Scripture: 2nd Samuel 14:14
We must all die; we are like water spilled on the ground, which cannot be gathered up. But God will not take away a life; he will devise plans so as not to keep an outcast banished forever from his presence.
Thought for the Day: As we approach MLK Day, I was thinking about the words of Brian McLaren (The Secret Message of Jesus), “Martin Luther King, Jr. learned what happens when you preach an inclusive message of reconciliation. Bishop Romero learned what happens when you call people to gather rather than scatter. Desmond Tutu and Nelson Mandela learned what happens when you try to expand the borders of who is considered ‘in’ and worthy of dignity and respect. On the one hand, if you start expanding the borders and working for a God-centered inclusion and reconciling network of relationships, you will quickly find that there are plenty of people willing to insult you, imprison you, torture you, and kill you. They prefer the rigid boundaries and impermeable walls of their narrow domains and constricted turf, not God’s purposefully inclusive kingdom that calls the least ‘the greatest’ and welcomes the outcast” (p. 169).
Prayer: In the invitation of grace, O Holy One, I have found only open doors and a welcoming spirit. Help me to make my life resemble what I have come to know through you. Amen.
