Summary.  The ancient formation of Baraboo quartzite with the deep, parallels the layered history of scripture and human faith. Just as quartzite is shaped over eons into a distinct, resilient foundation despite its impurities, believers are formed through history, carrying both saintliness and sinfulness. Our faith and hope in God as an unseen yet enduring rock, relinquishing human judgment to rest in divine grace that feeds and sustains the world.

One of the ways scholars describe scripture is as sedimentary layers,
layers of rock formed over millinia, each layer representing an eon of time.

On the surface, we can’t see it, but there are places where the story of time is exposed in sedimentary layers of rock.  

Like  Baraboo hills…

Baraboo Quartzite.

The Wisconsin Geologic and Natural History Survey says:

“Before the ice ages, before the Age of Dinosaurs, before the sandy beaches and coral reefs of the Paleozoic Era came the first few billion years of Wisconsin’s geologic history. 

These early years contain dramatic stories of volcanoes, shifting continents, and even microbial life. In this earliest eon, the Baraboo Quartzite began as sand on an ancient beach, which had eroded from volcanoes towering above what is now Sauk County. 

This sand solidified into sandstone, which was then squished and squeezed deep underground until the grains of sand fused together to create a new rock—quartzite—that preserved the sandy environment in stone.” 

The prophet Isaiah says: 

“Do not fear or be afraid; have I not told you from of old and declared it? You are my witnesses! Is there any god besides me? There is no other rock; I know not one.”

“Rock of Ages, cleft for me, let me hide, myself in thee.”

“Your name is Peter, and upon this Rock I will build my church.”

Timeless and enduring, and yet easily missed, we walk on land formed through eons, loam and sand resting on rock below, and yet there are times of hardship when we become aware, if only for a moment, of the rock upon which we stand.

The Apostle Paul gives it another name–hope–but this hope like the ground we walk on is both present and hidden, saying…

“Now hope that is seen is not hope, for who hopes for what one already sees?”

In this hope with the Psalmist we pray

“But you, O Lord, are a God merciful and gracious, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness.”

… a prayer for rescue when we have exhausted our own capacity to save ourselves, when we are looking for rock to stand on, by faith to stand firm though our feet are but clay.

Hold all of this in mind, this complexity we all know between what we pray for and what we experience, our longing for proof that our hope is not in vain when our family fail us, suffering abounds, wars rage, and the world spins out of control

Keep in mind rock formed through the ages, scripture formed through the ages, and hear hope in these devastating words:

Jesus says:

“Just as the weeds are collected and burned up with fire, so will it be at the end of the age.

The Son of Man will send his angels, and they will collect out of his kingdom all causes of sin and all evildoers, and they will throw them into the furnace of fire, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.” 

This is not rock, but the ground we walk on, the human desire for moral judgement, for righteousness to be rewarded and wickedness to be punished.

The Gospel of Matthew speaks to the first church getting its start, roots growing from the seeds of Jesus’ teachings…

and in the early church…as with the church in every age, we can look around and see weeds growing…

… our human longing is to root out the evil in others though we are all rooted together, growing together, in Luther’s famous phrasing

“we are saints and sinners alike,” both wheat and tares….

Weeping and gnashing of teeth and consuming fire is a grace for us as for the early church inviting us to trust ourselves judgement to God alone…

In hope to trust God to find the good growing in us and make bread of us to feed others.

Matthew speaks to believers like us who hope as the Apostle Paul encourages to hope, not in what we can see but in what is unseen….

the rock of our salvation that is the very ground we walk on, 

our belief when we hear “weeping and gnashing of teeth” that God is our rock…

… merciful and gracious, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness.

We need not fear the judgment of God, and yet we rely on the judgement of God to free us from judging ourselves for the many ways we are lacking…

…to free us from those who would presume to judge us as if they themselves are not lacking..

No, we are wheat and tares alike.

…we trust ourselves to God’s mercy, in hope of what we cannot see and yet is the rock upon which we stand.  

***

Baraboo quartzite is unlike quartzite from anywhere else in the world.

Because it contains iron and other impurities,
it is distinctively dark purple to maroon.  

It is distinctive also in the way it tells the story of its formation, 

ripple marks that appear visually similar to the patterns one might see in the sand at a beach, from which it was formed. 

Baraboo quartzite was mined to build northern railroads, along the Mississippi, to transport grain and other goods to feed and sustain the world.

St. Paul’s is not the first church founded on the rock of ages,
and yet we are as distinctive as the  colorful, rippling quartzite of this region 

…because of our own impurities, 

….because we are marked together by the rippling sands of time that form us.  

We might think of the rock mined to build railroads as our faithful hope that the worship and grace and service distinctive to St. Paul’s, along with our collective impurities, 

are beautifully colorful to God, 

and trust ourselves to the judgement of God, 

though faith and in hope believe that in Christ and through us, 

God is feeding the world as God has done since before began and will do even to the end of age.

Thanks be to God.