stephen is opposed by some Jews and ultimately brought before the High Priest’s Council where he delivers a long speech rehearsing the faithfulness of the ancestors of the Jews and finally accusing his inquisitors of failing to live up to this great tradition of faithfulness to God. It is this meeting which leads to Stephen’s condemnation to death: a death by one of the more horrible ancient means of the taking of life, stoning. There are very close parallels between the story of the life of Jesus and that of Stephen. Stephen is truly depicted as being in the image of Christ, a chip off the old block.

There was one more connection, however, which needed to be made before our title “In His Image” achieved its full potential as a succinct way of describing our approach to the story of Stephen. That connection is very aptly described in our Gospel reading for today, although for us it began in the text from which the original phrase “in the image” had been gleaned.

In the first creation story, in Genesis 1, the story of the creation of humanity is recorded thus:

Then God said, “Let us make humanity in our image, after our likeness... So God created humanity in God’s own image, in the image of God, God created them; male and female God created them.” (Gen. 1:26a, 27)

It is our belief as Christians that Jesus fulfilled this vision of humanity in the image of God, being both perfectly human and perfectly God at one and the same time. It is a difficult concept to grasp. In fact, it defied the rationality of the Greek philosophy which the early Church attempted to employ in order to describe such a miraculous and mysterious event and it continues to defy our understandings of scientific rationality today. Yet this is what we believe: that in Jesus, God was so truly present for humanity that in recognising Jesus, we recognise God. In the Gospel of John, Jesus is recorded as saying “Whoever has seen me has seen God” (John 14:9).

Even more miraculous is the promise that we too can be reflections of the image of God; living stones being built on the one great cornerstone; chips off the original block; stones in the house of God. The Gospel of John records Jesus as saying, “I am telling you the truth: whoever believes in me will do what I do - yes, they will do even greater things, because I am going to the Father” (John 14:12). One of very early theologians put it this way: God became human in order that we might become divine.

But we are a ragtag collection of odd-shaped rocks—a real menagerie of members of the household of God. We are rocks that need shaping and fitting together. And that is God’s wonderful promise to us:

My father’s [house] has many rooms,
with room for all God’s children,
as long as we do share his love,
and see that all are free.
(Words & music by Pete Seeger. © 1966 Stormking Music Inc.)

A stone… to hurt… to shelter… to throw… to gather…
to wound… to sculpt… a weapon… a blessing… a stone…
A stone… to control… to protect… to divide… to gather…
a barrier… a bridge… a weapon… a foundation… a stone…
A stone… to build a dividing wall… to lay a roadway…
to shape an obstruction… to smooth a connection…
a weapon… a faith… a stone.
(Adapted from Seasons of the Spirit, Year A Easter 5, 22 May 2011.)

“Father forgive us for we know not what we do…”

“Lord Jesus, receive our spirits…:”