Mtr Kelli Joyce

Dear friends,

Today’s reading from Luke’s account of the gospel contains a difficult parable. And at the end of the parable, Jesus quotes this line from the Psalms: “The stone that the builders rejected has become the cornerstone.”

Jesus is referring to himself - it’s a warning to his hearers that their usual ways of determining what is good and reasonable and valuable may lead them astray. You see, “conventional wisdom” has long been one of the subtlest but most serious obstacles to the gospel. Saint Paul expresses the same perspective when he says “God chose what was foolishness to the world to shame the wise, and what was weak in the world to shame the strong.”

“The stone that the builders rejected has become the cornerstone.” The Psalm then continues: “This is the Lord’s doing, and it is marvelous in our eyes.” When we look for God this Advent, let’s remember to look in the unlikeliest of places. Foolish places. Weak places. Places like a manger in a rural nowhereville town, rather than in a palace. Instead of looking for God handing down sentences in a cosmic courtroom, look for God, falsely accused and unjustly convicted, hanging on a cross.

What do we reject out of hand, that we might need to reconsider? Because, remember, it’s not even “the stone that the builders didn’t notice has become the cornerstone.” It’s not that we need to learn to look for God in places that are new to us, it’s that we miss God in places and people we see all the time. This Advent, let’s look again.

In peace,
Mtr. Kelli