Purposeful Spirit

St James Church • Pentecost A• Tobias Haller BSG
I will give them a new heart, and put a new spirit within them.

Given the options for the readings appointed today, I have chosen to omit the account of the descent of the Spirit from Acts. This passage describes the day on which the Spirit blew through the windows of the house where the apostles were huddled together, appearing as a flame on each, and giving them the gift of miraculous speech. I omit this reading today in part because the story is so familiar, but more importantly so that we can focus on the readings from Ezekiel, Corinthians, and the Gospel. For today I want us to reflect together not about the story of the Spirit’s descent, but its purpose; to focus not on the what, but the why.

Why did God’s Holy Spirit descend in tongues as of fire? Why, after all, does anyone light a fire? Well, might one do so for warmth, for light, as a signal, to clear a field of a rank overgrowth, or destroy a pile of refuse? Or to create a fire-break in a forest or field, to prevent a wild-fire from spreading? In short, what is the use of fire? If we can answer that question, we will gain a better understanding of God’s purpose in sending the Holy Spirit down to earth — a Spirit sent not as a showy display like a fireworks celebration, but sent with a purpose to do God’s work, not to entertain, but to empower.

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In his First Letter to the Church at Corinth, Paul catalogues the uses of the purposeful Spirit. And these uses reflect the fire of the Spirit at its most fruitful and productive. These are the gifts of the Spirit that nourish and build up the church itself, making it grow strong. This is like the fire that bakes the bread and cooks the food that nourishes us; the fire that warms our spiritual home, the church in which we gather; the flame that gives light, that drives away the darkness and gives us the knowledge of God’s presence, and serves as a light to our feet so we may follow in God’s way — — as it has from the days the children of Israel followed that pillar of fire in the nights of their Exodus. The Holy Spirit is called the “Comforter” and here we find the gifts that give comfort — which doesn’t mean “make cozy” but “make strong” — to fortify. The Spirit provides gifts that feed, that protect, that enlighten and encourage. And, as Saint Paul assures us, though there are varieties of gifts, the source is the same, the one Holy and purposeful Spirit of God.

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But what about the other side of fire? For in addition to its comforting ability to provide us food, warm shelter and light, fire can also be used to burn. Fire has two sides: it can build up but it can also tear down. This other side of fire — the destructive side — is reflected in the spiritual mandate described in our other readings. It is the power to find out evil and to expose it to the light and heat of God’s forgiving and yet all-consuming love. This fire burns up and removes all that is detestable, the prophet Ezekiel assures us. This fire is so powerful it can change our hearts of stone into hearts of flesh, like the refiner’s fire that takes hard, lumpy and unpromising ore and melts out the precious, ductile gold. This is a fire turning us towards obedience and away from reckless wandering, calling us together like a great flaming lighthouse beacon, assembling us from all the places to which we have been scattered, turning our backs upon our foresworn foolish ways, so that we face the light — and the shadows of darkness lie behind us, and we gather together around the cleansing flame, to unite our transformed and refined hearts with a spirit to obey and love the Lord our God.

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This power is reflected in the gift Jesus gives to his disciples, as he breathes on them and opens their hearts to receive the soon-coming Spirit. In doing this he gives them the power to forgive sins.

The fact is, sin makes good kindling. It burns easily. And the important thing about the burning of sin is where you stand in relation to the fire! If you are caught up in your sins, if you try to hold on to them, you’ll be burned up with them; and we all know the name of the place where that fire burns, the place where soul and body are destroyed. If you’ve ever wondered why hell is so hot, it’s because all the dry wood of sin burning there so easily.

But Jesus offers us the better way, the way out of the destructive fire, so that the sins can be burnt up apart from us, burnt up like the discarded rubbish and trash they are, as we stand free and clear, able to see our past debts cancelled and forgiven, and reduced to ash, never again to harm us.

