Summary: From the very beginning of Christianity, its message of a crucified God was profoundly counter-cultural. Our text uses the image of the Christian community built up on Christ, which speaks of the stone rejected by the builders, which has become the cornerstone. When Christ is proclaimed in preaching, when new Christians are brought into the church through baptism and members are being nourished spiritually in the Lord's Supper, then the church is a community that can call the larger society to transformation.
In the middle of the 19th century a crudely drawn picture with an inscription that experts date between A.D. 100 and 300 was discovered on a plaster wall in Rome. Its main feature is a rough sketch of a human figure with a donkey's head whose arms are attached to a cross. A man standing to the left of, and slightly below, that figure appears to be saluting it.1 Below the sketch is a crude inscription in Greek letters that can be translated as "Alexamenos worships God." Obviously, the faith of some Christian named Alexamenos was being ridiculed.
Throughout the territory of the Roman Empire in the period in which Jesus was crucified, the punishment pictured in that rough cartoon was regarded as the most disgraceful way that a person could die. Those who were crucified for some offense, real or imagined, might last for days before dying. Their corpses could be left for a while on their crosses in public places. The third century Christian teacher Origen referred to crucifixion as "the most vile death of the cross."2 A Roman citizen who had been convicted of a crime couldn't be sentenced to that kind of death. But defendants who were not citizens -- and that included numerous slaves -- might hear their sentences pronounced with the words, "Lay the cross on the slave."
Christians who knew the Hebrew scriptures would, of course, have been unhappy with that inscription ridiculing their faith, but they wouldn't have been surprised by it. A passage in the book of Isaiah says of the servant of the Lord that "he had no form or majesty that we should look at him, nothing in his appearance that we should desire him."3 Perhaps that's why, in a chamber in Rome near the one that was just described, there's an inscription that can be translated as "Alexamenos is faithful" -- probably a Christian response to the mockery. From its very beginning, the Christian faith has had a counter-cultural element.
In spite of the negative ideas that people held about the cross, the message of Christ crucified and risen was proclaimed as good news throughout the Roman world from the time of Jesus' resurrection. That began with Peter's speech to the multitudes from all around the Mediterranean that had gathered in Jerusalem on the first Pentecost.4 This continued with the witness of other members of the early Christian community.
Shortly after that, Peter and John, on their way to the temple, encountered a beggar who had been lame from birth. At Peter's word, the man was able to walk. This drew a lot of attention, and on the next day the apostles were brought before the council -- composed primarily of Jews who opposed Jesus earlier. Peter spoke boldly, telling them that the crippled man was healed in Jesus' name, and referred to Jesus' words based on Psalm 118:22: "the stone that builders rejected has become the chief cornerstone." Jesus had previously quoted that verse in Mark 12:10-11 a few days before his crucifixion when he encountered opposition from representatives of the chief priests, and we meet it again in verse 7 of today's reading.
Like some of the other apostles. Peter eventually left Jerusalem to spread the message about Jesus. He was at the council held in Jerusalem to discuss the status of gentile believers in the church,5 but later we hear of him in the city of Antioch in Asia Minor, today's Turkey.6 That was the third largest city in the Roman Empire at the time, and Peter was working to spread the message about Jesus in the area around it.
Even though our present First Epistle of Peter probably wasn't written or dictated in its entirety by the apostle Peter, it undoubtedly tells us essential aspects of the Christian message that Peter wanted to be sure would be passed on. In addition, he probably conveyed some aspects of his understanding of the situation of those churches that he may have founded, and others with which he had been involved. The epistle is addressed to Christians in five Roman provinces of present-day Turkey, where the city of Antioch was located.
Language about "the exiles of the Dispersion" in the opening verses of 1 Peter compares the intended recipients of the letter with Jews who had been scattered from the land of Israel after the fall of Jerusalem more than 600 years earlier. As we read through the letter, we can see that its intended recipients included both Jewish and gentile converts to Christianity who weren't Roman citizens. It's likely that Peter had been active in the formation of such groups.
Christians were definitely a minority in the area during that time, as they were in most of the empire until Christianity was legalized in the early fourth century. (The United States seems to have been moving in that direction in recent decades, though the decline may be leveling off. Many people who identify as Christians seldom participate in public worship.7)
The first chapter of 1 Peter uses several images to describe how believers have been brought to faith in Jesus Christ through the Holy Spirit8 and "ransomed" from futility "with the precious blood of Christ".9 Then in our text, the image of the Christian church as a structure built up of believers as "living stones," with Christ as the cornerstone, is developed.
The cornerstone (also called the keystone) is literally the crucial element that holds the structure together. Without that stone, a storm or some other strong disturbance might shake the building and cause it to start falling apart, leaving it just a pile of rocks. In the same way, a church without Christ could become just a social club -- or something worse.
If and when the wider culture develops features that contradict what Christ has called it to be, the church should be ready to take a stance against it. It should, like its Lord, risk being "the stone that the builders rejected."
But when Christ is proclaimed in preaching, when new Christians are brought into the church through baptism and members are being nourished spiritually in the Lord's Supper, then the church is a community that can call the larger society to transformation.