1 Peter 2:2-10
4 As you come to him, the living Stone rejected by humans but chosen by God and precious to him— 5 you also, like living stones, are being built into a spiritual house to be a holy priesthood, offering spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ.top;” 6 For in Scripture it says:
a chosen and precious cornerstone,
and the one who trusts in him
and a rock that makes them fall.”
9 But you are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God’s special possession, that you may declare the praises of him who called you out of darkness into his wonderful light. 10 Once you were not a people, but now you are the people of God; once you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy.
As a creative person this passage speaks to me of the intimacy, creatorship and gentleness of God.
Starting out on a project I look for beautiful things to use – just as we miss the God in Jesus – rejected by humans but chosen by God and precious to him – he does not. He selects, delights in, honours, sees the potential. A sew-er knows how to get the most from fabric – how to lay it out so the pattern will be showed to its best advantage, how to make sure that none of it goes to waste.
God selects us for the right place in the building at the right time, as He creates this amazing living temple – a masterpiece to his glory. And there we are set along side one another, his special possession, to declare his praises.
It is a process – this building of the living temple. It is a journey through our lives and a conversation that arches through the whole of time.
Here we have this amazing God who wastes nothing of who we are and what we have to offer. Our God who places us alongside all sorts of other misfits and makes us fit. We were not a people – but now we are the people of God.
We know what it is to not belong, to not be ‘in’,
but in him,
he has created a new in.
An ‘in’ based on mercy and in that says and the one who trusts in him will never be put to shame.
Rachel Held Evans has begun a project blogging the lectionary and I love the idea of this invitation to meditate on the readings so much of the Church (capitial intended) will be greeted with this week. My plan is actually to push myself creatively to respond to one of the set readings each week but this week I’ve started very simply with a reflection.
Miriam Jessie 