FRIDAY, 27 February, 2004

We will continue to base the devotions on “God for a Secular Culture” by Jurgen Moltmann.



If, in social life, like draws only to like, is the result in a society not total stultification? The rich for themselves, and the poor for themselves, the whites for themselves and the blacks for themselves, the men for themselves and the women for themselves, …and no one knows ‘the others’, for as Sartre said: ‘Hell – that is the others.’ This would be the total segregation-society of unrelated ghettos, and in every ghetto death through boredom would hold sway.



We need to remember that being in an unrelated ghetto is quite comfortable for some people. And yet, it is a part of the announcement of the Good News to make sure that the gracious Reign of God as inclusive of all (even if they are not of our kind) is heard in every corner of every community…even when the community wants nothing to do with such a gift of shared community. The gates of hell, we are told in scripture, cannot prevail against the new of God’s gracious Reign. Therefore, we could say that the comfortable ways we cut ourselves off from other because of their “otherness” will not prevail in God’ Reign. If we all want to see a vivid picture of such segregation in today’s world we need only turn to Israel and Palestine and see the rise of “the Wall”. It is like the great walls between communities in Germany after WW II and the walls between blacks and whites within apartheid South Africa.



Connection: Walls are there and they divide. And yet, we do not need to abide by the walls and the power they claim to have in deciding how life will be lived. Remember, we are residents of another place in which the power of walls has been defeated. That is where we still live even as we live here as aliens.



Maker of Peace, we ask again that you empower us to seek the healing of our world. Behind all the lines that are drawn to separate us there are people living in fear. Heal us of our fears and anxieties so that we can reach out again to those not like us. Amen.