It is the same as denying Christ. As Virginia-Highland faces these coming days and wrestles with its response to the Georgia Baptist Convention, the cause of peace and justice, as it relates to any of the least of these in our world, hangs in the balance. We are called to speak a word for them, because whenever and wherever any of God's children, our brothers and sisters, are oppressed or rendered as second-class, the body of Christ suffers and Jesus is crucified once more. This action by the Georgia Baptist Convention, this cleansing of the temple, this ethnic cleansing if you will pardon that image, of interpreting and regarding as sinful a mystery of God's creative power and purpose, is but another stone hurled by the church and against the church for which Christ died. One death, his death, is more than a plenty.
Stones have an interesting role in today's texts.
They can kill when hurled, they can serve as a refuge, a strong fortress, a place of shelter, they can be a cornerstone, the walls of a house, an impediment that makes one stumble and fall. We can identify the stones being hurled our way from the Georgia Baptist Convention. We probably cannot control or change that. We can stand tall while they strike us, or we can duck, but the stones will keep coming. We can, however, determine what kind of stones we will be.