The Rev. Dr. Kenneth H. Saunders III
Greeneville, TN
The Fifth Sunday of Easter
May 3, 2026
Most of you know that I managed companies that built houses for about ten years before becoming a priest. I was responsible for building over 700 houses, but I would like to think that I was really helping build 700 homes.
And that raises a question worth asking, "What makes a house… a home?" Is it the structure?... The wood and plaster, brick and mortar? Is it a roof that shelters us from the storm? Is it a place of safety and refuge, or is it something deeper? Is it the lives lived inside the walls? Is it the love shared? The tears shed? Or the laughter that lingers in the rooms?
When you hear the word “home,” what comes to mind? For some, it’s comfort. For others, belonging. For many, it’s the place where we are known and still welcomed. We carry this longing for home deep within us. When we are lonely, we long for home. When we are afraid, we long for home. When life feels uncertain or fractured, we long for a place where we can rest.
It was St. Augustine who once wrote, “Our hearts are restless until they rest in you.” Here is where Scripture begins to reshape what we think home really is. Because the Bible doesn’t just speak of homes as places built with wood and nails, it speaks of homes built with “stones.”
In the First Letter of Peter, we hear this: “Like living stones, let yourselves be built into a spiritual house.” Living stones. Not cold, lifeless rock, but a people. You. Me. All of us.
God is building something, not out of bricks and mortar, but out of human lives. A spiritual home. And yet, before we get to that beautiful image, we are confronted with another kind of stone in the Book of Acts. Stones used not to build, but to destroy.
In Acts, we meet Stephen... One of the first seven deacons chosen by the church... a man full of faith and the Holy Spirit. A man who spoke truth with courage. A man who saw the glory of God even when others could not.
And what did the people do? They picked up stones. They covered their ears. They rushed at him. And they stoned him. The same object we were talking about before, a stone, becomes a weapon of fear, anger, violence, and rejection. And Stephen stands there, not retaliating, not cursing, but praying, “Lord, do not hold this sin against them.” Even as stones are hurled at him, Stephen entrusts himself to God.
This is a devastating scene. But, it reveals something important to us… It shows us that stones can be used to tear down or to build up. And the difference is found in the human heart.
Peter reminds us that Christ himself is the cornerstone rejected by the world, yet chosen and precious in God’s sight. Rejected… like Stephen. Rejected… like so many even now. And yet, God takes what is rejected and builds something holy.
“You are living stones,” Peter says. “Being built into a spiritual house.” That means the home we are longing for now… the home that our restless hearts seek is not just somewhere we go someday. It is something God is building right now. In us. Through us. And between us.
Every act of love is a stone laid in that house. Every moment of forgiveness is part of its foundation. And every time we choose compassion over anger, we are building.
But, in the same light, every time we harden our hearts… every time we use our words or actions like weapons… every time we let hate and fear rule our hearts… we are throwing stones instead. So the question becomes, What kind of stones are we holding?
Are they stones of judgment? Stones of resentment? Stones we throw to protect ourselves or to wound others?
Or…
Are they living stones… offered to God, placed carefully into something larger than ourselves? Because the truth is, home isn’t just where we feel safe. Home is where God dwells. Home is where God chooses to dwell, not in buildings alone, but in people... among people… in communities shaped by love and grace.
This is why the church matters. Not that it’s a perfect structure, because it’s not. Not that the people are flawless, because we aren’t. But because the church is how God uses us to build something. Slowly. Patiently. Stone by stone. A place where the broken are welcomed. A place where the weary find rest. A place where, even in the midst of pain, we begin to get a glimpse of what it means to belong.
Even Stephen, in his final moments, was not homeless. He looked up and saw the heavens opened and Christ standing at the right hand of God. And that was his home. And nothing, not even the stones that were being hurled at him, could take that away.
So perhaps home is not what we thought after all… Our home with God is not just a place we long for someday, but a reality we are invited to live into here and now. Every time we love as Christ loved, every time we forgive, every time we choose to build rather than destroy… we are in the process of becoming the very home our hearts have been searching for.
“Lord, you have made us for yourself, and our hearts are restless until they rest in you.” And perhaps that rest begins when we finally place our stones in God’s hands and allow God to build.
