Bear fruits worthy of repentance. Do not begin to say to
yourselves, ‘We have Abraham as our ancestor’; for I tell you, God is able from
these stones to raise up children to Abraham. [Luke 3:8]
Anyone who has been to Palestine
knows that there are stones everywhere. If you are looking for a strained or broken
ankle, that is where to go. It is a
landscape of stones. In the heart of the
cities, in the countryside, among the trees, right beside modern buildings…
stones and rubble and dryness prevail.
Stones figure also everywhere in
the literature. The Judean wilderness is
not sand dunes, it is stones. Jesus was
tempted to turn the stones into bread. On
another occasion he prophesied that the holy temple would soon be a heap of
stones, which it was. The people were
about to throw stones at the woman caught in adultery – it was a convenient and
costless mode of capital punishment. The
government of Israel has just increased the sentences for anyone convicted of
throwing stones at the police or the military – but stones are the only
ammunition they have, and they are plentiful.
Jacob made one stone his pillow, and dreamt of a ladder to heaven. Jesus told about seed which fell on stony
ground… everyone knew what that meant.
The name of one of his disciples, Peter, in both Aramaic and Greek,
means a stone – so Jesus made a pun on it, which soon became a metaphor for an
unshakeable and eternal church, built upon a rock.
Stones predominate, and here
Jesus presumes to say, You assume you are
notable and accepted because of who you are, your natural and spiritual lineage… Hebrew, Jew, sons and daughters of
Abraham, privileged, powerful, pre-eminent, educated, successful, famous,
iconic, role-model, born into some ruling caste… with us in our day it could be
white, Christian, civilised, decent, democratic, even sang in the choir. But Jesus presumes to say, God can raise up
100 like you from these stones. Jesus
was not out to win friends and influence people. It was never a question of who you are. It was always a question of what you
are. Jewish literature has always known,
and written, that God looks on the heart, on the person, on the motives and all
the inner struggles, sees, understands and pardons the negatives and failures.
It can never be a matter of
status or attainment, wealth or power. What
matters, says Jesus, is fruits worthy of
repentance. We touched on that word
repentance last Friday – it does not mean feeling sorry, it means being
changed. It means doing life in the ways
God intends -- to do justice, to love
mercy, to walk humbly. Jesus
exemplifies this for us. The new life of
his death and resurrection, mediated to us by the Spirit he promised, makes all
things new. Our practised silence and
stillness -- not only when we are
actually doing it, but equally at all the other times, whatever we may be
doing, our hearts remaining still and receptive -- are an important way in
which we are open to God’s Spirit of change.
If Jesus did indeed say that
about Peter being a rock, upon which the church would be built – and plenty of
scholars have serious doubts about that – then we might be tempted to think it
was an unfortunate analogy. The image of
a rock, solid and unchanging, appeals to many, including parishioners I
remember well. John’s image of the wind
is rather more helpful. Stones…? God could raise up any number of impeccable
and unchangeable believers, cornerstones of the church, no doubt. But what matters these days is openness to
change, to justice, love and mercy… with all the risks pertaining thereto.
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