The Rejected Stone
The Rejected Stone
Rev. Douglas Taylor
3-22-26
Sermon video: https://youtu.be/kpLsfnerOnc
Unitarian Universalism is known for our inclusivity. We take pride in being a home for outcasts and non-conformers, radicals and misfits. Inclusivity, nested within the layers of love and kindness, is a centering value among us. We are not unique in this; we are not the only religion for which this is true. It is unfortunate, however, how many religions get lost in wanting to control everyone instead of love everyone.
I notice how comfortably the patriarchy and empire have coopted Christianity in our modern culture because Christianity also had – for a long time – a proclivity for outcasts and radicals, for those rejected by the respected and protected religious people of their day.
Jesus often spoke about the lost sheep, the least of these, and how ‘the last will be first, and the first will be last.’ He talks about needing to be as humble as a child to enter the kingdom of God and that it is easier for a camel to fit through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter heaven. He says the poor are blessed, the meek, the merciful, the peacemakers – not the warriors, the wealthy, or the rulers. No. The poor. The rejected. The vulnerable. Some folks refer to it as the upside-down kingdom of God.
Next week is Palm Sunday, marking Jesus’ triumphal entry into Jerusalem. He goes to the temple and flips the tables, chasing out the money lenders. A little bit after that he tells a parable about wicked tenants in a vineyard followed by this quote which is the heart of my reflections this morning:
“The stone the builders rejected has become the cornerstone” – Matthew 21:42
It is a rebuke of the current leadership. Jesus is quoting from Psalm 118 at this point. And the religious leaders of his day began to grumble. It is soon after this, combined with his table-flipping behavior in the temple and all those parables about hypocrisy and how we shouldn’t abandon the poor, that the religious leaders decide to have him arrested. The stone the builders rejected has become the cornerstone. The outcast and the rejected are central to who the people of faith will be going forward.
In his day, Jesus was rebuking the religious leaders for being coopted into supporting the empire. Fast forward a few millennia and the religion of Jesus has been too often coopted into supporting the empire.
I am aware that among traditional interpretations and conservative interpretations his parables are often used to speak of God’s judgement rather than of God’s love. But those are just interpretations, and when reviewing the fullness of the message I believe the power of love is a better guide than the power of fear and hate. It matters what we use to guide our interpretations of scripture. I lean strongly in the direction of love.
We Unitarian Universalists are not a Christian community, strictly speaking. Historically we grew up out of Protestant Christianity, and we have evolved and shifted over the decades beyond those roots. As such we have varying understandings of Jesus and varying relationships with the Bible and Christian doctrines. But the core ethic of caring for the most marginalized, the vulnerable, the ‘least of these,’ the rejected … that part of Jesus’ message is the same thing we’re talking about when we Unitarian Universalists say we inclusivity is a central value.
We are called to take care of each other, to build a society in which we all can thrive – not just some, but all. We are called to denounce the idea that some people are disposable or unworthy. The rejected and the outcast are more than welcome here – we are celebrated, central.
Earlier this week I was listening to a sermon by Rev. Dr. William Barber. Barber is a preacher and activist, president of the Poor People’s Campaign. He preached on this passage about the Rejected stone saying “Rejoice! The rejected will lead the revival – this is God’s way.”
One point he raised that inspired me was this: Dr. Barber said when God chooses the marginalized, when God chooses the rejected – it’s important to note that “it’s not that God is choosing the unfit!” Barber clarifies, “It’s that society has declared them unfit but God knows better.”
I love this. It reminds me of all the ridiculous arguments against Diversity Equity and Inclusion. The people being lifted are not unfit. Society has been stacked against them for generations, but we can offer a correction. And, in point of fact, the diversity is an important feature not a nice extra. We don’t want staid conformity, our thriving depends on our differences.
Dr. Barber said It’s not that God chooses the unfit – it’s that society has declared them unfit but God knows better. When it looks like God chooses the weak, it is that God chooses what our society calls weak. When it looks like God chooses what is broken or rejected or lost or the last in line – it’s that God chooses what society calls broken or rejected or lost or the last in line. God knows better. We can know better too.