You know, there used to be a custom — it may still be done this way — that when churches took out loans so as to construct their buildings, when the loan was finally paid off they would have a mortgage-burning ceremony. The fire would consume the paid-off debt as if it never was. The fire of the Spirit can do the same with sin — Christ gave his church the power to do this, to cancel the sins of its members, and make them as if they never were, burnt up like a bill that has been paid off, or better yet, cancelled! We do often speak of a cancelled debt as having been “forgiven.” And surely Jesus calls us to remember this when we pray the prayer he taught us, as we ask God to forgive our debts even as we forgive the debts others owe to us. To forgive a debt doesn’t mean that it’s been paid off, after all — it means it has been set aside, the slate on which the debt was tallied wiped clean, the bills dropped into the fireplace, as the one to whom the debt was owed says, ‘Forget about it.’ That’s what forgiveness means.

This is good and great news, that there is a way to defeat sin, and Christ has committed it to his church. It is the flame of forgiveness that burns sin away, cleansing and purifying and giving life. The original Pentecost — not the one in Acts, but the one God commanded Moses to celebrate — came to be commemorated as the day on which God gave the law from Mount Sinai. But the Pentecost that we celebrate is not about the giving of the law but the giving of the Spirit: for the letter of the law kills, but the Spirit gives life. Some think the way to fight sin is to keep battering people with how bad they are, reminding them how sinful they are, beating them over the head with the law, like a creditor who keeps sending you past due notices. That is the way of the law.

But the way that Jesus shows us is the way of forgiveness, the way of setting sin aside. He takes all those bills and past due notices and drops them in the incinerator of forgiveness, the flame that burns urged on by the breath of our Lord, as he gently blows on that flame to burn up the debts of past sins. That is the way of the Spirit. And it is the way God means us to follow.

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These then are the powerful uses of the fiery Spirit, God’s great gift to the church. It is the beacon that calls us together, reassembling us from wherever we have wandered. It is the giver of the comforting gifts of nourishment, enlightenment, and protection, the gifts that build up the church. It is the fire that gives light to discern the way, to reveal our faults, and then consume them — to liberate us from their power, as we lay our sins upon the fire of God’s love and they are consumed and removed and forgiven forever —
— even as we set aside the sins of others against ourselves, allowing the flame of forgiveness to consume all we might otherwise hold against each other.

May we always respond to the beacon that summons us, rejoice in the light that renews us, be comforted with the warmth of the flame that enfolds us, and be freed from bondage of sin by the promised gift of the purposeful Spirit, through Jesus Christ our Lord.+

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Second-Hand People

SJF • Easter 7a • Tobias Haller BSG

Jesus said, “I have made your name known to those whom you gave me from the world. They were yours, and you gave them to me, and they have kept your word.”

One of the peculiarities of the Gospel of John is that his account of the Last Supper contains no direct mention of the Holy Eucharist. Rather, John is the only evangelist to record our Lord’s startling act of humility, when Jesus rose from the table and washed the disciples’ feet. But John’s account is also unusual because it is so much longer than that of the other evangelists. It includes four long chapters of teaching and prayer, in which Jesus reveals something of the mystery of existence to the faithful disciples, after Judas has departed into the night. These chapters have a timeless quality, as they appear to describe the future, but also reflect something of the eternal. It is as if Jesus were both looking forward to his Passion and also looking back upon that Passion, and even the upon struggles of the early church, by which the Church would share in his sufferings, as though from a time long after his Resurrection — from an eternal perspective, a real God’s-eye-view.

There are even moments, as in today’s portion, in which Jesus refers to himself in the third person — as if he were talking about someone else: “This is eternal life, that they may know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent.”

On top of that, there is an almost hypnotic quality to the some of the language in these chapters — the repetition of phrases, and their inversion and weaving together, a wonderful vision of the interconnectedness of the Father and the Son, knit together in the Spirit, referring to the disciples and then folding them into the unity of God himself: “all mine are yours, and yours are mine; and I have been glorified in them.... so that they may be one, as we are one.” It is as if all time and space, humanity and divinity, were displayed on a great silken tapestry being shaken out before us, then folded and refolded, tucking all of history into a small space, four chapters in the middle of the Gospel of John.

