This is part of a series using the analogy of bricks and stones to think about how inclusion should work – not just for neurodiversity, but for all difference.

Last time, we looked at the way the picture is used in the Old Testament and saw the motif of “the stone the builders rejected”, which they didn’t want because it was the wrong shape, but it turned out to be the key piece in God’s building plan. We saw that this picture from Psalms is picked up five times in the New Testament, every time used of Jesus. Three times it’s used by Jesus himself, describing his own life and mission, and the other two times it’s used by Peter.

One particularly instructive use of the metaphor is in 1 Peter 2. It’s not primarily about including neurodivergent people in the life of the church, but it’s got a lot to say about it. Peter starts by making the point that the fundamental question that makes all the difference (when it comes to inclusion or otherwise) is what we do with Jesus. Let me explain.

Peter describes Jesus here by quoting Isaiah 28.

When builders are faced with a cornerstone like this, they have a choice. They can either make it the key part of their building, and build everything else around it, or they ignore it and go and build their own building without using the cornerstone at all.

If we remember the contrast between bricks and stones in the Old Testament, we see that if we want to build this temple on our own terms (i.e. with bricks), then we will need to build away from God’s cornerstone. He is, after all, the Living Stone (v4), because buildings that are built on him are made of stones not of bricks.

But what about us? Peter says that Jesus is the Living Stone, but that those who come to him are like living stones, and that we are built together to become a temple (v5). We are stones. We are all different, but because we are united with Jesus, we become more like him – we become stones because we follow the Living Stone. And we are then built together.

I sometimes talk about what it feels like for stones to be built together. Stones aren’t bricks, and that is wonderful because it means we are welcome as we are and we don’t have to fit in with other people’s ideas of what we should look like. But at the same time, it means the stones around us are also stones not bricks. They have rough edges and pokey bits too. And sometimes, in the skill of the builder, those rough edges and pokey bits are just what is needed in building the wall. But sometimes those are bits that are meant to be worn down in contact with other stones, to make us together into a stronger shape than we would be apart.

So for those of us who are autistic, it’s not a license for us to be jerks about our autism, or to use it as an excuse for not engaging properly with others. Some of those bits may well be bits which are meant to be worn down by being alongside and working alongside others. But it’s also a context where our strengths should be used, and where we should be welcomed with the same grace we extend to others.

So that’s what Peter means by calling us “living stones” – that we are meant to be transformed by God, built together into a community that can be so much stronger and more impressive than we can be when we are apart, and together holding out the possibility of encounter with God to the wider world. And that still works for us in all our differences and diversity, because we are based on Jesus, who is different from all of us.