1 Peter 2:2-10

Some of you may have heard about the scripture passage that was read recently from the Oval Office:

 

 

 

“If my people who are called by my name humble themselves, pray, seek my face, and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven and will forgive their sin and heal their land” (2 Chronicles 7:14).

Spoken in the highest office in the land! Well, glory, hallelujah!

That means we’re going to be okay… right? Our country is finally heading in the right direction! Because that’s how God builds. Always from the top down… right?

Well, that’s what Christian Nationalists would have us believe. But it is actually the opposite of what scripture declares.

The promise for healing in this verse is clear. But so is the condition. “If my people…” first do what?

“Humble themselves.”

And what does scripture mean when it calls people to humble themselves?

Now, many Christians have been taught that humility simply means bowing your head and professing Jesus Christ as your personal Lord and Savior.

But when the actions of so many who profess faith are the very things causing the most harm in the world, when that profession coexists with injustice, exclusion, and even cruelty, we know that scripture is calling us to something deeper.

Biblical humility is not just about a faithful profession. It is about a faithful position. It is about where we place ourselves in relation to power suffering and injustice.

To humble ourselves is not simply to bow our heads. It is to bend our lives: to step down from systems that elevate some while diminishing others; to move intentionally toward those who have been pushed aside; to identify with the poor; to stand with the marginalized; to draw near to the stones the builders have rejected.

And that kind of humility is much more than reciting a scripture or saying a prayer, especially from a high, gold-plated place of power and privilege. It calls us to look down— to the margins, to the overlooked, to the places where people have been left out and left behind.

This is where I believe this morning’s epistle lesson offers us some good guidance.

1 Peter is calling us to identify with, to stand beside, to join and to gather the stones that have been “rejected by mortals, yet chosen and precious in God’s sight.” And then to become, “like living stones… letting ourselves be built into a spiritual house.”

Get together, organize with those who have been excluded and become “living stones.” No longer dead stones. No longer hopeless stones. No longer discounted, discarded, dismissed, disposable, or forgotten stones. No longer the stones left on the margins of the construction site.

But chosen, gathered, living stones building something together. And not only that, “the stone the builders have rejected have become the cornerstone”— which is a quote from the 118^th Psalm declaring that those who are despised and rejected in this world are actually the most vital and foundational part of what God intends to build in this world.

Literally, a cornerstone is the first stone set in the construction of a masonry foundation, crucial for aligning and balancing the entire structure.

Figuratively, a cornerstone represents a fundamental, indispensable part of something, such as core beliefs, principles, or policies. It is the foundational reference point for an entire structure’s orientation, with all other stones measured against it.

Which means the very ones this world has rejected are the most essential to what God is building.

For those of us who have paid just a little attention in church, it’s not surprising that this Psalm is quoted not only here in 1 Peter, but also by Luke in Acts 4, and by Jesus in all four gospels, as this cornerstone principle conveys a divine pattern that runs all the way through scripture. When God builds in this world, God always builds from the bottom up.

When God wanted to call a people, God didn’t go to the center of power. God went to Abraham and Sarah—wandering, aging, convinced they had nothing more to offer.

When famine threatened survival, God worked not through the Pharoah, but through Joseph—the brother who was betrayed, imprisoned, and cast aside.

And when God heard suffering, it wasn’t the cries of Pharoah, but the cries of an enslaved people. “I have seen their misery… I have heard their cry” (Exodus 3:7). God chose the side of the oppressed, not just to comfort them, but to liberate them.

And when those liberated people obtained power and began shaping a society, God gave them a command: Don’t forget where you came from. Don’t forget the poor. Care for the widow. Defend the orphan. Don’t oppress the stranger. Don’t mistreat foreigners residing in your land, but rather treat them as native-born citizens and love them as you love yourself. Build a world that does not recreate the harm you escaped.

But as soon as they got a little bit of power, they forgot. And to remind them, God sent prophets who truth to power: “Woe to those who trample on the needy.” “Woe to those who build their houses on injustice.”

