“Who Do You Say Jesus Is?”
Ephesians 2:11-22
Today’s lectionary text is rather appropriate for us gathered in this particular space for worship this morning. We don’t have to reach too far into our imaginations for structural imagery. The letter to the Ephesians, using an architectural metaphor, says that Jesus is the cornerstone of the Church. A cornerstone is laid at the beginning of construction, in the foundation of a building. It is the cornerstone which gives the structure its strength and stability to hold together. The church is built upon this one cornerstone. Everything is built upon Jesus. In Ephesians, a cornerstone specifically is where two intersecting walls meet. In Christ, the walls between Jew and Gentile have been pulled down, and now the two meet in the cornerstone.
One of the things you will quickly learn about me is that I love words. I enjoy nothing more than talking, listening, or reading. If I had my way I’d constantly be doing one of those three things at all times, and I usually am. The word that kept jumping out to me as is apparent is the word cornerstone, which led me to look up the definition and etymology of the word Christian. Something that I know seems rather obvious. I know what it means to be a Christian, but I wanted to confirm what was in the name. So what is in the word Christian? It comes from the Latin word Christianus and the Greek word christianos meaning one who professes belief in Jesus as Christ or follows the religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus. Jesus is the cornerstone of the Church, the community of practicing Christians.
Confirmation is one of the most exciting rites of passage in the church. The community has the opportunity to witness children who in their baptism they committed to raise and nurture in the Christian faith publicly claim those vows as their own. The community has the opportunity to watch youth who have been brought into the folds of the faith community decide that they want to be baptized and become full members of the life the congregation. If you ever have the opportunity to be a part of the confirmation classes it is a truly amazing process and journey to walk through with the young people.
Maggie is the type of child you wish you had in every class. She is bright, friendly, and kind. She has a warm spirit that is welcoming to everyone and she always makes an effort to be engaged in the topic at hand. I was excited that she would be participating in confirmation class because I knew that she’d add a layer of true inquisitiveness that would aid in pushing the whole class into engaging in the topics.
One evening I handed out a copy of the Apostle’s Creed to each person and asked them to spend some time reading it. Then they were to go through and do three things. One they were supposed to put a question mark by the things that they did not understand, two they were to underline those things that they felt were essential to their faith and that they believed absolutely, and three they were supposed to put a line through those things that they did not believe. We then came back together to share and discuss. As the teacher of the class one of my purposes was to see what pieces of information the class was getting and where I might need to spend some extra time in the remaining weeks of confirmation.
Maggie and her level of engagement didn’t disappoint me. The largest section of the Apostles’ Creed speaks to Jesus and as many of you know by heart reads that we believe: in Jesus Christ his only Son our Lord; who was conceived by the Holy Ghost, born of the Virgin Mary, suffered under Pontius Pilate, was crucified, dead, and buried; he descended into hell; the third day he rose again from the dead; he ascended into heaven, and sitteth on the right hand of God the Father Almighty; from thence he shall come to judge the quick and the dead.
For Maggie the only part of this statement that did not have a line through it and that Maggie believed was that Jesus Christ is God’s only Son our Lord and that he was crucified, died, and buried. Although I was slightly surprised by this, it wasn’t too surprising considering where Maggie was in both her intellectual and faith development that she had questions about a virgin birth and descending and ascending after death. What I was caught off guard by was with Maggie’s follow up question and statement. Maggie wanted to know why the church said this statement all the time where the largest section was about Jesus when at church people hardly ever talk about Jesus. She continues with her observation that most of the talk was about God except when we pray “In Jesus’ name” or we celebrate the Lord’s Supper, and of course she said in an aside at Christmas and Easter.
Hmmm. I thought a lot about Maggie’s question and her reflection on the life of the church in relationship to how we involve Jesus in our demonstrative life of faith. I’ve since decided that Maggie’s observation was rather astute, and serves as a challenge to the church.
