27th Sunday in Ordinary Time 2026

 If you've spent any time working or volunteering in a parish, you've probably heard these words more than once:

“We've always done it this way!”

And I have to admit, I've probably said them myself!

Someone comes along with a new idea, a different approach, a suggestion for doing something better.

And before they've even finished explaining it, we're already thinking, “Nope. We've always done it this way!”

Now, sometimes there's a good reason for that. Not every new idea is a good idea.

But sometimes, “We've always done it this way” is just another way of saying, “I don't want to change.”

And that brings us to today's Gospel.

Jesus tells a parable about a landowner who plants a vineyard and leases it to tenants.

When harvest time arrives, he sends his servants to collect his share of the produce. But the tenants refuse. They beat one servant, kill another, and stone a third.

Finally, the landowner sends his own son.

And they kill him, too.

Jesus is speaking to the chief priests and elders. The servants represent the prophets God sent to his people, and the son represents Jesus himself.

Then Jesus quotes the Scriptures:

“The stone that the builders rejected has become the cornerstone.”

Now, when we hear the word “cornerstone,” we might picture one of those stones on the side of a building with a date carved into it.

But in ancient construction, a cornerstone was much more important than that.

The cornerstone helped establish the alignment of the building. Once that stone was properly positioned, the other stones had to line up with it.

And I think that's what makes this image so powerful.

If Jesus is the cornerstone of our lives, Jesus doesn't have to line up with us. We have to line up with him.

We don't take the Gospel and adjust it until it fits comfortably into the life we've already decided to live.

We allow the Gospel to challenge us, change us—and sometimes even straighten us out!

And here's something else about a cornerstone.

If the walls aren't properly aligned with it, the problem might not look very serious at first.

But you keep building.

And the farther you build, the farther out of alignment everything becomes.

The same thing can happen in our lives.

A little resentment we refuse to let go of.

A little selfishness we excuse.

A little compromise we convince ourselves doesn't really matter.

And we keep building.

Until one day we look at our lives and wonder:

“How did I get so far from where I wanted to be?”

Maybe somewhere along the way, we stopped checking our alignment with the cornerstone.

And that's the irony in today's Gospel.

The builders reject the very stone God has chosen to be the cornerstone.

The chief priests and elders knew the Scriptures. They knew the traditions. They were supposed to know how to build a life centered on God.

But they had also become convinced that they knew exactly how God was supposed to work. 

And when Jesus stood right in front of them and challenged their expectations, they couldn't recognize what God was doing.

In a sense, they were saying, “Jesus, we know what we’re doing! We don’t need you! We’ve always done it this way!” 

And that's where this Gospel begins to challenge us.

We might be perfectly comfortable with Jesus telling us to love our neighbor—until he asks us to love someone we can't stand!

We're all in favor of forgiveness—until we're the ones who have to forgive!

And we love hearing Jesus tell us not to judge others—until someone does something we think is absolutely ridiculous!

Those are alignment checks.

Because discipleship isn't about getting Jesus to fit into the life we're already building.

It's about continually asking:

“Does the life I'm building still line up with Jesus?”

And here's the good news.

Even when we've gotten out of alignment, the cornerstone hasn't moved.

Christ is still there.

His mercy is still there.

His forgiveness is still there.

And he gives us the opportunity to straighten things out and begin building again.

So perhaps the question for us this week isn't simply, “Am I willing to change?”

The more important question is:

“Am I willing to let God challenge what I think I already know?”

Am I willing to look at the way I'm building my life and ask whether it still lines up with Jesus?

Because sometimes the very things we push aside—mercy, humility, forgiveness, love—are the very things Jesus asks us to build our lives upon.

And if we're willing to keep checking our alignment with the cornerstone, we may discover that God has something wonderful in mind.

Something we never would have imagined.

Something we might have missed if we had simply said,

“We've always done it this way!”