Verse of the day
From everyone to whom much has been given, much will be required, and from the one to whom much has been entrusted, even more will be demanded.
– Luke 12:48
Voice of the day
How fair is the sentencing procedure, which, in a perverse reversal of logic and Scripture, shines more favorably on the wealthy and the well-placed than it does on the downtrodden and the poor?
– Wesley Pippert, “A Double Standard”
Prayer of the day
Lord, your heart is with the downtrodden and oppressed, but we live in a world where those in power twist the law to escape its consequences. Inspire your people to transform our legal systems so that it may reflect your heart.
Verse of the day
“Thus says the Lord of hosts: Render true judgments, show kindness and mercy to one another; do not oppress the widow, the orphan, the alien, or the poor; and do not devise evil in your hearts against one another.”
– Zechariah 7:9-10
Voice of the day
… white Christians have allowed the sins of racial injustice to pollute the very ground of our nation. And yet, racial injustice perpetuated by white Christians is not an inevitability. God’s zeal for justice has not waned. Today is the day to repent, to obey, to tell the truth, to be a faithful city.
– Robert L. Foster, “What Does It Look Like to Do Justice Now?”
Prayer of the day
Lord, no matter how entrenched evil may be in systems and in our world, you remind us that such realities are not inevitable. Today, help us to strive for repentance and change.
“The absence of peace, and indeed all conflict, results from the terrible injustice that has characterized relations between countries, peoples, and cultures, between the ruling elite and the vast majority condemned to wretched poverty. That is why building peace requires that we start by weaving a fabric out of the threads of equality, justice, participatory democracy, and respect for the rights of all peoples and cultures; we must establish intercultural relations that will promote harmonious coexistence through cultural pluralism.”—Rigoberta Menchú Tum
Verse of the day
One generation shall extol your works to another, and shall declare your mighty acts.
– Psalm 145:4
Voice of the day
We’ll always be with you. No one’s ever really gone. A thousand generations live in you now.
– Luke Skywalker, Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker (2019)
Prayer of the day
Lord, may we not forget the power of collective memory; teach us to lean on generational memory and story.
Our true challenge is to return to the center, to the heart, and to find there the gentle voice that speaks to us and affirms us in a way no human voice ever could. The basis of all ministry is the experience of God’s unlimited and unlimiting acceptance of us as beloved children, an acceptance so full, so total and all-embracing, that it sets us free from our compulsion to be seen, praised, and admired and frees us for Christ, who leads us on the road of service.
This experience of God’s acceptance frees us from our needy self and thus creates new space where we can pay selfless attention to others. This new freedom in Christ allows us to move in the world uninhibited by our compulsions and to act creatively even when we are laughed at and rejected, even when our words and actions lead us to death.
Verse of the day
In my distress I called upon the Lord; to my God I cried for help. From his temple he heard my voice, and my cry to him reached his ears.
– Psalm 18:6
Voice of the day
When people want to help you, it does not mean that you are a failure; it means you are worthy of support.
– Lyvonne Briggs, Sensual Faith: The Art of Coming Home to Your Body(2023)
Prayer of the day
Lord, may we not see asking for help as weakness but as strength. Remind us that we are worthy of support.
Today as I continue to see more hate and fear spewed by so many my heart aches. June is PRIDE month and my LGBTQAI+ siblings continue to suffer abuse and worse at the hands of so many people, including the church. Two Sundays ago, in my final sermon at the church I was serving I talked about God’s creation and how God called it all very good. Imago Dei, Image of God… that is how we were created by God. That means EVERYONE. We have all been created by our loving creator in our creator’s image which is Love.
In his 1967 speech, “Where Do We Go from Here?” Dr Martin Luther King, Jr said “I have decided to stick to love…Hate is too great a burden to bear.” (Source: A Testament of Hope: Essential Writings and Speeches) Hate is indeed too great a burden to bear… Hate vilifies and divides… love unifies and strengthens. The church must answer the call to be messengers of love and unity instead of harbingers of hatred and division.
I have been re-reading Thomas Merton’s book, New Seeds of Contemplation and this quote resonated with me. It especially speaks to me in the context of the hatred and division that seems to permeate the world. His words, written in 1961, like Dr King’s mentioned above, are sadly as relevant and prophetic today as they were back then.
THE more I become identified with God, the more will I be identified with all the others who are identified with Him. His Love will live in all of us. His Spirit will be our One Life, the Life of all of us and Life of God. And we shall love one another and God with the same Love with which He loves us and Himself. This love is God Himself. — Thomas Merton in New Seeds of Contemplation p. 66 (Kindle)
May we rise to the invitation to love… to love God, love ourselves, and love our neighbor… yes, even to love even our enemies. As 1 John 4:7 says: Beloved, let us love one another, because love is from God; everyone who loves is born of God and knows God.
Life is a gift. Each one of us is unique, known by name, and loved by the One who fashioned us. Unfortunately, there is a very loud, consistent, and powerful message coming to us from our world that leads us to believe that we must prove our belovedness by how we look, by what we have, and by what we can accomplish. We become preoccupied with “making it” in this life, and we are very slow to grasp the liberating truth of our origins and our finality. We need to hear the message announced and the message emboldened over and over again. Only then do we find the courage to claim it and live from it.
“It takes a great deal of bravery to stand up to our enemies but even more so to stand up to our friends.”—Albus Dumbledore, Harry Potter
If we are ever going to have peace again, we will have to hate war for some better reason than that we fear to lose our houses, or our refrigerators, or our cars, or our legs, or our lives. If we are ever to get peace, we have got to desire something more than reefers and anesthetics—but that is all we seem to want: anything to avoid pain. It is terrifying that the world doesn’t wake up to this irony: that at a time when all our desire is nothing but to have pleasant sensations and avoid painful sensations, there should be almost more pain and suffering and brutality and horror, and more helplessness to do anything about it, than there ever was before! June 25, 1940 A Year with Thomas Merton: Daily Meditations from His Journals ( pp. 220-221)
Just leaving this hear as food for thought…
