Years ago I bought a...
Illustration
Years ago I bought a large quantity of hardware from a man's basement for seventy-five dollars. Even in those days the hardware was worth many times that amount of money and, by today's standards, what I paid amounts almost to nothing. The hardware included nuts and bolts, saws, an electric drill, vises, hinges, and much more. Over the years I have gone to that supply endless times and to great advantage. Given what I paid him for the hardware, in a sense my friend discarded it. And on many occasions what he discarded - a nut and bolt, a hinge or whatever - became very central in the construction of something I was creating or in fixing something that had become broken. What for my friend was dispensable became for me quite central. How often what we are quick to discard has a significance that escapes us. Peter indicates that precisely this happened to the people of his day, for speaking of Jesus he avers: "This is the stone which was rejected by you builders, but which has become the head of the corner." (Acts 4:11)
