Prayer: Dear Lord, we thank you for the special gifts you have given every one of us, and for giving each of us a seat at your table. Amen.
Reading: Luke 14: 1, 7-14 (Click to read text) Stop and GROW: After reading the text, discuss/ponder the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America's Book of Faith questions, which are part of Camp Mount Luther's GROW Time with campers. QUESTION 1: What scares, confuses, challenges, or doesn’t make sense to me in this text? QUESTION 2: What delights me in this text or is my favorite part of the story? QUESTION 3: What stories or memories does this text stir in me? QUESTION 4: What is God up to in this text? Reflection: God has created every one of us with special and unique gifts that God wants us to share with each other and with the world. We each have strengths where others have weaknesses, and vice versa. It is important that within our communities, we recognize that each person has something special they can contribute toward forming a community that is whole and complete. For us as Christians, we are called to reject conformity to the world by living in God’s likeness. One way we can do this is to be as inclusive as God is, which means acknowledging each person’s unique value and making them feel that they belong. Everyone is welcome to God’s family, and everyone has a seat at God’s table. In this world, how often do we welcome all people to our families? Do we have seats at our tables for all people? When we place ourselves at the seat of honor--when we place ourselves before others in this world, we are destined to be made humble. However, when we take the lowest seat and when we place others before ourselves, we practice living in the likeness of God and living out God’s radical love. We are called to humble ourselves and to welcome and value all others, especially those who are commonly and traditionally unwelcome to or unvalued in many of the world’s communities. We are called to lead by example God’s radical love in order to transform the world. --Sarah Schaech
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