The Rejected Stone

The Rejected Stone

(Matthew 21:42; Matthew 24:2)

They passed him by—

this rough-hewn

truth,

still dusted with

wilderness.

Not the kind they wanted.

Too blunt.

Too bruised.

Too poor to be holy.

So they cast him off

with the rubble and offcuts—

a stone unfit

for empire’s temple.

But haven’t you read?

The stone rejected

by builders

has become

the

cornerstone.

He stood beneath

the glint of golden walls

and whispered of collapse:

“No

stone

will be left

upon another.”

He saw the cracks—

beneath the marble,

beneath the markets.

He heard the drums of war.

—The

drums,

they

still

beat.

The temples we’ve built—

with fossil fire,

sweatshop saints,

and screens that never sleep—

cannot hold.

The blocks of disenchantment,

the pillars of profit and progress,

buckle

under the weight

of awe,

of transcendence ,

of meaning.

Still—

the angles shift.

Mercy finds

the margins.

Still-

the angles shift,

Heaven includes

what

Empires reject.

He is found still

where builders seldom see:

He builds within the ruins

a love that embraces all—

calling those who feel

too far gone to belong.

Grace finds them in

the hospice bed,

the prison cell,

the battered and bruised

the broken pew.

The stone will be rejected,

the axe will fall,

the butchered body

will

breathe its last.

This is the end of endings,

the eternal undone—

but wait,

my friends,

wait:

though night descends

and shadows reign,

empires days are numbered,

and the stone may yet rise.

- Rev’d Jon Swales, 2025