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One of the things Jesus makes clear in this reflective and prayerful meditation is that the disciples didn’t belong to him originally. As he says, they belonged to the Father, and were in the world. I noted in my sermon a few weeks ago, that it was God who chose those who would become followers of Jesus, and deemed them precious. And God then committed these chosen disciples to his Son. Jesus had them second-hand.

Anyone who comes from a large family knows about second-hand hand-me-downs. Actually, since my younger brother outgrew me and was bigger and taller than me, I actually experienced a few cases of hand-me-ups! But they were still second-hand.

Usually such second-hand hand-me-downs are forced by economy and practicality. When you don’t have much money, getting some more wear out of someone else’s clothes can help a family stretch the dollar. And I can readily admit that in my early days living in New York City as a struggling artist, I made more than one trip to Goodwill both for clothing and for furniture — and I wasn’t making a donation! — as well as taking advantage of the Thursday evening “set out your unwanted furniture for collection” that still turns New York City streets into a kind of free-for-all flea market where one person’s refuse became another’s living room suite! In fact, I’ve still got a floor lamp over at the rectory that I rescued from the clutches of the sanitation department almost forty years ago.

But there is another kind of second-hand that is far more important and valuable than even the greatest curb-side flea-market discovery: that is the precious inheritance that a father or mother pass on to their children. I’m sure most of us here have some such heirloom — perhaps not valuable by worldly standards, but important to us. In my office downstairs I have a porcelain plate with Raphael’s “Madonna and Child” painted on it. It belonged to my mother, and she gave it to me as an inheritance. It is probably not worth much by the standards of Antiques Roadshow, but it means a great deal to me. Most of you probably have some such item, perhaps also not worth much in the marketplace, and even if it were you would never think of parting with it, because its value to you as a family treasure is so much more important than its value as a worldly one.

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So it is that what the Father gives to Jesus is precious — precious to God; for the Father gives Jesus the disciples, chosen out of that worldly world to be the beginning of a new branch of the human family, the family we call the Church. They are the heirloom vessels, chosen to be the means by which that family will grow, through the preaching of the Gospel. The Father presents them to Jesus his Son, and from that moment they belong to Jesus, and he puts them to immediate use, filling them with his Word. As he said, “I have made your name known to those whom you gave me from the world. They were yours, and you gave them to me, and they have kept your word.”

The disciples, though second-hand, are second-hand from God: they are heirlooms of the precious kind, and are given for a purpose. They are not just pretty pictures to hang on a wall, attractive furnishings to brighten up the corner of a room. No, my friends, they are vessels — vessels designed by the one who created them and presented them to his Son, to bear his message — his saving message, the words God gave to him, that he committed unto them — to the rest of a waiting world.

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We are poised today, on this Seventh Sunday of Easter, between our observances of the Ascension of Jesus and Pentecost. After the Ascension, for a moment the apostles, those chosen vessels, stood there looking up into heaven with open mouths like so many heirloom vases or urns. We hear their names recited out again, names to be repeated to the end of time, these chosen eleven, and then the angels give them the charge to go back to Jerusalem — to await the fulfillment of their purpose, the fulfillment of what they were meant for. For on Pentecost, the Holy Spirit would come upon them, and fill those chosen vessels with the power to testify and proclaim, fill them to the brim so that they could bear the saving message to the world’s four quarters, and enlarge the family of God with a precious inheritance.

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And you know what? We are second-hand people too. Because we received the message from those who got it first hand, from those apostles and evangelists who stood staring up on a hillside looking after Jesus as he ascended into heaven; who returned to Jerusalem to await the coming Spirit; who when the Spirit came were filled with power and spread the word abroad.