This is not about finding all the folks who are too flawed for their own good; or rescuing the useless people of little value. No. What a sour notion. I’ve never met such a person. That sounds to me like the framework of a toxic theology, parsing out who is worthy of God’s love and who is not, or who is worth enough as a person and who is not. That sounds to me like the language of the oppressor, the language of empire. It’s a lie.
Adrienne Maree Brown once said, “If the goal was to increase the love, rather than winning or dominating a constant opponent, I think we could actually imagine liberation from constant oppression.”
I want us to witness to how those parts of us that get labeled as flaws, as brokenness, as a disability or a problem – those parts are usually assets to our thriving, blessings among us. Being rejected can lead to strength. Experiences of brokenness can lead to wisdom and empathy. I often find that people who have struggled are the people who know things about life that others have missed. I don’t mean this as some twisted theological version of what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger. I mean it the way they do in the parable of the bookshelf.
Now, this parable is not from a scripture, it’s from tumblr. I found it online, posted by someone who goes by “Luulapants.” They wrote this:
My dad and I once had a disagreement over him using the adage “what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger.” I said, “That’s just not true. Sometimes what doesn’t kill you leaves you brittle and injured or traumatized.”
He stopped and thought about that for a while. He came back later, and said, “It’s like wood glue.”
He pointed to my bookshelf, which he helped me salvage a while ago. He said, “Do you remember how I explained that, once we used the wood glue on them, the shelves would actually be stronger than they were before they broke?”
I did.
“But before we used the wood glue, those shelves were broken. They couldn’t hold of [anything]. If you had put books on them, they would have collapsed. And the wood glue had to set awhile. If we put anything on them too early, they would have collapsed just the same as if we’d never fixed them at all. You’ve got to give these things time to set.”
It sounded like a pretty good metaphor to me, but one thing I did pick up on was that whatever broke those shelves, that’s not the thing that made them stronger. That just broke them. It was being fixed that made them stronger. It was the glue.
So my dad and I agreed, what doesn’t kill you doesn’t actually make you stronger, but healing does. And if you feel like healing hasn’t made you stronger than you were before, you’re probably not done healing. You’ve got to give these things time to set.https://www.facebook.com/photo/?fbid=1112325616603576&set=a.633770597792416
So don’t think of us as the church of misfits or of outcasts. Think of us as the church of healing, the congregation where we take care of each other, where we grow and thrive – not because nothing is wrong – but because we know love is strong and we are loved and we are strong.
You may be poor, or queer, or disabled, or an immigrant, or a woman, or not White, or young, or old, or neurodivergent, or addicted, or wounded, or suffering. You may have been told you are somehow second class because of some aspect of your living. Society may have spent years pouring lies upon you about your identity or your ability or your worth. You may have been rejected. There may be obscene amounts of money being spent to enact laws and policies that deny your place in society. That is fear. That is the lying liars trying to dominate you on behalf of the empire, because you represent something glorious that frightens them.
Here we acknowledge that love is strong and you are loved and you are strong. Here we know that the rejected will lead the revival. Our diversity is not a nice extra, it is central to our thriving.
I’m not claiming we have it figured out perfectly. We are still learning how to do this well, we are still bringing new voices into the center, we are still uncovering our hypocrisies and discovering how we’re causing harm. Yes. But we set our sights on love, on listening and learning from each other, on living better today than yesterday – because our thriving is dynamic.
The stone the builders rejected has become the cornerstone. Not because we showed up late and couldn’t find a better stone. Not because we are poor and couldn’t afford a better stone. But because we know better – God knows better. Because the rejected stone is blessed and you are exactly where you need to be for us to thrive together, building the better world we long for together, creating a beloved community together – stone by stone, blessing by blessing, healing and growing, with you and all these here now and more still to come.
In a world without end,
May it be so.
Rev. Douglas Taylor 