More of the "theological impetus for Ubuntu" - Michael Battle quoting Bishop Tutu.
The only way we can be people is together, black and white and so you say, hey, how can you say people are utterly, ultimately irreconcilable as apartheid says when it separates people. We say, you know the central teaching of our faith is that God in Christ effected reconciliation. God in Christ broke down the middle wall of partition. God in Christ was reconciling the world to himself and our Lord says, "If I be lifted up, I will draw all unto me."...Ephesians says, "Since it was God's intention to bring all things to a unity in Christ, for he our peace, and we are given the glorious ministry of reconciliation."
The lifting up of the Christ is so that we would have a vision of the way of this life that is called reconciliation. We will see a life that is not one in which separation is expected and accepted as the norm for the life we share with one another. Lifted up before all of us who listen to this story of God in Christ is the pathway we are invited to follow. It is not something out of the ordinary. Instead it is quite deeply rooted in the ordinary. It is there, the ordinary of life, that reconciliation really is of utmost importance because it concretely can be applied and applied now. When that takes place, vision becomes something a real as the day unfolding around us.
Connection: We are given "the glorious ministry of reconciliation" - powerful stuff.
O God, who bring the world into avenues of reconciliation, we again ask that you teach us your ways and empower us to embody this grand ministry that comes packaged as each of us who, even now, come before you in prayer. Amen.
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