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Dam Christians
- Wesley Arning
- 6 days ago
- 8 min read
Updated: 20 hours ago
Sermon 423 St. Martin’s 177 (Traditional) 5/3/26
Something is happening in the church at large, and people really don’t know why. Over the past few years, more articles have been written about a strange phenomenon quietly happening in many churches: more people are showing up.
It’s not a novel idea to Christians; we know that God desires for his church to grow. His mission is for all people, in all places, after all. But gosh, in this day and age, it is surprising (even to many church leaders) what they’ve seen recently.
There is an openness to faith, especially among the younger generations, Gen Z and Gen Alpha, that simply wasn’t there in the previous generations. Talk to any Christian apologist, and they will tell you how huge it is to have a group of people who will not automatically dismiss your fundamental assumption that there is a God, and there is more to life than meets the eye.
Many of the initial conversations these young people are having about faith begin online among friends, but it doesn’t take long for them to find their way to a pew in a church. Going to church may not be “cool” but we’re getting there.
In one of my roles here at St. Martin’s, I have conversations with young adults, many of whom are asking important questions of faith and have found themselves here, sometimes to their own surprise.
Whether they are trying out church for the first time or re-engaging after years away, a common theme I hear is the desire for an anchor in their lives, a strong foundation that will not begin to crumble when a few hard questions arise.
In a future filled with many uncertainties and a country that is so angry and divided, people are coming back to church, hoping to find a refuge from the chaos and a community that can offer a sense of identity and purpose, rooted in values like truth, goodness, and forgiveness. They’re coming because they want to be around others who have made Jesus the center of their lives.
This growing openness to belief in God may be surprising to researchers, but it shouldn’t be to us, who have made God the refuge of our lives. We’ve seen the world, and we know it cannot offer the solace our souls long for.
Our readings from Psalm 31 and 1st Peter together build on this theme of refuge, and they offer a powerful witness to what the life of a follower of Jesus looks like.
Psalm 31
Psalm 31 lays the foundation of our theme today. It is a prayer to God for safety in a troubling (even dangerous) situation. “In you God, have I put my trust.” Another way to translate that is “In you God, I have taken refuge.” Placing our trust in God means that we are allowing ourselves to be safe in him, knowing that he will protect and provide, even when danger is near.
The psalmist goes on to say that God is a strong rock, a house of defense (a stronghold of sorts), and even a castle, a fortress, in whose walls we find our rest.
Where will you be safe in this world of uncertainty? Where will you find rest? Not in wealth, or fame, nor even the fortresses we build for ourselves. Those are built of LEGOs compared to the Almighty God's strong tower.
Like any fortress, God will defend his own, and within his walls life will flourish, though dangers lurk beyond. The only true insurance policy we have in this life is faith in God, who is our rock and our refuge.
1st Peter
Peter takes this metaphor and adds to it as he writes to newer Christians, the Gen Z and Gen Alpha of the first-century church. God is our rock upon whom we can build the sure foundation of our faith, though changeless and unshakable, this foundation is not lifeless because, Peter says, Christ is the living Stone.
I find it so ironic that Peter, whose name in Greek means Rocky, is using a rock metaphor here in his letter.
“Come to Jesus,” he says, “who is a living stone, and though he was rejected by mortals, he is precious in God’s sight and is the cornerstone of Zion.” He likens Jesus to the Temple in Jerusalem, calling him “Zion’s cornerstone.”
The Temple had been the ultimate fortress of God. There was no better refuge for a follower of Yahweh. In those sacred walls you would find the presence of God and the blueprint for human flourishing.
But Peter radically reframes this Temple language and applies it to Jesus. God’s refuge and strength is not a place but a person; it was not in the Temple but in this wandering teacher.
You want to find rest for your weary soul? You won’t find it with yourself, you won’t find it at the Temple, Peter tells us it is in Jesus, that great cornerstone the world has rejected.
“In you, Jesus, the cornerstone of Zion, have I taken refuge.”
But then Peter goes a step further: Christ is also a living stone, and as he prophesied, even the stones will cry out in praise of him. Jesus breathes life into us, and we are transformed into living stones with the purpose of being built up.
In Christ we are built into the edifice of this mighty fortress, and because our Lord is the cornerstone, the whole building depends on him. As one scholar put it, “He is the cornerstone because the building takes its design from him. No Christ; no building.”[i]
I love this idea—the structure of our life takes its design from our Lord. The manner of our life is founded on his life, death, and resurrection. By trusting Jesus, by seeking him as our refuge in this world, and by making him the foundation of our faith, we are transformed as well—new life is breathed into us by the Living Stone himself so that we too may be built into something glorious.
