It is impossible to be awake today in New York and not have the Republican convention on your mind. And as we sit here this morning, the event that has the most potential for good or ill is assembling, the protest against the war. Will it be a message of moral concern or a violent release of anger?
So I want us to focus on Scripture today on what it means to be Christians in our situation. And the bible refers to Jesus as the Cornerstone of our faith. If we put anything else first in life and then add Jesus, we don’t have a Christian faith. If we put our politics first and Jesus second, then we don’t have a Christian faith.
The cornerstone has a size, a shape, and a placement. And once those parts are made, everything else has to change to fit the cornerstone. And that is where we have trouble, because the cornerstone of our new life in Christ is distinctive, beautiful and glorious. It doesn’t fit in with the modest design that many of us wanted. Jesus is the inconvenient cornerstone of the Christian life.
But with the inconvenience comes great security. We are people who know the design. God’s plan since the fall has been the work of rectification – putting the world right. That is the 24 hour a day activity of God. And when we come to moments of great national unrest like we have now, our faith has a cornerstone that is big enough to handle the issues of war and peace, of poverty and sharing resources, of diversity and hate and respect, and of stewardship and care for God’s creation. So we have a challenging passage today, but one that refocuses us on our work and the true message of Christ.
God’s initial design for salvation revolved around Jerusalem. Salvation was shown first to the Jewish people and they would issue a call to the whole world to join them in worship centered at Jerusalem. Salvation was to be centripetal.
The design did not work. The Jewish people looked beyond the borders of their state and the foreigners did not look friendly. And their perceptions were accurate. Israel was on a vital trade route that people could not easily detour around. They looked weak and easy to take over. Israel decided that they needed to be stronger to avoid destruction. Israel did not have imperialistic aims, but they were concerned about their very survival. And these fears were an acid that ate away their concern for the world.
Fear and hate are often connected. Jesus says in Matthew 5, Love your enemies, but that is hard to do if you are afraid of them. The message of salvation never went out. Invitations to foreigners were never issued to come to the city of our God. Under God’s design, Jesus would have come to earth and crowned as King of Jerusalem. And we have no idea what would have happened next. For Israel rejected not only a plan of salvation that included foreigners, it rejected Jesus himself when he appeared from the house and lineage of David.
Paul reminds the Ephesians that they were those foreigners. Today, we would have to look around the room and say of ourselves, we are the foreigners of this passage, We were ‘strangers to the covenants of promise, having no hope and without God in the world.’ Verse 12.
So the plan of salvation changed from centripetal to centrifugal. The disciples realized that Jerusalem was not to be the center. The home of God would be in the hearts of disciples. Receiving the gift of the Holy Spirit or the work of the Holy Spirit is mentioned 40 times in the Book of Acts as the church takes shape. The new form will be less controlled by human organization and oddly supportive of democracy which I had never before noticed.
But now I want to recap and it starts to head towards the events of the week. God’s first plan was to make the focal point of salvation in the city of Jerusalem. The last part of the name of Jerusalem means peace. The same idea from which the word shalom comes. Our worship and salvation were to be focused on the City of Peace, directly led by Jesus Christ, King of Salem, notice the word, and Prince of Peace.
Now, the same work of Christ has been planted in each of our lives as a cornerstone and we are to be people about the work of peace. This peace that passes understanding has two dimensions. God is reconciling the world to God and that is our personal salvation. That is why we regularly encourage each of us to reflect on our relationship with God and make sure that we know the peace that the Holy Spirit offers.
And then we must have the same passion to come to principalities and powers and be a witness for peace. The world universally said ‘no’ to war in Iraq and the United States went ahead anyway. Now we have 972 US military dead, 6500 US military wounded, about 500 Iraqi deaths this week and less and less control of Iraq and Afghanistan. And our President is United Methodist. He has a special accountability to us to be a person of peace.
The world is full of hostile governments and a young man was just arrested yesterday for planning to bomb the subway. That bomb could have killed you if you ever use the Herald Square station or pass through it. Shahawar Siraj is 22 years old and lives in Jackson Heights, New York. The challenge for Christians is to work through our fears and keep our focus on the message of peace. The American evangelical church is failing the gospel just like Israel 2,000 years ago. We are endorsing candidates based on our political fears rather than that inconvenient cornerstone.
It was not God’s plan then and it is not God’s plan now. I think that the two most fearful forces on the planet at the moment are certain groups within Islam and Hinduism. To my outsiders eye, they may practice abortion to prevent birth of girls and they practice the degradation of women. They are also rightly furious over the many injustices suffered by poor countries and poor people and willing to use violence against us or others.
In verse 17, Christ Jesus came and proclaimed peace to those who were far off and those who were near. We were the ones far off. If the early disciples had not risked their lives and given their lives, the message of salvation would never have jumped ethnic and geographical barriers to come to you and me. Disciples lived with the inconvenient shape of the cornerstone.
Now, we are faced with the same choice. United Methodists have been at both political conventions with open churches for prayer and a sense that we must call America to the higher calling of peace and away from the bitter fruit of this year and a half of war. May any who join the message of peace renounce the tools of violence as they present their protest. May any who yearn for political peace come to know Jesus as Savior. May the mayor respond to dissent with grace and wisdom and protect the city. And may God grant the world times of peace in the passage ahead.