We second-hand Christians, members of Christ’s family, have received the most precious inheritance imaginable — salvation itself — and you know what? We’re not going to take it to Antiques Road Show. We’re not putting it up on Ebay. We’ve got a better way to share it, through the power of the Holy Spirit. We too, with the disciples, can proclaim the way to eternal life of which Jesus spoke that night in the upper room: that all the world may know the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom God has sent.

So let us not, at the end of our worship today, simply stand staring with open mouths — let us go forth, having been filled with the power of the Holy Spirit, to do the work God has given us to do, to the glory of his Name, that all may be one in him, even as God is One: God the Father Almighty, his only-begotten Son Jesus Christ our Lord, who with the Holy Spirit, is worthy of all honor and glory for ever and ever.+

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Athirst for God

Saint James Fordham • Easter 6a • Tobias Haller BSG

For thee, my God, the living God,
my thirsty soul doth pine;
O when shall I behold thy face,
thou Majesty divine.

As many of you know, Jerome Reservoir a few blocks north of us is closely connected to the history of this church. It was built starting in the late nineteenth century as part of a new water supply system to meet the clamorous thirst of the growing metropolis just south of here: the New York City of which, in those days, the Bronx was not yet a part. (Back then we were still part of Westchester County.)

Jerome Avenue running past our doors is named for Leonard Jerome, the Wall Street wiz and horse-racing fan who lived just across the street, about where the Post Office now stands. (He was also Winston Churchill’s grandfather, and rumor has it, though the parish records don’t confirm it, that his daughter Jennie was baptized here.)

Mr. Jerome owned much of the property around here, and where Jerome Reservoir now stands he built Jerome Park, the racetrack where the first Belmont Stakes was run in 1867. When the thirsty throngs in Manhattan called for more water, that spot was singled out as of a perfect size and shape to convert into a reservoir, and so it was. Our additional parish connection is through two members of this parish, Hugh Camp and Mayor Franklin Edson, who appointed Camp to the team for the design of the new reservoir (at the time the largest in the world) and the new aqueduct system that would convey plentiful water to the people of New York City. The water came from the Croton system upstate, making a brief stop at the Jerome Reservoir before continuing on its way through the aqueduct underneath Aqueduct Avenue just up the hill from here.

And all of this in response to thirst — the thirst of people for clean, pure water. We all know from personal experience what ordinary thirst means; and we also know the effects that global warming has had on the supply of what you need to satisfy that thirst. If you pass by Jerome Reservoir with any frequency, you will note that unlike former days, it is now rarely more than half-full, and is often as dry as a proverbial bone.

Drought brought on by a lack of water can be a terrible thing — and we’re lucky that this past year broke the string of dry summers we’ve had for a while now.

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But there are worse things that a drought of water. Think for a moment how much worse would be a drought of God — the drying up of knowing God’s presence and grace, the receding and sinking of the pools of spiritual nourishment, drained away, lost and gone, replaced by the sandy desert or dry lake-beds of desolation. People have a built-in need for God, a thirst for God, in whom, as Saint Paul assures the Athenians, we live and move and have our being. Imagine what a drought of God would mean— to be cut of from life, motion, and ones very being, withering like a parched plant in a desert.

Saint Paul compliments the Athenians — a rare thing for this often grumpy saint — he praises them for their religious impulse, for their effort to search for God, even if they do not have a clear idea as to who God is and how to find, know, and love God. Still, Paul credits them with seeking and searching for God, groping for God, much as a persistent tree will send its roots out in search of life-giving water. The search for God is a universal human reality, Saint Paul assures us, as in our human thirst for the divine springs we seek, grope and explore to find the source of our being and life, like people roaming the fields with spiritual dowsing rods, or searching the empty sky for the sign of a cloud, seeking the signs of God’s presence, the quenching of our spiritual thirst with the living water of God’s being.

