Today, we look at a Day 5 text from this year’s summer curriculum, “From Generation to Generation.”
Prayer: Uniting God, when we insist upon walls to divide us based on our differences, you tear them down to provide a better way. Remind us that with the unity of Jesus as our cornerstone, we have the sure foundation we need as your people. This we pray through your Son, Jesus Christ, our Lord. Amen. Reading: Ephesians 2:11-22 (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: We’ve gotten good at defining ourselves by our differences over the years. I mean, like, really good. We depict ourselves based on where we come from as opposed to where they were from. We make snap judgments based on the language we know as compared to the one we hear them speaking to family. We assume a lot about each other based on how we think they voted instead of how we know they ought to have. We make evaluations based on whom they love in the face of our own insulated comfort zones. Over and over again we define ourselves based on the divisions between us, rather than on what we hold in common. We double down and insist on building walls along those lines of difference that will do a better job of keeping us separate from each other, rather than drawing us together. We prefer to keep our circles safe and well-insulated from the people with different appearances, ideologies, or orientations. Then waltzes in Paul and his letter to the Ephesians. As he is writing to a community of “mixed company,” he points out to them that the ways they are trying to divide themselves from one another -- the walls they are trying to put up along their differences -- they’re totally bunk! He reminds them that they, too, were once found wanting by the same sort of divisions they are now trying to maintain! But rather than simply point out where they’ve got the wrong picture, Paul instead offers them the helpful new footing to step back out into their world. In Christ Jesus, he reminds them, the dividing walls have been torn down and those counted as separate are now found as one with Christ as the cornerstone! This is the reconciliation for the world -- this is the more helpful way of definition. With Jesus as the source of our definition, we quickly find that in him, in the one who gathers all people into the love of God, we have plenty more in common to go on than we once thought. We have more to unite us into a future together than our walls implied. So let’s start living like Jesus has already torn down the walls we keep building. ~ Justin Lingenfelter
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
Authors
Anyone is welcome to contribute! If you'd like to write for us, please e-mail [email protected] Email
Get our daily devotions delivered to your e-mail box each day by signing up below:
Archives
May 2022
Subscribe |