God is often unexpectedly good

“Give thanks to the Lord, for God is good. God’s steadfast love endures forever.” These words, the first two verses of Psalm 118, were the last thing I saw when I went to sleep and the first thing I saw when I woke up as a child. They quietly, patiently, hung on the wall at the foot of my bed in the form of a simple cross-stitch my grandma had given me.

In addition to the pure utility of this passage — being the only Bible verse I had memorized when I was in elementary school — this verse has also been a holy reminder to me for all these years. God is good, and we should not forget that. If nothing else, we must trust that God is good.

However, as I have grown, left my home and that small wall hanging, the lens through which I see God has also grown. Now, not only do I trust that God is good, but I know why I believe that.

The Psalm says, “The stone the builders rejected
 has become the cornerstone; the Lord has done this,
 and it is marvelous in our eyes.” And how marvelous it is! Not only did God choose the rejected people of Israel in the Old Testament, but again and again God used that which was scoffed at by society to do the holiest of work — Mary, a woman both young and poor, wicked rulers, lowly shepherds, children, lepers and Jesus, who was himself a homeless, wandering, outspoken, dirty radical.

In this season of Lent, in the midst of all of the pain and suffering in our world, I give thanks to the Lord that our God acts in unexpected ways. Just as Jesus was shunned by the masses yet rose again and lives as our Cornerstone, I pray that those on the margins will be received by their oppressors as the cornerstone and help us all to rise again with a new love, new life and new understanding of what it means to do God’s work and live into God’s Beloved Community.

Scripture: Psalm 118:1-2, 19-29 (NRSV)

O give thanks to the Lord, for he is good; his steadfast love endures forever!

²Let Israel say, “His steadfast love endures forever.”

¹⁹Open to me the gates of righteousness, that I may enter through them and give thanks to the Lord.

²⁰This is the gate of the Lord; the righteous shall enter through it.

²¹I thank you that you have answered me and have become my salvation.

²²The stone that the builders rejected has become the chief cornerstone.

²³This is the Lord’s doing; it is marvelous in our eyes.

²⁴This is the day that the Lord has made; let us rejoice and be glad in it.

²⁵Save us, we beseech you, O Lord! O Lord, we beseech you, give us success!

²⁶Blessed is the one who comes in the name of the Lord. We bless you from the house of the Lord.

²⁷The Lord is God, and he has given us light. Bind the festal procession with branches, up to the horns of the altar.

²⁸You are my God, and I will give thanks to you; you are my God, I will extol you.

²⁹O give thanks to the Lord, for he is good, for his steadfast love endures forever.