Nobodies

 

As you come to him, the living Stone—rejected by humans but chosen by God and precious to him— 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. For in Scripture it says:

“See, I lay a stone in Zion,
    a chosen and precious cornerstone,
and the one who trusts in him
    will never be put to shame.”

 Now to you who believe, this stone is precious. But to those who do not believe,

“The stone the builders rejected
    has become the cornerstone,”

and,

“A stone that causes people to stumble
    and a rock that makes them fall.”

They stumble because they disobey the message—which is also what they were destined for. (I Peter 2:4-8)

Remember little Joseph, the boy with big dreams who ended up in prison? David as he went up against Goliath, and later against Saul? It’s a cliché, a horrible trope, the nobody from nowhere who somehow ends up being just the person needed to save the day. It doesn’t stop with the Bible. Think of Zorro, Rudolph the Red-nosed Reindeer, Mighty Mouse, Underdog, Superman, and X-men. I just watched what was one of several ZZ Top videos about a person who is given a makeover, and goes from being a mild-mannered nobody to being a hot chick (in this case. There are some hot dude videos, too.) Maybe a love story is more done than the rags to riches, nobody to Somebody story, but I suspect it’s not by much.

This is Jesus’ story, too. The social misfit who grows up and is recognized as the hero of the story of all stories but is rejected by the hip crowd. Not only left for dead but actually dead, He rises from the dead. There really just isn’t a better story to tell.        

But the story doesn’t end there. There are other nobodies. We’re nobodies. We long to receive a letter from Hogwarts or the Xavier School. We don’t have to be Harry Potter, but if we could just be in the story. And today’s passage says we are! We’re called to be a holy priesthood.

I suspect we get the wrong idea about the priesthood. We tend to see it as judging and condemning people, listening to confessions, and assigning penance. But the reality is that the priesthood’s purpose was to act as an intermediary between God and man. What more important job could there be?

One of the challenges of the priesthood is to be comfortably invisible. The goal is for people to see God more clearly, not us. But when one is invisible, it’s easy to be overlooked. That’s actually the goal, but it can still hurt. We need to keep our eyes on the goal. We are little stones being put in place – without us, there’ll be a hole. The temple will be marred in its beauty. Without our priesthood, someone else will not see God.