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Yes, people need God and seek God. For without God we dry up, wither, fail, and die. Jesus uses the image of the Vine and the Branches to make this clear. Just as in the past weeks we’ve heard Jesus refer to himself as the “gate” for the sheep, and the “way” to the Father, so today he assures us that he is the “vine,” apart from which we branches are useless and fruitless, able to do nothing at all but wither and dry up, good for nothing but firewood.

Anyone who has done any gardening knows this well. If you cut off a branch, you cut off its life-support system. No branch can thrive on its own, whether a branch of a vine or a tree. Without the source of life, the connection to life, there is no life.

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And God is the source of our life. In him we live and move and have our being. He is the reservoir from which we draw the water of life, the vine from which our nourishment flows. Disconnected from God, we wither, fail, dry and die — just as if you cut off the aqueduct there will be no water in Manhattan. Without the source and without the means to transmit it, no water will get through to quench our thirst.

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Sometimes people will say they have no time or place for God in their lives. How wrong they are, for it isn’t that God isn’t in their lives — it is their lives that aren’t in God! They are cut off, wandering in a desert, and the oasis of earthly success is just a mirage. They struggle to reach that green and welcoming spot on the horizon, only to discover it is not an oasis, but just more dry and dusty sand, a tempting vision created by reflected heat. Meanwhile, their connection to the vine has been cut, and though they may not feel it yet, soon their leaves will begin to wilt and wither. Their hand-made idols will be of no help to them, and they will merely cling to them like the dead vines cling to a ruined and forsaken building.

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But the good news is that God the True Vine is merciful, even to those who think they can live apart from God, even those who think they can bear fruit without being connected to the vine, even those who worship the idols of their own making.

We’ve all known people who devote themselves so whole-heartedly to their careers that they have no time for anything or anyone else. They imagine that they are self-sufficient, not realizing how much depends on others, how much depends on God. Yet the merciful God does not forsake even these preoccupied, self-centered people. The merciful God allows some hardship to come their way, some drought, some thirst, some pain that recalls them to themselves, and recalls them to him. God overlooks human ignorance, and prompts the ignorant and thirsty heart to repent, to seek, to grope its way back, to turn to the true spring, to quench its desires in the cool water of grace, the cool water of baptism into Christ.

And when even we who are incorporated into Christ get so preoccupied with our work that we forget who we are part of, and who is the source of our life; when we begin to rely too much on our own gifts, become too proud of our own work and our own accomplishments, Jesus gently reminds us who he is and who we are. He is the True Vine; we are the branches.

Hugh Nesbitt Camp and Franklin Edson were both successful men of their generation. They were the cream of high society, risen to the very top. But they knew on whom their success — and not only their success, but their very living, moving and being — depended; someone far greater than themselves, someone apart from whom they could do nothing. If you cut off the flow, the water will stop. If you cut off the branch from the vine, it will dry up and die.

It is fitting that the man who assisted in the design of New York’s water supply system, is remembered here at Saint James Church in that stained glass window, The True Vine, here in the church where he worshiped the God he loved and served, the source of his ability to live and move, to love and serve his fellow citizens.

It is a reminder we can do nothing apart from God. Apart from him we will wilt, wither, dry, and end in the flames. But in him; ah, in him we draw the sweetest draft of satisfaction from the pure source of life itself. In him we branches are nourished and strengthened to bear much fruit. And if we get too confident of our fruitfulness, he will prune us back, and we will bear even more fruit — such is his care for us. So rejoice, sisters and brothers, that our Lord has recalled us to himself and to ourselves, reminding us who we are and whose we are. He is the end of our drought; he is the gentle rain upon our desert-weary hearts, the spring that appears in the midst of the wilderness to quench our thirst and satisfy our deepest needs; he is our reservoir and his cross is our aqueduct, bringing us new life; he is the true vine in whom we find our nourishment and shade, from whom we derive our life, our movement, our being — and our fruitfulness. Let us rejoice in that life, and bear much fruit, so that all may give glory to God, the source of all being, henceforth and for evermore.+

