Tables turned

Matthew 21:33-43

          Sometimes I can't help but have a gay perspective on things but it does say something to everyone. I am thinking of a young man (or woman) who has lived their days, wherever, feeling like an outcast. It may not even be that they were bullied or ostracized. They just feel different wherever they are and whoever they are with. Then they come to the big city, let's say New York. All of a sudden they feel like one of the crowd. They feel right at home. It's amazing that there is a whole community of people just like they are. The 'stone' that felt rejected has become most welcome, maybe even popular.

         I would imagine it might be similar if a zebra was raised with a bunch of horses. A perfectly fine animal, healthy and made just as God intended but the zebra always felt different and he didn't know why. One day, he finds a herd of zebras and all of a sudden he would feel like he is home with his peeps!

          I am of such an age that I have seen two worlds. That is the pre-computer world and now the world of i-macs, mac books, i-pads, and i-phones.  In the former world, the world of my youth, the people that would invent these gadgets were called geeks and nerds. There were movies about how they were the downtrodden and they never 'got the girl'. My how things have changed. The geeks now run the world it seems and they can have anything they want.

            I would suggest that we are all cornerstones. One of our jobs is to find in what 'building' we belong. We will never feel completely right, never feel at home with ourselves until we find out who we are and where we belong. You may think that I am speaking about acknowledging you are gay.  I would have to remind you that this is about everyone. We all have to find our niche, where we belong. We all have to follow our bliss. If we don't we are merely living. A job is just a four letter word.

             When we find ourselves, find out who we are and acknowledge all the beautiful facets of our being - they way God created us, then life becomes a joy. We become a cornerstone. We enjoy life even when everything does not go perfectly well because it rarely does. Stuff that happens will have less of an effect on us when we are true to ourselves, fully human and living a loving life. It's the purpose of this Lenten season, it the purpose of our lives.

             

‘Listen to another parable. There was a landowner who planted a vineyard, put a fence around it, dug a wine press in it, and built a watch-tower. Then he leased it to tenants and went to another country. When the harvest time had come, he sent his slaves to the tenants to collect his produce. But the tenants seized his slaves and beat one, killed another, and stoned another. Again he sent other slaves, more than the first; and they treated them in the same way. Finally he sent his son to them, saying, “They will respect my son.” But when the tenants saw the son, they said to themselves, “This is the heir; come, let us kill him and get his inheritance.” So they seized him, threw him out of the vineyard, and killed him. Now when the owner of the vineyard comes, what will he do to those tenants?’ They said to him, ‘He will put those wretches to a miserable death, and lease the vineyard to other tenants who will give him the produce at the harvest time.’

Jesus said to them, ‘Have you never read in the scriptures:
“The stone that the builders rejected
   has become the cornerstone;
this was the Lord’s doing,
   and it is amazing in our eyes”?
Therefore I tell you, the kingdom of God will be taken away from you and given to a people that produces the fruits of the kingdom.