Because God is never neutral when people are suffering. God is always on the side of the oppressed and the rejected. Not only consoling them but calling them to organize to build something better.

Over and over, scripture reveals a God who calls the unlikeliest of people:

Moses—a fugitive, slow of speech—but called to confront the empire.

Deborah—a woman chosen by God in a world that discounted her.

Gideon—fearful, from the weakest clan.

Ruth—a foreign widow, gleaning scraps, woven into the story of kings.

Hannah—barren and dismissed, who sang of a God who lifts the lowly from the dust.

David—a shepherd boy, overlooked and left in the fields.

Again, and again, God chose the stones rejected by the powers-that-be. Whenever the world was most broken, most in need of a reconstruction, when people were exiled, displaced, stripped of identity, God spoke into their displacement, promising not just a return, but a rebuilding from the ruins, not from the top down, but from the bottom up.

The story of Jesus is but a continuation of this divine pattern. When God became flesh, God didn’t come through a palace. But through a young, poor, unmarried woman living under empire, named Mary.

And she sang: “God has brought down the powerful from their thrones and lifted up the lowly.”

In Jesus’ first sermon, this divine pattern is unmistakable: “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me,” he says, “because he has anointed me to bring good news to the poor.

And look at who Jesus gathers around him: The poor, the sick, the excluded. And to them, Jesus says: “Blessed are you.” And he doesn’t stop there. He gathers them and builds a movement. He takes the rejected stones and begins constructing a new kind of community: a community where the last are first, dignity is restored, and love becomes the structure.

So, when Peter says: “You are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God’s own people,” we know who he’s talking about. He is talking about a scattered, struggling, rejected people. And Peter says: “You are the ones God is building with.”

Now, let’s bring that word into our moment. Because people are still being rejected.

The poor are dismissed. Workers underpaid. Immigrants dehumanized. The trans community demonized. The unhoused pushed out of sight.

The message to them is: “You don’t belong.” “You don’t count.” “You will not be accepted.” “You will not have any part constructing our society, building this nation.”

Yet, scripture says: “You are chosen.” And not only are you chosen, you are the cornerstone of the building, the most fundamental, most indispensable part of it.

This is where the language of Reconstruction in America begins to sound less like history and more like prophecy.

The First Reconstruction took place when poor Black and white people came together after the Civil War to expand democracy, to build an interracial government, to build new schools, to reimagine what this country could be.

And then the backlash came. Jim Crow was born. The stones were rejected again.

The Second Reconstruction, the Civil Rights Movement, took place when ordinary people, many poor and dismissed, stood up and declared their dignity in the face of violence and oppression. And again, progress came. But resistance followed. Resistance that we are still witnessing today as many of the gains made during the Civil Rights movement have been reversed. Jim Crow didn’t die, it just rebranded itself as “Make America Great Again.”

And now we find ourselves asking: Is there a Third Reconstruction on the horizon? And if so, who will build it?

If scripture is any guide, it will not begin in places of wealth and power. It will begin with people who have been pushed out: the poor; the marginalized; the rejected. Because they are the ones who know something about both suffering and hope.

And here’s the word that comes back to us 2 Chronicles: “Humble yourselves.”

Not just in a profession of faith. But in a proximity of faith. Not just in words. But in solidarity, in action. Because Peter doesn’t just say, “You are living stones, period.” He says, “let yourselves be built.”

The fundamental question for people of faith is this: Are we are willing to be aligned alongside those the world has rejected? Will follow the leadership of those who are suffering today? Will we join what God is building?

Because that’s humility. And that’s how a new house gets built. That’s how healing happens.

And yes, that kind of building will cost something. Because when you make the rejected the cornerstone, the most important part of the building, you challenge systems that depend on their rejection. That’s why this kind of gospel makes people stumble (verse 8).

But here’s the hope. It’s not easy hope. But it’s real hope: “You once were not a people, but now you are God’s people.” Which means: What has been scattered can be gathered, and what has been rejected can become the foundation.

