What Can Living Stones Do?

Meditation on John 14:1-14 and 1 Peter 2:2-10

Rev. Dr. Karen Crawford

First Presbyterian Church of Smithtown, NY

Fifth Sunday of Easter

May 3, 2026

We had our Presbytery meeting in Cutchogue yesterday. Been to Cutchogue? It was my first time. But the white church reminded me of many of the white wooden churches on Long Island. It had no clock tower or pew boxes like ours, and, being founded in the 1730s, was a young congregation compared to our 1675.

But it did have character.

Unfortunately, there were only 2 bathrooms (two toilets). And one was well hidden. A church member led me through the kitchen to find it. It was basically a closet, with sink, toilet, and hot water heater.

Pastor Richie welcomed us, when the meeting began, and said they were “the little church that could.” (You know, like the children’s book, The Little Engine That Could.) When people complained that there were only two bathrooms, he said there was only one when the church was built. (I guess they were feeling mighty lucky when they added the second!) He invited everyone from the presbytery to come back today for worship and keep coming back every Sunday—and then they would be able to add another bathroom.

We all laughed at that.

Coming back from Cutchogue, I remembered how 4 years ago, when I first arrived, I got lost leaving our church. Do you remember me telling you about that? I forgot my phone and didn’t have GPS in my car. I just kept driving around and driving around, and nothing seemed familiar, until I passed Catherine of Sienna Hospital.

And yesterday, I just followed the signs to 495 and ignored Ben on my GPS, when he told me to turn left on some side road. I knew it wasn’t going to be a direct route.

I was anxious to be home.

This beautiful passage in John 14 is often read at funerals to assure mourners that they will be reunited with their loved ones, and see Jesus, face to face. He has gone to prepare a place in the Father’s house of many rooms or dwelling places for all who believe. What do we always think of when we read this? Heaven.

But this week, when I studied this passage in the context of living as Easter people right now, I realized that Christ wasn’t just saying that he was preparing a place for us in the future to be together. Because the Kingdom of Heaven is already here. Heaven has come down to earth. The Good Shepherd is with us now.

When the Lord talks about preparing a place, I think he’s talking about a place for all of us to live and love and labor together for the Kingdom, now and forever.

And, reading this passage alongside the reading in First Peter, I think he could be talking about the people of God as a place. We are that place that Christ is preparing—transforming us all into a new creation.

Peter uses language similar to Paul’s analogy of God’s people being a human body with different members and functions—a hand, arm, ear, and eye, and so forth, united by the Lord, who is the head. Peter says our Lord is the cornerstone—the first rock that was laid. He is the foundation for a new temple, not an edifice like the white churches on Long Island, but God’s people being built into a spiritual house.

We are living stones.

Ever collected rocks as a child? They come in all different shapes and sizes, don’t they? Each have their own beauty, pressed and shaped by natural forces over the years. Stones never stop growing, changing, moving and being moved, if left on the earth, interacting with organic and inorganic materials.

It never fails to excite me when Jesus talks about the works that his followers will do in the gospel of John after he goes to be with the Father. He says that those who believe in him will do even greater works than he. Why is that? Because he is listening when we pray and he longs to grant us the desires of our hearts—desires that he himself has placed there.

Reading these two passages together, a new question comes to mind.

What can living stones do?

Yesterday, when I arrived home from the Presbytery meeting, I discovered that my husband, who had surgery on Wednesday to remove a basal cell carcinoma from the base of his ear had fresh blood seeping from his bandage, running down the side of his neck. I tried for several hours to clean and dress the wound and apply pressure to stop the bleeding. But the wound is deep and the doctor didn’t close the entire incision because it would change the shape of his ear.

Finally, I decided we had waited long enough and I couldn’t fix what was wrong. I paged the doctor on call, who told us to go to the nearest hospital.

Even before we left, I was already reaching out to our Session and close friends—to ask them to pray. For the promise is not only that the Lord will hear us when we pray, but that we who believe in God and Jesus will perform even greater works than he, when we pray.

At Stony Brook, the EMT at the front desk immediately started to work on Jim’s ear, but the bleeding continued to seep through the gauze almost as quickly as it was changed. After some time, we were taken to the back, where a doctor and a physician’s assistant tried different things over the course of a couple of hours to stop the bleeding, finally wrapping his entire head in a bandage and pulling it tight.

The miracle wasn’t that the bleeding was finally under control. The miracle was that in the time that we were there, we could feel the peace of Christ with us. We were able to smile and laugh. And I know it was because of the prayers of the people that I was able to relax, though it had been a long day, and I should have been anxious that I hadn’t even begun to work on a sermon. It was close to 9 o’clock when we finally pulled in the driveway.

The miracle was that I didn’t worry about today because I knew that I would be with my beloved flock, God’s people who are being built into a spiritual house, with Christ our cornerstone. We aren’t that different than our siblings in Christ at Cutchogue. We certainly have some of the same building challenges. But we, too, are the little church that could!

Dear friends, I am wondering what great works of love and healing will we do this year, with God’s help, when we pray and labor for the Kingdom, in Christ’s name?

For Heaven has come down to earth. And the Kingdom of God is already here.

Christ has prepared a place for us to dwell in him and he in us, now and forever.

I can’t wait to see what living stones can do!

Let us pray.

Holy One, thank you for sending your Son to be the cornerstone who is building a spiritual house with his followers, we who are your beloved living stones. Lord, thank you for your work of transformation in our hearts and lives and that in you, we are a new Creation. Lord, thank you for answered prayers and for sending your peace just when we need it. Thank you for preparing an everlasting place for us and for dwelling in and with us always. Lord, stir us to pray more faithfully for the things that your desire. Help us cling to the promise that you will use us to do even greater works of love and healing as we labor for your Kingdom, serving in your name. With help and guidance from our living and loving Lord, we can’t wait to see what living stones can do. In the name of our Risen Savior we pray. Amen.