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Chosen and Precious

Saint James Fordham • Easter 5a • Tobias Haller BSG
…like living stones be yourselves built into a spiritual house.—1 Peter 2:5

Today we are called to think about one of the strangest ideas in all of Scripture: living rock. Remember your high school geology class: igneous rock comes from lava, sedimentary rock is made of layers of clay, and metamorphic rock arises from the action of heat and pressure on the other two kinds. That’s your science refresher course for the day! But whatever kind of rock you’re talking about, rock is as dead as dead can be.

In fact, there are countless legends and fairy tales of people cursed by being changed into stone. It is a fear buried deep in our collective unconscious as a symbol of death, coldness and finality. You may remember Medusa, the young lady who was so beautiful that her pride led her to think herself more beautiful than the goddesses. Mistake. They cursed her so that she ended up nut just ugly but ug-LY! As they say, she had ought to stop chasing parked busses. How ugly was she? Well, she could turn you to stone if you got one look at her ugly mug and serpentine hair-do. She was ugly enough to petrify — literally.

On the other hand, there are the stories about statues coming to life, marvelous legends, myths and fairy tales, where the curse is reversed by a blessing. My favorite is The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, which actually formed a part of my reconversion to Christianity as a teenager. Perhaps you saw the film version a few years ago. The imaginary land of Narnia is enthralled by a wicked witch who has cursed the land so that it is always winter but never Christmas, and she has punished anyone who opposes her by turning them into stone. Her prisoners return to life when the Great Lion comes to breathe upon them and lick them back to life, like a mother cat licking her kittens.

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So perhaps it isn’t so strange after all that this idea of living stone should be in Scripture. As with all else, it starts with Jesus, whom Peter, in our reading this morning, describes as the cornerstone for God’s temple. And the building-stones of that temple are ourselves, our souls and bodies, reasonable and holy, transformed into building blocks for God’s house. We are called to be living stones!

This is what Easter is all about: life coming to what is dead. The dead stone is rolled away, and the living Rock of Ages is revealed. And just as Jesus Christ is the Church’s one foundation, the cornerstone chosen and precious, so we are called, through Baptism, to be the living stones building up the New Jerusalem.

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I began this sermon by reminding us where rock comes from. Let’s revisit that a moment. One particular kind of rock is built up from sediment. Dust of the earth, or sand of the hills, and fragments of organic matter, washed away by rainfall, flow downstream to the sea, settle and become a deposit of clay. And over the years, that clay hardens into sedimentary rock. You need look no further than our own slate roof, which millions of years ago was a lake-bottom in Vermont.

The surprising things is that as more time goes by, and shale or slate or sandstone that lies deeper in the earth is compressed further, and heated by the pressure of the layers above, it can change into yet another kind of rock: it undergoes metamorphosis. Sometimes, if all the factors are just right, the compressed and heated sediments become precious rock — gemstones, jewels — diamonds and rubies and sapphires.

Now, as we are reminded on Ash Wednesday, we are dust, and to dust we shall all return. We are also clay taken from the riverbank, molded, and given the breath of life by God himself. And water flows over us — the water of Baptism flowing from the same living rock that quenched the thirst of the children of Israel as they wandered in the wilderness.

They doubted God could give them water from the rock, no doubt a reasonable doubt. But God is not particularly fond of reasonable doubts or reasonable doubters, and that generation was punished by not being allowed into the Promised Land. They put God to the test, though they had seen with their own eyes all the mighty works he had done in Egypt and at the Red Sea. If he made the sea into dry land, could he not do the reverse, and bring water from the rock?

But not only did that Rock become the source of water, of life and salvation for all who believe, it also became the head stone of the corner. The stone that the builders rejected — the stone that didn’t fit their plans, that seemed to big or too small, or the wrong shape — became the very heart of the building.