So, hear this:

Maybe the Third Reconstruction is not something far off. Maybe it is already beginning: in movements for living wages; in communities organizing for healthcare; in silent vigils for peace; in pop-up protests on the side of the highways against the mistreatment of immigrants; in people with whistles protecting their immigrant neighbors; in people refusing to give up on one another; in the quiet but courageous work of solidarity.

Church, this is where we are called to step it. To humble ourselves, to build with those the world has rejected.

And if we dare to do that, if we dare to live that, the nation can heal and a new house will rise.

Built not on exclusion, but on belonging.

Built not on supremacy, but on equality.

Built not on scarcity, but on justice.

Built on compassion instead of cruelty, and on love instead of fear.

A house will rise where the stones that have been rejected are valued, important, the foundational reference point for the entire house’s orientation.

A house that will stand.

Because it is built the way God has always built in this world: with people who humble themselves and build, not from the top down, but from the bottom up.

Amen.

Pastoral Prayer

Holy and Living God,

You are the One who hears what the world ignores.

You are the One who sees what others pass by.

You are the One who gathers what has been scattered

and builds what has been broken.

We come before you today bringing all that we are.

We bring our gratitude:

for signs of hope we have witnessed this week;

for neighbors caring for neighbors;

for courage rising in unexpected places;

for love that refuses to give up.

We bring our grief:

for a world that still wounds so many;

for those living without enough food, enough care, enough rest;

for communities burdened by injustice;

for those who feel invisible, expendable, forgotten.

We bring our own hearts:

tired in some place; guarded in others, and still longing to be part of something more.

God of mercy,

You call us to humility, not just in word, but in life. So we ask:

Bend our lives toward your justice.

Draw us closer to those we have kept at a distance.

Open our eyes to where you are building

and give us courage to join you there.

We pray for those who are suffering today:

for the sick, the grieving; the anxious; the overwhelmed.

For all who are on our hearts and on our prayer list.

Be near to them, O God.

We pray for those organizing, resisting, and rebuilding

often without recognition, often at great cost.

Strengthen them. Sustain them. Surround them with hope.

And we pray for ourselves

that we would not settle for a faith that is comfortable,

but would seek a faith that is faithful.

A faith that follows you

into the places where healing is still needed.

Into the communities where dignity is still denied.

Into the work of building a more just and loving world.

Gather us, O God, as living stones. Shape us. Place us. Use us.

We pray all of this in the spirit of Jesus, Amen.

Invitation to Communion

This table is not built by human hands alone.

It is set by a God who gathers the rejected and calls them beloved.

This is not a table for the perfect. This is not a table for the powerful.

This is a table for those who hunger—for bread, for justice, for belonging.

Here, the last are welcomed first. Here, the overlooked are seen. Here, the broken are made whole.

So come—not because you have it all together, but because God is still putting us together.

Come as living stones, ready to be shaped into something new.

Come, for all is ready.

 

Invitation to the Offering

What we offer today is more than money. It is a declaration.

A declaration that we believe in a different kind of world. A declaration that we trust God is still building—and that we want to be part of that work.

So, we give—not out of obligation, but out of hope.

We give to support ministries of compassion and justice, to stand alongside those too often pushed aside, to help build a community where all can flourish. So, as you give, consider this:

Where is God building in our world? And how might what I offer today help strengthen that work?

Let us give generously, as people who are being built into something beautiful together.

 

Commissioning and Benediction

Go now, not just with heads bowed, but with lives bent toward justice.

Go as living stones, shaped by grace, placed with purpose, and joined together in love.

Go to where God is building: among the poor; alongside the marginalized;

in the very places the world has overlooked.

And as you go, remember: The stone the builders rejected has become the cornerstone.

Which means:

what has been cast aside can rise, what has been broken can be rebuilt,

and what has been dismissed can become the foundation of something new.

So, go with courage to stand where God stands,

with humility to walk alongside others,

and with hope that will not let you go.

And may the God who builds from the bottom up

hold you, guide you, and use you, now and always.

Amen.