The Rejected, Relentless Savior--May 10, 2023

The Rejected, Relentless Savior--May 10, 2023

"Come to him, 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, to be a holy priesthood, to offer spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ." [1 Peter 2:4-5]

Let's start here: if you've been rejected before, Jesus still seeks you out and wants you.  If you've been told you're not acceptable, Jesus doesn't hold other people's opinions against you and sees you as he always has--beloved.  If you've been kicked out, left behind, or had the door closed in your face, Jesus invites you to be a part of his new construction project--and in fact, to get in on the ground floor.

And not only is all of that true, but Jesus himself knows what it is to be rejected by humanity... and still he doesn't hold that against our race or give up on us.  He is still intent on making something beautiful and good out of all of us.  Jesus is not embarrassed at all that his community looks a lot like the Island of Misfit Toys--he himself is the chief misfit toy, and he still seeks out even the ones who rejected him alongside others who have been turned away before.

If that sounds too good to be true--too great a love, too wide an embrace, too inclusive a welcome, maybe--then it's time to take a closer look at exactly what the voice we call First Peter says in this passage.  In these words, which many of us heard this past Sunday in worship, the biblical writer makes two bold and gutsy claims.  First of all, he issues a blanket welcome, "Come to him"--that is, to Jesus.  You'll notice that there aren't other qualifiers there, no fine print, and no asterisks, either.  First Peter doesn't say, "Come to him, if you're at least making B average..." or "Come to him, provided that you pass the morality exam..." or "Come to him, as long as you're from the right family, the right neighborhood, or the right political persuasion."  He just says, "Come to him," taking it for granted that there's a welcome there.

Right off the bat that is a big deal, not only in the writer's original setting of the first century, but in our own time as well.  In the early church, of course, the growing Christian community had really wrestled with the question of who was welcome in the household, and whether they were supposed to be more like a Country Club for the Saints or a Community Kitchen for Sinners.  And despite the fact that it broken open old assumptions about what who was "good enough," the Christian community realized eventually that the Spirit wasn't just including people of Jewish background, but people of every ethnicity, culture, ancestry, and language.  Samaritans, who had long been seen as enemies and outcasts, were welcomed in.  Gentiles, who were deemed outsiders, pagans, or worse, were also to find a place among the followers of Jesus.  The church really meant it--at least in its best moments back in the first century--that Jesus' welcome was inclusive of anybody and everybody.

That's still a tall order for most folks to imagine in this day and age.  Especially in a time like ours that feels so polarized, so splintered, and so quick to slap labels on us, it's hard to believe that the Bible itself is the voice leading the charge to open the doors wide and say, "There's room for all of you, so come to him...."  And yet... that's exactly what these verses say.  It's a broad invitation without hoops or hurdles, and it's meant to include people who have been told before that they weren't good enough, didn't measure up, or didn't fit the cookie cutter mold.  So, yeah, if you've been told before that you weren't acceptable, the Scriptures themselves here are saying, "Well, God doesn't thinks so.  God isn't going to let the opinion of other people get in the way of your coming to Jesus.  Come--the only One whose vote counts already says you belong."

Like I say, that by itself is a radical word that we too easily forget [or ignore] in our own day. But the next move that First Peter makes is the coup de grace, because the One to whom we are drawn has also been rejected before.  The way First Peter describes Jesus here is as "a living stone, rejected by mortals but chosen by God."  That's Jesus we're talking about--Jesus, the very Son of God, knows what it is to be rejected.  Jesus can relate.  He identifies with every last one of us who knows what it is to be last picked, first cut, or stood up.  He knows what it feels like to be ghosted by admirers and abandoned by friends.  And yet Jesus keeps putting himself out there, at the risk of great pain and heartbreak to himself and repeated rejections all over again, for the sake of getting through to us.  Like I say, he's the Head of the Misfit Toys, gathering all the rest of us to belong with him, as he builds something good and true and beautiful out of all of our chipped edges and broken parts.  And nothing--not humanity's past rejection of Jesus, not other people's rejection of you--is holding him back from reaching out his hand to you and to me.

This is not only how you and I are loved--it's how everybody you meet is loved, too.  And honestly, for a lot of people we meet, who have only heard condemnation, rejection, or dismissal from Respectable Religious People before, maybe it's time they heard a different word--one right from the Scriptures--that reminds them all of the truth.  Jesus himself knows what it is to be rejected, and he still seeks us out.  And Jesus himself makes the invitation to people who know how it feels to be dismissed and declared unworthy or unacceptable.  And to all of us who have ever been in that place before, he simply speaks this invitation:  Come to me.

Lord Jesus, let us speak your wide welcome and open-armed embrace to everyone we meet--especially the ones who know, like you, what it feels like to be rejected.