October 4, 2026, The 19th Sunday after Pentecost

The Stone the Builders Rejected

Matthew 21:33–46; Philippians 3:4b–14

“The stone that the builders rejected has become the cornerstone; this was the Lord’s doing, and it is amazing in our eyes.”

Some words of Scripture stay with us, entering the Church’s worship, hymns, buildings, and memory. For me personally, few are more powerful than these words from Psalm 118, quoted by Jesus in today’s Gospel: “The stone that the builders rejected has become the cornerstone.”

It is a striking image. A stone is examined, judged unsuitable, and set aside. Perhaps it does not have the shape the builders expected. Perhaps it does not fit their plan. They decide, We do not need this one. Yet Jesus says that this rejected stone becomes the cornerstone—the stone that determines the shape and alignment of the whole building.

Then he adds, “This was the Lord’s doing, and it is amazing in our eyes.”

That is the heart of the Gospel. In Jesus Christ, God takes what the world rejects, overlooks, or considers finished and makes it the beginning of something new.

We see this in the parable Jesus tells. A landowner carefully plants a vineyard, builds a fence, digs a wine press, raises a watchtower, and entrusts the property to tenants. When harvest comes, however, the tenants refuse to return what belongs to the owner. They beat and kill his servants. Finally, the owner sends his son, but the tenants kill him too, imagining that the inheritance will become theirs.

The religious leaders understand the warning. The vineyard is Israel, the servants are the prophets, and the son points toward Jesus himself. The parable exposes what happens when tenants begin to act like owners—when human beings forget that God’s vineyard is a gift entrusted to our care.

That temptation is not confined to the leaders in Jerusalem. We face it whenever we act as though the Church, its traditions, its buildings, or its future belong to us. We face it whenever we expect God to follow our plans, or when we decide who belongs and who does not.

Jesus reveals a God who will not be contained by our categories. The rejected stone will become the cornerstone. This predicts Jesus’ death and resurrection and reveals God’s character.

It also reveals that God builds differently than we do. We build from what appears strong; God works through what has been broken. We gather around the powerful; God lifts up those pushed aside. We seek certainty; God calls us to faith. We look at the cross and see defeat; God brings resurrection. We see a rejected stone; God sees a cornerstone.

Paul’s words in Philippians carry the same truth into the life of faith. He lists every reason he might have trusted in himself: his ancestry, his religious training, his zeal, and his obedience to the law. By the standards of his world, Paul had an impressive résumé. If anyone could claim to have built a secure life, it was Paul.

Yet he says, “Whatever gains I had, these I have come to regard as loss because of Christ.” Paul is not saying that his heritage was worthless. He is saying that none of it can bear the weight of being the cornerstone—not his accomplishments, credentials, reputation, certainty, or righteousness. Only Christ can carry that weight.

So Paul’s deepest desire is not to protect what he has achieved but “to know Christ and the power of his resurrection.” Then he writes, “Not that I have already obtained this or have already reached the goal; but I press on to make it my own, because Christ Jesus has made me his own.”

There is freedom in those words. Paul does not stand at the end of the road claiming to have mastered the Christian life. He is still learning, still changing, still discovering what it means to belong to Christ. He presses on, not to earn Christ’s love, but because Christ has already made him his own.

That is one of the great gifts of faith: we do not have to pretend that we have arrived. We simply keep walking. We keep allowing Christ, rather than our success or control, to shape the life we are building.

We are often tempted to build around achievement, security, reputation, or our own understanding of how things ought to be. We may even build our faith around getting everything right—saying the right words, believing the right things, and doing the right things—hoping that our precision will make us secure.

But the Gospel tells us that the cornerstone is not something we construct. It is given to us. Christ is the cornerstone, and we are invited to build our lives upon him.

The resurrection therefore changes more than what we believe about Jesus; it changes how we see everything. The rejected become visible. The forgotten are remembered. The wounded are welcomed. The sinner is offered mercy. The outsider is called beloved. A person we thought had nothing left to offer may become the very person through whom God builds something beautiful.

This is the Lord’s doing. It is rarely logical, predictable, or what we would have planned. Grace, resurrection, forgiveness, and the possibility of beginning again are amazing. God can make failure, loss, disappointment, and rejection part of the foundation of a new life.

Perhaps you need to hear that today. Perhaps you feel like the rejected stone—discarded, overlooked, or no longer useful. Perhaps you carry a failure you cannot forgive, grieve something you thought would last, or wonder whether there is still a place for you in God’s story.

The Gospel says: Look again. Your life is not defined by the verdict of those who rejected you, or even by the harsh verdict you have pronounced upon yourself. God is not finished. In Christ, what appears to be an ending may become a beginning.

As a Church, we also need the courage to look again: at people we have overlooked, voices we have not heard, ideas we dismissed too quickly, and ways of being Church that we assumed could never change. God may already be at work in the very places we are tempted to reject. If Christ is truly our cornerstone, then he—not fear, habit, or control—must determine the shape of our common life.

Paul presses on, not because he has everything figured out, but because Christ has made him his own. We can do the same because the cornerstone is in place and the cross did not have the final word.

Christ is risen. Therefore failure can become an invitation, brokenness an opening for grace, and rejection a foundation for new life. This is not our achievement. It is “the Lord’s doing.”

So we come with all that we are—success and failure, certainty and doubt, strength and brokenness—and place our lives again upon Christ. Not upon our achievements, our reputations, or our ability to get everything right, but upon Christ: the stone the builders rejected who has become the cornerstone.

And perhaps the prayer of our lives is simply this:

Lord, build with us.
Take what we offer.
Take what we thought was useless.
Take what we have rejected.
Take even the broken pieces,
and build something beautiful for your kingdom.

Because Christ has made us his own, we press on—toward resurrection and the life God is still building upon the stone the world rejected.

This was the Lord’s doing, and it is amazing in our eyes. Amen.