William Willimon, noted preacher and dean of the chapel at Duke University, shares about a time he traveled across the state to speak to a big gathering of clergy. He took with him a Duke student who was thinking about going to seminary. The meeting began with worship and then Willimon spoke. During the drive back home the student said to Willimon, "Ah, did you note that, if it hadn't been for your sermon, Jesus' name was never mentioned in that whole worship service?" Willimon reflected back on the time he had spent with the gathering of clergy and sure enough it was true. The prayers and contemporary hymns all talked about “God”, then talked about the Creator, the Redeemer, and so on, but they never actually mentioned Jesus.
How can it be, if indeed Christ is the cornerstone that our children who we raise in the church question the centrality of Jesus in how they see their church practicing its faith? How can it be, if indeed Christ is the cornerstone, that there is the remotest possibility of there being an entire Christian worship service without the mention of Jesus? As I confessed to you earlier I am a lover of words. I love using the vast array of imagery found in the Bible for God and who God is. I promote the use of inclusive language, or rather language that uses the full breadth of who we understand God is. The text for today, my recollection of Maggie’s comments, and Willimon’s experience have made me pause and really think about what we the church stand to lose if we neglect our namesake and only use his name on “special” occasions. As Christians the key to how we know God, the key to how we can express who God is in our lives, the key to our relationship with God is how we know Jesus. Jesus is the cornerstone of our faith.
If we took out Christ we would be nothing more than a sanctimonious form of Rotary or you may fill in the blank of your favorite civic and/or philanthropic organization. Why would we take out Jesus, the very foundation of our faith? Well, in many ways without Jesus we can make God into anything we want. God is more than an ethereal, spiritual, distant being. God is one who for the benefit of humanity and our relationship with God became incarnate in the very real, very human figure of Jesus of Nazareth. Christ as the cornerstone is the crucial link between believers and God.
To play off of a comment someone made the other day in a meeting, “We sing, say, and believe that Jesus loves us; but that doesn’t make everything okay.” She’s right it doesn’t make everything okay; it doesn’t make life any easier. To say that Jesus, God incarnate, loves us is not going to simplify our lives or take away all of the ill. For we are the weak ones, and he is strong. Jesus is the one who is both fully human and fully God. Jesus is the one who came into the world upsetting the balance of power. Jesus is the one who came into the world and ate with the likes of tax collectors and prostitutes. Jesus is the one who entered the temple and overturned the change table. Jesus is the one who spoke out against the teachings of false prophets. This Jesus is the one who loves us, this is the Jesus who came into this world to live and die for the benefit of humanity for God so loved the world. Simplifying life and paving an easy path, however, was not something he did. If we choose to respond to this love that Jesus has for us by choosing to accept the invitation God extends our life in many ways becomes harder and more complicated as we attempt to live according to God’s standards and not the world’s standards.
Jesus came into this world to illumine us, to restore us, to satisfy God, to bring victory over evil and death, to unite us with God, and to justify us. All of these views of why Jesus came into the world complement each other, and provide lenses for our understanding. There will be segments of your personal journey in which you identify more vividly with one idea over another. There may even be some of these lenses that you simply cannot accept. There is room in our faith for questioning and doubting, but as Christians Jesus is the cornerstone. Our worship services should demonstrate who it is Jesus is to us as a community of faith. The children of the church should have a sense that they can ask those who vowed to raise them in the faith who Jesus is to them. The children of the church should know through word and action that Jesus is central to both the corporate and personal life of faith. For if we cannot say who Jesus is to us in this place where will we be able to?
Jesus as the cornerstone of the Church is the content of Christian character. The words and deeds of Jesus determine the contours of this faith, the parameters of our life together, the substance of what we believe and who, by his grace, we hope to become. Without those troublesome particularities of Jesus Christ and him crucified, what we call "spirituality" sometimes just fills with hot air and floats off into never-never-land, never touching ground anywhere, never making demands upon us.
So who do you say Jesus is? How does he contribute to your understanding of God? How do you respond to the grace that is offered to you in Jesus Christ? How do you communicate in thought, word, and deed the importance of Jesus so that the foundation is strong. Jesus is the cornerstone of the church without him all else is futile and the structure of the church begins to crumble.
May all glory honor and power be to God the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit now and forever, Amen
