Standing with those on the periphery

 Photo:  Canva.com

Today's gospel is a parable of a land-owner who prepared his land and placed tenants in charge. But when the time came to hand over the owner's share of the harvest, they refused to do so, even killing the servants who came to collect the produce. Finally the land-owner sends his only son thinking that he would be respected but the tenants killed him hoping to gain the land for themselves. In the same way, God, our Father, sent his son into the world but he too was rejected and killed. The key words are, ''It was the stone rejected by the builders that became the keystone.'' I have just read a book about the effect that constant bullying can have on the victim, leaving him or her traumatized for life. They have been rejected, physically and verbally abused until they are made to feel worthless. Jesus, the stone rejected, made it his mission to go to the despised tax-collectors, the woman brought to him to be stoned as an adulterer, the lepers and all those rejected by the bullies of society. The constant message of Jesus was that we love one another. He calls us to show that love especially by the respect and value that we give to those who are treated as outsiders by society. Jesus went to the periphery and told the rejected ones there that they were beloved sons and daughters of the Father who gave them life. That is the vocation that we are to follow also. The ''rejected stones'' are precious in God's sight and will be to us also if we can see them as Jesus saw them.