Another way of saying this might be that those who have made Jesus their refuge, their strong tower, somehow become little places of refuge as well. They begin to imitate the One they’ve put their trust in, little fortresses of peace scattered throughout the world.
Beavers
I came across an article recently that brought this topic into an entirely new light for me.
In 2021, a devastating wildfire ravaged a large chunk of Northern California for over three months, consuming almost a million acres, destroying over 1,300 structures, including downtown Greenville. It ended up being the largest single-source fire in the state’s history.
A scientist named Emily Fairfax spent years studying one beaver family before the fire broke out. She named them after the creek in which they live; they are affectionately known as the Little Last Chance Creek beavers.
After the fires died down that fall, she went to check on them, but she had little hope that they had survived; that entire area had been consumed in flames. She recalled the sickening feeling she had as she hiked through the charred forest; it was lifeless and eerily silent. It was like walking through a graveyard.
As she got closer to the beaver’s dam, she turned a corner, and suddenly she saw trees that were green, birds happily singing, and there in the middle of the creek, two beavers were swimming, and the sound of young beavers could be heard wining in the dam. She discovered that the seven-mile radius around the dam was unscathed by the wildfire, and it was all thanks to this one beaver family.[ii]
You see, simply by creating their home (this refuge) in the middle of the creek, the beavers had created a natural wetland that ensured the forest around them was healthy and well-watered, which protected it from wildfire. The flames simply could not touch this habitat because of how their dam redistributed the water around them. [iii]
Beaver dams are amazing feats of engineering. They clear dry brush away, adding it to their construction—again helping mitigate the impact of wildfires. Their little island in creeks and rivers may be strategic for staying away from predators, but they also allow mice, muskrats, and other critters to live with them. They are gracious hosts.
Beaver dams even serve as water filtration systems during wildfires by sifting ash and allowing it to settle on the creek bed.[iv] This ensures that the water is clean for animals to drink and fish to swim. At every level they are blessing others, and don’t realize it.
Their impact can even be seen from space. After wildfire season, you know where beavers are simply by the bright patches of green you see when comparing the large blackened landscape from satellite images.
According to scientists, beavers create a “biological refugium.” Did you hear that? A refugium is a refuge. It is a place that can withstand periods of unpredictable conditions and dramatic disruptions to the ecosystem.
Back in 2021, human ingenuity could not save homes and towns, but the Little Last Chance Creek beavers were able to save themselves and their neighbors (not through their cleverness), but through trusting their instinct, and being what they were: nothing more, nothing less.
I think this is God’s vision for the church and the potential impact of every Christian.
1st Peter
And I think that is what Peter was trying to convey when he said that we have put on Christ. We have tasted and seen that he is good; we have made him the foundation of our faith and the cornerstone of life. He is our refuge and strength, and we are forever changed.
But St. Rocky is clear in reminding us that we are transformed into living stones, and we bear the mark of the One who is our cornerstone. We are hewn in the same cruciform shape.
Peter is bold in saying that we are “a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God’s own beloved people.” We are living stones who are meant to be built up for the glory of God. We are called to go out and proclaim God’s mighty actions because we who were wandering in darkness have been found by Jesus’ marvelous light. We who were dead have been made alive.
You and I have been saved by Christ, our refuge, and amazingly, we are called to be a refugium for those around us, both physically and spiritually. How quickly we forget our calling.
Beavers mend the world around them simply by being who God called them to be; how much more so for the church and each disciple of our Lord.
Like beaver dams, churches and the people who fill them are to have a filter quality to them, taking the ash that poisons the water of this world and gracefully settling it to the ground so that pure water may spring forth on the other side.
We are safe havens from death and destruction, from nihilism and vain humanism—but we are not simply a fortress that “takes in refugees,” we also “send out.”
We water the part of the world God has given us. We tend to the things in front of us, the people that cross our path, the strangers in our midst, and soon the whole ecosystem is transformed—not by us, but by the living water of God—the One who calls us out of nothingness into somethingness—into meaning and purpose, into love and resurrection-living.
That’s something that is not only appealing to Gen Z—that’s a message this whole world is desperate to hear and to see in practice. And believe it or not, someone may experience this simply by you being a refuge to them, a living stone cut out of the rock of Christ, in which they can trust.
“Come to [Jesus], a living stone, though rejected by mortals yet chosen and precious in God’s sight, and like living stones, let yourselves be built into a spiritual house, [a refugium for the life of the world].”
[i] The New Interpreter’s Bible vol. XII. 1st Peter written by David L. Bartlett
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