Mtr Kelli Joyce

“The stone that the builders rejected
has become the cornerstone”

Dear Friends in Christ,

I love this quotation of Christ's. The citation is from Psalm 118, and it was the Psalm we chose to use at my wedding. It speaks to one of my favorite truths of the Gospel: that God's standards and God's wisdom are very different from the world's standards and wisdom. And God's ways will ultimately win - the stone that the builders rejected will become the cornerstone.

This week, I am going to try to reflect on who and what I reject, relying on earthly standards, and how I might instead look with the kind of vision God has. I wonder where I fail to see potential because it doesn't align with my expectations.

I want to join with God in the work of the Kingdom. I want to see what God sees. And that often means looking first and most and longest and the people and the values that the world rejects as worthless, or as impossible and unworkable. And that can require courage. It takes courage to go against the grain, and against conventional wisdom and norms. It takes courage to stand firm in God's embrace of what the world rejects.

This Advent as we prepare our hearts to receive Christ, the cornerstone of the Church who was rejected by humanity, let us pray that we might see as God sees, and that we might have courage to live accordingly.

In peace,
Mtr Kelli