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Peter was the first to proclaim Christ as Messiah, head and cornerstone of the new Israel. And Jesus reminded him that his name “Peter” means “the rock” — and a few verses later Jesus called Peter “a stumbling block” too! Surely these words must have been in Peter’s mind when he wrote the Letter from which we heard today! Peter was one of the twelve foundation stones of Christ’s Church, but he had also been a stumbling block. He is a perfect example of the old advice, If you can’t be part of the solution at least don’t be a problem! Get with it or get out of the way! Be of good use, not just an obstreperous obstacle.

This is a warning for us as well. Just as Peter got in Jesus’ way, just as the children of Abraham, the chosen people precious to the Lord, doubted in the wilderness, we too — people of God by adoption, people who “once were no people” — could stumble if we were to fall into “malice and guile and insincerity and envy.”

To help us avoid this Peter reminds us of the wonders to which we are called in Christ. Chosen and precious, a holy priesthood, a chosen race, a holy nation, we declare the wonderful deeds of the One who gives us life everlasting. Each of us is unique, chosen and with something precious to offer — a greater purpose to serve other than just getting in the way. Each of us is marked out with our own special place, just as each stone in this church has its own place, its own shape and size.

Back in the nineteenth century there was a craze as wealthy businessmen, hungry for antiquity in this new land, bought castles and cloisters in Europe, had them disassembled, crated up, and shipped to America for reassembly. As the castles were taken apart stone by stone, each stone was labeled and marked, so that each could be put back in its place when the time came. We are like that, each marked as Christ’s own forever in Baptism, and each with our own place in the new Jerusalem, a place which no other stone can fit so well as we. For the stones at the top of the wall couldn’t be there if it weren’t for the stones under them holding them up — each has its place and its function. Well, Jesus, by his grace, takes us lifeless stones and raises us up as children of Abraham and children of God! Each of us is unique, yet all work together in the new building plan. Once we were no people, but now we are God’s people, children of Abraham by adoption.

And like the wandering Israelites our spiritual ancestors, we are in the presence of the living Rock Jesus Christ. We have passed through the Red Sea of Baptism, and have been washed in the stream of living water that flows from the side of the Rock. Through the incomparable gift of grace, we have stand in the presence of the One who is a temple that was destroyed and rebuilt in three days — the temple of which we are invited to become part, living stones built into a spiritual house, the cornerstone of which is the Rock of Ages, the Rock of Salvation.

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This is our call: to be living stones built into a spiritual house. But we often feel, in moments of distress and depression, that we are still just dust and clay. How can we be living stones, as he is?

Through the movement of water, bits of earth and clay are broken off and washed down to very deep places. Pressed with the weight of the earth, these bits and pieces are transformed into rock, and sometimes into gemstone. In time, further washing of water uncovers the rock and exposes it to the light of day. This is death and rebirth, the death and rebirth that comes to us in Baptism by water and the Holy Spirit. Baptism breaks us up and washes us down to the very depths, in unity with Christ’s death. The heat and pressure of the Holy Spirit continue to form and shape us, metamorphing us into the image and likeness of Christ, the living Rock. In moments of grief, frustration or depression, we can remember that throughout our lives God is working to mold us, to break us, to form and reshape us.

For God does not just create us — God recreates us, redeems us and makes us new — no longer dust but living stones.

The dust that is buried becomes the rock that emerges, or the gems that are quarried and mined. The stone and gems are brought forth from darkness into the marvelous light. The stones — living stones, all of us, you and me and all the saints of ages past and yet to come — are carved and polished and set in precious metal. A new temple, a New Jerusalem, is built, with firm foundations, a house with many mansions, with each of us in our place — a place appointed us from before the foundation of the world — with Christ the head and cornerstone, standing bright and clear in the eternal light of a never-ending Eastertide. Alleluia, the Lord is risen. The Lord is risen indeed, Alleluia!+

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