Cornerstone

I taught Sunday school a few weeks ago. The lesson was based on 2 Chronicles 36: 22-23 and Ezra 1:5-7. I was interested in the verse 7 from Ezra:

King Cyrus himself brought out the vessels of the house of the Lord that Nebuchadnezzar had carried away from Jerusalem and placed in the house of his gods.

The lesson material that I used discussed how Cyrus had not only allowed the Jews to return to Jerusalem and to rebuild the temple, but that he went above and beyond that decree. He also returned to them some of the temple treasures. These physical pieces of their history were to the Jews a reminder of their links to the past -- their history and the continuity that they had with their ancestors.

I asked our class: "If JM were torn down, and your job was to rebuild the church, what would you want to have available to you that would maintain the continuity between the old church and the new church?"

It was a loaded question, because it presupposed that they would answer with some physical aspect of our church, and that is what they did. The class members mentioned our stained glass windows, our organ, the altar and the cornerstone of our original building (which is housed in our present narthex). We all know that none of that makes a church. The church is created by God, and his building blocks are his creation -- his children -- us. The rest is unimportant. He will build a church, if we allow him to, in our hearts, our minds and our souls, with love as the mortar.

That said, the pieces of the temple -- the vessels that Nebuchadnezzar returned to the Jews were important to them. As the lesson material states, returning the treasures meant that Cyrus went above and beyond what was required of him for the temple to be rebuilt. Could the Jews have rebuilt it without the gift of the artifacts? Of course, but the vessels linked them to their past.

When I thought of the question in the preparation of the lesson for the day, the answer which came to my mind was our cornerstone. I wondered later why I thought that might be important in the rebuilding of our church. It must have been important to those who rebuilt our church in the 30's after the fire which destroyed the original building because they built this stone into the actual walls of the narthex. It is not just on display -- it is a piece of the building -- built into the structure.

I've come up with a couple of reasons why I think it would edify the building of a new church to include the cornerstone.

• I did not grow up in our church; I came to it in high school. As I became a part of the church (and it took a few years), I began to feel that I have been entrusted with a legacy. Literally, generations of members have preceded me in this church, working to serve others, to bring the word of God to our community, to try to BE a church. I feel a responsibility to them to continue that work. Don't jump up and down and protest -- I know that I do what I do for God, and that He is the motivator, the equipper, the sustainer, the entire reason for what we all do in the church, but when I think back, I believe that the same motivation can be said of those who came before. The cornerstone reminds me that we have a history -- it is flawed, it is as filled with humans as our present is, but the efforts of those people are part of why we are here today.
• Look at the cornerstone. Prior to becoming a United Methodist Church or even a Methodist Church, we were a Methodist Episcopal Church, South. That is a sad reminder, to me, of our past. The ME Church, South separated from the ME Church, North over the issue of slavery. The Southern church refused to continue John Wesley's opposition to slavery. We need to reminded of that corporate sin, and the cornerstone does that.
• I read somewhere that we are one generation away from the failure of the mission of the church. If we do not do our "job," the church will stop with us. I think the cornerstone reminds me of that responsibility.

The cornerstone is only a piece of rock. God doesn't need it to build a church, but just as he gave us rainbows to remind us of his promises, tassels to priests to remind them to pray, and just as he gave the Israelites the physical reminders of freedom that are present in the Passover, we need physical touchstones of our faith. It isn't the cornerstone, or the windows, or the organ, or even the altar that are important -- it's the message that God speaks to us through them that is important.

Image: The original cornerstone of our church building.