Trinity Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.)

Sermons 

Title:  "Who Are You?"

Text: 1 Peter 2:2-10

some time in your life,

when you found out you had been chosen for something wonderful,

and how that felt?

Maybe it was an acceptance letter from college …

or being elected president of your class …

It might have been when someone really cool

asked you out on a date,

or agreed to go out with you, if you were the one asking …

It might be when you were asked to serve

as an elder or deacon in your church, for the first time …

Or a time when you received recognition

for your service in the community …

Or when a friend chooses to share her good news with you first …

or when you got that job you really wanted …

Or even something that’s a case of pure luck,

like winning some kind of contest.

How did it feel?

Were you excited? Were you scared?

Did you feel grateful? Or unworthy?

Or a little of both?

Was it a little overwhelming?

Did you laugh? Did you cry?

Did you just stand there with your mouth hanging open?!

I can recall feeling all those things and maybe a few more

in the summer of 1997

when a committee of folks from this church

called me to ask if I would be their pastor.

"Hallelujah!"

"Help, Lord!"

"I’m thrilled!"

"I’m frightened!"

I want to run and tell everyone I know!

I want to run and hide under a rock!

It was mostly joy.

A little fear mixed in, as with anything new,

but mostly joy.

I wonder, though,

how many of us feel those powerful emotions

upon hearing that we are chosen by God.

Does it excite us, and thrill us?

Does it leave us a little awed and fearful?

Or have we heard it so often

that it’s kind of ho-hum by now?

"You are a chosen race, a royal priesthood,

a holy nation, God’s own people."

What feeling, if any,

do we get when we hear those words?

Come to think of it,

who among us hasn’t had the experience,

at some time or another,

of not being chosen?

Finding out about a party that you weren’t invited to …

being passed over for a promotion …

the person you’ve always liked from afar never did ask you out …

For me, it was always when you had to choose up teams

for playing some kind of sport in school.

You know, when the coach or the P.E. teacher

would pick out the two best athletes to head the opposing teams,

and then they would take turns choosing

from among everyone else.

Sooner or later, someone had to pick me,

but they were never very enthusiastic about it.

I was awkward –

it seemed like my legs were always longer than I remembered them –

and I wasn’t much help to any team in any sport.

No, not even basketball.

We all have known, at some time or another,

what it feels like to be left out.

And though we may say,

"it’s okay, I didn’t really want it anyway,"

we know it isn’t so.

And since we do know all too well

what it feels like to be passed over or left out,

you’d think that would make us

all the more excited, or grateful, or whatever,

to hear that God has chosen us,

But is that really what we experience

when we hear the words "chosen race,

royal priesthood, holy nation, God’s own people"?

Do we realize how precious we are to God?

Or do we think, wow, that was a nice thing

for Peter to say to those people, back then.

Wish someone would say it to me.

Well, someone has.

It’s right there.

Yeah, I know, Peter’s letter doesn’t begin,

"Dear members of Trinity Presbyterian Church, Dallas, Texas,"

but it is, nevertheless, addressed to us.

We are chosen.

We are God’s own people.

Now of course, there’s a lot in 1 Peter,

just as there is throughout the scriptures,

where his words may not apply to us precisely.

That is, places where we have to dig deeper,

and find his intention behind the words,

and work and learn from that.

Because sometimes, things which were helpful in the first and second centuries,

are no longer helpful here and now.

But the particular passage that we have heard this morning

is timeless.

We are God’s holy priesthood, a royal nation.

We have been chosen.

Okay, but chosen for what?

John Calvin liked to use the word "elect"

rather than "chosen" …

and what he said was,

we are elected for both salvation and service.

It’s important to remember both aspects,

and too easy to forget one or the other.

There are plenty of churches and people around

who are concerned only with the "salvation" end of it.

That as long as you get yourself right with God,

that’s all that matters.

Peter makes it clear, though,

that while that is indeed important,

it’s not the whole picture.

It’s not the whole of what discipleship means.

That’s where the business about "living stones" comes in,

it seems to me.

We are not "chosen"

simply to be put on display and appreciated.

We are chosen to be living, breathing workers

on God’s earth and for God’s kingdom.

And because we are living stones,

we ourselves are more precious than gold.

I remember being surprised

when I was in Guatemala several summer ago,

to learn that the Maya considered jade

to be far more precious than gold.

But it made a certain amount of sense:

Gold is lovely; it’s nice to look at …

but it’s a very soft metal;

you can’t do much with it.

You could never make a spear of gold, for example,

or a hunting knife.

At least, not that would be useful.

Whereas jade was pretty, to be sure,

but it was also strong.

So you can think of yourself like jade, if you want to!

We "living stones" have work to do,

and it won’t get done if we are no more than pretty and soft.

We are the ones who build the church of Jesus Christ.

We are living stones.

Often, that’s not very glamorous work.

Some days, we may not feel like jade at all,

but like ordinary rocks that you find in the yard!

Being a living stone may involve getting dirt under your nails

fixing the sprinkler heads yet again,

or planting marigolds for the spring.

It’s cooking for Hillcrest House on a Sunday afternoon,

when you’d rather be taking a nap.

It’s visiting another church member in the hospital

even though hospitals give you the willies.

It’s coming to a meeting on a Wednesday evening

even when you’re tired from the day’s work, and hungry as well.

We build the church …

both, the church in and of itself,

and, the church for the world.

It is important to remember, in the midst of all this,

that one stone alone cannot build a church.

Sometimes when we get busy and frustrated

doing lots of different things,

it’s easy to forget this, at least temporarily.

We start thinking

we have to do it all ourselves.

But we know that’s not healthy for us.

And it’s not healthy for the church, either.

Think about it:

If you have only a very few stones

trying to bear the weight of all the other stones,

what do you think is going to happen?!

Who are we?

Though we aren’t perfect,

we are a chosen race.

Although we are sinners,

we are a royal priesthood.

We may be flawed,

but we are a holy nation.

We might not always be the people God intends us to be,

yet we are God’s own people.

We are living stones.

And we are built on Christ,

the cornerstone that holds the whole thing together

God has called us to be saved, and to serve.

Neither one of those

can happen to a stone by itself.

But together,

we can become the individuals God means for us to be,

and can build the church God needs in the world of today.

We are chosen by God.

This is our calling;

this is our gift,

more precious than gold.

Thanks be to God!

Amen.

© 2005 Julie Adkins (e-mail: DrJAdkins@trinitypresdallas.org)